GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF CHIVALRY
TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY
LÉON GAUTIER
Writers on the history of chivalry are unable to refer its origin to any definite time or place; and even specific definition of chivalry is seldom attempted by careful students. They rather give us, as does Gautier in the picturesque account which follows, some recognized starting-point, and for definition content themselves with characterization of the spirit and aims of chivalry, analysis of its methods, and the story of its rise and fall.
Chivalry was not an official institution that came into existence by the decree of a sovereign. Although religious in its original elements and impulses, there was nothing in its origin to remind us of the foundation of a religious order. It would be useless to search for the place of its birth or for the name of its founder. It was born everywhere at once, and has been everywhere at the same time the natural effect of the same aspirations and the same needs. "There was a moment when people everywhere felt the necessity of tempering the ardor of old German blood, and of giving to their ill-regulated passions an ideal. Hence chivalry!"
Yet chivalry arose from a German custom which was idealized by the Christian church; and chivalry was more an ideal than an institution. It was "the Christian form of the military profession; the knight was the Christian soldier." True, the profession and mission of the church meant the spread of peace and the hatred of war, she holding with her Master that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword." Her thought was formulated by St. Augustine: "He who can think of war and can support it without great sorrow is truly dead to human feelings." "It is necessary," he says, "to submit to war, but to wish for peace." The church did, however, look upon war as a divine means of punishment and of expiation, for individuals and nations. And the eloquent Bossuet showed the church's view of war as the terrestrial preparation for the Kingdom of God, and described how empires fall upon one another to form a foundation whereon to build the church. In the light of such interpretations the church availed herself of the militant auxiliary known as chivalry.
Along with the religious impulse that animated it, chivalry bore, throughout its purer course, the character of knightliness which it received from Teutonic sources. How the fine sentiments and ennobling customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the study of its development; and this gentler side, no less than its sterner aspects, is faithfully presented in the brilliant examination of Gautier. And the heroic sentiment and action which inspired and accomplished the sacred warfare of the Crusades are not less admirably depicted in these pages; while in his summary of the decline of chivalry Gautier has perhaps never been surpassed for penetrating insight and lucid exposition.
There is a sentence of Tacitus—the celebrated passage in the Germania—that refers to a German rite in which we really find all the military elements of the future chivalry. The scene took place beneath the shade of an old forest. The barbarous tribe is assembled, and one feels that a solemn ceremony is in preparation. Into the midst of the assembly advances a very young man, whom you can picture to yourself with sea-green eyes, long fair hair, and perhaps some tattooing. A chief of the tribe is present, who without delay places gravely in the hands of the young man a framea and a buckler. Failing a sovereign ruler, it is the father of the youth, or some relative, who undertakes this delivery of weapons. "Such is the 'virile robe' of these people," as Tacitus well puts it; "such is the first honor of their youth. Till then the young man was only one in a family; he becomes by this rite a member of the Republic. Ante hoc domus pars videtur: mox rei publicae. This sword and buckler he will never abandon, for the Germans in all their acts, whether public or private, are always armed. So, the ceremony finished, the assembly separates, and the tribe reckons a miles—a warrior—the more. That is all!"
The solemn handing of arms to the young German—such is the first germ of chivalry which Christianity was one day to animate into life. "Vestigium vetus creandi equites seu milites." It is with reason that Sainte-Palaye comments in the very same way upon the text of the Germania, and that a scholar of our own days exclaims with more than scientific exactness, "The true origin of miles is this bestowal of arms which among the Germans marks the entry into civil life."
No other origin will support the scrutiny of the critic, and he will not find anyone now to support the theory of Roman origin with Sainte-Marie, or that of the Arabian origin with Beaumont. There only remains to explain in this place the term knight (chevalier), but it is well known to be derived from caballus, which primarily signifies a beast of burden, a pack-horse, and has ended by signifying a war-horse. The knight, also, has always preserved the name of miles in the Latin tongue of the Middle Ages, in which chivalry is always called militia. Nothing can be clearer than this.
We do not intend to go further, however, without replying to two objections, which are not without weight, and which we do not wish to leave behind us unanswered.
In a certain number of Latin books of the Middle Ages we find, to describe chivalry, an expression which the "Romanists" oppose triumphantly to us, and of which the Romish origin cannot seriously be doubted. When it is intended to signify that a knight has been created, it is stated that the individual has been girt with the cingulum militare. Here we find ourselves in full Roman parlance, and the word signified certain terms which described admission into military service, the release from this service, and the degradation of the legionary. When St. Martin left the militia, his action was qualified as solutio cinguli, and at all those who act like him the insulting expression militaribus zonis discincti is cast. The girdle which sustains the sword of the Roman officer—cingulum zona, or rather cinctorium—as also the baldric, from balteus, passed over the shoulder and was intended to support the weapon of the common soldier. "You perceive quite well," say our adversaries, "that we have to do with a Roman costume." Two very simple observations will, perhaps, suffice to get to the bottom of such a specious argument: The first is that the Germans in early times wore, in imitation of the Romans, "a wide belt ornamented with bosses of metal," a baldric, by which their swords were suspended on the left side; and the second is that the chroniclers of old days, who wrote in Latin and affected the classic style, very naturally adopted the word cingulum in all its acceptations, and made use of this Latin paraphrasis—cingulo militari decorare—to express this solemn adoption of the sword. This evidently German custom was always one of the principal rites of the collation of chivalry. There is then nothing more in it than a somewhat vague reminiscence of a Roman custom with a very natural conjunction of terms which has always been the habit of a literary people.
To sum up, the word is Roman, but the thing itself is German. Between the militia of the Romans and the chivalry of the Middle Ages there is really nothing in common but the military profession considered generally. The official admittance of the Roman soldier to an army hierarchically organized in no way resembled the admission of a new knight into a sort of military college and the "pink of society." As we read further the singularly primitive and barbarous ritual of the service of knightly reception in the twelfth century, one is persuaded that the words exhale a German odor, and have nothing Roman about them. But there is another argument, and one which would appear decisive. The Roman legionary could not, as a rule, withdraw from the service; he could not avoid the baldric. The youthful knight of the Middle Ages, on the contrary, was always free to arm himself or not as he pleased, just as other cavaliers are at liberty to leave or join their ranks. The principal characteristic of the knightly service, and one which separates it most decidedly from the Roman militia, was its freedom of action.
One very specious objection is made as regards feudalism, which some clear-minded people obstinately confound with chivalry. This was the favorite theory of Montalembert. Now there are two kinds of feudalism, which the old feudalists put down very clearly in two words now out of date—"fiefs of dignity" and "fiefs simple." About the middle of the ninth century, the dukes and counts made themselves independent of the central power, and declared that people owed the same allegiance to them as they did to the emperor or the king. Such were the acts of the "fiefs of dignity," and we may at once allow that they had nothing in common with chivalry. The "fiefs simple," then, remained.
In the Merovingian period we find a certain number of small proprietors, called vassi, commending themselves to other men more powerful and more rich, who were called seniores. To his senior who made him a present of land the vassus owed assistance and fidelity. It is true that as early as the reign of Charlemagne he followed him to war, but it must be noted that it was to the emperor, to the central power, that he actually rendered military service. There was nothing very particular in this, but the time was approaching when things would be altered. Toward the middle of the ninth century we find a large number of men falling "on their knees" before other men! What are they about? They are "recommending" themselves, but, in plainer terms, "Protect us and we will be your men." And they added: "It is to you and to you only that we intend in future to render military service; but in exchange you must protect the land we possess—defend what you will in time concede to us; and defend us ourselves." These people on their knees were "vassals" at the feet of their "lords"; and the fief was generally only a grant of land conceded in exchange for military service.
Feudalism of this nature has nothing in common with chivalry.
If we consider chivalry in fact as a kind of privileged body into which men were received on certain conditions and with a certain ritual, it is important to observe that every vassal is not necessarily a cavalier. There were vassals who, with the object of averting the cost of initiation or for other reasons, remained damoiseaux, or pages, all their lives. The majority, of course, did nothing of the kind; but all could do so, and a great many did.
On the other hand we see conferred the dignity of chivalry upon insignificant people who had never held fiefs, who owed to no one any fealty, and to whom no one owed any.
We cannot repeat too often that it was not the cavalier (or knight), it was the vassal who owed military service, or ost, to the seigneur, or lord; and the service in curte or court: it was the vassal, not the knight, who owed to the "lord" relief, "aid," homage.
The feudal system soon became hereditary. Chivalry, on the contrary, has never been hereditary, and a special rite has always been necessary to create a knight. In default of all other arguments this would be sufficient.
But if, instead of regarding chivalry as an institution, we consider it as an ideal, the doubt is not really more admissible. It is here that, in the eyes of a philosophic historian, chivalry is clearly distinct from feudalism. If the western world in the ninth century had not been feudalized, chivalry would nevertheless have come into existence; and, notwithstanding everything, it would have come to light in Christendom; for chivalry is nothing more than the Christianized form of military service, the armed force in the service of the unarmed Truth; and it was inevitable that at some time or other it must have sprung, living and fully armed, from the brain of the church, as Minerva did from the brain of Jupiter.
Feudalism, on the contrary, is not of Christian origin at all. It is a particular form of government, and of society, which has scarcely been less rigorous for the church than other forms of society and government. Feudalism has disputed with the church over and over again, while chivalry has protected her a hundred times. Feudalism is force—chivalry is the brake.
Let us look at Godfrey de Bouillon. The fact that he owed homage to any suzerain, the fact that he exacted service from such and such vassals, are questions which concern feudal rights, and have nothing to do with chivalry. But if I contemplate him in battle beneath the walls of Jerusalem; if I am a spectator of his entry into the Holy City; if I see him ardent, brave, powerful and pure, valiant and gentle, humble and proud, refusing to wear the golden crown in the Holy City where Jesus wore the crown of thorns, I am not then anxious—I am not curious—to learn from whom he holds his fief, or to know the names of his vassals; and I exclaim, "There is the knight!" And how many knights, what chivalrous virtues, have existed in the Christian world since feudalism has ceased to exist!
The adoption of arms in the German fashion remains the true origin of chivalry; and the Franks have handed down this custom to us—a custom perpetuated to a comparatively modern period. This simple, almost rude rite so decidedly marked the line of civil life in the code of manners of people of German origin, that under the Carlovingians we still find numerous traces of it. In 791 Louis, eldest son of Charlemagne, was only thirteen years old, and yet he had worn the crown of Aquitaine for three years upon his "baby brow." The king of the Franks felt that it was time to bestow upon this child the military consecration which would more quickly assure him of the respect of his people. He summoned him to Ingelheim, then to Ratisbon, and solemnly girded him with the sword which "makes men." He did not trouble himself about the framea or the buckler—the sword occupied the first place. It will retain it for a long time.
In 838 at Kiersy we have a similar scene. This time it is old Louis who, full of sadness and nigh to death, bestows upon his son Charles, whom he loved so well, the "virile arms"—that is to say, the sword. Then immediately afterward he put upon his brow the crown of "Neustria." Charles was fifteen years old.
These examples are not numerous, but their importance is decisive, and they carry us to the time when the church came to intervene positively in the education of the German miles. The time was rough, and it is not easy to picture a more distracted period than that in the ninth and tenth centuries. The great idea of the Roman Empire no longer, in the minds of the people, coincided with the idea of the Frankish kingdom, but rather inclined, so to speak, to the side of Germany, where it tended to fix itself. Countries were on the way to be formed, and people were asking to which country they could best belong. Independent kingdoms were founded which had no precedents and were not destined to have a long life. The Saracens were for the last time harassing the southern French coasts, but it was not so with the Norman pirates, for they did not cease for a single year to ravage the littoral which is now represented by the Picardy and Normandy coasts, until the day it became necessary to cede the greater part of it to them. People were fighting everywhere more or less—family against family—man to man. No road was safe, the churches were burned, there was universal terror, and everyone sought protection. The king had no longer strength to resist anyone, and the counts made themselves kings. The sun of the realm was set, and one had to look at the stars for light. As soon as the people perceived a strong man-at-arms, resolute, defiant, well established in his wooden keep, well fortified within the lines of his hedge, behind his palisade of dead branches, or within his barriers of planks; well posted on his hill, against his rock, or on his hillock, and dominating all the surrounding country—as soon as they saw this each said to him, "I am your man"; and all these weak ones grouped themselves around the strong one, who next day proceeded to wage war with his neighbors. Thence supervened a terrible series of private wars. Everyone was fighting or thinking of fighting.
In addition to this, the still green memory of the grand figure of Charlemagne and the old empire, and I can't tell what imperial splendors, were still felt in the air of great cities; all hearts throbbed at the mere thought of the Saracens and the Holy Sepulchre; the crusade gathered strength of preparation far in advance, in the rage and indignation of all the Christian race; all eyes were turned toward Jerusalem, and in the midst of so many disbandments and so much darkness, the unity of the church survived fallen majesty!
It was then, it was in that horrible hour—the decisive epoch in our history—that the church undertook the education of the Christian soldier; and it was at that time, by a resolute step, she found the feudal baron in his rude wooden citadel, and proposed to him an ideal. This ideal was chivalry!
That chivalry may be considered a great military confraternity as well as an eighth sacrament, will be conceded. But, before familiarizing themselves with these ideals, the rough spirits of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries had to learn the principles of them. The chivalrous ideal was not conceived "all of a piece," and certainly it did not triumph without sustained effort; so it was by degrees, and very slowly, that the church succeeded in inoculating the almost animal intelligence and the untrained minds of our ancestors with so many virtues.
In the hands of the church, which wished to mould him into a Christian knight, the feudal baron was a very intractable individual. No one could be more brutal or more barbarous than he. Our more ancient ballads—those which are founded on the traditions of the ninth and tenth centuries—supply us with a portrait which does not appear exaggerated. I know nothing in this sense more terrible than Raoul de Cambrai, and the hero of this old poem would pass for a type of a half-civilized savage. This Raoul was a kind of Sioux or other redskin, who only wanted tattoo and feathers in his hair to be complete. Even a redskin is a believer, or superstitious to some extent, while Raoul defied the Deity himself. The savage respects his mother, as a rule; but Raoul laughed at his mother, who cursed him. Behold him as he invaded the Vermandois, contrary to all the rights of legitimate heirs. He pillaged, burned, and slew in all directions: he was everywhere pitiless, cruel, horrible. But at Origni he appears in all his ferocity. "You will erect my tent in the church, you will make my bed before the altar, and put my hawks on the golden crucifix." Now that church belonged to a convent. What did that signify to him? He burned the convent, he burned the church, he burned the nuns! Among them was the mother of his most faithful servitor, Bernier—his most devoted companion and friend—almost his brother! but he burned her with the others. Then, when the flames were still burning, he sat himself down, on a fast-day, to feast amid the scenes of his sanguinary exploits—defying God and man, his hands steeped in blood, his face lifted to heaven. That was the kind of soldier, the savage of the tenth century, whom the church had to educate!
Unfortunately this Raoul de Cambrai is not a unique specimen; he was not the only one who had uttered this ferocious speech: "I shall not be happy until I see your heart cut out of your body." Aubri de Bourguignon was not less cruel, and took no trouble to curb his passions. Had he the right to massacre? He knew nothing about that, but meanwhile he continued to kill. "Bah!" he would say, "it is always an enemy the less." On one occasion he slew his four cousins. He was as sensual as cruel. His thick-skinned savagery did not appear to feel either shame or remorse; he was strong and had a weighty hand—that was sufficient. Ogier was scarcely any better, but notwithstanding all the glory attaching to his name, I know nothing more saddening than the final episode of the rude poem attributed to Raimbert of Paris. The son of Ogier, Baudouinet, had been slain by the son of Charlemagne, who called himself Charlot. Ogier did nothing but breathe vengeance, and would not agree to assist Christendom against the Saracen invaders unless the unfortunate Charlot was delivered to him. He wanted to kill him, he determined to kill him, and he rejoiced over it in anticipation. In vain did Charlot humble himself before this brute, and endeavor to pacify him by the sincerity of his repentance; in vain the old Emperor himself prayed most earnestly to God; in vain the venerable Naimes, the Nestor of our ballads, offered to serve Ogier all the rest of his life, and begged the Dane "not to forget the Saviour, who was born of the Virgin at Bethlehem." All their devotion and prayers were unavailing. Ogier, pitiless, placed one of his heavy hands on the youthful head, and with the other drew his sword, his terrible sword "Courtain." Nothing less than the intervention of an angel from heaven could have put an end to this terrible scene in which all the savagery of the German forests was displayed.
The majority of these early heroes had no other shibboleth than "I am going to separate the head from the trunk!" It was their war-cry. But if you desire something more frightful still, something more "primitive," you have only to open the Loherains at hazard, and read a few stanzas of that raging ballad of "derring-do," and you will almost fancy you are perusing one of those pages in which Livingstone describes in such indignant terms the manners of some tribe in Central Africa. Read this: "Begue struck Isore upon his black helmet through the golden circlet, cutting him to the chine; then he plunged into his body his sword Flamberge with the golden hilt; took the heart out with both hands, and threw it, still warm, at the head of William, saying, 'There is your cousin's heart; you can salt and roast it.'" Here words fail us; it would be too tame to say with Goedecke, "These heroes act like the forces of nature, in the manner of the hurricane which knows no pity." We must use more indignant terms than these, for we are truly amid cannibals. Once again we say, there was the warrior, there was the savage whom the church had to elevate and educate!
Such is the point of departure of this wonderful progress; such are the refractory elements out of which chivalry and the knight have been fashioned.
The point of departure is Raoul of Cambrai burning Origni. The point of arrival is Girard of Roussillon falling one day at the feet of an old priest and expiating his former pride by twenty-two years of penitence. These two episodes embrace many centuries between them.
A very interesting study might be made of the gradual transformation from the redskin to the knight; it might be shown how, and at what period of history, each of the virtues of chivalry penetrated victoriously into the undisciplined souls of these brutal warriors who were our ancestors; it might be determined at what moment the church became strong enough to impose upon our knights the great duties of defending it and of loving one another.
This victory was attained in a certain number of cases undoubtedly toward the end of the eleventh century: and the knight appears to us perfected, finished, radiant, in the most ancient edition of the Chanson of Roland, which is considered to have been produced between 1066 and 1095.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that chivalry was no longer in course of establishment when Pope Urban II threw with a powerful hand the whole of the Christian West upon the East, where the Tomb of Christ was in possession of the Infidel.
In legendary lore the embodiment of chivalry is Roland: in history it is Godfrey de Bouillon. There are no more worthy names than these.
The decadence of chivalry—and when one is speaking of human institutions, sooner or later this word must be used—perhaps set in sooner than historians can believe. We need not attach too much importance to the grumblings of certain poets, who complain of their time with an evidently exaggerated bitterness, and we do not care for our own part to take literally the testimony of the unknown author of La Vie de Saint Alexis, who exclaims—about the middle of the eleventh century—that everything is degenerate and all is lost! Thus: "In olden times the world was good. Justice and love were springs of action in it. People then had faith, which has disappeared from amongst us. The world is entirely changed. The world has lost its healthy color. It is pale—it has grown old. It is growing worse, and will soon cease altogether."
The poet exaggerates in a very singular manner the evil which he perceives around him, and one might aver that, far from bordering upon old age, chivalry was then almost in the very zenith of its glory. The twelfth century was its apogee, and it was not until the thirteenth that it manifested the first symptoms of decay.
"Li maus est moult want" exclaims the author of Godfrey de Bouillon, and he adds, sadly, "Tos li biens est finés."
He was more correct in speaking thus than was the author of Saint Alexis in his complainings, for the decadence of chivalry actually commenced in his time. And it is not unreasonable to inquire into the causes of its decay.
The Romance of the Round Table, which in the opinion of prepossessed or thoughtless critics appears so profoundly chivalrous, may be considered one of the works which hastened the downfall of chivalry. We are aware that by this seeming paradox we shall probably scandalize some of our readers, who look upon these adventurous cavaliers as veritable knights. What does it matter? Avienne que puet. The heroes of our chansons de geste are really the authorized representatives and types of the society of their time, and not those fine adventure-seeking individuals who have been so brilliantly sketched by the pencil of Crétien de Troyes.
It is true, however, that this charming and delicate spirit did not give, in his works, an accurate idea of his century and generation. We do not say that he embellished all he touched, but only that he enlivened it. Notwithstanding all that one could say about it, this school introduced the old Gaelic spirit into a poetry which had been till then chiefly Christian or German. Our epic poems are of German origin, and the Table Round is of Celtic origin. Sensual and light, witty and delicate, descriptive and charming, these pleasing romances are never masculine, and become too often effeminate and effeminating. They sing always, or nearly so, the same theme. By lovely pasturages clothed with beautiful flowers, the air full of birds, a young knight proceeds in search of the unknown, and through a series of adventures whose only fault is that they resemble one another somewhat too closely.
We find insolent defiances, magnificent duels, enchanted castles, tender love-scenes, mysterious talismans. The marvellous mingles with the supernatural, magicians with saints, fairies with angels. The whole is written in a style essentially French, and it must be confessed in clear, polished, and chastened language—perfect!
But we must not forget, as we said just now, that this poetry, so greatly attractive, began as early as the twelfth century to be the mode universally; and let us not forget that it was at the same period that the Percevalde Gallois and Aliscans, Cleomadès, and the Couronnement Looys were written. The two schools have coexisted for many centuries: both camps have enjoyed the favor of the public. But in such a struggle it was all too easy to decide to which of them the victory would eventually incline. The ladies decided it, and no doubt the greater number of them wept over the perusal of Erec or Enid more than over that of the Covenant Vivien or Raoul de Cambrai.
When the grand century of the Middle Ages had closed, when the blatant thirteenth century commenced, the sentimental had already gained the advantage over our old classic chansons; and the new school, the romantic set of the Table Round, triumphed! Unfortunately, they also triumphed in their manners; and they were the knights of the Round Table who, with the Valois, seated themselves upon the throne of France.
In this way temerity replaced true courage; so good, polite manners replaced heroic rudeness; so foolish generosity replaced the charitable austerity of the early chivalry. It was the love of the unforeseen even in the military art; the rage for adventure—even in politics. We know whither this strategy and these theatrical politics led us, and that Joan of Arc and Providence were required to drag us out of the consequences.
The other causes of the decadence of the spirit of chivalry are more difficult to determine. There is one of them which has not, perhaps, been sufficiently brought to light, and this is—will it be believed?—the exdevelopment of certain orders of chivalry! This statement requires some explanation.
We must confess that we are enthusiastic, passionate admirers of these grand military orders which were formed at the commencement of the twelfth century. There have never been their like in the world, and it was only given to Christianity to display to us such a spectacle. To give to one single soul the double ideal of the soldier and the monk, to impose upon him this double charge, to fix in one these two conditions and in one only these two duties, to cause to spring from the earth I cannot tell how many thousands of men who voluntarily accepted this burden, and who were not crushed by it—that is a problem which one might have been pardoned for thinking insoluble. We have not sufficiently considered it. We have not pictured to ourselves with sufficient vividness the Templars and the Hospitallers in the midst of one of those great battles in the Holy Land in which the fate of the world was in the balance.
No: painters have not sufficiently portrayed them in the arid plains of Asia forming an incomparable squadron in the midst of the battle. One might talk forever and yet not say too much about the charge of the Cuirassiers at Reichshoffen; but how many times did the Hospitaller knights and the Templars charge in similar fashion? Those soldier-monks, in truth, invented a new idea of courage. Unfortunately they were not always fighting, and peace troubled some of them. They became too rich, and their riches lowered them in the eyes of men and before heaven. We do not intend to adopt all the calumnies which have been circulated concerning the Templars, but it is difficult not to admit that many of these accusations had some foundation. The Hospitallers, at any rate, have given no ground for such attacks. They, thank heaven, remained undefiled, if not poor, and were an honor to that chivalry which others had compromised and emasculated.
But when all is said, that which best became chivalry, the spice which preserved it the most surely, was poverty!
Love of riches had not only attacked the chivalrous orders, but in a very short space of time all knights caught the infection. Sensuality and enjoyment had penetrated into their castles. "Scarcely had they received the knightly baldric before they commenced to break the commandments and to pillage the poor. When it became necessary to go to war, their sumpter-horses were laden with wine, and not with weapons; with leathern bottles instead of swords; with spits instead of lances. One might have fancied, in truth, that they were going out to dinner, and not to fight. It is true their shields were beautifully gilt, but they were kept in a virgin and unused condition. Chivalrous combats were represented upon their bucklers and their saddles, certainly; but that was all!"
Now who is it who writes thus? It is not, as one might fancy, an author of the fifteenth century—it is a writer of the twelfth; and the greatest satirist, somewhat excessive and unjust in his statements, the Christian Juvenal whom we have just quoted, was none other than Peter of Blois.
A hundred other witnesses might be cited in support of these indignant words. But if there is some exaggeration in them, we are compelled to confess that there is a considerable substratum of truth also.
These abuses—which wealth engendered, which more than one poet has stigmatized—attracted, in the fourteenth century, the attention of an important individual, a person whose name occupies a worthy place in literature and history. Philip of Mezières, chancellor of Cyprus under Peter of Lusignan, was a true knight, who one day conceived the idea of reforming chivalry. Now the way he found most feasible in accomplishing his object, in arriving at such a difficult and complex reform, was to found a new order of chivalry himself, to which he gave the high-sounding title of "the Chivalry of the Passion of Christ."
The decadence of chivalry is attested, alas! by the very character of the reformers by which this well-meaning Utopian attempted to oppose it. The good knight complains of the great advances of sensuality, and permits and advises the marriage of all knights. He complains of the accursed riches which the Hospitallers themselves were putting to a bad use, and forbade them in his Institutions; but nevertheless the luxurious habits of his time had an influence upon his mind, and he permitted his knights to wear the most extravagant costumes, and the dignitaries of his order to adopt the most high-sounding titles. There was something mystical in all this conception, and something theatrical in all this agency. It is hardly necessary to add that the "Chivalry of the Passion" was only a beautiful dream, originating in a generous mind. Notwithstanding the adherence of some brilliant personages, the order never attained to more than a theoretical organization, and had only a fictitious foundation. The idea of the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel was hardly the object of the fifteenth-century chivalry; for the struggle between France and England then was engaging the most courageous warriors and the most practised swords. Decay hurried on apace!
This was not the only cause of such a fatal falling away. The portals of chivalry had been opened to too many unworthy candidates. It had been made vulgar! In consequence of having become so cheap the grand title of "knight" was degraded. Eustace Deschamps, in his fine, straightforward way, states the scandal boldly and "lashes" it with his tongue. He says: "Picture to yourself the fact that the degree of knighthood is about to be conferred now upon babies of eight and ten years old."
Well might this excellent man exclaim in another place: "Disorders always go on gathering strength, and even incomparable knights like Du Guesclin and Bayard cannot arrest the fatal course of the institution toward ruin." Chivalry was destined to disappear.
It is very important that one should make one's self acquainted with the true character of such a downfall. France and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries still boasted many high-bred knights. They exchanged the most superb defiances, the most audacious challenges, and proceeded from one country to another to run each other through the body proudly. The Beaumanoirs, who drank their blood, abounded. It was a question who would engage himself in the most incredible pranks; who would commit the most daring folly! They tell us afterward of the beautiful passages of arms, the grand feats performed, and the inimitable Froissart is the most charming of all these narrators, who make their readers as chivalrous as themselves.
But we must tell everything: among these knights in beautiful armor there was a band of adventurers who never observed, and who could not understand, certain commandments of the ancient chivalry. The laxity of luxury had everywhere replaced the rigorous enactments of the old manliness, and even warriors themselves loved their ease too much. The religious sentiment was not the dominant one in their minds, in which the idea of a crusade now never entered. They had not sufficient respect for the weakness of the Church nor for other failings. They no longer felt themselves the champions of the good and the enemies of evil. Their sense of justice had become warped, as had love for their great native land.
Again, what they termed "the license of camps" had grown very much worse; and we know in what condition Joan of Arc found the army of the King. Blasphemy and ribaldry in every quarter. The noble girl swept away these pests, but the effect of her action was not long-lived. She was the person to reestablish chivalry, which in her found the purity of its now-effaced type; but she died too soon, and had not sufficient imitators.
There were, after her time, many chivalrous souls, and, thank heaven, there are still some among us; but the old institution is no longer with us. The events which we have had the misfortune to witness do not give us any ground to hope that chivalry, extinct and dead, will rise again to-morrow to light and life.
In St. Louis' time, caricature and parody—they were low-class forces, but forces nevertheless—had already commenced the work of destruction. We are in possession of an abominable little poem of the thirteenth century, which is nothing but a scatological pamphlet directed against chivalry. This ignoble Audigier, the author of which is the basest of men, is not the only attack which one may disinter from amid the literature of that period. If one wishes to draw up a really complete list it would be necessary to include the jabliaux—the Renart and the Rose, which constitute the most anti-chivalrous—I had nearly written the most Voltairian—works that I am acquainted with. The thread is easy enough to follow from the twelfth century down to the author of Don Quixote—which I do not confound with its infamous predecessors—to Cervantes, whose work has been fatal, but whose mind was elevated.
However that may be, parody and the parodists were themselves a cause of decay. They weakened morals. Gallic-like, they popularized little bourgeois sentiments, narrow-minded, satirical sentiments; they inoculated manly souls with contempt for such great things as one performs disinterestedly. This disdain is a sure element of decay, and we may regard it as an announcement of death.
Against the knights who, here and there, showed themselves unworthy and degenerate, was put in practice the terrible apparatus of degradation. Modern historians of chivalry have not failed to describe in detail all the rites of this solemn punishment, and we have presented to us a scene which is well calculated to excite the imagination of the most matter-of-fact, and to make the most timid heart swell.
The knight judicially condemned to submit to this shame was first conducted to a scaffold, where they broke or trod under foot all his weapons. He saw his shield, with device effaced, turned upside down and trailed in the mud. Priests, after reciting prayers for the vigil of the dead, pronounced over his head the psalm, "Deus laudem meam," which contains terrible maledictions against traitors. The herald of arms who carried out this sentence took from the hands of the pursuivant of arms a basin full of dirty water, and threw it all over the head of the recreant knight in order to wash away the sacred character which had been conferred upon him by the accolade. The guilty one, degraded in this way, was subsequently thrown upon a hurdle, or upon a stretcher, covered with a mortuary cloak, and finally carried to the church, where they repeated the same prayers and the same ceremonies as for the dead.
This was really terrible, even if somewhat theatrical, and it is easy to see that this complicated ritual contained only a very few ancient elements. In the twelfth century the ceremonial of degradation was infinitely more simple. The spurs were hacked off close to the heels of the guilty knight. Nothing could be more summary or more significant. Such a person was publicly denounced as unworthy to ride on horseback, and consequently quite unworthy to be a knight. The more ancient and chivalrous, the less theatrical is it. It is so in many other institutions in the histories of all nations.
That such a penalty may have prevented a certain number of treasons and forfeitures we willingly admit, but one cannot expect it to preserve all the whole body of chivalry from that decadence from which no institution of human establishment can escape.
Notwithstanding inevitable weaknesses and accidents, the Decalogue of Chivalry has none the less been regnant in some millions of souls which it has made pure and great. These ten commandments have been the rules and the reins of youthful generations, who without them would have been wild and undisciplined. This legislation, in fact—which, to tell the truth, is only one of the chapters of the great Catholic Code—has raised the moral level of humanity.
Besides, chivalry is not yet quite dead. No doubt, the ritual of chivalry, the solemn reception, the order itself, and the ancient oaths, no longer exist. No doubt, among these grand commandments there are many which are known only to the erudite, and which the world is unacquainted with. The Catholic Faith is no longer the essence of modern chivalry; the Church is no longer seated on the throne around which the old knights stand with their drawn swords; Islam is no longer the hereditary enemy; we have another which threatens us nearer home; widows and orphans have need rather of the tongues of advocates than of the iron weapon of the knights; there are no more duties toward liege-lords to be fulfilled; and we even do not want any kind of superior lord at all; largesse is now confounded with charity; and the becoming hatred of evil-doing is no longer our chief, our best, passion!
But whatever we may do there still remains to us, in the marrow, a certain leaven of chivalry which preserves us from death. There are still in the world an immense number of fine souls—strong and upright souls—who hate all that is small and mean, who know and who practise all the delicate promptings of honor, and who prefer death to an unworthy action or to a lie!
That is what we owe to chivalry, that is what it has bequeathed to us. On the day when these last vestiges of such a grand past are effaced from our souls—we shall cease to exist!