then it was broken up. Its blessings were not commensurate with its
evils; but the evils were less than those which previously existed. This
is, I grant, but faint praise. But the progress of society could not be
rapid amid such universal ignorance: it is slow in the best of times. I
do not call that state of society progressive where moral and spiritual
truths are forgotten or disregarded in the triumphs of a brilliant
material life. There was no progress of society from the Antonines to
Theodosius, but a steady decline. But there was a progress, however
slow, from Charlemagne to Philip Augustus. But for Feudalism and
ecclesiastical institutions the European races might not have emerged
from anarchy, or might have been subjected to a new and withering
imperialism. Say what we will of the grinding despotism of
Feudalism,--and we cannot be too severe on any form of despotism,--yet
the rude barbarian became a citizen in process of time, with education
and political rights.
Society made the same sort of advance, in the gloomy epoch we are
reviewing, that the slaves in our Southern States made from the time
they were imported from Africa, with their degrading fetichism and
unexampled ignorance, to the time of their emancipation. How marked the
progress of the Southern slaves during the two hundred years of their
bondage! No degraded race ever made so marked a progress as they did in
the same period, even under all the withering influences of slavery.
Probably their moral and spiritual progress was greater than it will be
in the next two hundred years, exposed to all the dangers of modern
materialism, which saps the life of nations in the midst of the most
brilliant triumphs of art. We are now on the road to a marvellous
intellectual enlightenment, unprecedented and full of encouragement. But
with this we face dangers also, such as undermined the old Roman world
and all the ancient civilizations. If I could fix my eye on a single
State or Nation in the whole history of our humanity that has escaped
these dangers, that has not retrograded in those virtues on which the
strength of man is based, after a certain point has been reached in
civilization, I would not hazard this remark. Society escaped these
evils in that agricultural period which saw the rise and fall of
Feudalism, and made a slow but notable advance. That is a fact which
cannot be gainsaid, and this is impressive. It shows that society, in a
moral point of view, thrives better under hard restraints than when
exposed to the dangers of an irreligious, material civilization.
Nor is Feudalism to be condemned as being altogether dark and
uninteresting. It had redeeming features in the life of the baronial
family. Under its influence arose the institution of chivalry; and
though the virtues of chivalry may be poetic, and exaggerated, there can
be no doubt that it was a civilizing institution, and partially redeemed
the Middle Ages. It gave rise to beautiful sentiments; it blazed in new
virtues, rarely seen in the old civilizations. They were peculiar to the
age and to Europe, were fostered by the Church, and took a coloring from
Christianity itself. Chivalry bound together the martial barons of
Europe by the ties of a fraternity of knights. Those armed and mailed
warriors fought on horseback, and chivalry takes its name from the
French _cheval_, meaning a horse. The knights learned gradually to treat
each other with peculiar courtesy. They became generous in battle or in
misfortune, for they all alike belonged to the noble class, and felt a
common bond in the pride of birth. It was not the memory of illustrious
ancestors which created this aristocratic distinction, as among Roman
patricians, but the fact that the knights were a superior order. Yet
among themselves distinctions vanished. There was no higher distinction
than that of a gentleman. The poorest knight was welcome at any castle
or at any festivity, at the tournament or in the chase. Generally,
gallantry and unblemished reputation were the conditions of social rank
among the knights themselves. They were expected to excel in courage, in
courtesy, in generosity, in truthfulness, in loyalty. The great
patrimony of the knight was his horse, his armor, and his valor. He was
bound to succor the defenceless. He was required to abstain from all
mean pursuits. If his trade were war, he would divest war of its
cruelties. His word was seldom broken, and his promises were held
sacred. If pride of rank was generated in this fraternity of gentlemen,
so also was scorn of lies and baseness. If there was no brotherhood of
man, there was the brotherhood of equals. The most beautiful friendships
arose from common dangers and common duties. A stranger knight was
treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality. If chivalry
condemned anything, it was selfishness and treachery and hypocrisy. All
the old romances and chronicles record the frankness and magnanimity of
knights. More was thought of moral than of intellectual excellence.
Nobody was ashamed to be thought religious. The mailed warrior said his
orisons every day and never neglected Mass. Even in war, prisoners were
released on their parole of honor, and their ransom was rarely
exorbitant. The institution tended to soften manners as well as to
develop the virtues of the heart. Under its influence the rude baron was
transformed into a courteous gentleman.
But the distinguishing glory of chivalry was devotion to the female
sex. Respect for woman was born in the German forests before the Roman
empire fell. It was the best trait of the Germanic barbarians; but under
the institution of chivalry this natural respect was ripened into
admiration and gallantry. "Love of God and the ladies" was enjoined as a
single duty. The knight ever came to the rescue of a woman in danger or
distress, provided she was a lady. Nothing is better attested than the
chivalric devotion to woman in a feudal castle. The name of a mistress
of the heart was never mentioned but in profound respect. Even pages
were required to choose objects of devotion, to whom they were to be
loyal unto death. Woman presided in the feudal castle, where she
exercised a proper restraint. She bestowed the prize of valor at
tournaments and tilts. To insult a lady was a lasting disgrace,--or to
reveal her secrets. For the first time in history, woman became the
equal partner of her husband. She was his companion often in the chase,
gaily mounted on her steed. She always dined with him, and was the
presiding genius of the castle. She was made regent of kingdoms, heir of
crowns, and joint manager of great estates. She had the supreme
management of her household, and was consulted in every matter of
importance. What an insignificant position woman filled at Athens
compared with that in the feudal castle! How different the estimate of
woman among the Pagan poets from that held by the Provençal poets! What
a contrast to Juvenal is Sordello! The lady of a baronial hall deemed it
an insult to be addressed in the language of gallantry, except in that
vague and poetic sense in which every knight selected some lady as the
object of his dutiful devotion. She disdained the attentions of the most
potent prince if his addresses were not honorable. Nor would she bestow
her love on one of whom she was not proud. She would not marry a coward
or a braggart, even if he were the owner of ten thousand acres. The
knight was encouraged to pay his address to any lady if he was
personally worthy of her love, for chivalry created a high estimate of
individual merit. The feudal lady ignored all degrees of wealth within
her own rank. She was as tender and compassionate as she was heroic. She
was treated as a superior, rather than as an equal. There was a poetical
admiration among the whole circle of knights. A knight without an object
of devotion was as "a ship without a rudder, a horse without a bridle, a
sword without a hilt, a sky without a star." Even a Don Quixote must
have his Dulcinea, as well as horse and armor and squire. Dante
impersonates the spirit of the Middle Ages in his adoration of Beatrice.
The ancient poets coupled the praises of women with the praises of wine.
Woman, under the influence of chivalry, became the star of worship, an
object of idolatry. We read of few divorces in the Middle Ages, or of
separations, or desertions, or even alienations; these things are a
modern improvement, borrowed from the customs of the Romans. The awe and
devotion with which the lover regarded his bride became regard and
affection in the husband. The matron maintained the rank which had been
assigned to her as a maiden. The gallant warriors blended even the
adoration of our Lord with adoration of our Lady,--the deification of
Christ with the deification of woman. Chivalry, encouraged by the Church
and always strongly allied with religious sentiments, accepted for
eternal veneration the transcendent loveliness of the mother of our
Lord; so that chivalric veneration for the sex culminated in the
reverence which belongs to the Queen of Heaven,--_virgo fidelis; regina
angelorum_. Woman assumed among kings and barons the importance which
she was supposed to have in the celestial hierarchy. And besides the
religious influence, the poetic imagination of the time seized upon this
pure and lovely element, which passed into the songs, the tales, the
talk, the thought, and the aspirations of all the knightly order.
Whence, now, this veneration for woman which arose in the Middle
Ages,--a veneration, which all historians attest, such as never existed
in the ancient civilization?
It was undoubtedly based on the noble qualities and domestic virtues
which feudal life engendered. Women were heroines. Queen Philippa in the
absence of her husband stationed herself in the Castle of Bamborough and
defied the whole power of Douglas. The first military dispatch ever
written in the Middle Ages was addressed to her; she even took David of
Scotland a prisoner, when he invaded England. These women of chivalry
were ready to undergo any fatigues to promote their husbands' interests.
They were equal to any personal sacrifices. Nothing could daunt their
courage. They could defend themselves in danger, showing an
extraordinary fertility of resources. They earned the devotion they
called out. What more calculated to win the admiration of feudal
warriors than this devotion and bravery on the part of wives and
daughters! They were helpmates in every sense. They superintended the
details of castles. They were always employed, and generally in what
were imperative duties. If they embroidered dresses or worked
tapestries, they also wove the cloth for their husband's coats, and made
his shirts and knit his stockings. If they trained hawks and falcons,
they fed the poultry and cultivated the flowers. They understood the
cares of the kitchen, and managed the servants.
But it was their moral virtues which excited the greatest esteem. They
gloried in their unsullied names; their characters were above suspicion.
Any violation of the marriage vow was almost unknown; an unfaithful
wife was infamous. The ordinary life of a castle was that of isolation,
which made women discreet, self-relying, and free from entangling
excitements. They had no great pleasures, and but little society. They
were absorbed with their duties, and contented with their husbands'
love. The feudal castle, however, was not dull, although it was
isolated, and afforded few novelties. It was full of strangers, and
minstrels, and bards, and pedlars, and priests. Women could gratify
their social wants without seductive excitements. They led a life
favorable to friendships, which cannot thrive amid the distractions of
cities. In cities few have time to cultivate friendships, although they
may not be extinguished. In the baronial castle, however, they were
necessary to existence.
And here, where she was so well known, woman's worth was recognized. Her
caprices and frivolities were balanced by sterling qualities,--as a
nurse in sickness, as a devotee to duties, as a friend in distress, ever
sympathetic and kind. She was not exacting, and required very little to
amuse her. Of course, she was not intellectual, since she read but few
books and received only the rudiments of education; but she was as
learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits. She had the vivacity
which a healthy life secures. Nor was she beautiful, according to our
standard. She was a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed
to exercise in the open air,--to field-sports and horseback journeys.
Still less was she what we call fashionable, for the word was not known;
nor was she a woman of society, for, as we have said, there was no
society in a feudal castle. What we call society was born in cities,
where women reign by force of mind and elegant courtesies and grace of
manners,--where woman is an ornament as well as a power, without
drudgeries and almost without cares, as at the courts of the
Bourbon princes.
Yet I am not certain but that the foundation of courtly elegance and
dignity was laid in the baronial home, when woman began her reign as the
equal of her wedded lord, when she commanded reverence for her
courtesies and friendships, and when her society was valued so highly by
aristocratic knights. In the castle she became genial and kind and
sympathetic,--although haughty to inferiors and hard on the peasantry.
She was ever religious. Religious duties took up no small part of her
time. Christianity raised her more than all other influences combined.
You never read of an infidel woman when chivalry flourished, any more
than of a "strong-minded" woman. The feudal woman never left her sphere,
even amid the pleasures of the chase or the tilt. Her gentle and
domestic virtues remained with her to the end, and were the most
prized. Woman was worshipped because she was a woman, not because she
resembled a man. Benevolence and compassion and simplicity were her
cardinal virtues. Though her sports were masculine, her character was
feminine. She yielded to man in matters of reason and intellect, but he
yielded to her in the virtues of the heart and the radiance of the soul.
She associated with man without seductive spectacles or demoralizing
excitements, and retained her influence by securing his respect. In
antiquity, there was no respect for the sex, even when Aspasia
enthralled Pericles by the fascinations of blended intellect and beauty;
but there was respect in the feudal ages, when women were unlettered and
unpolished. And this respect was alike the basis of friendship and the
key to power. It was not elegance of manners, nor intellectual culture,
nor physical beauty which elevated the women of chivalry, but their
courage, their fidelity, their sympathy, their devotion to
duty,--qualities which no civilization ought to obscure, and for the
loss of which no refinements of life can make up.
Thus Chivalry,--the most interesting institution of the Middle Ages,
rejoicing in deeds of daring, guided by honor and renown, executing
enterprises almost extravagant, battling injustice and wrong, binding
together the souls of a great fraternity, scorning lies, revering truth,
devoted to the Church,--could not help elevating the sex to which its
proudest efforts were pledged, by cherishing elevated conceptions of
love, by offering all the courtesies of friendship, by coming to the
rescue of innocence, by stimulating admiration of all that is heroic,
and by asserting the honor of the loved ones, even at the risk of life
and limb. In the dark ages of European society woman takes her place,
for the first time in the world, as the equal and friend of man,--not by
physical beauty, not by graces of manner, not even by intellectual
culture, but by the solid virtues of the heart, brought to light by
danger, isolation, and practical duties, and by that influence which
radiated from the Cross. Divest chivalry of the religious element, and
you take away its glory and its fascination. The knight would be only a
hardhearted warrior, oppressing the poor and miserable, and only
interesting from his deeds of valor. But Christianity softened him and
made him human, while it dignified the partner of his toils, and gave
birth to virtues which commanded reverence. The soul of chivalry,
closely examined, in its influence over men or over women, after all,
was that power which is and will be through all the ages the hope and
glory of our world.
Thus, with all the miseries, cruelties, injustices, and hardships of
feudal life, there were some bright spots; showing that Providence never
deserts the world, and that though progress may be slow in the infancy
of races, yet with the light of Christianity, even if it be darkened,
this progress is certain, and will be more and more rapid as
Christianity achieves its victories.
AUTHORITIES.
Hallam's Middle Ages; Sismondi's Histoire des Français; Guizot's History
of Civilization (translated); Michelet's History of France (translated);
Bell's Historical Studies of Feudalism; Lacroix's Manners and Customs of
the Middle Ages; Mills's History of Chivalry; Sir Walter Scott's article
in Encyclopaedia Britannica; Perrot's Collection Historique des Ordres
de Chivalrie; St. Palaye's Memoires de l'Ancienne Chivalrie; Buckle's
History of Civilization; Palgrave's English Commonwealth; Martin's
History of France; Freeman's Norman Conquest; M. Fauriel's History of
Provençal Poetry; Froissart's Chronicles; also the general English
histories of the reign of Edward III. Don Quixote should he read in this
connection. And Tennyson in his "Idylls of the King" has incorporated
the spirit of ancient chivalry.
THE CRUSADES.
* * * * *
A.D. 1095-1272.
The great external event of the Middle Ages was the Crusades,--indeed,
they were the only common enterprise in which Europe ever engaged. Such
an event ought to be very interesting, since it has reference to
conflicting passions and interests. Unfortunately, in a literary point
of view, there is no central figure in the great drama which the princes
of Europe played for two hundred years, and hence the Crusades have but
little dramatic interest. No one man represents that mighty movement. It
was a great wave of inundation, flooding Asia with the unemployed forces
of Europe, animated by passions which excite our admiration, our pity,
and our reprobation. They are chiefly interesting for their results, and
results which were unforeseen. A philosopher sees in them the hand of
Providence,--the overruling of mortal wrath to the praise of Him who
governs the universe. I know of no great movement of blind forces so
pregnant with mighty consequences.
The Crusades were a semi-religious and a semi-military movement. They
represent the passions and ideas of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries,--its chivalry, its hatred of Mohammedanism, and its desire to
possess the spots consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord. Their long
continuance shows the intensity of the sentiments which animated them.
They were aggressive wars, alike fierce and unfortunate, absorbing to
the nations that embarked in them, but of no interest to us apart from
the moral lessons to be drawn from them. Perhaps one reason why history
is so dull to most people is that the greater part of it is a record of
battles and sieges, of military heroes and conquerors. This is
pre-eminently true of Greece, of Rome, of the Middle Ages, and of our
modern times down to the nineteenth century. But such chronicles of
everlasting battles and sieges do not satisfy this generation. Hence our
more recent historians, wishing to avoid the monotony of ordinary
history, have attempted to explore the common life of the people, and to
bring out their manners and habits: they would succeed in making history
more interesting if the materials, at present, were not so scanty and
unsatisfactory.
The only way to make the history of wars interesting is to go back to
the ideas, passions, and interests which they represent. Then we
penetrate to the heart of history, and feel its life. For all the great
wars of the world, we shall see, are exponents of its great moving
spiritual forces. The wars of Cyrus and Alexander represent the passion
of military glory; those of Marius, Sylla, Pompey, and Caesar, the
desire of political aggrandizement; those of Constantine and Theodosius,
the desire for political unity and the necessity of self-defence. The
sweeping and desolating inundations of the barbarians, from the third to
the sixth century, represent the poverty of those rude nations, and
their desire to obtain settlements more favorable to getting a living.
The conquests of Mohammed and his successors were made to swell the
number of converts of a new religion. The perpetual strife of the
baronial lords was to increase their domains. The wars of Charlemagne
and Charles V. were to revive the imperialism of the Caesars,--to create
new universal monarchies. The wars which grew out of the Reformation
were to preserve or secure religious liberty; those which followed were
to maintain the balance of power. Those of Napoleon were at first, at
least nominally, to spread or defend the ideas of the French Revolution,
until he became infatuated with the love of military glory. Our first
great war was to secure national independence, and our second to
preserve national unity. The contest between Prussia and France was to
prevent the ascendency of either of those great States. The wars of the
English in India were to find markets for English goods, employment for
the sons of the higher classes, and a new field for colonization and
political power. So all the great passions and interests which have
moved mankind have found their vent in war,--rough barbaric spoliations,
love of glory and political aggrandizement, desire to spread religious
ideas, love of liberty, greediness for wealth, unity of nations,
jealousy of other powers, even the desire to secure general peace and
tranquillity. Most wars have had in view the attainment of great ends,
and it is in the ultimate results of them that we see the progress
of nations.
Thus wars, contemplated in a philosophical aspect, in spite of their
repulsiveness are invested with dignity, and really indicate great moral
and intellectual movements, as well as the personal ambition or vanity
of conquerors. They are the ultimate solutions of great questions, not
to be solved in any other way,--unfortunately, I grant,--on account of
human wickedness. And I know of no great wars, much as I loathe and
detest them, and severely and justly as they may be reprobated, which
have not been overruled for the ultimate welfare of society. The wars of
Alexander led to the introduction of Grecian civilization into Asia and
Egypt; those of the Romans, to the pacification of the world and the
reign of law and order; those of barbarians, to the colonization of the
worn-out provinces of the Roman Empire by hardier and more energetic
nations; those of Charlemagne, to the ultimate suppression of barbaric
invasions; those of the Saracens, to the acknowledgment of One God;
those of Charles V., to the recognized necessity of a balance of power;
those which grew out of the Reformation, to religious liberty. The
Huguenots' contest undermined the ascendency of Roman priests in France;
the Seven Years' War developed the naval power of England, and gave to
her a prominent place among the nations, and exposed the weakness of
Austria, so long the terror of Europe; the wars of Louis XIV. sowed the
seeds of the French Revolution; those of Napoleon vindicated its great
ideas; those of England in India introduced the civilization of a
Christian nation; those of the Americans secured liberty and the unity
of their vast nation. The majesty of the Governor of the universe is
seen in nothing more impressively than in the direction which the wrath
of man is made to take.