THE BIRTH OF CHIVALRY
"Quan vez la landeta mover
De joi sas alas contra 'lrai,
Que s'oblida e s laissa cazer
Per la doussor qu'al cor l'in vai
Ailas! qual enueia m'enve,
Cui qu'ieu ne vai jauzion!
Meraveillas m'ai quar desse
Lo cor de dezirier no m fon."
"When I behold the skylark winging its merry journey towards
the sun and then forgetful of itself from sudden inebriety
of pleasure, drop down precipitant; Oh! how I long then for
a fate like hers! How much I enjoy then the joy to which I'm
witness! I am astonished that my heart is not at once dissolved
in longing."
From M. FAURIEL'S "HISTORY OF PROVENÇAL POETRY"
(_Poem of the Skylark_).
It is impossible to wander a day in Provence without being drawn to wonder
if not to speculate upon the origin of that extraordinary outbreak of
new sentiment that we call chivalry. It seems like a miraculous birth.
It is impossible even to imagine what would have been the destinies of
mankind had the beautiful inspiration failed to descend out of the blue
just at the most brutal epoch of European history.
The life of the early Middle Ages was barbaric beyond all our powers
of conception. Might was right in those days in a sense perhaps more
absolute than under conditions of primitive savagery.
In fact, there existed a sort of official savagery of Church and State.
Tolerance was undreamt of; there was no refuge for the oppressed, no
rights for the weak, no honour, no fair play. Such rights and qualities
belong to the ideals of chivalry. They had no nook or corner in the
preceding era, no niche in the Christian Church; and the heart in which
such outlandish feelings were untimely born must either have hardened or
broken--as surely many a heart did break for sheer loneliness, divided
by centuries from its brother spirits.
An extravagant picture? Only in the sense in which all rough sketches
are extravagant.
[Illustration: AT THE PORT OF AIGUES MORTES.
_By E. M. Synge._]
As for the tide in the affairs of women, it was at the neap. Lecky
traces to Jewish sources a good deal of the contempt in which they were
universally held. The tenth commandment, we may remember, enjoins that
a man shall not covet his neighbour's house, nor his wife, nor his
servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is
his; a fairly plain and unvarnished way of expressing by inference the
general view of marital relations.
"A woman," says this author, "was regarded as the origin of human ills";
and he quotes the saying of a Jewish writer that "the badness of men is
better than the goodness of women." Our great-great-great-grandmothers,
we may remember, used to be sold by their feudal lords to the highest
bidder. That counts for something in a people's destiny. "Marriage,"
says M. Fauriel in his work on Provençal Poetry,[6] "was nothing more
than a treaty of peace or alliance between two seigneurs, of whom the
one took the daughter of the other as his wife."
Repudiation, the same author says, was a common device: in the case, for
instance, of a married noble covetous of new territory, he would become
conscience-stricken on reflecting that he was perhaps fourth cousin of
his wife, and he hurried to the Church to release him from the burden
of sin, the Church being complaisant towards a wealthy penitent.
"The exaggerated pretensions, refinements, subtleties of this
[chivalrous] love," M. Fauriel continues, "took its rise in
the interested motives of feudal marriage. The sufferings of
women as wives partly explain the adoration of the chevaliers."
The women of those dark days were, in fact, born to humiliation and
indignity as a mole is born to burrow in the earth. Both sexes suffered
vassalage under a feudal superior, but the woman also endured domestic
subservience. She was subject to the common lord and to her own particular
lord into the bargain.
And we must picture her as enveloped and overwhelmed by these conditions,
so that they form for her the canopy of heaven, the very nature and
ordinance of things, a set of laws so absolute that she could not so
much as think beyond them in her wildest flights of fancy--if flights
of fancy were possible to beings deprived of all that makes possible a
vital human existence.[7]
Patient Griselda, as we know, was the model wife of the day, and the
sentiment of the old story, in gradually attenuating strength, has ruled
the ideals and conduct of men and women for weary centuries. Indeed, it
remains even to this day as a sort of secret substratum to our current
domestic sentimentalities. The ideal, in its original strength, produced
a society the most degraded and miserable that the civilised world has
ever seen.
It is impossible to conceive anything more hopeless than the condition
of the whole population of the early Middle Ages. Where was rescue to
come from? What could the most sanguine hope for except a very slow
movement towards better things?
Yet that was not what happened.
Into this darkness the light of a new and beautiful ideal began to shine
like a veritable ray from heaven!
The clouds seemed to part and the troubled, stupid world became illumined
with a spiritual truth which to this hour is the source of the best that
we have ever conceived in character and manners.
Suppose it had occurred to no one that to torture and insult a fallen
foe was of all acts the most cowardly, that treachery was essentially
base; that honour, loyalty, and fair play to friend and foe were the
attributes of true knighthood and true manhood. Suppose that nobody had
ever questioned the conduct of such ruffians as the husband of Griselda,
or saw that Griselda's patience was in its essence mean-spirited rather
than noble; suppose--but it is wiser to suppose no further, for the
records of these old cities and castles and the dark stories that occur
even among the gayest troubadour traditions, give hints that the mind
dares not dwell upon.
It is impossible to state, much more to exaggerate, the profound and
indeed creative influence of the new order, often sinned against indeed,
but serving as a standard by which a man is instinctively judged, and
by which, in his inmost heart, he judges himself. But to whom do we owe
this enormous debt? That question has never received a convincing answer.
Nothing could have appeared more wildly Utopian than to hope for the
birth of such ideals at the time at which they actually arose. To lofty
motives of magnanimity, of mercy and tenderness towards the weak, was
added the most unaccountable innovation of all: respect for, worship of
women; women whose "goodness" had a little while ago been inferior to
man's badness. Suddenly this miserable sinner is exalted to the highest
honours, set on a pedestal, served and protected and deferred to as a
being who alone can inspire great achievements or shed a light and a
charm on the path of life.
A knight, it was said, was "the champion of God and the ladies."
"I blush," Gibbon adds, "to unite such discordant names."
The historian evidently does not approve of this new dispensation, and
indeed all through his writings displays that ancient deep-seated scorn
for the sex he calls frail which chivalry itself has not banished from
the heart of man.
The new ideals, it is to be remarked, applied only to the knight and
the noble. We have moved a little farther in regarding chivalry as an
attribute of the _man_, though the mediæval notion still lingers that
its qualities pertain _par excellence_ to the "gentleman." We have yet
further to go in making them extend in their full range to the womanly
character. The notion seems to be fairly widespread that it is feminine
to be at least a _little_ treacherous!
[Illustration: CHURCH AT BARBENTANE.
_By E. M. Synge._]
All advance has been, and apparently must be made along the lines of
chivalry. There is not a noble deed or a generous thought that does not,
in its essence, belong to this wonderful tradition which we accept so
unquestioningly that we do not even remember to ask whence it came. Yet
so fundamental is it in our most intimate thoughts as well as in our
public judgments that one can scarcely conceive any further progress
that should not consist in a steady extension of the knightly sentiment,
a generous widening of the wisdom of the heart, till every living being
capable of joy and of suffering, the greatest and the least, shall be
gathered together under the great "Cloak of Friendship."
* * * * *
The early poetry of Provence, like that of every other country, celebrates
the wars and exploits of heroes, inspired in this case by the long
conflicts with the Barbarians and with the Saracens.
One must not forget that for centuries the people of Gaul had enjoyed
the civilisation of the Romans, more especially in the attractive South,
where those great colonists had built splendid villas and settled down
to a cultured and luxurious life.
The Gallo-Roman society was cultivated in a high degree, after the
Roman model. The Gauls had shown from the first great quickness in
adapting themselves to the new order, and the country had become truly
and completely Romanised, almost the only instance in history of such
an achievement. There were schools of grammar and rhetoric in all the
towns, and a Gallo-Roman literature had sprung up, which continued to
exist for a considerable time, almost a century, after the Barbarian
invasions.
In the fifth century in Gaul men were violently discussing the question of
Materialism _versus_ Spiritualism in philosophy, and there is a treatise
on the "Nature of the Soul" of this period in which the author undertakes
to "demonstrate the immateriality of this substance in opposition to
those who believe it inherent in the bodily organs and as being merely
a certain state or modification of those organs." The twentieth century
finds us still busy with the question.
This civilisation, as is well known, was not by any means immediately
destroyed by the Barbarian invasions. The Barbarians admired and imitated
Roman institutions and manners, especially the Visigoths, who were less
savage than either the Vandals, the Huns, or the Franks.
Their first king, Ataulphe--whose capital was at Toulouse--was more Roman
than the Romans; Theoderick II. read Virgil and Horace; and Euric made
a code of laws copied from the Theodosian code. The Burgundian chief,
Gondebaud, received as a high honour the Roman title of "Patrician," and
in his wars with Clovis he "affected quite a Roman repugnance to him and
his Franks, on whom he disdainfully bestows the epithet of Barbarians."
It was not till the sixth century, under the rule of the Franks, that
the decadence of literature truly began.[8] This decadence is lamented
by the famous Gregory of Tours. "The majority of men sigh and sing, 'Woe
to our age'; the study of letters has been lost among us, and the people
have no longer a man capable of recording the events of the times." It
is for this reason that he resolves to undertake the task of historian.
The downward movement which he bemoans continued under the Merovingians
and the Carlovingians--only temporarily arrested by Charlemagne's revival
of learning--and the country was reduced to something little removed
from pure barbarism, though the people still clung to classic customs:
the cultus of fountains and woods, practice of auguries and so forth.
In the tenth century the _Lingua Romana_ was spoken in Gaul. The end
of the decomposing process had come. The idiom had ceased to be merely
corrupt Latin, it was Romance, a definite language on a Latin foundation,
but full of words and forms belonging to the numberless races that had
inhabited or influenced the south of Gaul.
And now with the final destruction of the old order and language
began the process of constructing the new; the first movement of the
Romance-literature, the literature which for two centuries was to dominate
Europe and to form and found the ideals of life that we call modern.
The transition stages are marked in the history of the Church. In the
ninth century Charlemagne enjoins on the clergy that they shall translate
into Romance for the benefit of the people their Latin exhortations,
showing that at this date the classic tongue had ceased to be generally
understood, at least in the North. In the South it appears to have
lingered longer, for at Charlemagne's Council of Arles of about the same
date no such order is given, presumably because it was unnecessary.
Later, however, in the Churches of the South the clergy allowed songs
and responses in pure Romance to be introduced, and this concession M.
Fauriel regards as the beginning of the movement.
He gives an amusing account of one of the earliest specimens of Provençal
literature, a dramatic version of the parable of the wise and foolish
virgins.
The foolish virgins arriving too late, appeal in vain to the wise for oil.
They refuse, but recommend a good oil-dealer who may perhaps supply them.
But he, too, will not assent to their prayer, and alas! the Bridegroom
arrives before they have had time to come to an arrangement. He likewise
turns away from the foolish ones, saying He does not know them; and--in
a singularly un-Christian spirit--condemns them to be at once plunged
into the deepest depths of hell.
A troop of demons come in and seize the foolish virgins and drag them
down to the flames, while, presumably, their wiser sisters look on
complacently, basking in their own virtue and in the consequent favours
of the powers that be.
Legends of all sorts made the subjects of literary effort at this time,
among them that of the Sacred Tree, in which its seed, with that of the
cypress and the fir, is given by an angel in the Garden of Eden to a son
of Adam. The sacred seed goes through many adventures, first with Moses
in the wilderness, then with David at Jerusalem, where it develops so
rapidly that the singer is able to compose his psalms beneath its shade.
Solomon tries in vain to use a beam from the tree in his temple, but it
always becomes a few inches too long whenever it is placed in position
and shrinks again on removal. Finally it is taken to be made into the
Cross of the Saviour.
* * * * *
At this time, just before as well as after the emergence of the troubadour
literature, the Court of Ventadour plays an important part.
One of its counts, Eblos III., was called _Cantor_ because of his
devotion to "verses of alacrity and joy." He was a contemporary of our
William the Conqueror, a fact which perhaps helps one to place in the
imagination this cultivated little Court of Limousin.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF MONTMAJOUR, ARLES.
_By E. M. Synge._]
It was a seigneur of Limousin, William IX. of Poitiers, Duke of
Acquitaine, Gascony, and many other provinces, who is usually regarded
as the first troubadour; a gay, insouciant soldier, singer, sceptic,
and free-thinker of the eleventh century. He is the first _trouvère_
or "finder" (from Spanish _trobar_) whose poems have come down to us;
born in 1071, but doing his work in the succeeding age. From this time
onwards we are in the real troubadour-land, and a multitude of singers
spring up, as if at the stroke of some magic signal, some mysterious
summons from the spiritual realm, to build a new heaven and a new earth
for the tormented, war-wearied human race.
Many writers have tried to account for the great movement by the worship
of the Virgin Mary; but the Virgin had been worshipped for ages before
the birth of chivalry. Certain of its qualities were doubtless fostered
by the feudal system which could only continue to exist if men were
faithful to their engagements and the word of honour was held sacred. But
there was nothing in feudalism to foster respect for women. As we know,
it had quite an opposite tendency. Some writers trace the institution
to the Arabs, who, after the conquest of Persia in the seventh century,
absorbed the culture of the vanquished race. Rather later than this
period (as the author of "Feudal and Modern Japan" points out), during
the golden age of those islands, with all Christian Europe plunged in
darkness, there was literary activity nowhere manifest save in Japan,
China, India, the Eastern Caliphæte and Saracenic Spain. With only one
of these lands could the South of France have come into direct contact,
viz., Saracenic Spain. From here, therefore, one is almost forced to
conclude, came the first definite impulse that set stirring the great
emotions and great thoughts of the new movement. The Saracen Arabs are
described as a nation of chivalrous soldiers, one of the most cultivated
and romantic of the earth, and the Crusaders could scarcely fail to be
influenced by such a people.
Nothing can have exceeded the splendour of this romantic Saracen Empire
in Spain.
"Palaces, mosques, minarets rose like an exhalation in vanquished Spain,"
writes Rowbotham in his book on the troubadours.
The country, he says, produced a wealth of valuable metals, loadstone,
crystals, silks, corals, rubies, pearls, and the cities were dreams of
colour and Eastern loveliness, where there was always the sound of lutes
and the enchantment of song. The Caliph lived in unimaginable luxury at
Zahra, where the "Pavilion of his Pleasures" was constructed of gold
and polished steel, the walls of which were encrusted with precious
stones. In the midst of the splendour produced by lights reflected from
the hundred crystal lustres a sheaf of living quicksilver welled up in a
basin of alabaster. "The banks of the Guadalquiver were lined with twelve
thousand towns and villages; lights in never-ending myriads troubled
the whole length of the stream. And as the boatmen glided past village
after village ... came the perpetual sounds of instruments and voices."
In the sumptuous houses was generally a cool central court with a
fountain, and here for the contentment of all good Moslems, the Saracen
minstrels would come and sing of love and beautiful ladies, while the
water splashed quietly into the basin in the languorous noonday heat.
There was no variation in the theme: always love and beautiful ladies.
"Shut your eyelids, ye eyes of the gazelle," was the popular mode of
beginning the entertainment.
Banished from religion, "music," according to the same author, "became
to Moslems an illicit pleasure like wine, and it grew up amid myrtle
blossoms and the laughter of women."
A life like this, splendid with colour and brilliance, might well have
inspired imitation among the impressionable people of Provence, and so
would help to account for certain elements in the movements of chivalry;
but it would scarcely account for the romantic adoration of the sex which
the Arabs--for all their songs in praise of charm and beauty--treated
after the immemorial fashion of the East.
Yet we are told that the first Crusade acted as a sort of edict for their
emancipation. "Women who had lived in constant terror ... of ill-usage
and violent treatment now came out in crowds--went to distant countries,
and a squadron of them even took up arms for the Cross. This brought
them into contact with the most gallant men on earth, famous for their
passionate adoration of women."
One can see how all this may, and indeed must have ousted many of the
older traditions and created a new romantic spirit. The mere fact of
increased liberty and experience for the subject sex tended to produce
a changed and more human relationship. But it is difficult to believe
that the woman of the West owes her salvation to the Moslem!
The charm and romance of the Eastern life gave the impetus; the increased
freedom introduced a more spiritual element, and then the quickened
imagination worked subtly as well as rapidly upon minds and hearts
already stirring with new ideas and emotions. Happily one can inspire
a great deal more than one actually communicates.
But the land which keeps its women shut away in harems and treats them
as personal property could scarcely teach the ideas of chivalry to the
West. Woman does not owe her redemption to the followers of Mahomet.
The paradox is unthinkable. In fact, she really owes it to herself: to
some power of intuition, a quick understanding of the bearing of things,
of the magic of ideas as distinct from established facts which enabled
her to win a steadily widening influence just at that favourable moment
when the new thoughts were in the air: honour, loyalty, generosity, fair
play. Then perhaps she was inspired to put in _her_ claim for fair play,
and when once that notion was really started in men's minds it seemed
to take fire with generous swiftness.
In any case, it is to the dreamers--men or women--of the tenth or eleventh
century, probably to both, that we owe these saving ideals. Practical
men of the preceding ages doubtless laughed at them as sentimental or
subversive. Happy the land that still breeds ideas at which the practical
man laughs!