116 KNIGHTHOOD
Knighthood independent of feudalism.
seen that the volunteers who flocked to the standards of the various commanders were not less but even more effi cient 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 im poverished 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. Nor was this by any means a merely gratuitous patronage of bloodshed on her part. In the ages of faith and chivalry, magic and sorcery were the terrors alike of the pious and the brave, and the blessings of the priest on the warrior, his weapons, and his armour were always regarded as the surest safeguards against the influence of hostile spells and enchantments. 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 in fact denuded themselves in order to their own and their retinue's equipment for the Holy War. And thus the conception of knighthood as of something wholly distinct from and independent of feudalism both as a social condition and a personal dignity arose and rapidly gained ground. It was then that the analogy was first detected which was after wards more fully developed between the order of knight hood 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 comprised and knit together the whole warrior caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of feudal sub ordination 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 knights 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 every success, and each was expected to vindicate the honour of another as promptly and zealously as his own. 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 cognizances, 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 another for his prowess in the field. It seems likely enough therefore that, at or soon after the period when the crusades had initiated the transformation of feudalism into chivalry as a military system, bodies 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, were neither unknown nor even uncommon. And such bodies raised by or 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 Annunciation in Savoy, and the St Michael and Holy Ghost in France actually were.[4] The knight too who had "won his spurs" was very differently esteemed from the knight who succeeded to them as an incident of his feudal tenure. In rank and the external ensigns of rank under the sumptuary regulations of the age they were equal. But it was the first and not the second who was welcomed in court and camp, who was invited to the "round tables" which the Arthurian romances brought into fashion among the potentates of mediæval Europe, and more particularly Edward III. and Philip VI. And thus it became the ambition of every aspirant to knighthood to gain it by his exploits rather than to claim it merely as his right by virtue of his position and estate. But there was one qualification for knighthood
- ↑ Sainte Palaye, Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, vol. i. pp.363, 364, ed. 1781.
- ↑ Du. Cange, Dissertation sur Joinville, xxi.; Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, vol. i. p. 272; Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, p. xxvii.
- ↑ Du Gange, Dissertation, xxi., and Lancelot du Lac, among other romances.
- ↑ Anstis, Register of the Order of the Garter, vol. i. p. 63.
