The knight was not only supported by his vassals, who formed the furniture of his lance, but by his brother in arms, when such an intercourse subsisted between two cavaliers; and instances of such unions are extremely frequent in chivalric history: they may be met with in other annals. In the early days of Greece, brotherhood in arms was a well-known form of friendship: the two companions engaged never to abandon each other in affairs however perilous, and in pledge of their mutual faith they exchanged armour. No stronger proof of affection could be given than thus parting with what they held most dear. Among barbarous people the fraternity of arms was established by the horrid custom of the new brothers drinking each other’s blood: but if this practice was barbarous, nothing was farther from barbarism than the sentiment which inspired it.
The chivalry of Europe borrowed this sacred bond from the Scandinavians, among whom the future brothers in arms mingled their blood, and then tasted it.
“Father of slaughter, Odin, say,
Rememberest not the former day,
When ruddy in the goblet stood,
For mutual drink, our blended blood?
Rememberest not, thou then dids’t swear,
The festive banquet ne’er to share,
Unless thy brother Lok was there?”[133]
This custom, like most others of Pagan Europe, was corrected and softened by the light and humanity of religion. Fraternal adoptions then took place in churches, in presence of relations, and with the sanction of priests. The knights vowed that they would never injure or vilify each other, that they would share each other’s dangers; and in sign of the perfection of love, and of true unity, and in order to possess, as much as they could, the same heart and resolves, they solemnly promised true fraternity and companionship of arms.[134] They then received the holy sacrament, and the priest blessed the union. It was a point rather of generous understanding than of regular convention, that they would divide equally all their acquisitions. Of this custom an instance may be given. Robert de Oily and Roger de Ivery, two young gentlemen who came into England with the duke of Normandy, were sworn brothers. Some time after the conquest, the king granted the two great honours of Oxford, and St. Waleries, to Robert de Oily, who immediately bestowed one of them, that of St. Waleries, on his sworn brother, Roger de Ivery[135].
Fraternity of arms was entered into for a specific object, or general knightly quests, for a limited term, or for life. It did not always occur, however, that the fraternity of arms was established with religious solemnities: but whatever might have been the ceremonies, the obligation was ever considered sacred; so sacred, indeed, that romance writers did not startle their readers by a tale, whose interest hangs upon the circumstance of a knight slaying his two infant children for the sake of compounding a medicine with their blood which should heal the leprosy of his brother in arms.[136]
This form of attachment was the strongest tie in chivalry.
“From this day forward, ever mo
Neither fail, either for weal or wo,
To help other at need,
Brother, be now true to me,
And I shall be as true to thee.”
So said Sir Amylion to Sir Amys, and it was the common language of chivalry. Friendship was carried to the romantic extremity of the Homeric age. Brethren in arms adopted all the enmities and loves of each other,
“A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.”
And so powerful was the obligation that it even superseded the duty of knighthood to womankind. A lady might in vain have claimed the protection of a cavalier, if he could allege that at that moment he was bound to fly to the succour of his brother in arms.