and obligations had no place, and it was seen that the volunteers
who flocked to the standards of the various commanders
were not less but even more efficient in the field than the
vassals they had hitherto been accustomed to lead. It was thus
established that pay, the love of enterprise and the prospect of
plunder—if we leave zeal for the sacred cause which they had
espoused for the moment out of sight—were quite as useful for
the purpose of enlisting troops and keeping them together as
the tenure of land and the solemnities of homage and fealty.
Moreover, the crusaders who survived the difficulties and dangers
of an expedition to Palestine were seasoned and experienced
although frequently impoverished and landless soldiers, ready to
hire themselves to the highest bidder, and well worth the wages
they received. Again, it was owing to the crusades that the
church took the profession of arms under her peculiar protection,
and thenceforward the ceremonies of initiation into it assumed a
religious as well as a martial character.
To distinguished soldiers of the cross the honours and benefits of knighthood could hardly be refused on the ground that they did not possess a sufficient property qualification—of which perhaps they had denuded themselves in Knighthood independent of Feudalism. order to their equipment for the Holy War. And thus the conception of knighthood as of something distinct from feudalism both as a social condition and a personal dignity arose and rapidly gained ground. It was then that the analogy was first detected between the order of knighthood and the order of priesthood, and that an actual union of monachism and chivalry was effected by the establishment of the religious orders of which the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers were the most eminent examples. As comprehensive in their polity as the Benedictines or Franciscans, they gathered their members from, and soon scattered their possessions over, every country in Europe. And in their indifference to the distinctions of race and nationality they merely accommodated themselves to the spirit which had become characteristic of chivalry itself, already recognized, like the church, as a universal institution which knit together the whole warrior caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of feudal subordination and territorial boundaries. Somewhat later the adoption of hereditary surnames and armorial bearings marked the existence of a large and noble class who either from the subdivision of fiefs or from the effects of the custom of primogeniture were very insufficiently provided for. To them only two callings were generally open, that of the churchman and that of the soldier, and the latter as a rule offered greater attractions than the former in an era of much licence and little learning. Hence the favourite expedient for men of birth, although not of fortune, was to attach themselves to some prince or magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate maintenance and might hope for even a rich reward in the shape of booty or of ransom.[1] It is probably to this period and these circumstances that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the military as well as the religious orders of chivalry. Of the existence of any regularly constituted companionships of the first kind there is no trustworthy evidence until between two and three centuries after fraternities of the second kind had been organized. Soon after the greater crusading societies had been formed similar orders, such as those of St James of Compostella, Calatrava and Alcantara, were established to fight the Moors in Spain instead of the Saracens in the Holy Land. But the members of these orders were not less monks than knights, their statutes embodied the rules of the cloister, and they were bound by the ecclesiastical vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience. From a very early stage in the development of chivalry, however, we meet with the singular institution of brotherhood in arms; and from it the ultimate origin if not of the religious fraternities at any rate of the military companionships is usually derived.[2] By this institution a relation was created between two or more monks by voluntary agreement, which was regarded as of far more intimacy and stringency than any which the mere accident of consanguinity implied. Brothers in arms were supposed to be partners in all things save the affections of their “lady-loves.” They shared in every danger and in every success, and each was expected to vindicate the honour of another as promptly and zealously as his own. The plot of the medieval romance of Amis and Amiles is built entirely on such a brotherhood. Their engagements usually lasted through life, but sometimes only for a specified period or during the continuance of specified circumstances, and they were always ratified by oath, occasionally reduced to writing in the shape of a solemn bond and often sanctified by their reception of the Eucharist together. Romance and tradition speak of strange rites—the mingling and even the drinking of blood—as having in remote and rude ages marked the inception of these martial and fraternal associations.[3] But in later and less barbarous times they were generally evidenced and celebrated by a formal and reciprocal exchange of weapons and armour. In warfare it was customary for knights who were thus allied to appear similarly accoutred and bearing the same badges or cognisances, to the end that their enemies might not know with which of them they were in conflict, and that their friends might be unable to accord more applause to one than to the other for his prowess in the field. It seems likely enough therefore that there should grow up bodies of knights banded together by engagements of fidelity, although free from monastic obligations; wearing a uniform or livery, and naming themselves after some special symbol or some patron saint of their adoption. And such bodies placed under the command of a sovereign or grand master, regulated by statutes, and enriched by ecclesiastical endowments would have been precisely what in after times such orders as the Garter in England, the Golden Fleece in Burgundy, the Annunziata in Savoy and the St Michael and Holy Ghost in France actually were.[4]
During the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as somewhat earlier and later, the general arrangements of a European army were always and everywhere pretty much the same.[5] Under the sovereign the constable and the marshal Grades of Knighthood. or marshals held the chief commands, their authority being partly joint and partly several. Attendant on them were the heralds, who were the officers of their military court, wherein offences committed in the camp and field were tried and adjudged, and among whose duties it was to carry orders and messages, to deliver challenges and call truces, and to identify and number the wounded and the slain. The main divisions of the army were distributed under the royal and other principal standards, smaller divisions under the banners of some of the greater nobility or of knights banneret, and smaller divisions still under the pennons of knights or, as in distinction from knights banneret they came to be called, knights bachelors. All knights whether bachelors or bannerets were escorted by their squires. But the banner of the banneret always implied a more or less extensive command, while every knight was entitled to bear a pennon and every squire a pencel. All three flags were of such a size as to be conveniently attached to and carried on a lance, and were emblazoned with the arms or some portion of the bearings of their owners. But while the banner was square the pennon, which resembled it in other respects, was either pointed or forked at its extremity, and the pencel, which was considerably less than the others, always terminated in a single tail or streamer.[6]
If indeed we look at the scale of chivalric subordination from another point of view, it seems to be more properly divisible into four than into three stages, of which two may be called provisional and two final. The bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one was of greater distinction and authority
- ↑ J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781).
- ↑ Du Cange, Dissertation sur Joinville, xxi.; Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 272; G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841,) p. xxvii.
- ↑ Du Cange, Dissertation, xxi., and Lancelot du Lac, among other romances.
- ↑ Anstis, Register of the Order of the Garter, i. 63.
- ↑ Grose, Military Antiq. i. 207 seq.; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 276 seq., and iii. 278 seq.
- ↑ Grose’s Military Antiquities, ii. 256.
