General Principles of the Religious Orders ... Qualifications for them ... Use of these Orders to Palestine ... Modern History of the Knights Templars ... Their present Existence and State ... Religious Orders in Spain ... That of St. James ... Its Objects ... Change of its Objects ... Order of Calatrava ... Fine Chivalry of a Monk ... Fame of this Order ... Order of Alcantara ... Knights of the Lady of Mercy ... Knights of St. Michael ... Military Orders ... Imitations of the Religious Orders ... Instanced in the Order of the Garter ... Few of the present Orders are of Chivalric Origin ... Order of the Bath ... Dormant Orders ... Order of the Band ... Its singular Rules ... Its noble Enforcement of Chivalric Duties towards Woman ... Order of Bourbon ... Strange Titles of Orders ... Fabulous Orders ... The Round Table ... Sir Launcelot ... Sir Gawain ... Order of the Stocking ... Origin of the Phrase Blue Stocking.
Such were the institutions by which the character of the true knight was formed; and we might now resume our historical course did not a matter of considerable interest detain us, which, as it belongs to chivalry in general, and not entirely to any state in particular, can no where be treated with so much propriety as in this place.
It has been shown that from the union of religion and arms chivalry arose, and that the defence of the church and the promoting of its interests were among the chief objects of the new system of principles and manners. But knighthood had various duties to discharge, and the cavalier, who was sometimes distracted by their number, consecrated his life to the single purpose of upholding the cross of Christ. Thus orders called the Religious Orders of Knighthood were founded, and in imitation of them, fraternities, called Military Orders, appeared, all being ranged within the general pale of chivalry.
General principles of the religious orders.
The religious orders, as might be expected, were sanctioned by papal authority. They were both martial and monastic in their general principles, but their internal conduct was entirely regulated by the discipline of the cloister; and, like the establishments of monks, they took some existing rule of a favourite saint as their guide. Theirs was a singular compound of the chivalric and the cloisteral characters,
“The fine vocation of the sword and lance
With the gross aims and body-bending toil
Of a poor brotherhood who walk the earth
Pitied.”[351]
Like the monks they were bound by the three great monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The first of these matters needs no explanation[352]; the second meant a total oblivion of individuality, the community and not a peculiar possession of property; and by the third, the members were confined to obey the head of their order, to the exclusion of all other authority. These general principles of the religious societies of knighthood gave way, however, and fitted themselves to the occasions and demands of society, for like the chain-mail, which was flexible to all the motions of the body, the orders of chivalry have varied with every change of European life. Ascetic privations gave place to chivalric gallantry, the vow of chastity was mitigated into a vow of connubial fidelity; and when men of noble birth and high fortune became knights of the holy and valiant societies of Saint John, the Temple, or Saint James, the vow of poverty was dispensed with, or explained away to the satisfaction of conscientious scruples. In the fraternity of the Temple a knight was permitted to hold estates, so that at his death he bequeathed some portion of them to his order.[353]
In another very important respect the religious brotherhoods were moulded to the general frame of political society. Their independence of civil authority was given up, as the papal power declined, and kings refused admittance of the bulls of Rome into their states without their previous license. The knights of the religious fraternities became connected with the state by professing that their duties to God and their country were prior and paramount to the rules and statutes of the brotherhood; and they adopted this form of phrase rather to prevent the suggestions of malice than from any existing necessity, for they contended that the obligations of chivalry, instead of contravening the duty of a citizen, gave it strength, and dignity, and grace.[354]
Qualifications for them.
In their origin all the military orders and most of the religious ones were entirely aristocratic; proofs of gentility of birth were scrupulously examined; and no soldier by the mere force of his valiancy could attain the honours of an order, though such a claim was allowed for his admission into the general fraternity of knighthood. These requisites for nobleness of birth kept pace with the political state of different countries, for the sovereigns of Europe and chivalry did not accord upon any particular form. Thus a French candidate for the knighthood of Saint John of Jerusalem must have shown four quarters of gentility on his coat-armour, but in the severer aristocracies of Spain and Germany no less than eight heraldic emblasonings were requisite. In Italy, however, where commerce checked the haughtiness of nobility, it was not expected that the pedigree should be so proud and full, and at length the old families conceded, and the new families were satisfied with the concession, that the sons of merchants should be at liberty to enter into the religious orders.