The Rise of Chivalry
_A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the tyme that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie._
CHAUCER: _The Prologue._
During the interval of comparative peace that followed the downfall of
the mad Caliph Hakim, a new spirit of religious devotion began to
awaken in Christendom.
This was, to a large extent, a reaction from a truly "dark age"--the
period which immediately preceded the end of the tenth century. Famine
and pestilence had devastated Europe, and had resulted in absolute
demoralisation of the population. Travellers went their way in fear
not only of robbery, but of a far worse fate. It was whispered that
men, women and children had been waylaid in forest depths, torn to
pieces, and devoured alive by human wild beasts. The Church, in her
efforts to bring about a better state of things, resorted to counsels
of despair, and began to preach, in every part of Christendom, that the
end of the world was at hand, and that the appointed time was the
thousandth year after the birth of Christ.
The result was an outburst of intense religious {46} excitement which
did much to check the progress of evil and outrage. It had a practical
outcome, too, as is seen in that curious institution known as the Truce
of God. In joining this, every knight took an oath not to commit
sacrilege; to treat all travellers with respect; to "keep the peace"
during the sacred days of each week--that is, from Wednesday evening to
Monday morning; not to fight for purposes of private revenge, and
always to defend and keep sacred the persons of women. Here we have
clearly the foundation of that spirit of chivalry which plays such a
prominent part in the Story of the Crusades.
The appointed time for the end of the world came and went, but the
spirit of devotion remained. A new interest was awakened in the scenes
of the life-work of the Saviour, and crowds of pilgrims, young and old,
of all ranks and professions, hastened to undertake the long and
toilsome journey to the Holy Land.
Many of these suffered under the persecution of Hakim; and even after
his time, though no active measures were taken against them, they were
not received with the favour shown in former days. But this only added
zest to the enterprise. To visit the Church of the Holy Tomb, and to
return and build a church in his own land, became the ambition of every
man of wealth and high rank; while the poor palmer, with his staff and
hat decorated with palm sprigs or cockle-shells, became a well-known
figure upon the roads of every country in Europe.
Says a writer of that day, "At the time there begun to flow towards the
Holy Sepulchre so great a multitude as, ere this, no man could have
hoped for. First of all went the poorer folk, then men of middle rank,
{47} and lastly, very many kings and counts, marquises and bishops;
aye, and a thing that had never happened before, many women bent their
steps in the same direction."
Things were made a little easier for them by the conversion of the Huns
to Christianity; for this enabled the pilgrims to pass along the land
route through Hungary instead of crossing the Mediterranean and
travelling through Egypt.
Robert the Magnificent, the father of William, the future "Conqueror,"
was among these eleventh century pilgrims, and he, like many another,
died before he could return home.
Sweyn, the eldest and worst of the sons of Godwin, was another; and
Eldred, Bishop of York in the days of William the Conqueror, made the
little realm of England famous at Jerusalem by his gift before the Holy
Sepulchre of a wonderful golden chalice.
Side by side with this spirit of religious zeal there grew up and
developed that remarkable body of sentiment and custom known as
chivalry.
Chivalry has been described as the "whole duty of a gentleman"; and
when we realise the condition of barbarism, brutality, and vice out of
which even Western Christendom was only just emerging in the eleventh
century, we can see how important was the work it had to do. Religion,
Honour, Courtesy--those were the three watchwords of the knight of
chivalry, and they covered a wide area of conduct.
The education of a knight began at the age of seven, and commenced with
the personal service, which was regarded in those days as a privilege.
The small boy was proud to hold the wine-cup behind the chair of {48}
his lord, or his stirrup when he rode on horseback. For the next seven
years, though much of his time was spent in waiting upon the ladies of
the household, who taught him reading, writing, music, and the laws of
chivalry, he also learnt the duties of a squire--how to hunt and hawk,
and to look after the kennels and the stables. At the age of fourteen
the boy might be called a squire, when his duty, in addition to those
mentioned, would be to carve for his lord at table, tasting the food
first himself for fear of poison; and also, of course, to attend upon
him at all times. Thus he had to arm him for battle, to see that his
weapons were in perfect condition, to fight by his side, and to lie
before his door while he slept.
When the squire had mastered all his duties and obligations, he had
then to "win his spurs," that is, to perform some deed of valour that
should prove him worthy of knighthood.
The ceremony of girding on his armour was largely a religious one. The
whole of the previous night was spent by him on his knees with his
sword held upright between his hands, before the altar upon which his
armour was laid. Thus he dedicated himself by prayer and fasting to
the service of God, and on the morrow was solemnly consecrated by the
Church to his high office, before the armour was actually buckled on.
This last part of the ceremony was the privilege of some fair damsel,
to whom the knight was bound to give devotion and respect. "To do the
pleasure of ladies was his chief solace and the mainspring of his
service."
Another of the features of chivalry was that of "brotherhood-in-arms,"
by which two knights vowed {49} eternal faith and love to one another.
They dressed alike, wore similar armour, prayed together, supported
each other in battle and in any kind of quarrel, and had the same
friends and enemies.
That their devotion to the rules of chivalry was a very real thing is
proved over and over again by the conduct of the knights who took part
in the Crusades. It is well expressed by Tristan, in one of the most
famous romances of the chivalric age. As he lay dying, he said to his
squire, "I take leave of chivalry which I have so much loved and
honoured. Alas! my sword, what wilt thou do now? Wilt thou hear,
Sagremor, the most shameful word that ever passed the lips of Tristan?
I am conquered. I give thee my arms, I give thee my chivalry."
It took many a long year to bring to perfection this great institution,
with all its rules and regulations, and chivalry was but in its infancy
when the First Crusade began. The two movements developed together,
and many a chivalric lesson was learnt by the knights of Christendom
from the Moslems of the East. Perhaps, however, one of the most marked
effects of the Crusades upon this greatest of mediæval institutions was
the welding together of the various nations of Europe in a common
knighthood, bound by the same rules and codes of honour, and fighting
for the same cause.
"All wars and brigandage came to an end. The Crusade, like the rain,
stilled the wind."
Out of this combination of the spirit of chivalry, with that of the
Crusades themselves, sprang certain military orders, which play a very
prominent part in the history of the time.
{50}
The first of these was known as the Order of the Knights Hospitallers.
About the middle of the eleventh century a guest-house or "hospital,"
where pilgrims could be entertained, was established by a company of
Italian merchants, in connection with the Church of St Mary, opposite
that of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem. This hospital, dedicated to
St John, was managed by Benedictine monks, under one called the
"Guardian of the Redeemer's Poor." When the First Crusade was over,
its hero, Godfrey of Boulogne, visited the place and found that these
good monks had devoted themselves during the siege of Jerusalem to the
care of the sick and wounded Christians, giving them the best of all
they possessed, and living themselves in the utmost poverty. Godfrey
at once endowed the Hospital of St John with lands and money, and set
up one Gerard as its first Grand Master. A new and splendid church was
built for the monks, and a habit or dress was prescribed for their use,
consisting of a black robe with a cross of eight points in white linen
upon it--the famous Maltese Cross of later days.
Early in the twelfth century, this company of priests and holy laymen
was changed by its second Grand Master into a military order, bound to
carry on the same kind of charitable work in tending the sick and
wounded, but specially to defend the Holy Sepulchre by force of arms.
Many of this order of "Brothers" had been originally knights who had
retired from the world and taken religious vows; hence it was said that
the changes merely "gave back to the brethren the arms that they had
quitted." These were now distinguished from the rest by a red surcoat
with the white cross worn over armour.
{51}
Except for the obligation of fighting the vows were not changed, and
these Knights Hospitallers owed the same allegiance to the three-fold
laws of obedience, chastity, and poverty as ordinary monks. The
brethren were to be the "servants of the poor"; no member could call
anything his own; he might not marry; he could use arms only against
the Saracen; but he was independent of any authority save that of the
Pope.
This Order became immensely popular; in the thirteenth century it
numbered fifteen thousand knights, many of them drawn from the noblest
houses of Christendom; and it is much to its credit that, at a time
when chivalry had become little more than a name, it upheld the old
traditions even when it had been driven from Palestine, and forced to
find a new home for itself at Rhodes. Driven from thence in the
sixteenth century, the Knights of St John were settled by the Emperor
Charles V. at Malta, where they remained until the days of the French
Revolution.
The Order of the Knights Templars was founded early in the twelfth
century by Baldwin, then King of Jerusalem, as a "perpetual sacred
soldiery," whose special object was to defend the Holy Sepulchre and
the passes infested by brigands which led the pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Their headquarters was a building granted them by Baldwin, close to the
temple on Mt. Moriah. War was their first and most important business,
though they were bound by their rule to a certain amount of prayer and
fasting. The latter was, however, easily relaxed, and "to drink like a
Templar" became a proverb.
In every battle of the Holy War these two Orders took a prominent part;
the post of honour on the {52} right being claimed by the Templars,
that on the left by the Hospitallers. Unlike most other knights, the
Templars wore long beards, and from their dress of white, with a large
red cross upon it, they gained the title of the Red-Cross Knights.
You will, no doubt, remember that Spenser's knight in the first book of
the Faery Queene was of that order.
_And on his breast a bloudy cross he bore
In dear remembrance of his dying lord._
Their banner was half black, half white; "fair and favourable to the
friends of Christ, black and terrible to His foes."
These Knights Templars, by their arrogance and independence, made for
themselves many enemies, and early in the fourteenth century they were
strongly opposed by Philip of France. By this time they were
established in various parts of Europe, and one of their most powerful
"houses" was the building known as the "Temple" in Paris, the members
of which openly defied the authority of the king.
With some difficulty the consent of a weak Pope was obtained for their
destruction. On a given day, when the Grand Master and most of his
knights were staying in France, every Templar in the country was
seized, imprisoned, and tortured until he had confessed crimes, many of
which he probably had never imagined in his wildest moments. More than
five hundred were burnt alive, as a preliminary to the Order being
declared extinct. Whether the Templars deserved their terrible fate
may well be a matter of doubt, though public opinion, in their own day,
was decidedly against them. It is generally considered that Philip's
treatment of {53} an order, the members of which had again and again
laid down their lives for the cause of God, ranks as one of the
blackest crimes of history.
There is a legend to the effect that on each anniversary of the
suppression of the Order, the heads of seven of the martyred Templars
rise from their graves to meet a phantom figure clad in the red-cross
mantle. The latter cries three times, "Who shall now defend the Holy
Temple? Who shall free the Sepulchre of the Lord?"
And the seven heads make mournful reply, "None! The Temple is
destroyed."
The Temple Church, in London, was originally built for the English
branch of this great Order, the members of which in England, as well as
in Spain and Germany, were almost all acquitted of the charges brought
against them.
But we must now return to the period prior to the foundation of these
two great Orders, with which are associated most of the gallant deeds
of the Holy War.
{54}