to might and right, first gave rise to _trial by ordeal_,
or the _judgment of God_, which included ordeal by fire, by
boiling water, by the cross, and by the sword, to which women, and
even princesses, were subjected. Mankind, in the simplicity of its
belief, appealed to God, the sovereign judge, and implored Him to
grant strength and victory to the just cause. _Trial by ordeal_
fell into discredit about the time of Charlemagne, and was superseded,
towards the latter half of the twelfth century, by the judicial duel.
The institution of chivalry favoured this hasty method of decision,
which was in accordance with the manners and ideas of the period.
Questions which otherwise would have been difficult to solve were
thus abruptly settled, and from these bloody decisions there was no
appeal. In some countries, indeed, the judge who had decided between
two antagonists had himself to submit to the judgment of God, as
represented by the judicial duel, and was forced to come down from his
judgment-seat and contend in arms against the criminal he had just
condemned. On the other hand, however, it must be said that the judge,
in his turn, possessed the privilege of challenging a prisoner who
refused to bow to his decision.
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--Duel concerning the Honour of
Ladies.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Histoire de Gérard de
Nevers,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National
Library of Paris.]
If the principle of this rough combatant justice be once admitted, it
must be acknowledged that a spirit of wisdom dictated every possible
precaution to render its inconveniences as few as possible. The duel,
in fact, only took place when a crime punishable by death had been
committed, and then only when there were no witnesses to the crime,
but merely grave suspicions against the supposed criminal. All persons
less than twenty-one or more than sixty years of age, priests (Fig.
125), invalids, and women (Fig. 126), were dispensed from taking part
in these combats, and were allowed to be represented by champions. If
the two parties to a dispute were of a different rank in life, certain
regulations were drawn up in favour of the plaintiff. A knight who
challenged a serf was forced to fight with a serf’s weapons, that is to
say, with a shield and a staff, and to wear a leathern jerkin; if, on
the contrary, the challenge came from the serf, the knight was allowed
to fight as a knight, that is to say, on horseback and in armour. It
was customary for the two parties to a judicial duel to appear before
their count or lord; after reciting his wrongs, the plaintiff threw
down his gage--generally a glove or gauntlet--which his adversary then
exchanged for his own as a sign that he accepted the challenge. Both
were then led to the seignorial prison, where they were detained till
the day fixed for the combat, unless they could obtain substantial
sureties who would make themselves responsible for their safe custody,
and bind themselves, in case their bailee failed to appear at the
appointed time, to undergo the penalties attached to the committal of
the act that had necessitated the appeal to arms. This was termed the
_vice prison_.
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--“How the plaintiff and the defendant
take the final oath before the judge.”--Fac-simile of a Miniature
in “Cérémonies des Gages de Bataille,” a Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century in the National Library of Paris.]
On the day fixed for the combat, the two adversaries, accompanied
by their seconds and by a priest, appeared in the lists mounted and
armed at all points, their weapons in their hands, their swords and
daggers girded on. They knelt down opposite to one another with their
hands clasped, each in his turn solemnly swearing upon the cross and
upon Holy Writ (Fig. 127) that he alone was in the right, and that
his antagonist was false and disloyal; and he added, moreover, that
he carried no charm or talisman about his person. A herald-at-arms
then gave public notice at each of the four corners of the lists to
the spectators of the combat to remain perfectly passive, to make no
movement, and to utter no cry that could either encourage or annoy
the combatants, under pain of losing a limb, or even life itself. The
seconds then withdrew, and the camp-marshal, after seeing that both
antagonists were fairly placed, and had their proper share of the wind
and the sun, called out three times, “_Laissez-les aller!_” and
the fight began (Fig. 128).
[Illustration: Fig. 128.--“How both parties are out of their
tents, armed and ready to do their duty at the signal from the
marshal, who has thrown the glove.”--From a Miniature in the
“Cérémonies des Gages de Bataille,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century, in the National Library of Paris.]
The judicial duel never commenced before noon, and was only allowed
to last till the stars appeared in the sky. If the defendant held out
till then he was considered to have gained his cause. The knight who
was beaten, whether killed or merely wounded, was dragged off the
ground by his feet, the fastenings of his cuirass were cut, his armour
was thrown piece by piece into the lists, and his steed and his weapons
were divided between the marshal and the judges of the duel. Indeed
sometimes, as, for instance, in Normandy and in Scandinavia, according
to ancient usage, the vanquished champion was hung or burnt alive,
according to the nature of the crime; while if he had fought as the
champion of another person, that person was usually put to death with
him.
The Church, although she allowed a priest to be present in the lists,
never even granted a tacit approval to these judicial duels; she
excommunicated the successful duellist, and refused the rites of
burial to his victim; nor was she alone in condemning this barbarous
custom; the lay authorities did all in their power, but without very
much success, to restrict the number of these sanguinary appeals. St.
Louis, in a celebrated decree of 1260, substituted trial by evidence in
place of the judicial duel, but he found himself only able to enforce
this reform within the area of his own dominions, and imperfectly even
there, for long after his reign it is on record that the Parliament of
Paris ordered certain criminal cases to be decided by personal combat.
When at last, in the fifteenth century, the custom of the judicial duel
fell into disuse, the nobility still retained and practised single
combat (Fig. 129). A personal affront, often an extremely slight one, a
quarrel, a slight to be avenged, were enough to bring two rivals or two
enemies to blows. This combative custom, which made a man’s strength
and personal skill the guardians of his honour, was sustained and
encouraged by the spirit of chivalry and by that of German feudalism.
Sometimes, however, the practice was considered justifiable on other
grounds. History, for instance, has honourably recorded the “Battle
of the Thirty,” which took place in 1351, between thirty knights of
Brittany, under the Sire de Beaumanoir, and thirty English knights; and
another equally bloody struggle of the same kind between Bayard and ten
other French knights, and eleven Spaniards, before the walls of Tranni.
The national honour alone was the motive of these two celebrated duels;
but they were only the exceptions to the rule. It almost seems as if
the nobility, in their efforts to cling to the shadow and the memory of
the rapidly-expiring traditions of chivalry, became more inveterate
in their adherence to the cruel system of duelling. In the sixteenth
century, under the last monarchs of the house of Valois, the Place
Royale and the Pré aux Clercs were often watered with the blood of the
best families of France. In vain did Henry IV. and Louis XIII. issue
the most stringent edicts against this barbarous custom; in vain did
the decree, called the decree of Blois, render nugatory all letters
of pardon granted to duellists, “even if they were signed by the king
himself.” In spite of everything, the nobles, upon whose privileges the
monarchy daily made fresh encroachments, had recourse to duelling as if
to assert their connection with a chivalric and adventurous past, and
the most trivial, ridiculous, and shameful motives served as pretexts
for a renewal of the sanguinary struggles, which had been originally
inspired by a generous courage and a loyal sympathy with justice.
[Illustration: Fig. 129.--Single Combat to be decided by
the judgment of God.--From a Miniature in the “Conquêtes de
Charlemagne,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the
National Library of Paris.]
But we must go back to the time of the zenith of the Middle Ages to see
its tournaments, its tilts, and its passages of arms. In the halcyon
period of chivalry, its sham fights, its courteous tournaments, and its
warlike exhibitions, occasioned many an accident, and brought about
many a fatal result. History mentions a tournament in Germany where
sixty persons perished in a struggle waged with weapons deprived of
edge and point. No question of mere gallantry, no point of honour,
was involved in the oldest tournaments on record (the tournament was
first alluded to in the chronicles of the reign of Charles the Bald);
no pomp of drapery, no brilliancy of banner, adorned them then. No
princesses, no noble ladies, showed themselves in all their pride of
beauty and of dress around those ancient lists. The tournament (in
old French _tournoiement_) of those days was merely a violent
athletic pastime, in which the iron men of that period measured their
strength one against the other with sword strokes, with lance thrusts,
and with mace blows. But as the customs of chivalry gradually softened
the manners of the nobility, so the primitive coarseness and roughness
of these trials of strength became modified and regulated. Tradition
declares that the tournament properly so called was first inaugurated
in Brittany in the tenth century by Geoffrey, the Sire de Preuilli.
[Illustration: Fig. 130.--“Here is shown how the king-at-arms,
having on his shoulder the gold cloth with the two leaders
painted on parchment, and in the four corners the arms of the
said judges, proclaims the tournament, and how the heralds
offer the arms of the said judges to whoever will take
them.”--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Tournaments of King
René,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century in the National
Library at Paris.]
As a rule, tournaments were proclaimed, that is to say published, _à
cor et à cri_ (Figs. 130 and 131), either when a promotion of knights,
or a royal marriage, or a solemn entry of a sovereign into a town
took place; and the character of these chivalrous festivals changed
according to the time and place at and in which they occurred. The
arms used on these occasions varied in a similar manner. In France,
the tournament lance was made of the lightest and straightest wood,
either fir, aspen, or sycamore, pointed with steel, and with a pennant
floating from the end; whilst in Germany and in Scotland they were made
of the heaviest and toughest wood, with a long iron pear-shaped point.
The tournament must not be confounded with the _tilt_ or _joust_ (from
the Latin _juxta_), which was a single hand-to-hand combat, nor with
the _passage of arms_, in which several combatants, both on foot and on
horseback, were engaged, and imitated the attack and defence of some
military position, some pass, or some narrow mountainous defile. Tilts
usually formed part of a tournament, and marked its close; but there
were also more complicated tilts, open to all comers, which lasted for
several days, and were termed _joutes plénières_. As the ladies were
the life and soul of these tilts, the knights always terminated the
proceedings by a special passage of arms which was termed the _lance
des dames_; they were always ready to pay this homage to the charms
of the fair sex, and frequently fought for them with sword, axe, and
dagger.
[Illustration: Fig. 131.--Here is portrayed a herald holding the
banners of the four referees.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the
“Tournaments of King René” (Fifteenth Century).]
[Illustration: Fig. 132.--The Banners and Helmets are ranged
round a cloister, and are then distributed by the judges,
in the presence of the ladies and those taking part in the
tournament.--Miniature from the “Tournois du Roi René,” MS. of
the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library, Paris.]
The preparations for a tournament afforded an animated and interesting
picture. The lists, which at first were of a round shape like the
amphitheatres of antiquity, were later constructed in a square, and
later still in an oblong form; they were gilded, painted with emblems
and heraldic devices, and ornamented with rich hangings and historical
tapestries. While the lists were being prepared, the knights who were
to take part in the tournament, as well as those who were to be only
its spectators, had their armorial banners hung up from the windows of
the houses in which they were putting up, and affixed their coats of
arms to the outer walls of the neighbouring castles, monasteries, and
cloisters. When this was done, the nobles and the ladies went round
and inspected them (Fig. 132); a herald or a pursuivant-at-arms named
their owners, and if a lady recognised any knight against whom she
had any ground of complaint, she touched his banner or his shield, in
order to bring him under the notice of the camp judges, and if, after
an inquiry, he was found guilty, he was forbidden to appear in the
tournament.
Coats of arms, which were striking characteristics of chivalry,
and which were adopted by the nobility as one of its most striking
attributes, had no doubt a contemporaneous origin with the institution
whose emblem it became. It is supposed to have been in the eleventh
century, at the time of the First Crusade, that the necessity of
distinguishing between the multitude of nobles and knights who flocked
to the Holy Land led to the invention of the different heraldic colours
and devices. Each Crusader chose and kept his own particular emblem;
these emblems became the external marks of nobility, and were to be
seen everywhere--on the war tents, on the banners, on the liveries, on
the clothes, and on every object belonging to a noble family. Hence
the language of heraldry, that figurative and hieroglyphic jargon,
incomprehensible to everybody at that period except to professional
heralds-at-arms.
[Illustration: Fig. 133.--The Champion of the Tournament, from
the Collection entitled “Vita Imperatoris Maximiliani,” engraved
by Burgmayer from drawings by Albert Dürer (Fifteenth Century).]
On the eve of the tournament the youthful esquires practised among
themselves in the lists with less weighty and less dangerous weapons
than those wielded by the knights. These preludes, which were often
graced by the presence of the ladies, were termed _éprouves_ (trials),
_vêpres du tournoi_ (tournament vespers), or _escremie_ (fencing
bouts). The esquires who distinguished themselves the most in these
trials were frequently immediately admitted to the rank of knighthood,
and allowed to take part in the ensuing feats. Like the Olympic games
of Greece, tournaments, which were real popular solemnities, excited
the ambition and quickened the pulses of all. Stands, usually roofed
and closed in, were erected at the ends of the lists to afford shelter
to persons of distinction in the event of bad weather. These stands,
sometimes built tower-shape, were divided into boxes, and more or less
magnificently decorated with tapestry, hangings, pennants, shields of
arms, and banners. Kings, queens, princes, dames, damoiselles, and the
older knights, the natural judges of the combats in which they could
no longer take a personal share, stationed themselves there. The camp
marshals and the seconds or counsellors of the knights, whose duty it
was to enforce the laws of Christian chivalry, and to give their advice
and assistance to all who might require it, had also their respective
posts. The kings-at-arms, the heralds, and pursuivants-at-arms, stood
within the arena or just without it, and were expected to narrowly
observe the combatants, and to draw up a faithful and minute report
of the different incidents of the combat, without forgetting a single
blow. Every now and then they lifted up their voices to encourage the
younger knights who were making their first appearance in the lists:
“Recollect whose son you are! be worthy of your ancestry!” they cried,
in loud tones. Besides these, varlets and sergeants, who were specially
entrusted with the duty of keeping order, of picking up and replacing
broken weapons, and of raising unhorsed knights, were posted everywhere
in and about the lists; while musicians on separate stands held
themselves ready to celebrate with noisy flourishes every great feat
of arms and every fortunate and brilliant stroke. The sound of their
clarions announced the entry of the knights into the lists, stepping
with slow and solemn cadence, magnificently armed and equipped, and
followed by their esquires on horseback. Sometimes the ladies were
the first to enter the lists, leading in by golden or silver chains
the knights, their slaves, whom they only set at liberty when the
signal was given for the combat to commence. The ladies almost always
bestowed a _favour_ on their favourite knight or servitor, generally a
scarf, a veil, a head-dress, a mantle, a bracelet, or even a plain bow
of ribbon, which had formed part of their own dress. This was termed
an _enseigne_ or _nobloy_ (distinguishing mark), and was placed on
a knight’s shield, lance, or helmet, so that his lady might be able
to recognise him in the _mêlée_, particularly when his weapons were
broken, or when he had lost some essential portion of his armour. While
the combat lasted the heralds uttered loud cries of encouragement, and
the musicians sounded loud flourishes, at each decisive blow of lance
or sword; and between each tilt the nobles and the ladies distributed
a quantity of small coins amongst the crowd, who received it with loud
and joyous cries of _largesse!_ and _noël!_
[Illustration: Fig. 134.--The Prize of the Tournament.--From a
Looking-glass Lid in Carved Ivory. End of the Thirteenth Century.]
[Illustration: Fig. 135.--King Henri II. wounded by Montgomery in
a Tournament (1559).--From an Engraving of the Sixteenth Century
in the possession of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.]
The combat being over, and the victor being declared according to the
reports of the heralds and pursuivants, the prize was given away with
all proper solemnity by the elder knights and sometimes by the ladies
(Fig. 134). The latter conducted the conqueror with great pomp and
triumph to the splendid banquet which followed the tournament. The
place of honour occupied by the successful knight, the resplendent
clothes in which he was dressed, the kiss that he had the privilege
of giving to the most beautiful ladies, the poems and the songs in
which his prowess was celebrated, were the last items in this knightly
pageant, which was generally accompanied by bloodshed, and frequently
by the death of some of its actors. As we have already stated, the
usages of the tournament often varied; nothing, for example, could be
more unlike the warlike sports of Germany in the thirteenth century,
as related in the “Niebelungen,” nothing could be more unlike those
sanguinary and ferocious struggles, than the Provençal and Sicilian
tournaments of the fifteenth century, described in such glowing
language by good King René in the magnificent manuscript which he spent
his leisure in illuminating with miniatures. This poet-king, refined
in manners, generous in disposition, and cultivated in his tastes,
attempted, under the influence of the romantic and religious charm
which, still pervaded the chivalric sports of this epoch, to perpetuate
with pen and pencil, in prose and in verse, the memory of a magnificent
festival over which he presided, and which may be considered an
unsurpassed example of the ceremonies of the time. All who take an
interest in the subject should read this curious manuscript, which
describes among other things the famous struggle between the Duke of
Brittany and the Duke of Bourbon. In this may be found related to its
smallest details the whole ceremony of a grand tournament, its forms,
its progress, and its incidents; in it appear careful comments upon
every trifle that increased the brilliancy or added to the effect of
this courtly festival, as well as everything that threw a light upon
the spirit in which it was carried out, or the usages that regulated
every detail, from the armour of the knights to the smallest incidents
of the ceremonial. In its pages illustrations reproduce with exact
truthfulness the helmets of the knights with barred vizors and leathern
shields, their maces, their swords, and their _hourts_, intended
to protect the croup and the hind legs of their chargers (Fig. 136).
Its text, written with great care and in an elegant hand, records
the rules to be observed, in accordance with knighthood’s truest
spirit, at the different stages of the combat and the tournament,
and minutely describes all their preliminaries and accessories, the
giving and the accepting of a challenge, the mutual exchange of gages,
the presentation of warrants of nobility by the kings-at-arms, the
distribution of the coats-of-arms or insignia of the two parties to the
strife, the entry of the nobles, and the bestowal of the prizes upon
the conquerors by the queen of the tournament.
[Illustration: Fig. 136.--“Designs of armour for the head, the
body, and the arms, helmets and streamers (called in Flanders and
Brabant _hacheures_ or _hachements_), coats-of-arms,
and swords for tournaments.”--From Miniatures in the “Tournaments
of King René” (Fifteenth Century).]
King René’s book is a document all the more valuable to an historian of
the customs of chivalry, in that it was written at an epoch when they
still existed in all their splendour; although signs of their decadence
had already showed themselves. That punctilious sovereign, Philippe le
Bel, with his court of lawyers and usurers, had already dealt chivalry
a crushing blow by the regulations be drew up for the better government
of single combats and gages of battle. Between his reign and that of
Charles VII. this decadence became more marked. Commerce had made much
progress, the wealth of the middle classes had much increased, and the
monarchy had acquired a preponderating influence, to the detriment both
of feudalism and chivalry, which began simultaneously to decline; the
reign of Louis XI., a reign of espionage and of cunning, was fatal to
them--thenceforward their little remaining prestige rapidly waned and
soon entirely expired. François I. made several fruitless attempts to
rekindle the dying embers of chivalry, and, at a later period, Henri
IV. and Louis XIV. vainly essayed, with many brilliant pageantries
and passages of arms, to quicken once more the phantom of the noble
institution which came into existence with the Middle Ages, and with
them passed away.
[Illustration]
MILITARY ORDERS.
Pierre Gérard founds the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem.--History of that Order.--The Siege of
Rhodes.--History of the Order of the Knights Templars.--Order of
the Knights of Calatrava.--Order of the Teuton Knights.--Order
of the Knights of the Golden Fleece.--Order of St. Maurice and
St. Lazarus.--Orders of the Star, of the Cosse de Geneste, of
the Ship, of St. Michael, and of the Holy Ghost.
One of our great modern historians remarks:--“The association of the
Church and chivalry, of war and religion, culminated in the foundation
of an institution hitherto entirely unknown, and owing its origin
principally to the Crusades, namely, the institution of religious
military orders....