fortified palace, destined for the reception of his sovereign. He was
encamped on the sandy waste which stretched northeast of Fustat on the
road to Heliopolis, and there, at a distance of about a mile from the
river, he marked out the boundaries of the new capital. There were no
buildings, save the old "Convent of the Bones," nor any cultivation
except the beautiful park called "Kafur's Garden," to obstruct his
plans. A square, somewhat less than a mile each way, was pegged out with
poles, and the Maghrabi astrologers, in whom Moizz reposed extravagant
faith, consulted together to determine the auspicious moment for the
opening ceremony. Bells were hung on ropes from pole to pole, and at the
signal of the sages their ringing was to announce the precise moment
when the laborers were to turn the first sod. The calculations of the
astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of
the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was
struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. It was an unlucky
hour; the planet Mars (El-Kahir) was in the ascendant; but it could not
be undone, and the place was accordingly named after the hostile planet,
El-Kahira, "the Martial" or "Triumphant," in the hope that the sinister
omen might be turned to a triumphant issue. Cairo, as Kahira has come to
be called, may fairly be said to have outlived all astrological
prejudices. The name of the Abbasside caliph was at once expunged from
the Friday prayers at the old mosque of Amr at Fustat; the black
Abbasside robes were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white,
recited the Khutba for the imam Moizz, emir el-muminin, and invoked
blessings on his ancestors Ali and Fatima and all their holy family. The
call to prayer from the minarets was adapted to Shiah taste. The joyful
news was sent to the Fatimite Caliph on swift dromedaries, together with
the heads of the slain. Coins were struck with the special formulas of
the Fatimite creed--"Ali is the noblest of [God's] delegates, the wazir
of the best of apostles"; "the Imam Maadd calls men to profess the unity
of the Eternal"--in addition to the usual dogmas of the Mahometan faith.
For two centuries the mosques and the mint proclaimed the shibboleth of
the Shiahs.
Gawhar set himself at once to restore tranquillity and alleviate the
sufferings of the famine-stricken people. Moizz had providently sent
grain ships to relieve their distress, and as the price of bread
nevertheless remained at famine rates, Gawhar publicly flogged the
millers, established a central corn-exchange, and compelled everyone to
sell his corn there under the eye of a government inspector. In spite of
his efforts the famine lasted for two years; plague spread alarmingly,
insomuch that the corpses could not be buried fast enough, and were
thrown into the Nile; and it was not till the winter of 971-972 that
plenty returned and the pest disappeared. As usual, the viceroy took a
personal part in all public functions. Every Saturday he sat in court,
assisted by the wazir Ibn-Furat, the cadi, and skilled lawyers, to hear
causes and petitions and to administer justice. To secure impartiality,
he appointed to every department of state an Egyptian and a Maghrabi
officer. His firm and equitable rule insured peace and order; and the
great palace he was building, and the new mosque, the Azhar, which he
founded in 970 and finished in 972, not only added to the beauty of the
capital, but gave employment to innumerable craftsmen.
The inhabitants of Egypt accepted the new _regime_ with their habitual
phlegm. An Ikshidi officer in the Bashmur district of Lower Egypt did,
indeed, incite the people to rebellion, but his fate was not such as to
encourage others. He was chased out of Egypt, captured on the coast of
Palestine, and then, it is gravely recorded, he was given sesame oil to
drink for a month, till his skin stripped off, whereupon it was stuffed
with straw and hung up on a beam, as a reminder to him who would be
admonished. With this brief exception we read of no riots, no sectarian
risings, and the general surrender was complete when the remaining
partisans of the deposed dynasty, to the number of five thousand, laid
down their arms. An embassy sent to George, King of Nubia, to invite him
to embrace Islam, and to exact the customary tribute, was received with
courtesy, and the money, but not the conversion, was arranged. The holy
cities of Mecca and Medina in the Higaz, where the gold of Moizz had
been prudently distributed some years before, responded to his
generosity and success by proclaiming his supremacy in the mosques; the
Hamdanide prince who held Northern Syria paid similar homage to the
Fatimite Caliph at Aleppo, where the Abbassides had hitherto been
recognized. Southern Syria, however, which had formed part of the
Ikshid's kingdom, did not submit to the usurpers without a struggle.
Hoseyn was still independent at Ramla, and Gawhar's lieutenant, Giafar
ben Fellah, was obliged to give him battle. Hoseyn was defeated and
exposed bareheaded to the insults of the mob at Fustat, to be finally
sent, with the rest of the family of Ikshid, to a Barbary jail.
Damascus, the home of orthodoxy, was taken by Giafar, not without a
struggle, and the Fatimite doctrine was there published, to the
indignation and disgust of the Sunnite population.
A worse plague than the Fatimite conquest soon afflicted Syria. The
Karmati leader, Hasan ben Ahmad, surnamed El-Asam, finding the
blackmail, which he had lately received out of the revenues of Damascus,
suddenly stopped, resolved to extort it by force of arms. The Fatimites
indeed sprang from the same movement, and their founder professed the
same political and irreligious philosophy as Hasan himself; but this did
not stand in his way, and his knowledge of their origin made him the
less disposed to render homage to the sacred pretensions of the new
imams, whom he contemptuously designated as the spawn of the quacks,
charlatans, and the enemies of Islam. He tried to enlist the support of
the Abbasside Caliph, but El-Muti replied that Fatimis and Karmatis were
all one to him, and he would have nothing to do with either. The
Buweyhid prince of Irak, however, supplied Hasan with arms and money;
Abu-Taghlib, the Hamdanide ruler of Rahba on the Euphrates, contributed
men; and, supported by the Arab tribes of Okeyl, Tavy, and others, Hasan
marched upon Damascus, where the Fatimites were routed, and their
general, Giafar, killed. Moizz was forthwith publicly cursed from the
pulpit in the Syrian capital, to the qualified satisfaction of the
inhabitants, who had to pay handsomely for the pleasure.
Hasan next marched to Ramla, and thence, leaving the Fatimite army of
eleven thousand men shut up in Jaffa, invaded Egypt. His troops
surprised Kulzum at the head of the Red Sea, and Farama (Pelusium), near
the Mediterranean, at the two ends of the Egyptian frontier. Tinnis
declared against the Fatimites, and Hasan appeared at Heliopolis in
October, 971. Gawhar had already intrenched the new capital with a deep
ditch, leaving but one entrance, which he closed with an iron gate. He
armed the Egyptians as well as the African troops, and a spy was set to
watch the wazir Ibn-Furat, lest he should be guilty of treachery. The
sherifs of the family of Ali were summoned to the camp, as hostages for
the good behavior of the inhabitants. Meanwhile, the officers of the
enemy were liberally tempted with bribes. Two months they lay before
Cairo, and then, after an indecisive engagement, Hasan stormed the gate,
forced his way across the ditch, and attacked the Egyptians on their own
ground. The result was a severe repulse, and Hasan retreated, under
cover of night, to Kulzum, leaving his camp and baggage to be plundered
by the Fatimites, who were only balked of a sanguinary pursuit by the
intervention of night. The Egyptian volunteers displayed unexpected
valor in the fight, and many of the partisans of the late dynasty, who
were with the enemy, were made prisoners.
Thus the serious danger, which went near to cutting short the Fatimite
occupation of Egypt, was not only resolutely met, but even turned into
an advantage. There was no more intriguing on behalf of the Ikshidids;
Tinnis was recovered from its temporary defection and occupied by the
reinforcements which Moizz had hurriedly despatched under Ibn-Ammar to
the succor of Gawhar; and the Karmati fleet, which attempted to recover
this fort, was obliged to slip anchor, abandoning seven ships and five
hundred prisoners. Jaffa, which still held out resolutely against the
besieging Arabs, was now relieved by the despatch of African troops from
Cairo, who brought back the garrison, but did not dare to hold the post.
The enemy fell back upon Damascus, and the leaders fell out among
themselves.
The Karmati chief was not crushed, however, by his defeat. In the
following year he was collecting ships and Arabs for a fresh invasion.
Gawhar, who had long urged his master to come and protect his conquest,
now pointed out the extreme danger of a second attack from an enemy
which had already succeeded in boldly forcing his way to the gate of
Cairo. Moizz had delayed his journey, because he could not safely trust
his western provinces in his absence; but on the receipt of this grave
news, he appointed Yusuf Bulugin ben Zeyri, of the Berber tribe of
Sanhaga, to act as his deputy in Barbary, left Sardaniya--the
Fontainebleau of Kayrawan, as Mansuriya was its Versailles--in November,
972, and making a leisurely progress, by way of Kabis, Tripolis,
Agdabiya, and Barka, reached Alexandria in the following May. Here the
Caliph received a deputation, consisting of the cadi of Fustat and other
eminent persons, whom he moved to tears by his eloquent and virtuous
discourse. A month later he was encamped in the gardens of the monastery
near Giza, where he was reverently welcomed by his devoted servant,
Gawhar, content to efface himself in his master's shadow.
The entry of the new Caliph into his new capital was a solemn spectacle.
With him were all his sons and brothers and kinsfolk, and before him
were borne the coffins of his ancestors. Fustat was illuminated and
decked for his reception; but Moizz would not enter the old capital of
the usurping caliphs. He crossed from Roda by Gawhar's new bridge, and
proceeded direct to the palace-city of Cairo. Here he threw himself on
his face and gave thanks to God.
There was yet an ordeal to be gone through before he could regard
himself as safe. Egypt was the home of many undoubted sherifs or
descendants of Ali, and these, headed by a representative of the
distinguished Tabataba family, came boldly to examine his credentials.
Moizz must prove his title to the holy imamate inherited from Ali, to
the satisfaction of these experts in genealogy. According to the story,
the Caliph called a great assembly of the people, and invited the
sherifs to appear; then, half drawing his sword, he said:
"Here is my pedigree," and scattering gold among the spectators, added,
"and there is my proof."
It was perhaps the best argument he could produce. The sherifs could
only protest their entire satisfaction at this convincing evidence; and
it is at any rate certain that, whatever they thought of the Caliph's
claim, they did not contest it. The capital was placarded with his name,
and the praises of Ali and Moizz were acclaimed by the people, who
flocked to his first public audience. Among the presents offered him,
that of Gawhar was especially splendid, and its costliness illustrates
the colossal wealth acquired by the Fatimites. It included five hundred
horses with saddles and bridles encrusted with gold, amber, and precious
stones; tents of silk and cloth of gold, borne on Bactrian camels;
dromedaries, mules, and camels of burden; filigree coffers full of gold
and silver vessels; gold-mounted swords; caskets of chased silver
containing precious stones; a turban set with jewels, and nine hundred
boxes filled with samples of all the goods that Egypt produced.
GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF CHIVALRY
TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY
LÉON GAUTIER
(Writers on the history of chivalry are unable to refer its origin to
any definite time or place; and even specific definition of chivalry is
seldom attempted by careful students. They rather give us, as does
Gautier in the picturesque account which follows, some recognized
starting-point, and for definition content themselves with
characterization of the spirit and aims of chivalry, analysis of its
methods, and the story of its rise and fall.
Chivalry was not an official institution that came into existence by the
decree of a sovereign. Although religious in its original elements and
impulses, there was nothing in its origin to remind us of the foundation
of a religious order. It would be useless to search for the place of its
birth or for the name of its founder. It was born everywhere at once,
and has been everywhere at the same time the natural effect of the same
aspirations and the same needs. "There was a moment when people
everywhere felt the necessity of tempering the ardor of old German
blood, and of giving to their ill-regulated passions an ideal. Hence
chivalry!"
Yet chivalry arose from a German custom which was idealized by the
Christian church; and chivalry was more an ideal than an institution. It
was "the Christian form of the military profession; the knight was the
Christian soldier." True, the profession and mission of the church meant
the spread of peace and the hatred of war, she holding with her Master
that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword." Her thought
was formulated by St. Augustine: "He who can think of war and can
support it without great sorrow is truly dead to human feelings." "It is
necessary," he says, "to submit to war, but to wish for peace." The
church did, however, look upon war as a divine means of punishment and
of expiation, for individuals and nations. And the eloquent Bossuet
showed the church's view of war as the terrestrial preparation for the
Kingdom of God, and described how empires fall upon one another to form
a foundation whereon to build the church. In the light of such
interpretations the church availed herself of the militant auxiliary
known as chivalry.
Along with the religious impulse that animated it, chivalry bore,
throughout its purer course, the character of knightliness which it
received from Teutonic sources. How the fine sentiments and ennobling
customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the
gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into
beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and
defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the
spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and
practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the
study of its development; and this gentler side, no less than its
sterner aspects, is faithfully presented in the brilliant examination of
Gautier. And the heroic sentiment and action which inspired and
accomplished the sacred warfare of the Crusades are not less admirably
depicted in these pages; while in his summary of the decline of chivalry
Gautier has perhaps never been surpassed for penetrating insight and
lucid exposition.)
There is a sentence of Tacitus--the celebrated passage in the
_Germania_--that refers to a German rite in which we really find all the
military elements of the future chivalry. The scene took place beneath
the shade of an old forest. The barbarous tribe is assembled, and one
feels that a solemn ceremony is in preparation. Into the midst of the
assembly advances a very young man, whom you can picture to yourself
with sea-green eyes, long fair hair, and perhaps some tattooing. A chief
of the tribe is present, who without delay places gravely in the hands
of the young man a _framea_ and a buckler. Failing a sovereign ruler, it
is the father of the youth, or some relative, who undertakes this
delivery of weapons. "Such is the 'virile robe' of these people," as
Tacitus well puts it; "such is the first honor of their youth. Till then
the young man was only one in a family; he becomes by this rite a member
of the Republic. _Ante hoc domus pars videtur: mox rei publicae_. This
sword and buckler he will never abandon, for the Germans in all their
acts, whether public or private, are always armed. So, the ceremony
finished, the assembly separates, and the tribe reckons a _miles_--a
warrior--the more. That is all!"
The solemn handing of arms to the young German--such is the first germ
of chivalry which Christianity was one day to animate into life.
"_Vestigium vetus creandi equites seu milites_." It is with reason that
Sainte-Palaye comments in the very same way upon the text of the
_Germania_, and that a scholar of our own days exclaims with more than
scientific exactness, "The true origin of _miles_ is this bestowal of
arms which among the Germans marks the entry into civil life."
No other origin will support the scrutiny of the critic, and he will not
find anyone now to support the theory of Roman origin with Sainte-Marie,
or that of the Arabian origin with Beaumont. There only remains to
explain in this place the term knight (chevalier), but it is well known
to be derived from _caballus_, which primarily signifies a beast of
burden, a pack-horse, and has ended by signifying a war-horse. The
knight, also, has always preserved the name of _miles_ in the Latin
tongue of the Middle Ages, in which chivalry is always called _militia_.
Nothing can be clearer than this.
We do not intend to go further, however, without replying to two
objections, which are not without weight, and which we do not wish to
leave behind us unanswered.
In a certain number of Latin books of the Middle Ages we find, to
describe chivalry, an expression which the "Romanists" oppose
triumphantly to us, and of which the Romish origin cannot seriously be
doubted. When it is intended to signify that a knight has been created,
it is stated that the individual has been girt with the _cingulum
militare_. Here we find ourselves in full Roman parlance, and the word
signified certain terms which described admission into military service,
the release from this service, and the degradation of the legionary.
When St. Martin left the militia, his action was qualified as _solutio
cinguli_, and at all those who act like him the insulting expression
_militaribus zonis discincti_ is cast. The girdle which sustains the
sword of the Roman officer--_cingulum zona_, or rather _cinctorium_--as
also the baldric, from _balteus_, passed over the shoulder and was
intended to support the weapon of the common soldier. "You perceive
quite well," say our adversaries, "that we have to do with a Roman
costume." Two very simple observations will, perhaps, suffice to get to
the bottom of such a specious argument: The first is that the Germans in
early times wore, in imitation of the Romans, "a wide belt ornamented
with bosses of metal," a baldric, by which their swords were suspended
on the left side; and the second is that the chroniclers of old days,
who wrote in Latin and affected the classic style, very naturally
adopted the word _cingulum_ in all its acceptations, and made use of
this Latin paraphrasis--_cingulo militari decorare_--to express this
solemn adoption of the sword. This evidently German custom was always
one of the principal rites of the collation of chivalry. There is then
nothing more in it than a somewhat vague reminiscence of a Roman custom
with a very natural conjunction of terms which has always been the habit
of a literary people.
To sum up, the word is Roman, but the thing itself is German. Between
the _militia_ of the Romans and the chivalry of the Middle Ages there is
really nothing in common but the military profession considered
generally. The official admittance of the Roman soldier to an army
hierarchically organized in no way resembled the admission of a new
knight into a sort of military college and the "pink of society." As we
read further the singularly primitive and barbarous ritual of the
service of knightly reception in the twelfth century, one is persuaded
that the words exhale a German odor, and have nothing Roman about them.
But there is another argument, and one which would appear decisive. The
Roman legionary could not, as a rule, withdraw from the service; he
could not avoid the baldric. The youthful knight of the Middle Ages, on
the contrary, was always free to arm himself or not as he pleased, just
as other cavaliers are at liberty to leave or join their ranks. The
principal characteristic of the knightly service, and one which
separates it most decidedly from the Roman _militia_, was its freedom of
action.
One very specious objection is made as regards feudalism, which some
clear-minded people obstinately confound with chivalry. This was the
favorite theory of Montalembert. Now there are two kinds of feudalism,
which the old feudalists put down very clearly in two words now out of
date--"fiefs of dignity" and "fiefs simple." About the middle of the
ninth century, the dukes and counts made themselves independent of the
central power, and declared that people owed the same allegiance to them
as they did to the emperor or the king. Such were the acts of the "fiefs
of dignity," and we may at once allow that they had nothing in common
with chivalry. The "fiefs simple," then, remained.
In the Merovingian period we find a certain number of small proprietors,
called _vassi_, commending themselves to other men more powerful and
more rich, who were called _seniores_. To his senior who made him a
present of land the _vassus_ owed assistance and fidelity. It is true
that as early as the reign of Charlemagne he followed him to war, but it
must be noted that it was to the emperor, to the central power, that he
actually rendered military service. There was nothing very particular in
this, but the time was approaching when things would be altered. Toward
the middle of the ninth century we find a large number of men falling
"on their knees" before other men! What are they about? They are
"recommending" themselves, but, in plainer terms, "Protect us and we
will be your men." And they added: "It is to you and to you only that we
intend in future to render military service; but in exchange you must
protect the land we possess--defend what you will in time concede to us;
and defend _us_ ourselves." These people on their knees were "vassals"
at the feet of their "lords"; and the fief was generally only a grant of
land conceded in exchange for military service.
Feudalism of this nature has nothing in common with chivalry.
If we consider chivalry in fact as a kind of privileged body into which
men were received on certain conditions and with a certain ritual, it is
important to observe that every vassal is not necessarily a cavalier.
There were vassals who, with the object of averting the cost of
initiation or for other reasons, remained _damoiseaux_, or pages, all
their lives. The majority, of course, did nothing of the kind; but all
could do so, and a great many did.
On the other hand we see conferred the dignity of chivalry upon
insignificant people who had never held fiefs, who owed to no one any
fealty, and to whom no one owed any.
We cannot repeat too often that it was not the cavalier (or knight), it
was the _vassal_ who owed military service, or _ost_, to the _seigneur_,
or lord; and the service _in curte_ or _court_: it was the vassal, not
the knight, who owed to the "lord" relief, "aid," homage.
The feudal system soon became hereditary. Chivalry, on the contrary, has
never been hereditary, and a special rite has always been necessary to
create a knight. In default of all other arguments this would be
sufficient.