Combats of Pages.
History has preserved to us one circumstance, which is interesting, because it marks the change of manners in the attendants on the cavaliers. We have seen that in early times each knight had his squire, who gave arms to his lord, and frequently mingled in the battle himself. The knight, now, had only his page, who buckled on his armour, and rendered similar acts of personal service; and, instead of generous emulation of the enterprises of cavaliers, a mock combat was held between the striplings of the two armies. Each party had its leader, and its standard. Their shields were made of osier twigs, and their javelins were blunted. On the first day the advantage was with the French, but on the second, the English youths bore away the standard of their antagonists, and the reputation of victory was theirs.[161]
Further decay of chivalry.
After this national contest chivalry continued to decline in France. The civil wars had left that country one universal scene of vice and misrule, and the people looked to the King for some measure of protection. So exhausted were the nobility by their wars with England, that they declared their want of power to lead into the field the customary number of knights; and they therefore prayed a remission of military duty. Charles willingly granted this petition; and no opposition was made to his establishing a force which he might either use against the barons themselves or the nation’s enemies. The importance of mercenaries had been extending itself ever since the reign of Philip Augustus, when they were first introduced; for the old levies of feudatories and vassals had in France as in England been found insufficient for the great purposes of war. But the new bands of stipendiary adventurers were never a very important branch of the French military force, for the kings could not pay for many; and these hired soldiers were commonly infantry or lightly armed horse, who could not contend in the battle-field with mail-clad knights and squires. National feelings favoured the constitutional levy; and the kings endeavoured to render the country’s chivalry of sufficient service by enlarging the time of their attendance. St. Louis increased the period of military duty from forty days to two months, and Philip the Fair doubled the time determined by St. Louis.
Abuses in conferring knighthood.
Such was the state of affairs in France, when, in the year 1444, Charles established fifteen companies of cavalry. Each company consisted of one hundred lances, and each of these men-at-arms had his archers, a coutiller or soldier, whose weapon of offence resembled a knife rather than a sword, and his personal attendant the page. Every one of these followers served on horseback, and the whole force amounted to nine thousand cavalry. This was intended to be a permanent establishment; and it was understood that the soldiers should be paid out of the state finances, and should not like the mercenaries of former times subsist by plunder. These companies of ordonnance have ever been regarded as the foundation of the French standing army. Here, then, closes the public military history of chivalry in France. The new soldiers were stipendiaries, not cavaliers: they were not educated for chivalry: they had not passed through the ranks of page and squire; and not being necessarily gentlemen by name or arms, their deeds could not be similar to those which sprang from the oath of the cavalier. This new military force caused the feudatories of the crown no longer to bring their vassals with them to war, except in certain extreme cases, where the arriere ban was summoned, and then the appearance was but a faint picture of the ancient chivalry. Thus the usage of banners and pennons ceased, and with them the great distinctions of bannerets and knights, because those titles no longer conferred honour and command.[162] The title of knight lost its military character; and, instead of being bestowed with religious solemnities, after a long and painful education, it was often given to very young men without any martial training whatever, when they first stepped from their father’s castles into the busy scenes of life. There was another circumstance which sullied the glory of knighthood;—I mean the bestowing of its title upon persons who were not of the military class. The exact time when this innovation upon chivalry took place it is impossible to ascertain, and I wish not to weary my readers with profitless antiquarian researches. Knights of the law, as distinguished from those of arms, were known in the thirteenth century; and when once the clergy, who exercised the judicial functions, began to assume military titles, (which they did from their spirit of engrossing every thing that was honourable,) the matter soon grew into a custom: the lawyers claimed the privilege of wearing gold, and in every point asserted the equality of the law, with the chivalry of a country.[163] By degrees the title of knighthood began to be applied to men distinguished for their learning or talents, or who for less honourable causes were favoured by the King. This application of chivalric honours to persons who were not within the order of chivalry was viewed with a jealous and malignant eye by the military knights, who were not satisfied with the consideration in which they were held when other classes of society copied their titles, and shone by the reflection of martial glory. Their fierce minds felt no respectful sympathy for the literary and intellectual awarders of justice, and they wished that the lance of the knight-errant should continue to be the only refuge of the injured. In effect the title of knight became of little estimation, and in the history of France, through the fifteenth century, we seldom read of the conferring of the order of chivalry upon soldiers in the field of battle.
Chivalry thus decayed in France, before gunpowder became the chief instrument of death. Though artillery had been known so early as the battle of Cressy, it did not immediately come into general use. During the last half of the fourteenth century, the French used it in sieges, and sometimes in the field. But still, when Charles VII. established the companies of ordonnance already mentioned, the strength of the army was cavalry. Soon afterwards the French armies began to consist of infantry; for the soldiers of France were mercenaries, and they were drawn from Switzerland, a country which from its poverty and mountain-form could not boast of many knights and plumed steeds.
While chivalry was losing its martial vigour in the French monarchy, some of the nobility of France preserved it in their castles in all its stateliness and grace. But the records of those times are so faint and imperfect, that any thing beyond the mere circumstance of their general chivalry cannot be learned.
Burgundy.
Its chivalry.
The annals of Burgundy are somewhat more satisfactory. The Dukes of Burgundy became sovereigns of Flanders, and impressed on that country a character of chivalry and romance. Tournaments, jousts, and other knightly shows, graced the wealth of the Flemish cities, at the time when the commercial cities of Italy were distinguished for classic elegance and taste. The court of the Dukes of Burgundy was so high in fame for the lofty daring and gallant grace of chivalric emprise, that when Constantinople fell under the Moslem yoke, the hearts of the noble Burgundian knights glowed with the bold and pious desire of recovering the metropolis of eastern Christendom. The desire perished, for it was not supported by the other powers of Europe; and Burgundy, deprived of its hope of leading the lances of the West, in a cause so well worthy of them, is only interesting in the history of chivalry for its gracefulness and splendour. To present the reader with detailed statements of all its martial games would be tedious and unprofitable; but one of them possesses considerable interest, as displaying a very singular state of manners, and proving that the romances, and tales of chivalry, were often realised.