The statutes echoed the voice of nature in all her appeals to the heart; and thus every cavalier was enjoined to select from the ladies of the court some one upon whom his affections might rest, some one who was to be to him like a light leading him forward in the noble path of chivalry. There was no penalty for disobedience to this command, for disobedience seems to have been thought impossible. All the higher acts of chivalric devotion to his lady-love were presumed to be performed by the knight; and to show that his daily duties to his Order were to give way to his attention to his mistress, it was commanded that whenever she pleased to walk, he was to attend upon her on foot or on horseback, to do her all possible honour and service. When by his valiant feats against the Moors he had proved himself worthy of her love, the day of his marriage was a festival with his brother-knights, who made rich presents to the lady, and honoured the nuptials with cavaleresque games and shows. Nor did this generous consideration for woman stop here; for when a knight died, his surviving brothers were bound to solicit the King to make such grants of land and money to the family as would enable the widow to maintain her wonted state, and would furnish the marriage-portions of his daughters.
The band of the deceased knight was, agreeably to the general usage of the military orders, to be re-delivered to the king, who was to be solicited to bestow it upon one of the sons of its last wearer. The king was to select the knights from among the younger sons of men of station in the country, but no elder brother or other heir-apparent could be received; for it was the purpose of the founder to advance the fortunes of the nobly born, but indifferently provided, gentlemen of his court. Only one species of exception was made to this form of introduction. The honor of the order was conferred upon any stranger-knight who overcame one of the companions in the joust or tournament. This regulation was made for the general honor of chivalry, and the promotion of noble chevisance among the knights of the band. It was a bold defiance, and was seldom answered.[371]
The order of Bourbon, called of the Thistle, and of Our Lady, must not pass unnoticed. It was instituted at Moulins, in the Bourbonnois, in the year 1370, by Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, who was named, on account of his virtues, the Good Duke. It had for its object the winning of honor by acts of chivalry. The device of the order was a golden shield; and when it was given to knights they were exhorted to live as brethren, and die for each other if occasion should require it. They were told that every good action which beseemed chivalry ought to be performed by the knights of Bourbon. Above all things, they were exhorted to honor ladies, not permitting any man to speak slanderous matters of them, because, after God, comes from them all honor which men can acquire. Nothing could be more base than to vilify that sex which had not the strength to redress its wrongs. The knights were charged not to speak evil of each other, for that was the foulest vice which a nobleman or gentleman could be taxed with; and in conclusion, as the summary of their duty, they were exhorted to practise faith and loyalty, and to respect each other as became knights of praise and virtue.[372]
Strange titles of orders.
The occasions of the titles of many of the military orders are more interesting than a view of the external marks of their chivalry. Notwithstanding the haughtiness of knighthood, one of the most celebrated orders took its name from no chivalric source. The order was instituted by Philip Duke of Burgundy, who named the fraternity the Knights of the Golden Fleece, in gratitude to the trade in woollens by which he and his family had been so much enriched. In the fifteenth century, the order of the Porcupine was highly celebrated in France; and it was furnished with its singular title from the fancy of the founder (Louis Duke of Orleans, second son of Charles V. King of France), that by such a sign he should commemorate the fact, that he had been abandoned by his friends in adversity, and that he was able to defend himself by his own weapons. While the Porcupine was a favourite order in France, that of the Dragon-overthrown was famous in Germany; and by this ferocious title, the Emperor Sigismond intended to express his conquest over heresy and schism. The Dukes of Mantua fancied that they possessed three drops of our Saviour’s blood; and an order of knighthood was instituted in the year 1608, which took for its title the order of the Precious Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, at Mantua.
Fabulous orders.
The chivalric nations of Europe attached as much consequence to orders which existed only in their own fervid imagination as to those whose lineage was certain. To Constantine the Great was ascribed the honor of inventing the first military order of knighthood. The great captains of his court were said to have been associated under the title of the order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, that Saint being in Greece, as well as in England, the patron of military men. The grand-mastership resided in the Imperial family. After the fall of the Eastern empire, the order passed into Italy; and the knights of that country imagined the existence of papal bulls, which permitted the grand masters to sit at the same table with the Popes, to coin money, and to confer titles of honor, whether in nobility or learning, and exercise every prerogative of independent princes. But it would be in vain to enquire after the names of any of these mensal companions of the Pope; and no cabinet of curiosities contains any coins which they struck in attestation of their power.
The memory of Charles Martel’s great victory over the Moors was preserved in the middle ages of France, by the belief that the conqueror had established an order of knighthood called the Order of the Gennet; and lists of cavaliers were drawn out, and statutes imagined, attesting only the love of the French for chivalric distinctions. The Spaniards delighted to imagine that their early victories over the Moors were commemorated by an order called the Order of the Oak in Navarre, and founded on occasion of the Holy Cross, adored by an infinite number of angels, appearing to a Gothic chief who led the Christians.
The Round Table.
But of all these imaginary orders none is so interesting as that of the Round Table, instituted by Uther Pendragon, King of Great Britain, and which reached its perfection of martial glory in the reign of his son Arthur. While our ancient historians exaggerated into heroism the patriotic efforts of the last of the British kings, the minstrels who sang in the baronial halls superadded the charms of chivalric circumstance. Since the time of Adam, God hath not made a man more perfect than Arthur, was the favourite opinion; and when his remains were discovered in the Abbey of Glastonbury, in the year 1189, the people from their idea that prowess always corresponded with size of limb fancied that his bones were of gigantic frame.[373]