The patriarchal system of manners, shaped and sanctioned by Christianity, formed the fabric of chivalry; and romance, with its many-coloured hues, gave it light and beauty. The early ages of Europe gaily moved in all the wildness and vigour of youth; imagination freshened and heightened every pleasure; the world was a vision, and life a dream. The common and palpable value of an object was never looked at, but every thing was viewed in its connection with fancy and sentiment. Prudence and calculation were not suffered to check noble aspirations: army after army traversed countries, and crossed the sea to the Holy Land, reckless of pain or danger: duties were not cautiously regarded with a view to limit the performance of them; for every principle was not only practised with zeal, but the same fervid wish to do well lent it new obligations. From these feelings proceeded all the graceful refinements, all the romance of chivalry: knighthood itself became a pledge for virtue; and as into the proud and lofty imagination of a true cavalier nothing base could enter, he did not hesitate to confide in the word of his brother of chivalry, on his pledging his honour to the performance of any particular action. There was no legal or other positive punishment consequent on the violation of his word; and, therefore, the matter being left to imagination and feeling, the contempt of his fellow-knights could be the only result of recreancy. The knight looked to fame as one of the guerdons of his toils: this value of the opinions of others taught him to dread shame and disgrace; and thus that fine sense of morality, that voluntary submission to its maxims which we call honour, became a part of knighthood.
The genius of chivalry was personal, inasmuch as each knight, when not following the banner of his sovereign, was in himself an independent being, acting from his own sense of virtue, and not deriving counsel from, or sharing opprobrium with, others. This independence of action exalted his character; and, nourished by that pride and energy of soul which belong to man in an early state of society, all the higher and sterner qualities of the mind,—dignity, uncompromising fidelity to obligations, self-denial, and generousness, both of sentiment and conduct,—became the virtues of chivalry.
All the religious devotion of a cavalier to woman existed in his mind, independently of, or superadded to, his oath of knighthood. She was not merely the object of his protection, but of his respect and idolatry. His love was the noble homage of strength to beauty. Something supernaturally powerful had been ascribed to her by the fathers of modern Europe; and this appeal to the imagination was not lost. In some ages and countries it reigned in all its religious force; in others it was refined into gentleness and courtesy: but every where, and at every time, the firmest confidence in woman’s truth accompanied it, or supplied its stead; and the opinion of her virtue, which this feeling implied, had a corresponding influence on his own manners.
The triumph of chivalry over all preceding systems of opinions was complete, when imagination refined the fierceness of passion into generous and gentle affection,—a refinement so perfect and beautiful, that subsequent times, with all their vaunted improvements in letters and civilisation, are obliged to revert their eyes to the by-gone days of the shield and the lance for the most pleasing and graceful pictures of lady-love.
From these elements, and by means of these principles, sprang the fair and goodly system of chivalry, which extended itself, as we have seen, over most of the states of Europe, blending with the strongest passions and dearest affections of the heart, influencing the manners of private life, and often determining the character of political events. In England and France its power was most marked and decided; in Spain it was curiously blended with Oriental feelings; Germany was not much softened by its impressions; and in Italy the bitterness of private war admitted but few of its graces. It is difficult to define the precise period of its duration, for it rose in the mists and gloom of barbarism; and the moment of its setting was not regarded, for other lights were then playing on the moral horizon, and fixing the attention of the world. In the part, entirely historical, of the present work, the reader must have remarked, that sometimes the decay of chivalry was gradual, and not apparently occasioned by external means; while in other countries its extinction was manifestly hastened by causes which sprang not from any seeds of weakness in itself. But, viewing the subject in its great and leading bearings, it may be observed, that chivalry was coeval with the middle ages of Europe, and that its power ceased when new systems of warfare were matured, when the revival of letters was complete and general, and the reformation of religion gave a new subject for the passions and imagination.
This attempt to describe a history of chivalry has proved, at least, that chivalry was no dream of poets and romancers, and that the feudal system was not the only form of real life during the middle ages. Sismondi, in his work on the Literature of the South, contends that chivalry was an ideal world. He then admits, that sometimes the virtues of chivalry were not entirely poetical fictions, but that they existed in the minds of the people, without, however, producing any effect on their lives. His reasons for his opinions are, that it is impossible to distinguish the countries where chivalry prevailed; that it is represented to us as remote both in time and place; and while one class of authors give accounts of the general corruption of their age, writers of after times refer to those very days, and adorn them with every virtue and grace.
Now, much of this reasoning is erroneous. That past ages should be praised at the expence of the present is no uncommon a circumstance, whether in morals or poetry. We have proved that the countries where chivalry prevailed are clearly distinguishable, and the degree of its influence can likewise be marked. M. Sismondi does not argue as if he had been aware that there ever had existed such a writer as Froissart; who does not refer to old times for his pictures of arms and amours, but describes the chivalric character of his own age.
Notwithstanding the light and beauty which chivalry cast over the world, the system has been more frequently condemned than praised. The objectors have rested their opinion on a sentence, said to be witty, of an old English author, that errant knights were arrant knaves, or on a few passages of reprehension which are scattered through the works of middle-age literature. Sainte Palaye has founded his condemnation of chivalry upon the remark of Pierre de Blois, a writer of the twelfth century, that the horses of knights groan under the burden, not of weapons, but of wine; not with lances, but cheeses; not with swords, but with bottles; not with spears, but with spits.[241] Not many years afterwards, John of Salisbury also says, that some knights appear to think that martial glory consists in shining in elegant dress, and attaching their silken garments so tightly to their body, that they may seem part of their flesh. When they ride on their ambling palfreys they think themselves so many Apollos. If they should unite for a martial chevisance, their camp will resemble that of Thais, rather than that of Hannibal. Every one is most courageous in the banqueting hall, but in the battle he desires to be last. They would rather shoot their arrows at an enemy than meet him hand to hand. If they return home unwounded, they sing triumphantly of their battles, and declare that a thousand deaths hovered over them. The first places at supper are awarded to them. Their feasts are splendid, and engrossed by self-indulgence: they avoid labour and exercise like a dog or a snake. All the dangers and difficulties of chivalry they resign to those who serve them, and in the mean time they so richly gild their shields, and adorn their camps, that every one of them looks not a scholar but a chieftain of war.[242]
All this splenetic declamation involves charges of coxcombry, luxury, and cowardice. That knights were often guilty of the first offence is probable enough, for all their minute attention to the form and fashion of armour could not but attach their minds too strongly to the effect of their personal appearance. Graced also with the scarf of his sovereign-mistress, the knight well might caracole his gallant steed with an air of self-complacency: but a censure on such matters comes with little propriety from monks, who, according to Chaucer, were wont to tie their beads under their chin with a true lover’s knot.
The personal indulgence of the knights was not the luxury of the cloister,—idle, gross, and selfish,—but it was the high and rich joviality of gay and ardent souls. They were boon or good companions in the hall, as well as in the battle-field. If their potations were deep, they surely were not dull; for the wine-cup was crowned and quaffed to the honour of beauty; and minstrelsy, with its sweetest melodies, threw an air of sentiment over the scene. How long their repasts lasted history has not related: but we have seen, in the life of that great and mighty English knight, Sir Walter Manny, that when the trumpet sounded to horse, cavaliers overthrew, in gay disorder, every festival-appliance, in their impatience to don their harness, and mount their war-steeds; and we also saw that a cup of rich Gascon wine softened the pride and anger of Sir John Chandos, and, awakening in him the feelings of chivalric generosity, impelled him to succour the Earl of Pembroke. In sooth, at the festivals of cavaliers all the noble feelings of chivalry were displayed. In those hours of dilatation of the heart, no appeal was made in vain to the principles of knighthood.