Mode of creating knights in Italy generally.
Such was the general state of chivalry in northern and southern Italy; but there were some circumstances common to every part of the peninsula. The nobility invested each other with festive and religious ceremonies, with the bath[235], the watching of arms, and the sacred and military shows, or with a simple stroke of a sword, and the exhortation, “Sii un valoroso cavaliere,” two ancient knights buckling on his golden spurs. In the year 1294, Azzo, Marquis of Este, was knighted by Gerard, Lord of Camino, at a public solemnity held at Ferrara. Cane, Lord of Verona, in 1328, gave the honour of knighthood to thirty-eight young nobles, and presented them with golden belts, and beautiful war-horses.[236] In Italy there was the usual array of knights and squires, of cavalieri and scudieri; but I can find no mention of pages distinct from the squires, and attending their lords; except, indeed, they were the domicelli, or donzelli, who, however, are supposed by Muratori to have been the squires of noble rank. All the armour-bearers of the knights were not noble or of gentle birth, or we should not very often meet, in the Italian annalists of the middle ages, the expression “honourable squires.”
In the fourteenth century knights had four titles, agreeably to the various modes of their creation:—Cavalieri Bagnati, or Knights of the Bath, who were made with the grandest ceremonies, and supposed, from their immersion, to be freed from all vice and impurity; the Cavalieri di Corredo, or those who were invested with a deep-green dress, and a golden garland; the Cavalieri di Scudo, or those who were created either by people or nobility; and the Cavalieri d’Arme were those who were made either before or during battle.[237]
Many orders of knighthood were known in Italy: some (but their history is not interesting) were peculiar to it; and others, such as the order of the knights of Saint John and of the Temple, had their preceptories and commanderies in that country. And, to enlarge upon a circumstance alluded to in another place, it is curious to notice the dexterity with which chivalry accommodated itself to the manners and usages of any particular society. The commercial cities in the north of Italy vied in power with, and were superior in wealth to, the feudal nobility. Chivalry was esteemed as a graceful decoration by every class of men, and by none with more ardour than by new families, whom opulence had raised into civic consideration. The strictness of the principles of knighthood opposed their investiture; but those principles, were made to give way; and commercial pride was satisfied with the concession of aristocratical haughtiness, that the sons of men in trade might become brothers of the orders of chivalry.
Political use of knighthood.
The decoration of simple knighthood, however, was given indiscriminately without regard to birth or station. Every city assumed the power of bestowing it; and after a great battle it was showered with indiscriminate profusion upon those who had displayed their courage, whether they were armed burghers or condottieri. And this was a wise measure of the Italian cities: for there was always an obligation expressed or implied on the part of knights of fidelity to the person from whom they received the honour.[238] It is amusing to observe, that, in the year 1378, a Florentine mob paused in its work of murder and rapine to play with the graceful ensigns of chivalry; and, in imitation of the power of the city, they insisted on investing their favourites with knighthood.
Chivalric literature.
Chivalry had, perhaps, greater influence on the literature and manners of the Italians than on their military usages. Wandering minstrels from France and Spain chaunted in the streets of Italy tales of warriors’ deeds and lady-love, particularly the stories of Roland and Oliver, the paladins of Charlemagne, who were also the subject of song and recitation, even by the stage-players on the earliest theatre at Milan.[239] Much of the popular literature of Italy consisted of romances; and the chief topics of them were the exploits both in arms and amours of Charlemagne and his paladins: though on one occasion Buovo d’Antina, a hero of chivalry, who fought and loved prior to the time of those heroes, was the theme of Tuscan verse. The wars of Charlemagne and his paladins with the Saracens were afterwards sung by the nobler muse of Pulci and Boiardo, and then by Ariosto, who, not confining himself to the common stores of romantic fiction, has borrowed as freely from the tales regarding Arthur and the British and Armoric knights as from those relating to Charlemagne and the peers of France, and has thrown over the whole the graceful mantle of Oriental sorcery. The chivalric duties of converting the heathens, of adoring the ladies, of fighting in the cause of heaven and woman, were thus presented to the minds of the Italians; and the Homer of Ferrara roused the courage, or softened into love or pity, the hearts of knights and ladies, by singing the wars and loves of days which his poetry rendered bright and golden.
Chivalric sports.
These were the literary amusements of Italy; the subjects of recitation in the baronial hall, and of solitary perusal in the lady’s bower: with these works the Italians nourished their imaginations; and a chivalric taste was diffused over the manners of public and private life. The amusement of hawking, which, as we have seen, the fathers of chivalric Italy had introduced, was indulged in at every court; and the Ferrarese princes were generally attended in the field by a hundred falconers, so proud and magnificent was their display. Every great event was celebrated by a tournament or a triumphal show. Dante speaks of the tournament as the familiar amusement of the fourteenth century.