THE AGE OF CHIVALRY: LIGHT DISSERTATION ON THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT, MAIDS,
FOOLS, PRELATES, AND OTHER NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS OF THAT PERIOD.
The age of chivalry, which yielded such good material to the poet and
romancer, was no doubt essential to the growth of civilization, but it
must have been an unhappy period for legitimate business. How could
trade, commerce, or even the professions, arts, or sciences, flourish
while the entire population spread itself over the bleaching-boards, day
after day, to watch the process of "jousting," while the corn was "in
the grass," and everybody's notes went to protest?
Then came the days of knight-errantry, when parties in malleable-iron
clothing and shirts of mail--which were worn without change--rode up and
down the country seeking for maids in distress. A pretty maid in those
days who lived on the main road could put on her riding-habit, go to the
window up-stairs, shed a tear, wave her kerchief in the air, and in half
an hour have the front lawn full of knights-errant tramping over the
peony beds and castor-oil plants.
[Illustration: A PRETTY MAID IN THOSE DAYS.]
In this way a new rescuer from day to day during the "errant" season
might be expected. Scarcely would the fair maid reach her destination
and get her wraps hung up, when a rattle of gravel on the window would
attract her attention, and outside she would see, with swelling heart,
another knight-errant, who crooked his Russia-iron elbow and murmured,
"Miss, may I have the pleasure of this escape with you?"
"But I do not recognize you, sir," she would straightway make reply; and
well she might, for, with his steel-shod countenance and corrugated-iron
clothes, he was generally so thoroughly _incog._ that his crest, on a
new shield freshly painted and grained and bearing a motto, was his only
introduction. Imagine a sweet girl, who for years had been under the
eagle eye of a middle-weight chaperon, suddenly espying in the moonlight
a disguised man under the window on horseback, in the act of asking her
to join him for a few weeks at his shooting-box in the swamp. Then, if
you please, imagine her asking for his card, whereupon he exposes the
side of his new tin shield, on which is painted in large Old English
letters a Latin motto meaning, "It is the early bird that catches the
worm," with bird rampant, worm couchant on a field uncultivated.
Then, seating herself behind the knight, she must escape for days, and
even weeks,--one escape seeming to call for another, as it were. Thus,
however, the expense of a wedding was saved, and the knight with the
biggest chest measurement generally got the heiress with the
copper-colored hair.
[Illustration: CREST OF A POPULAR KNIGHT.]
He wore a crest on his helmet adorned with German favors given him by
lady admirers, so that the crest of a popular young knight often looked
like a slump at the _Bon Marché_.
[Illustration: THE "VIGIL OF ARMS."]
The most peculiar condition required for entry into knighthood was the
"vigil of arms," which consisted in keeping a long silent watch in some
gloomy spot--a haunted one preferred--over the arms he was about to
assume. The illustration representing this subject is without doubt one
of the best of the kind extant, and even in the present age of the
gold-cure is suggestive of a night-errant of to-day.
A tournament was a sort of refined equestrian prize-fight with
one-hundred-ounce jabbers. Each knight, clad in tin-foil and armed
cap-a-pie, riding in each other's direction just as fast as possible
with an uncontrollable desire to push one's adversary off his horse,
which meant defeat, because no man could ever climb a horse in full
armor without a feudal derrick to assist him.
[Illustration: A JUDICIAL COMBAT.]
The victor was entitled to the horse and armor of the vanquished, which
made the castle paddock of a successful knight resemble the convalescent
ward of the Old Horses' Home.
This tourney also constituted the prevailing court of those times, and
the plaintiff, calling upon God to defend the right, charged upon the
defendant with a charge which took away the breath of his adversary.
This, of course, was only applicable to certain cases, and could not be
used in trials for divorce, breach of promise, etc.
The tournament was practically the forerunner of the duel. In each case
the parties in effect turned the matter over to Omnipotence; but still
the man who had his back to the sun, and knew how to handle firearms and
cutlery, generally felt most comfortable.
Gentlemen who were not engaged in combat, but who attended to the
grocery business during the Norman period, wore a short velvet cloak
trimmed with fur over a doublet and hose. The shoes were pointed,--as
were the remarks made by the irate parent,--and generally the shoes and
remarks accompanied each other when a young tradesman sought the hand of
the daughter, whilst she had looked forward to a two-hundred-mile ride
on the crupper of a knight-errant without stopping for feed or water.
In those days also, the fool made no effort to disguise his folly by
going to Congress or fussing with the currency, but wore a uniform which
designated his calling and saved time in estimating his value.
The clergy in those days possessed the bulk of knowledge, and had
matters so continued the vacant pew would have less of a hold on people
than it has to-day; but in some way knowledge escaped from the cloister
and percolated through the other professions, so that to-day in England,
out of a good-sized family, the pulpit generally has to take what is
left after the army, navy, politics, law, and golf have had the pick. It
was a fatal error to permit the escape of knowledge in that way; and
when southern Europe, now priest-ridden and pauperized, learns to read
and write, the sleek blood-suckers will eat plainer food and the poor
will not go entirely destitute.
The Normans ate two meals a day, and introduced better cooking among the
Saxons, who had been accustomed to eat very little except while under
the influence of stimulants, and who therefore did not realize what they
ate. The Normans went in more for meat victuals, and thus the names of
meat, such as veal, beef, pork, and mutton, are of Norman origin, while
the names of the animals in a live state are calf, ox, pig, and sheep,
all Saxon names.
The Authors' Club of England at this time consisted of Geoffrey of
Monmouth and another man. They wrote their books with quill pens, and if
the authorities did not like what was said, the author could be made to
suppress the entire edition for a week's board, or for a bumper of
Rhenish wine with a touch of pepper-sauce in it he would change the
objectionable part by means of an eraser.
[Illustration: THE AUTHORS' CLUB AT THIS TIME.]
It was under these circumstances that the Plantagenets became leaders in
society, and added their valuable real estate in France to the English
dominions. In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch
in Europe, and by wedding his son Geoffrey to the daughter of the Duke
of Brittany, soon scooped in that valuable property also.
He broke up the custom of issuing pickpocket and felony licenses to his
nobles, seized the royal stone-piles and other nests for common sneak
thieves, and resolved to give the people a chance to pay taxes and die
natural deaths. The disorderly nobles were reduced to the ranks or sent
away to institutions for inebriates, and people began to permit their
daughters to go about the place unarmed.
Foreign mercenaries who had so long infested the country were ordered to
leave it under penalty of having their personal possessions confiscated,
and their own carcasses dissected and fed to the wild boars.
[Illustration: FOREIGN MERCENARIES LEAVE ENGLAND.]
Henry next gave his attention to the ecclesiastic power. He chose Thomas
à Becket to the vacant portfolio as Archbishop of Canterbury, hoping
thus to secure him as an ally; but à Becket, though accustomed to ride
after a four-in-hand and assume a style equal to the king himself,
suddenly became extremely devout, and austerity characterized this child
of fortune, insomuch that each day on bended knees he bathed the chapped
and soiled feet of thirteen beggars. Why thirteen beggars should come
around every morning to the archbishop's study to have their feet
manicured, or how that could possibly mollify an outraged God, the
historian does not claim to state, and, in fact, is not able to throw
any light upon it at the price agreed upon for this book.
[Illustration: A COOLNESS BETWEEN THE KING AND THE ARCHBISHOP.]
Trouble now arose between the king and the archbishop; a protracted
coolness, during which the king's pew grew gray with dust, and he had to
baptize and confirm his own children in addition to his other work.
The king now summoned the prelates; but they excused themselves from
coming on the grounds of previous engagements. Then he summoned the
nobles also, and gave the prelates one more chance, which they decided
to avail themselves of. Thus the "Constitutions of Clarendon" were
adopted in 1164, and Becket, though he at first bolted the action of the
convention, soon became reconciled and promised to fall into line,
though he hated it like sin.
Then the Roman pontiff annulled the constitutions, and scared Becket
back again into his original position. This angered the king, who
condemned his old archbishop, and he fled to France, where he had a tall
time. The Pope threatened to excommunicate Henry; but the latter told
him to go ahead, as he did not fear excommunication, having been already
twice exposed to it while young.
Finally à Becket was banished; but after six years returned, and all
seemed again smooth and joyous; but Becket kept up the war indirectly
against Henry, till one day he exclaimed in his wrath, "Is there no one
of my subjects who will rid me of this insolent priest?" Whereupon four
loyal knights, who were doubtless of Scotch extraction, and who
therefore could not take a joke, thought the king in dead earnest, and
actually butchered the misguided archbishop in a sickening manner before
the altar. This was in 1170.
Henry, who was in France when this occurred, was thoroughly horrified
and frightened, no doubt. So much so, in fact, that he agreed to make a
pilgrimage barefoot to the tomb of à Becket; but even this did not place
him upon a firm footing with the clergy, who paraded à Becket's
assassination on all occasions, and thus strengthened this opposition to
the king.
[Illustration: HENRY WALKING TO THE TOMB OF BECKET.]