to fight for his pardon, against a champion selected by the king. The count was worsted in the encounter, and, by the sentence of the law, was condemned to be barbarously mutilated, after a custom which had been derived from the natives of the East.[1]
The object of the confederates had been to depose Rufus, and place upon the throne Stephen, Count of Aumale, who was the nephew of William the Conqueror. The information which the king had obtained in the castle of Bamborough, enabled him to break up this formidable confederacy; and besides the punishment which we have seen was inflicted upon the leaders, other nobles suffered the confiscation of their estates, and were imprisoned, or effected their escape to Normandy.
The property of the banished nobles was plundered by the adherents of the king, and then left for some time uncultivated and without owners. Nevertheless, the people of the town or hundred in which such estates lay, were compelled to pay the full amount of land tax as before. The royal officers are compared by the chroniclers to thieves; they plundered without mercy both the farmers' barns and the tradesmen's warehouses. The king, also, forcibly raised troops of men to build a wall encircling the Conqueror's Tower at London, a bridge over the Thames, and near the West Minster a hall, or palace of audiences, for the stated assemblies or assizes of the great barons.[2] The Saxon chronicle which contains these details, says that "the counties on which these forced labours fell, were grievously tormented: each year passed by heavily and sorrowfully, on account of numberless vexations and multiplied contributions."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Institution of Chivalry—Peter the Hermit—The Council of Clermont.
In the year 1096 Robert determined to join a crusade then about to set out for the Holy Land, and to enable him to do so, he agreed to resign his duchy of Normandy into the hands of Rufus for a sum of £10,000. This transaction is described by the historians as having been a mortgage for three years; but it must have been evident, even to the uncalculating mind of Robert, that he had little chance of regaining possession of his property at the end of that time.
To enable us to understand this extraordinary proceeding on the part of Robert, it will be necessary to examine the causes which led to those expeditions which are called the Crusades. These causes, which had been in operation for hundreds of years before, were two, of very opposite nature—viz., in the East, the spread of Mahometan power; and in the West, the institution of chivalry, preceded by the introduction of Christianity.
The institution of chivalry had for its object the cultivation of those virtues which may be classed under the word manhood, in its best and widest sense. The true knight was supposed to be pious, truthful, and brave; a generous friend, a gallant warrior, a devoted lover. It was necessary for him to add great strength of body, and skill in all manly exercises, to gentleness of manners and culture of mind. Terrible in battle, it was his duty to wield the sword of justice, to strike down the oppressor and the tyrant; but to help the weak, and give his life, if need be, in the cause of the innocent.
The youth who aspired to knighthood began his career as a page in some noble house, where, under the gentle influence of women, he was taught various accomplishments, and imbued with that beautiful though fantastic dream of honour which he hoped to realise in his future life. At the age of fourteen the page became an esquire, and was permitted to wear a sword. He now began a regular course of training for arms, and usually sought to attach himself to some knight of fame, whom he attended in hall or field, and supported in battle. The young aspirant was admitted to the honours of knighthood at the age of twenty-one, unless he had previously won his spurs by some gallant feat of arms. This honour was of rare occurrence, as, by the laws of chivalry, the duties of esquire were limited to attendance upon his lord, and he was permitted few opportunities of personal distinction.
The original spirit of chivalry was essentially religious. The initiation into the order of knighthood was a religious ceremony, and usually took place on one of the feasts of the Church, as Easter-day, the day of Pentecost, or Christmas-day. The aspirant prepared himself for his new dignity by long vigils, fasts, and prayer; and on the night before the ceremony took place, he repaired alone to the church, where he passed the hours in watching beside his armour.
On the day appointed, high mass was performed in the presence of the nobles and bishops and an assembly of the people; and after the sword of the novice had been consecrated to the service of heaven, he took a solemn vow, according to the laws of chivalry, "to speak the truth, to succour the helpless and oppressed, and never to turn back from an enemy." The bishop then dubbed him a knight, and the other knights, and often the ladies present, advanced and armed the youth. The spurs were usually buckled on first, and thus came to be regarded as the symbol of knighthood.
Such was the form by which a young man was admitted to the highest dignity of chivalry. Chivalry recognised nothing higher or nobler than the condition of a knight, and the fame of every man was borne by the mouths of minstrels and palmers, not tied to his name by a title.
Various writers have attempted to fix the date at which chivalry first took its rise; but on this point there is no certain information. Probably the idea of chivalry was the growth of centuries, and made its way gradually through the corruptions of the times in which it was born. Whatever may have been its origin, the institution was in its infancy in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and received no marked development until the time of the first Crusade. The stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table[3] are probably as fabulous as the wonders of Merlin, or the tales of the Arabian Nights. In the days of Charlemagne, chivalry, in the general sense of the word, was yet unborn; and though in the time of Alfred its spirit undoubtedly existed in our own country, it had yet assumed no name or distinctive form.
According to Tacitus, customs bearing a resemblance to those of chivalry existed in his day among the German
