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KNIGHTHOOD
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KNIGHTHOOD and See also:CHIVALRY. These two words, which are nearly but not quite synonymous, designate a single subject of inquiry, which presents itself under three different although connected and in a measure intermingled aspects. It may be regarded in the first See also:place as a mode or variety of feudal See also:tenure, in the second place as a See also:personal attribute or dignity, and in the third place as a See also:scheme of See also:manners or social arrangements. The first of these aspects is discussed under the headings See also:FEu-DALISM and See also:KNIGHT SERVICE: we are concerned here only with the second and third. For the more important religious as distinguished from the military orders of knighthood or chivalry the reader is referred to the headings ST See also: But some See also:time before the See also:middle of the 12th See also:century they had acquired the meaning they still retain of the See also:French See also:chevalier and chevalerie. In a secondary sense cniht meant a servant or attendant answering to the See also:German Knecht, and in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels a See also:disciple is described as a leorning cniht. In a See also:tertiary sense the word appears to have been occasionally employed as See also:equivalent to the Latin See also:miles—usually translated by See also:thegn—which in the earlier middle ages was used as the designation of the domestic as well as of the See also:martial See also:officers or retainers of sovereigns and princes or See also:great See also:person-ages.' See also:Sharon See also:Turner suggests that cniht from meaning an attendant simply may have come to mean more especially a military attendant, and that in this sense it may have gradually superseded the word thegn.' But the word thegn itself, that is, when it was used as the description of an attendant of the See also: A. See also:Freeman says, " no such See also:title is heard of in the earlier days of England. The thegn, the ealdorman, the king himself, fought on See also:foot; the See also:horse might See also:bear him to the See also:
itself came he stood on his native See also:earth to receive the onslaught of her enemies." 1 In this perhaps we may behold one of the most See also:ancient of See also:British insular prejudices, for on the Continent the importance of See also:cavalry in warfare was already abundantly understood. It was by means of their horsemen that the Austrasian See also:Franks established their superiority over their neighbours, and in time created the Western See also:Empire anew, while from the word caballarius, which occurs in the Capitularies in the reign of See also:Charlemagne, came the words for knight in all the See also:Romance See also:languages.' In See also:Germany the chevalier was called See also:Ritter, but neither rider nor chevalier prevailed against knight in England. And it was See also:long after knighthood had acquired its See also:present meaning with us that chivalry was incorporated into our See also:language. It may be remarked too in passing that in See also:official Latin, not only in England but all over Europe, the word miles held its own against both eques and caballarius.
Concerning the origin of knighthood or chivalry as it existed in the middle ages—implying as it did a formal See also:assumption of Origin of and See also:initiation into the profession of arms—nothing See also:Medieval beyond more or less probable conjecture is possible. Kaighthood.The medieval knights had nothing to do in the way of derivation with the " See also:equites " of See also:Rome, the knights of King See also:Arthur's Round Table, or the Paladins of Charlemagne. But there are grounds for believing that some of the rudiments of chivalry are to be detected in See also:early Teutonic customs, and that they may have made some advance among the Franks of See also:Gaul. We know from Tacitus that the German tribes in his See also:day were wont to celebrate the See also:admission of their See also:young men into the ranks of their warriors with much circumstance and ceremony. The See also:people of the See also:district to which the See also:candidate belonged were called together; his qualifications for the privileges about to be conferred upon him were inquired into; and, if he were deemed fitted and worthy to receive them, his See also:chief, his See also:father, or one of his near kinsmen presented him with a See also:shield and a See also:lance. Again, among the Franks we find Charlemagne girding his son See also: It was among the Franks indeed, and possibly through their experiences in See also:war with the See also:Saracens, that cavalry first acquired the pre-eminent place which it long maintained in every See also:European See also:country. In early society, where the See also:army is not a paid force but the armed nation, the cavalry must necessarily consist of the noble and wealthy, and cavalry and chivalry, as Freeman observes,' will be the same. Since then we discover in the Capitularies of Charlemagne actual mention of " caballarii " as a class of warriors, it may reasonably be concluded that formal See also:investiture with arms applied to the "caballarii " if it was a usage extending beyond the See also:sovereign and his See also:heir-apparent. " But," as See also:Hallam says, " he who fought on horseback and had been invested with See also:peculiar arms in a See also:solemn manner wanted nothing more to render him a knight; " and so he concludes, in view of the verbal identity of " chevalier " and " caballarius," that " we may refer chivalry in a general sense to the See also:age of Charlemagne." b Yet, if the " caballarii " of the Capitularies are really the pre-cursors of the later knights, it remains a difficulty that the Latin name for a knight is " miles," although " caballarius " became in various forms the See also:vernacular designation.
Before it was known that the chronicle ascribed to Ingulf of Croyland is really a fiction of the 13th or 14th century, the knighting of Heward or See also:Hereward by See also:Brand, See also: 392.(now See also:Peterborough), was accepted from See also:Selden to Hallam as an See also:historical fact, and knighthood was supposed, not only to have been known among the Anglo-See also:Saxons, but to
Knighthood
have had a distinctively religious character which in England. was contemned by the Norman invaders. The
genuine evidence at our command altogether fails to support this view. When William of See also:Malmesbury describes the knighting of Athelstan by his grandfather See also:Alfred the Great, that is, his investiture " with a See also:purple garment set with gems and a Saxon sword with a See also:golden sheath," there is no hint of any religious observance. In spite of the silence of our records, Dr Stubbs thinks that kings so well acquainted with See also:foreign usages as See also:Ethelred, Canute and Edward the Confessor could hardly have failed to introduce into England the institution of chivalry then springing up in every country of Europe; and he is sup-ported in this See also:opinion by the circumstance that it is nowhere mentioned as a Norman innovation. Yet the fact that Harold received knighthood from William of See also:Normandy makes it clear either that Harold was not yet a knight, which in the See also:case of so tried a warrior would imply that " dubbing to knighthood " was not yet known in England even under Edward the Confessor, or, as Freeman thinks, that in the middle of the nth century the See also:custom had grown in Normandy into " something of a more See also:special meaning " than it See also:bore in England.
Regarded as a method of military organization, the feudal system of tenures was always far better adapted to the purposes of defensive than of offensive warfare. Against invasion it furnished a permanent See also:provision both in men-at-arms and strong-holds; nor was it unsuited for the See also:campaigns of neighbouring See also:counts and barons which lasted for only a few See also:weeks, and ex-tended over only a few leagues. But when kings and kingdoms were in conflict, and distant and prolonged expeditions became necessary, it was speedily discovered that the unassisted re-See also:sources of See also:feudalism were altogether inadequate. It became therefore the manifest See also:interest of both parties that personal services should be commuted into pecuniary payments. Then there See also:grew up all over Europe a system of fining the knights who failed to See also:respond to the sovereign's See also:call or to stay their full time in the field; and in England this See also:fine See also:developed, from the reign of See also: In the reign of Edward I., whose warlike enterprises after he was king were confined within the four seas, this alteration does not seem to have proceeded very far, and See also:Scotland and See also:Wales were subjugated by what was in the See also:main, if not exclusively, a feudal See also:militia raised as of old by See also:writ to the earls and barons and the sheriffs.' But the armies of Edward III., Henry V. and Henry VI. during the century of intermittent war-fare between England and See also:France were recruited and sustained to a very great extent on the principle of See also:contract.? On the Continent the systematic employment of mercenaries was both an early and a See also:common practice. Besides consideration for the mutual convenience of sovereigns and their feudatories, there were other causes which materially contributed towards bringing about those changes in The the military system of Europe which were finally See also:Crusades. accomplished in the 13th and 14th centuries. During the Crusades vast armies were set on foot in which feudal rights ' Stubbs, Cons'. Hist. ii. 278; also compare See also:Grosse, Military Antiquities, i. 65, seq. There has been a general tendency to ignore the extent to which the armies of Edward III. were raised by compulsory levies even after the system of raising troops by free contract had begun. Luce (ch. vi.) points out how much England relied at this time on what would now be called See also:conscription: and his remarks are entirely See also:borne out by the See also:Norwich documents published by Mr W. See also:Hudson (Norf. and Norwich Archaeological See also:Soc. xiv. 263 sqq.), by a See also:Lynn See also:corporation document of 18th Edw. III. (Hist. See also:MSS. See also:Commission See also:Report XI. Appendix pt. iii. p. 189), and by See also:Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 312, 319, 320.
and obligations had no place, and it was seen that the See also:volunteers who flocked to the See also:standards of the various commanders were not less but even more efficient in the field than the vassals they had hitherto been accustomed to See also:lead. It was thus established that pay, the love of enterprise and the prospect of See also: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 See also:land and the solemnities of See also:homage and fealty. Moreover, the crusaders who survived the difficulties and dangers of an expedition to See also:Palestine were seasoned and experienced although frequently impoverished and landless soldiers, ready to hire themselves to the highest See also:bidder, and well See also:worth the See also:wages they received. Again, it was owing to the crusades that the See also: And ISf . 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 See also:analogy was first detected between the order of knighthood and the order of priesthood, and that an actual See also:union of monachism and chivalry was effected by the See also: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 See also:Benedictines or See also:Franciscans, they gathered their members from, and soon scattered their possessions over, every country in Europe. And in their indifference to the distinctions of See also:race and See also: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 See also:caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of feudal subordination and territorial boundaries. Somewhat later the See also:adoption of hereditary surnames and armorial See also: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 See also: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 See also:rule offered greater attractions than the former in antra of much See also:licence and little learning. Hence the favourite expedient for men of See also:birth, although not of See also:fortune, was to attach themselves to some See also:prince or See also:magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate See also:maintenance and might See also:hope for even a See also:rich See also:reward in the shape of See also:booty or of See also:ransom.' 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 See also:kind there is no trustworthy evidence until between two and three centuries after See also:fraternities of the second kind had been organized. Soon after the greater crusading See also:societies had been formed similar orders, such as those of St See also: B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, Memoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781). 2 Du Cange, Dissertation sur See also:Joinville, xxi. ; Sainte Palaye, Memoires, i. 272 ; G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841,) p. )ovii.created between two or more monks by voluntary agreement, which was regarded as of far more intimacy and stringency than any which the mere See also:accident of See also:consanguinity implied. See also:Brothers in arms were supposed to be partners in all things See also:save the affections of their " See also:lady-loves." They shared in every danger and in every success, and each was expected to vindicate the See also:honour of another as promptly and zealously as his own. The See also: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 See also:oath, occasionally reduced to See also:writing in the shape of a solemn See also:bond and often sanctified by their reception of the See also:Eucharist together. Romance and tradition speak of See also:strange See also:rites—the mingling and even the drinking of See also:blood—as having in remote and See also: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 See also:exchange of weapons and See also: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 See also:friends might be unable to See also:accord more See also: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 See also:uniform or See also:livery, and naming themselves after some special See also:symbol or some See also:patron See also:saint of their adoption. And such bodies placed under the command of a sovereign or See also: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 See also:Burgundy, the Annunziata in See also:Savoy and the St See also:Michael and Holy See also: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 See also:constable and the See also:marshal 'irides of Knighthood. or marshals held the chief commands, their authority being partly See also:joint and partly several. Attendant on them were the heralds, who were the officers of their military See also:court, wherein offences committed in the See also: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 See also:principal standards, smaller divisions under the See also:banners of some of the greater See also:nobility or of knights See also: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 en-titled to bear a pennon and every See also:squire a pencel. All three flags were of such a See also: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 See also: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 See also:bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one was of greater distinction and authority a Du Cange, Dissertation, xxi., and See also:Lancelot du See also:Lac, among other romances. Anstis, See also:Register of the Order of the Garter, i. 63. 5 See also:Grose, Military Antiq. i. 207 seq. ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 276 seq., and iii. 278 seq. 6 Grose's Military Antiquities, ii. 256. 15 than the other. In like manner the squire and the See also:page were both in training for knighthood, but the first had advanced further in the process than the second. It is true that the squire was a combatant while the page was not, and that many squires voluntarily served as squires all their lives owing to the insufficiency of their fortunes to support the See also:costs and charges of knighthood. But in the See also:ordinary course of a chivalrous See also:education the successive conditions of page and squire were passed through in boyhood and youth, and the condition of knighthood was reached in early manhood. Every feudal court and See also:castle was in fact a school of chivalry, and although princes and great personages were rarely actually pages or squires, the moral and See also:physical discipline through which they passed was not in any important particular different from that to which less exalted candidates for knighthood were subjected.' The page, or, as he was more anciently and more correctly called, the " See also:valet " or " damoiseau," commenced his service and instruction when he was between seven and eight years old, and the initial phase continued for seven or eight years longer. He acted as the See also:constant personal attendant of both his master and See also:mistress. He waited on them in their See also: He accustomed himself to ride the " great horse," to tilt at the See also:quintain, to wield the sword and See also:battle-See also:axe, to swim and climb, to run and leap, and to bear the See also:weight and overcome the embarrassments of armour. He inured himself to the vicissitudes of See also:heat and See also:cold, and voluntarily suffered the pains or inconveniences of See also:hunger and thirst, fatigue and sleeplessness. It was then too that he See also:chose his " lady-love," whom he was expected to regard with an See also:adoration at once See also:earnest, respectful, and the more meritorious if concealed. And when it was considered that he had made sufficient See also:advancement in his military accomplishments, he took his sword to the See also:priest, who laid it on the See also:altar, blessed it, and returned it to him.' Afterwards he either remained with his early master, relegating most of his domestic duties to his younger companions, or he entered the service of some valiant and adventurous lord or ' Sainte Palaye, Memoires, i. 36; See also:Froissart, bk. iii. ch. 9. z Sainte Palaye, Memoires, pt. i. and See also:Mills, History of Chivalry, vol. i. ch. 2. See the long See also:sermon in the romance of See also:Petit Jehan de Saintre, pt. i. ch. v., and compare the theory there set forth with the actual behaviour of the chief personages. Even See also:Gautier, while he contends that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies. No doubt these romances, taken alone, might give as unfair an See also:idea as modern French novels give of Parisian morals, but we have abundant other evidence for placing the moral See also:standard of the age of chivalry definitely below that of educated society in the present day. ' Sainte Palaye, Memoires, i. I 1 seq.: " C'est peut-etre a See also:cette ceremonie et non a celles de la chevalerie qu'on dolt rapporter ce qui se lit dans nos historiens de la premiere et de is seconde race au sujet See also:des premieres armes que See also:les Rois et les Princes remettoient avec solemnite au ieunes Princes leurs enfans."knight of his own selection. He now became a " squire of the body," and truly an "armiger" or " scutifer," for he bore the shield and armour of his See also:leader to the field, and, what was a task of no small difficulty and See also:hazard, cased and secured him in his See also:panoply of war before assisting him to See also:mount his courser or charger. It was his See also:function also to display and guard in battle the banner of the See also:baron or banneret or the pennon of the knight he served, to raise him from the ground if he were unhorsed, to See also:supply him with another or his own horse if his was disabled or killed, to receive and keep any prisoners he might take, to fight by his See also:side if he was unequally matched, to See also:rescue him if captured, to bear him to a place of safety if wounded, and to See also:bury him honourably when dead. And after he had worthily and bravely, borne himself for six or seven years as a squire, the time came when it was fitting that he should be made a knight. This, at least, was the current theory; but it is specially dangerous in medieval history to assume too much corresl -mdence between theory and fact. In many castles, and perhu s in most, the discipline followed simply a natural and unwritten See also:code of " See also:fagging " and seniority, as in public See also:schools or on See also:board men-of-war some See also:hundred years or so ago.
Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very early period in all countries where chivalry was known. In both of them the essential portion seems Modes of to have been the See also:accolade or stroke of the sword. conferring But while in the one the accolade constituted the Knighthood whole or nearly the whole of the ceremony, in the other it was surrounded with many additional observances. The former and simpler of these modes was naturally that used in war: the candidate knelt before " the chief of the army or some valiant knight," who struck him thrice with the See also:flat of a sword, pronouncing a brief See also:formula of creation and of exhortation which varied at the creator's wi11.5
In this See also:form a number of knights were made before and after almost every battle between the rrth and the 16th centuries, and its advantages on the See also:score of both convenience and See also:economy gradually led to its general adoption both in time of See also:peace and time of war. On extraordinary occasions indeed the more elaborate See also:ritual continued to be observed. But recourse was had to it so rarely that in England about the beginning of the 15th century it came to be exclusively appropriated to a special king of knighthood. When Segar, garter king of arms, wrote in the reign of See also:Queen See also: " He that is to be made a knight," he says, " is striken by the prince with a sword See also:drawn upon his back or See also:shoulder, the prince saying, Soys Chevalier,' and in times past was added ` Saint See also:George.' And when the knight rises the prince sayeth `Avencez.' This is the manner of dubbing knights at this present, and that term ` dubbing ' was the old term in this point, not `creating.' This sort of knights are by the heralds called knights bachelors." In our days when a knight is personally made he kneels before the sovereign, who See also:lays a sword drawn, ordinarily the sword of See also:state, on either of his shoulders and says, " Rise," calling him by his See also:Christian name with the addition of " See also:Sir " before it. 5 There are several obscure points as to the relation of the longer and shorter ceremonies, as well as the origin and See also:original relation of their several parts. There is nothing to show whence came " dubbing " or the " accolade." It seems certain that the word " dub " means to strike, and the usage is as old as the knighting of Henry by William the Conqueror (supra, pp. 851, 852). So, too, in the Empire a dubbed knight is "sitter geschlagen." The " accolade " may etymologically refer to the embrace, accompanied by a See also:blow with the See also:hand, characteristic of the longer form of knighting. The derivation of " adouber," corresponding to " dub," from " adoptare," which is given by Du Cange, and would connect the ceremony with " adoptio per arma," is certainly inaccurate. The investiture with arms, which formed a See also:part of the longer form of knighting, and which we have seen to See also:rest on very ancient usage, may originally have had a distinct meaning. We have observed that See also:Lanfranc invested Henry I. with arms, while William " dubbed him to rider." If there was a difference in the meaning of the two ceremonies, the difficulty as to the knighting of See also:Earl Harold (supra, p. 852) is at least partly removed. Very different were the solemnities which attended the creation of a knight when the See also:complete See also:procedure was observed. " The ceremonies and circumstances at the giving this dignity," says Selden, " in the See also:elder time were of two kinds especially, which we may call courtly and sacred. The courtly were the feasts held at the creation, giving of See also:robes, arms, spurs and the like. The sacred were the holy devotions and what else was used in the church at or before the receiving of the dignity.' But the leading authority on the subject is an ancient See also:tract written in French, which will be found at length either in the original or translated by Segar, See also:Dugdale, Byshe and See also:Nicolas, among other English writers.2 See also:Daniel explains his reasons for transcribing it, " tant a cause du detail que de la naivete du See also:stile et encore plus de la bisarrerie des ceremonies que se faisoient pourtant alors fort serieusement," while he adds that these ceremonies were essentially identical in England, France, Germany, Spain and See also:Italy.
The process of inauguration was commenced in the evening by the placing of the candidate under the care of two "esquires of honour See also:grave and well seen in courtship and nurture and also in the feats of chivalry," who were to be " See also:governors in all things See also:relating to him."' Under their direction, to begin with, a See also:barber shaved him and cut his See also:hair. He was then conducted by them to his appointed chamber, where a See also:bath was prepared hung within and without with See also:linen and covered with rich cloths, into which after they had undressed him he entered. While he was in the bath two " ancient and grave knights " attended him " to inform, instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of chivalry," and when they had fulfilled their See also:mission they poured some of the See also:water of the bath over his shoulders, See also:signing the left shoulder with the cross, and retired. He was then taken from the bath and put into a See also:plain See also:bed without hangings, in wh;ch he remained until his body war, dry, when the two esquires put on him a See also: 99—104; Byshe's Upton, De Studio Militari, pp. 21—24; Dugdale, See also:Warwickshire, ii. 708—710; Segar, Honor See also:Civil and Military, pp. 69 seq. and Nicolas, Orders of Knighthood, vol. ii. (Order of the Bath) pp. 19 seq. ..It is given as " the order and manner of creating Knights of the Bath in time of peace according to the custom of England," and consequently See also:dates from a period when the full ceremony of creating knights bachelors generally had gone out of See also:fashion. But as Ashmole, speaking of Knights of the Bath, says, " if the ceremonies and circumstances of their creation be well considered, it will appear that this king [Henry IV.] did not See also:institute but rather restore the ancient manner of making knights, and consequently that the Knights of the Bath are in truth no other than knights bachelors, that is to say, such as are created with those ceremonies wherewith knights bachelors were formerly created," (Ashmole, Order of the Garter, p. 15). See also Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 678, and the Archeological See also:Journal, v. 258 seq." If you do anything contrary to the order of chivalry (which God forbid), I shall hack the spurs from your heels."3 The full solemnities for conferring knighthood seem to have been so largely and so early superseded by the practice of dubbing or giving the accolade alone that in England it became at last restricted to such knights as were made at coronations and some other occasions of state. And to them the particular name of Knights of the Bath was assigned, while knights made in the ordinary way were called in distinction from them knights of the sword, as they were also called knights bachelors in distinction from knights banneret.' It is usually supposed that the first creation of knights of the Bath under that designation was at the See also:coronation of Henry IV.; and before the order of the Bath as a companionship or capitular body was instituted the last creation of them was at the coronation of Charles II. But all knights were also knights of the spur or " equites aurati," because their spurs were golden or gilt,—the spurs of squires being of See also:silver or white See also:metal,—and these became their peculiar badge in popular estimation and proverbial speech. In the form of their solemn inauguration too, as we have noticed, the spurs together with the sword were always employed as the leading and most characteristic ensigns of knighthood.' With regard to knights banneret, various opinions have been entertained as to both the nature of their dignity and the qualifications they were required to possess for receiving it at different periods and in different countries. On the Continent the distinction which is commonly but incorrectly made between the nobility and the gentry has never arisen, and it was unknown here while chivalry existed and See also:heraldry was understood. Here, as elsewhere in the old time, a nobleman and a See also:gentleman meant the same thing, namely, a See also:man who under certain conditions of descent was entitled to armorial bearings. Hence Du Cange divides the medieval nobility of France and Spain into three classes: first, barons or ricos hombres; secondly, chevaliers or caballeros; and thirdly, ecuyers or infanzons; and to the first, who with their several special titles constituted the greater nobility of either country, he limits the designation of banneret and the right of leading their followers to war under a banner, otherwise a " drapeau quarre " or square See also:flag.° Selden shows especially from the See also:parliament rolls that the term banneret has been occasionally employed in England as equivalent to baron.' In Scotland, even as See also:late as the reign of James VI., lords of parliament were always created bannerets as well as barons at their investiture, " part of the ceremony consisting in the display of a banner, and such `barones majores' were thereby entitled to the See also:privilege of having one borne by a See also:retainer before them to the field of a See also:quadrilateral form." 8 In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents or baronets, and in England banneret was often corrupted to See also:baronet. " Even in a patent passed to Sir See also:Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called ` baronettus ' for ` bannerettus.' " 9 In this manner it is not improbable that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of James I. when the order of Baronets 3 As may be gathered from Selden, Favyn, La Colombiers, Menestrier and Sainte Palaye, there were several See also:differences of detail in the ceremony at different times and in different places. But in the main it was everywhere the same both in its military and its ecclesiastical elements, In the Pontificale Romanum, the old Ordo See also:Romanus and the See also:manual or Common See also:Prayer See also:Book in use in England before the See also:Reformation forms for the blessing or See also:consecration of new knights are included, and of these the first and the last are quoted by Selden. Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 678; Ashmole, Order of the Garter, p. 15; Favyn, See also:Theatre d'Honneur, ii. 1035. " If we sum up the principal ensigns of knighthood, ancient and modern, we shall find they have been or are a horse, See also:gold See also:ring, shield and lance, a See also:belt and sword, gilt spurs and a gold See also:chain or See also:collar." —Ashmole, Order of the Garter, pp. 12, 13. 8 On the banner see Grose, Military Antiquities, ii. 257; and Nicolas. British Orders of Knighthood, vol. i. p. See also:xxxvii. 7 Titles of Honor, pp. 356 and 6o8. See also Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 126 seq. and Stubbs, Const. Hist. iii. 440 seq. 8 Riddell's See also:Law and Practice in Scottish Peerages, p. 578; also Nisbet's System of Heraldry, ii. 49 and Selden's Titles of Honor, p. 702. 9 Selden, Titles of Honor, pp. 6o8 and 657. was originally created by him, for it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be designated by that or some other name.' But there is no doubt that as previously used it was merely a corrupt synonym for banneret, and not the name of any See also:separate dignity. On the Continent, however, there are several recorded examples of bannerets who had an hereditary claim to that honour and its attendant privileges on the ground of the nature of their feudal tenure? And generally, at any rate to commence with, it seems probable that bannerets were in every country merely the more important class of feudatories, the " ricos hombres " in contrast to the knights bachelors, who in France in the time of St Louis were known as " pauvres hommes." In England all the barons or greater nobility were entitled to bear banners, and therefore Du Cange's observations would apply to them as well as to the barons or greater nobility of France and Spain. But it is clear that from a comparatively early period bannerets whose claims were founded on personal distinction rather than on feudal tenure gradually came to the front, and much the same process of substitution appears to have gone on in their case as that which we have marked in the case of See also:simple knights. According to the Sallade and the See also:Division du Monde, as cited by Selden, bannerets were clearly in the beginning feudal tenants of a certain magnitude and importance and nothing more, and different forms for their creation are given in time of peace and in time of war.3 But in the French Gesta Romanorum the warlike form alone is given, and it is quoted by both Selden and Du Cange. From the latter a more modern version of it is given by Daniel as the only one generally in force. The knight bachelor whose services and landed possessions entitled him to promotion would apply formally to the See also:commander in the field for the title of banneret. If this were granted, the heralds were called to cut publicly the tails from his pennon: or the commander, as a special honour, might cut them off with his own hands.4 The earliest contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in the reign of See also: 452; Daniel, Milice Francoise, i. 86 (See also:Paris, 1721). ° Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 656 ; Grose, Military Antiquities, ii.2o6. s Froissart, Bk. I. ch. 241 and Bk. II. ch. 53. The recipients were Sir John See also:Chandos and Sir Thos. See also:Trivet. ' See also:Commonwealth of England (ed.1640), p. 48.baronets and the crown early in the 17th century respecting their See also:precedence, it was alleged without See also:contradiction in an See also:argument on behalf of the baronets before the privy See also:council that " there are not bannerets now in being, peradventure never shall be." 8 Sir Ralph Fane, Sir See also:Francis See also:Bryan and Sir Ralph See also:Sadler were created bannerets by the Lord See also:Protector See also:Somerset after the battle of Pinkie in 1547, and the better opinion is that this was the last occasion on which the dignity was conferred. It has been stated indeed that Charles I. created Sir John Smith a banneret after the battle of Edgehill in 1642 for having rescued the royal standard from the enemy. But of this there is no sufficient See also:proof. It was also supposed that George III. had created several See also:naval officers bannerets towards the end of the last century, because he knighted them on board See also:ship under the royal standard displayed. This, however, is unquestionably an See also:error.9 On the continent of Europe the degree of knight bachelor disappeared with the military system which had given rise to it. It is now therefore peculiar to the British Empire, Existing where, although very frequently conferred by letters orders oP patent, it is yet the only dignity which is still even Knighthood. occasionally created—as every dignity was formerly created—by means of a ceremony in which the sovereign and the subject personally take part. Everywhere else dubbing or the accolade seems to have become obsolete, and no other See also:species of knight-hood, if knighthood it can be called, is known except that which is dependent on admission to some particular order. It is a common error to suppose that baronets are hereditary knights. Baronets are not knights unless they are knighted like anybody else; and, so far from being knights because they are baronets, one of the privileges granted to them shortly after the institution of their dignity was that they, not being knights, and their successors and their eldest sons and heirs-apparent should, when they attained their See also:majority, be entitled if they desired to receive knighthood.10 It is a See also:maxim of the law indeed that, as See also:Coke says, " the knight is by creation and not by descent," and, although we hear of such designations as the " knight of See also:Kerry " or the " knight of Glin," they are no more than traditional nicknames, and do not by any means imply that the persons to whom they are applied are knights in a legitimate sense. Notwithstanding, however, that simple knighthood has gone out of use abroad, there are innumerable grand crosses, commanders and companions of a formidable assortment of orders in almost every part of the See also:world." (See the See also:section on " Orders of Knighthood " below.) The See also:United Kingdom has eight orders of knighthood—the Garter, the See also:Thistle, St See also:Patrick, the Bath, the See also:Star of See also:India, St Michael and St George, the See also:Indian Empire and the Royal Victorian Order; and, while the first is undoubtedly the See also:oldest as well as the most illustrious anywhere existing, a fictitious antiquity has been claimed and is even still frequently conceded 3 State Papers, Domestic Series, James the First, lxvii. 119. 9 " See also:Thursday, See also:June 24th: His See also:Majesty was pleased to confer the honour of knights banneret on the following flag officers and commanders under the royal standard, who kneeling kissed hands on the occasion: Admirals See also:Pye and Sprye; Captains Knight, Bickerton and See also:Vernon," Gentleman's See also:Magazine (1773) xliii. 299. Sir See also:Harris Nicolas remarks on these and the other cases (British Orders of Knighthood, vol. xliii.) and Sir William See also:Fitzherbert published anonymously a pamphlet on the subject, A See also:Short Inquiry into the Nature of the Titles conferred at See also:Portsmouth, &c., which is very scarce, but is to be found under the name of " Fitzherbert " in the See also:catalogue of the British Museum Library.
"9" Sir Henry See also:Ferrers, Baronet, was indicted by the name of Sir Henry Ferrers, Knight, for the murther of one See also: It is, however, certain that the " most noble " Order of the Garter at least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, order of when English chivalry was outwardly brightest and the aerie,. the court most magnificent. But in what particular
year this event occurred is and has been the subject of much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its See also:settlement not on See also:direct testimony but on inference from circumstances. The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 (given by Froissart, but almost certainly mistaken) to 1351. The evidence may be examined at length in Nicolas and Beltz; it is indisputable that in the See also:wardrobe See also:account from See also:September 1347 to See also:January 1349, the 21st and 23rd Edward III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the See also:motto embroidered on them is marked for St George's Day; that the letters patent relating to the preparation of the royal chapel of See also:Windsor are dated in See also:August 1348; and that in the See also:treasury accounts of the prince of Wales there is an entry in See also:November 1348 of the See also:gift by him of " twenty-four garters to the knights of the Society of the Garter."' But that the order, although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the autumn of 1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas proves pretty conclusively by pointing out that nobody who was not a knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that neither the prince of Wales nor several others of the original companions were knighted until the middle of that year.
Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as regarding the date of its See also:foundation. The " vulgar and more general See also:story," as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of See also:Salisbury's garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of Salisbury was the heroine of the See also:adventure, whether she was Katherine Montacute or See also:Joan the See also:Fair Maid of See also:Kent, while See also:Heylyn rejects the See also:legend as " a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of England, and by him taken upon no better ground than See also:fama vulgi, the tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a See also:building." 2
Another legend is that contained in the See also:preface to theRegister or See also:Black Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were employed against See also:Cyprus and See also:Acre, had been inspired through the instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of animating his fatigued soldiers by the See also:device of tying about the legs of a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the See also:emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by See also: 385• Heylyn, Cosmographie and History of the Whole World, bk. i. p. 286. 3 Beltz, Memorials, p. xlvi.France in 1346. And he further observes that " a great variety of devices and mottoes were used by Edward III.; they were chosen from the most trivial causes and were of an amorous rather than of a military character. Nothing," he adds, " is more likely than that in a crowded See also:assembly a lady should accidentally have dropped her garter; that the circumstance should have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that on its being taken up by Edward he should have reproved the levity of his courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation, placing the garter at the same time on his own knee, as ` Dishonoured be he who thinks See also:ill of it.' Such a circumstance occurring at a time of general festivity, when devices, mottoes and conceits of all kinds were adopted as ornaments or badges of the habits worn at jousts and tournaments, would naturally have been commemorated as other royal expressions seem to have been by its con-version into a device and motto for the dresses at an approaching hastilude."4 Moreover, Sir Harris Nicolas contends that the order had no loftier immediate origin than a joust or See also:tournament. It consisted of the king and the, Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into two bands of 12 like the titters In a hastilude—at the See also:head of the one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the sovereign's or the prince's side of St George's Chapel. That Sir Harris Nicolas is accurate in this conjecture seems probable from the selection which was made of the " founder knights." As Beltz observes, the fame of Sir Reginald See also:Cobham, Sir See also:Walter See also:Manny and the earls of See also:Northampton, See also:Hereford and See also:Suffolk was already established by their warlike exploits, and they would certainly have been among the original companions had the order been then regarded as the reward of military merit only. But, although these eminent warriors were subsequently elected as. vacancies occurred, their admission was postponed to that of several very young and in actual warfare comparatively unknown knights, whose claims to the honour may be most rationally explained on the assumption that they had excelled in the particular feats of arms which preceded the institution of the order. The original companionship had consisted of the sovereign and 25 knights, and no See also:change was made in this respect until 1786, when the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible notwithstanding that the See also:chapter might be complete. In 18o5 another alteration was effected by the See also:pro-See also:vision that the lineal descendants of George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of Wales for the time being, who was declared to be " a constituent part of the original institution "; and again in 1831 it was further ordained that the privilege accorded to the lineal descendants of George II. should extend to the lineal descendants of George I. Although, as Sir Harris Nicolas observes, nothing is now known of the form of admitting ladies into the order, the description applied to them in the records during the 14th and 15th centuries leaves no doubt that they were regularly received into it. The queen See also:consort, the wives and daughters of knights, and some other See also:women of exalted position, were designated " Dames de la Fraternite de St George," and entries of the delivery of robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe Accounts from the 5oth Edward III. (1376) to the loth of Henry VII. (1495), the first being See also:Isabel, countess of See also:Bedford, the daughter of the one king, and the last being See also:Margaret and Elizabeth, the daughters of the other king. The See also:effigies of Margaret See also:Byron, wife of Sir See also:Robert See also:Harcourt, K.G., at See also:Stanton Harcourt, and of Alice See also:Chaucer, wife of William de la See also:Pole, See also:duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms. (See further under " Orders of Knighthood " below.) It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer knighthood.5 But it may be questioned whether the privilege 4 Orders of Knighthood, vol. i. p. Ixxxiii. Memoires, i. 67, i. 22; History of Chivalry; See also:Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vii. 200. 15 was thus indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days says that only three were on record in the See also:College of Arms when he wrote in 1793. The last case was that of Sir Francis See also:Michell in 1621, whose spurs were hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his head by the heralds in See also:Westminster See also:Halle Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the See also:Wars of the See also:Roses. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys, in which her father had so much excelled, were patronized to the last by Queen Elizabeth, and were even occasionally held until after the See also:death of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were discredited by the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1559. The golden age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it two or three generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romances present a more favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in which the unselfish championship of " God and the ladies " was anything but a rare exception. It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral See also:influence of knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the limitations of medieval society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts of the knightly code were a See also:legacy from earlier ages, and have survived the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed, the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their highest development in the middle ages.' As a conscious effort to bring religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later See also:puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the See also:average medieval knight in discipline, self-See also:control and outward or inward refinement. Freeman's estimate comes far nearer to the historical facts than See also:Burke's: " The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any See also:decree of scorn and See also:cruelty. The spirit of chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the ordinary See also:laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only encourages the love of war for its own See also:sake without regard to the cause for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the See also:objects of the See also:siege or See also:campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for the more homely duties of an honest man and a good See also:citizen " (Norman Conquest, v. 482). The chivalry from which Burke See also:drew his ideas was, so far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest See also:civilization of ancient See also:Greece and Rome, on slave labour;9 and if many of its 8 Dallaway's Heraldry, p. 303. 9 Even in 13th century England more than See also:half the See also:population were See also:serfs, and as such had no claim to the privileges of Magna Carta; disputes between a serf and his lord were decided in the latter's court, although the king's courts attempted to protect the serf's life and See also:limb and necessary implements of See also:work. By French feudal law, the villein had no See also:appeal from his lord save to God (See also:Pierre de Fontaines, Conseil, ch. xxi. See also:art. 8) ; and, though common sense and natural good feeling set See also:bounds in most cases to the tyranny of the nobles, yet there was scarcely any injustice too See also:gross to be possible. " How mad are they who exult when sons are See also:born to their lords ! " wrote See also:Cardinal Jacques de Vitry early in the 13th century (Exempla, p. 64, Folk See also:Lore Soc. 1890).
of chivalry. It is true that as much might be inferred from Persons the testimony of the romance writers; historical empowered evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition, and to confer the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris
Knighthood.
Nicolas says, that the right was always restricted in operation to sovereign princes, to those acting under their authority or See also:sanction, and to a few other personages of exalted rank and station.' In several of the writs for distraint of knight-hood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make knights in the 11th and 12th centuries? At all periods the commanders of the royal armies had the See also:power of conferring knighthood; as late as the reign of Elizabeth it was exercised among others by Sir Henry See also:Sidney in 1583, and Robert, earl of See also:Essex, in 1595, while under James I. an See also:ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a See also:proclamation of 1623, for the See also:registration of knights in the college of arms, is rendered applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or any of his lieutenants? Many sovereigns, too, both of England and of France, have been knighted after their See also:accession to the See also:throne by their own subjects, as, for instance, Edward III. by Henry, earl of See also:Lancaster, Edward VI. by the lord protector Somerset, Louis XI. by Philip, duke of Burgundy, and Francis I. by the Chevalier See also:Bayard. But when in 1543 Henry VIII. appointed Sir John See also:Wallop to be See also:captain of Guisnes, it was considered necessary that he should be authorized in See also:express terms to confer knighthood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset.* But at present the only subject to whom the right of conferring knighthood belongs is the lord-See also:lieutenant of See also:Ireland, and to him it belongs merely by long usage and established custom. But, by whomsoever conferred, knight-hood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized. In the middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub each other knights much as they were after-wards, and are now, in the See also:habit of exchanging the stars and See also:ribbons of their orders. Henry II. was knighted by his great-See also:uncle See also:David I. of Scotland, See also: In modern times, how-ever, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the sovereign's permission by royal See also:warrant shall be necessary for the reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but further that such permission shall not authorize " the assumption of any See also:style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a knight bachelor of the United Kingdom."s Since knighthood was accorded either by actual investiture or its equivalent, a See also:counter process of degradation was regarded Degrade- as necessary for the purpose of depriving anybody See also:lion. who had once received it of the rank and condition it implied.' The cases in which a knight has been formally degraded in England are exceedingly few, so few indeed that. two only are mentioned by Segar, writing in 1602, and Dallaway Orders of Knighthood, vol. i. p. xi. 2 Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 638. Harleian MS. 6063; Hargrave MS. 325. Patent Rolls, 35th See also:Hen. VIII., pt. xvi., No. 24; See also:Burnet, Hist. of Reformation, i. 15. 5 See also:Spelman, " De milite dissertatio," See also:Posthumous See also:Works, p. 181. 8 London See also:Gazette, See also:December 6, 1823, and May 15, 1855. On the Continent very elaborate ceremonies, partly heraldic and partly religious, were observed in the degradation of a knight, which are described by Sainte Palaye, Memoires, i. 316 seq., and after him by Mills, History of Chivalry, i. 6o seq. Cf. Titles of Honor, p. 653. most brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers. The knightly ages will always enjoy the See also:glory of having formulated a code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of their exceptional privileges; yet we must See also:judge chivalry not only by its formal code but also by its See also:practical fruits. The ideal is well summed up by F. W. Cornish: " Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble service willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the service of the Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good faith, unselfishness and See also:courtesy, and above all, courtesy to women. Against these may be set the vices of See also:pride, ostentation, love of bloodshed, contempt of inferiors, and loose manners. Chivalry was an imperfect discipline, but it was a discipline, and one See also:fit for the times. It may have existed in the world too long: it did not come into existence too early; and with all its shortcomings it exercised a great and wholesome influence in raising the medieval world from barbarism to civilization" (p. 27). This was the ideal, but to give the reader a clear view of the actual features of knightly society in their contrast with that of our own day, it is necessary to bring out one or two very significant shadows. Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and the reverence paid to the Virgin See also:Mary, raised the position of women (e.g. Gautier, p. 36o). As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her See also:fief: instead of the freedom of Christian See also:marriage on which the Church in theory insisted, lands and women were handed over together, as a business bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like See also:stocks and shares in the modern See also:market. Lord Thomas de See also:Berkeley (1245–1321) counted on this as a regular and considerable source of income (Smyth, Lives, i. 157). Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater See also:liberty of that age, we find See also:Stephen See also:Scrope writing nakedly to a See also:familiar correspondent "for very need [of poverty], I was See also:fain to sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility," i.e. than the fair market See also:price (See also:Gairdner, Paston Letters, Introduction, p. clxxvi; cf. ccclxxi). Startling as such words are, it is perhaps still more startling to find how frequently and naturally, in the highest society, ladies were degraded by personal violence. The proofs of this which See also:Schultz and Gautier adduce from the Chansons de Geste might be multiplied indefinitely. The Knight of La Tour-Landry (1372) relates, by way of warning to his daughters, a See also:tale of a lady who so irritated her See also:husband by scolding him in See also:company, that he struck her to the earth with his fist and kicked her in the See also:face, breaking her See also:nose. Upon this the good knight moralizes: "And this she had for her euelle and gret langage, that she was wont to saie to her husbonde. And therfor the will aught to suffre and lete her husbonde haue the wordes, and to be 'mister, for that is her worshippe; for it is shame to here striff betwene hem, and in especial before folke. But y saie not but whanne thei be allone, but she may tolle hym with goodly wordes, and counsaile hym to amende yef he do amys " (La Tour, See also:chap. xviii.; cf. xvii. and xix.). The right of wife-beating was formally recognized by more than one code of laws, and it was already a forward step when, in the 13th century, the Coutumes du Beauvoisis provided " que le See also:marl ne doit battre sa femme que raisonnablement " (Gautier, p. 349). This was a natural consequence not only of the want of self-control which we see everywhere in the middle ages, but also of the custom of contracting child-marriages for unsentimental considerations. Between 1288 and 1500 five marriages are recorded in the direct See also:line of the Berkeley See also:family in which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years of age: the marriage contract of another Lord Berkeley was drawn up before he was six years old. Moreover, the same business considerations which dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory ofknighthood. In the same Berkeley family, the lord See also:Maurice IV. was knighted in 1338 at the age of seven to avoid the possible evils of wardship, and Thomas V. for the same See also:reason in 1476 at the age of five. Smyth's record of this great family shows that, from the middle of the 13th century onwards, the lords were not only statesmen and warriors, but still more distinguished as gentlemen-farmers on a great scale, even selling See also:fruit from the castle gardens, while their ladies would go round on See also:tours of inspection from See also:dairy to dairy. The lord Thomas III. (1326–1361), who was noted as a special See also:lover of tournaments, spent in two years only £90, or an average of about £15 per tournament; yet he was then laying money by at the rate of £45o a year, and, a few years later, at the rate of £115o, or nearly half his income ! Indeed, economic causes contributed much to the decay of romantic chivalry. The old families had lost heavily from See also:generation to generation, partly by personal extravagances, but also by See also:gradual alienations of land to the Church and by the enormous expenses of the crusades. Already, in the 13th century, they were hard pressed by the growing See also:wealth of the burghers, and even the greatest nobles could scarcely keep up their state without careful business management. It is not surprising therefore, to find that' at least as early as the middle of the 13th century the commercial side of knighthood became very prominent. Although by the code of chivalry no candidate could be knighted before the age of twenty-one, we have seen how great nobles like the Berkeleys obtained that honour for their See also:infant heirs in order to avoid possible pecuniary loss; and French writers of the 14th century complained of this knighting of infants as a common and serious abuse.' Moreover, after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been modified in the 12th century by the See also:scutage system, it became necessary in the first See also:quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour—a compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (Distraint of Knighthood, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An indirect effect of this system 2 was to break down another rule of the chivalrous code—that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle birth.' This rule, however, had often been broken before; even the romances of chivalry speak not infrequently of the knighting of serfs or jongleurs; 4 and other causes besides distraint of knighthood tended to level the old distinctions. While knighthood was avoided by poor nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens. It is recorded in 1298 as " an immemorial custom " in See also:Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of knighthood; and less than a century later we find See also:Sacchetti complaining that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his antecedents.' Similar causes contributed to the decay of knightly ideas in warfare. Even in the 12th century, when war was still rather the pastime of kings and knights than ' Sainte Palaye, ii. 90. 2 Medley, English Constitutional History (2nd ed., pp. 291, 466), suggests that Edward might have deliberately calculated this degradation of the older feudal ideal. 3 Being made to " ride the barriers " was the See also:penalty for anybody who attempted to take part in a tournament without the qualification of name and arms. Guillim (Display of Heraldry, p. 66) and Nisbet (System of Heraldry, ii. 147) speak of this subject as concerning England and Scotland. See also Ashmole's Order of the Garter, p. 284. But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great extent independently of these considerations. At almost every period there have been men of obscure and illegitimate birth who have been knighted. Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman ; " for, when a king gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is requisite for the completing of that which he bestows." By the common law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were knighted both his minority and wardship terminated. (Order of the Garter, p. 43; Nicolas, British Orders of Knight-hood, i. 5.) ' Gautier, pp. 21, 249. ' Du Cange, s.v. miles (ed. See also:Didot, t. iv. p. 402); Sacchetti, Novella, cliii. All the medieval orders of knighthood, however, insisted in their statutes on the noble birth of the candidate. a See also:national effort, the strict code of chivalry was more honoured in the See also:breach than in the observance.' But when the Hundred Years' War brought a real national conflict between England and France, when See also:archery became of supreme importance, and a large proportion even of the cavalry were See also:mercenary soldiers, then the exigencies of serious warfare swept away much of that outward display and those class-conventions on which chivalry had always rested. See also:Simeon Luce (chap. vi.) has shown how much the English successes in this war were due to strict business methods. Several of the best commanders (e.g. Sir Robert See also:Knolles and Sir Thomas Dagworth) were of obscure birth, while on the French side even Du Guesclin had to wait long for his knighthood because he belonged only to the lesser nobility. The tournament again, which for two centuries had been under the See also:ban of the Church, was often almost as definitely discouraged by Edward III. as it was encouraged by John of France; and while John's father opened the Crecy campaign by sending Edward a See also:challenge in due form of chivalry,. Edward took See also:advantage of this formal delay to amuse the French king with negotiations while he withdrew his army by a rapid march from an almost hopeless position. A couple of quotations from Froissart will illustrate the extent to which war had now become a mere business. Much as he admired the French chivalry, he recognized their See also:impotence at Crecy. " The See also:sharp. arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and many See also:fell, horse and men. . . . And also among the Englishmen there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they See also:lay on the ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken prisoners." How far Edward's solicitude was disinterested may be gauged from Froissart's parallel remark about the battle of Aljubarrota, where, as at See also:Agincourt, the handful of victors were obliged by a sudden panic to slay their prisoners. " Lo, behold the great evil adventure that fell that Saturday. For they slew as many good prisoners as would well have been worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks." In 1402 Lord Thomas de Berkeley bought, as a See also:speculation, 24 Scottish prisoners. Similar practical considerations forced the nobles of other European countries either to conform to less sentimental methods of warfare and to growing conceptions of nationality, or to become mere Ishmaels of the type which outlived the middle ages in Gotz von See also:Berlichingen and his compeers. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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