Dr. Nares himself is of something of the opinion of Clark, and he ridicules the idea of a chivalric and martial title being given to brewers, silversmiths, attorneys, apothecaries, upholsterers, hosiers, tailors. &c. He asserts that knighthood should belong only to military members: but of these no inconsiderable number would have to be unknighted, or would have to wait an indefinite time for the honor were the old rule strictly observed, whereby no man was entitled to the rank and degree of knighthood, who had not actually been in battle and captured a prisoner with his own hands. With respect to the obligation on knights to defend and maintain all ladies, gentlewomen, widows, and orphans; the one class of men may be said to be just as likely to fulfil this obligation, as the other class.
France, Italy, and Germany, long had their forensic knights, certain titles at the bar giving equal privileges; and the obligations above alluded to were supposed to be observed by these knights—who found esquires in their clerks, in the forensic war which they were for ever waging in defence of right. Unhappily these forensic chevaliers so often fought in defence of wrong and called it right, that the actual duty was indiscriminately performed or neglected.
It has often been said of “orders” that they are indelible. However this may be with the clergy, it is especially the case with knights. To whatever title a knight might attain, duke, earl, or baron, he never ceased to be a knight. In proof too that the latter title was considered one of augmentation, is cited the case of Louis XI., who, at his coronation, was knighted by Philip, Duke of Burgundy. “If Louis,” says an eminent writer (thus cited by Dr. Nares), “had been made duke, marquis, or earl, it would have detracted from him, all those titles being in himself.”
The crown, when it stood in need of the chivalrous arms of its knights, called for the required feudal service, not from its earls as such, but from its barons. To every earldom was annexed a barony, whereby their feudal service with its several dependent duties was alone ascertained. “That is,” says Berington, in his Henry II., “the tenure of barony and not of earldom constituted the legal vassal of the crown. Each earl was at the same time a baron, as were the bishops and some abbots and priors of orders.”
Some of these barons were the founders of parish churches, but the terms on which priest and patron occasionally lived may be seen in the law, whereby patrons or feudatarii killing the rector, vicar, or clerk of their church, or mutilating him, were condemned to lose their rights; and their posterity, to the fourth generation, was made incapable of benefice or prelacy in religious houses. The knightly patron was bound to be of the same religious opinions, of course, as his priest, or his soul had little chance of being prayed for. In later times we have had instances of patrons determining the opinions of the minister. Thus as a parallel, or rather in contrast with measures as they stood between Sir Knight and Sir Priest, may be taken a passage inserted in the old deeds of the Baptist chapel at Oulney. In this deed the managers or trustees injoined that “no person shall ever be chosen pastor of this church, who shall differ in his religious sentiments from the Rev. John Gibbs of Newcastle.” It is rather a leap to pass thus from the baronial knights to the Baptist chapels, but the matter has to do with my subject at both extremities. Before leaving it I will notice the intimation proudly made on the tombstone in Bunhill Fields Cemetery, of Dame Mary Page, relict of Sir George Page. The lady died more than a century and a quarter ago, and although the stone bears no record of any virtue save that she was patient and fearless under suffering, it takes care to inform all passers-by, that this knight’s lady, “in sixty-seven months was tapped sixty-six times, and had taken away two hundred and forty gallons of water, without ever repining at her case, or ever fearing its operation.” I prefer the mementoes of knight’s ladies in olden times which recorded their deeds rather than their diseases, and which told of them, as White said of Queen Mary, that their “knees were hard with kneeling.”
I will add one more incident, before changing the topic, having reference as it has to knights, maladies, and baptism. In 1660, Sir John Floyer was the most celebrated knight-physician of his day. He chiefly tilted against the disuse of baptismal immersion. He did not treat the subject theologically, but in a sanitary point of view. He prophesied that England would return to the practice as soon as people were convinced that cold baths were safe and useful. He denounced the first innovators who departed from immersion, as the destroyers of the health of their children and of posterity. Degeneracy of race, he said, had followed, hereditary diseases increased, and men were mere carpet-knights unable to perform such lusty deeds as their duly-immersed forefathers.
There are few volumes which so admirably illustrate what knights should be, and what they sometimes were not, as De Joinville’s Chronicle of the Crusades of St. Louis—that St. Louis, who was himself the patron-saint of an order, the cross of which was at first conferred on princes, and at last on perruquiers. The faithful chronicler rather profanely, indeed, compares the royal knight with God himself. “As God died for his people, so did St. Louis often peril his life, and incurred the greatest dangers, for the people of his kingdom.” After all, this simile is as lame as it is profane. The truth, nevertheless, as it concerns St. Louis, is creditable to the illustrious king, saint, and chevalier. “In his conversation he was remarkably chaste, for I never heard him, at any time, utter an indecent word, nor make use of the devil’s name; which, however, now is very commonly uttered by every one, but which I firmly believe, is so far from being agreeable to God, that it is highly displeasing to him.” The King St. Louis, mixed water with his wine, and tried to force his knights to follow his example, adding, that “it was a beastly thing for an honorable man to make himself drunk.” This was a wise maxim, and one naturally held by a son, whose mother had often declared to him, that “she would rather he was in his grave, than that he should commit a mortal sin.” And yet wise as his mother, and wise as her son was, the one could not give wise religious instructors to the latter, nor the latter perceive where their instruction was illogical. That it was so, may be discerned in the praise given by De Joinville, to the fact, that the knightly king in his dying moments “called upon God and his saints, and especially upon St. James, and St. Genevieve, as his intercessors.”
It is interesting to learn from such good authority as De Joinville, the manner in which the knights who followed St. Louis prepared themselves for their crusading mission. “When I was ready to set out, I sent for the Abbot of Cheminon, who was at that time considered as the most discreet man of all the White Monks, to reconcile myself with him. He gave me my scarf, and bound it on me, and likewise put the pilgrim’s staff in my hand. Instantly after I quitted the castle of Joinville, without even re-entering it until my return from beyond sea. I made pilgrimages to all the holy places in the neighborhood, such as Bliecourt, St. Urban, and others near to Joinville. I dared never turn my eyes that way, for fear of feeling too great regret, and lest my courage should fail on leaving my two fine children, and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved in my heart.” “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,” and here we have the touch the poet speaks of. Down the Saône and subsequently down the Rhone, the crusaders flock in ample vessels, but not large enough to contain their steeds, which were led by grooms along the banks. When all had re-embarked at Marseilles and were fairly out at sea, “the captain made the priests and clerks mount to the castle of the ship, and chant psalms in praise of God, that he might be pleased to grant us a prosperous voyage.” While they were singing the Veni Creator in full chorus, the mariners set the sails “in the name of God,” and forthwith a favorable breeze sprang up in answer to the appeal, and knights and holy men were speedily careering over the billows of the open sea very hopeful and exceedingly sick. “I must say here,” says De Joinville, who was frequently so disturbed by the motion of the vessel, so little of a knight, and so timid on the water as to require a couple of men to hold him as he leant over the side in the helpless and unchivalrous attitude of a cockney landsman on board a Boulogne steamer—“I must say,” he exclaims—sick at the very reminiscence, “that he is a great fool who shall put himself in such dangers, having wronged any one, or having any mortal sins on his conscience; for when he goes to sleep in the evening, he knows not if in the morning he may not find himself under the sea.”
This was a pious reflection, and it was such as many a knight, doubtless, made on board a vessel, on the castle of which priests and clerks sang Veni Creator and the mariners bent the sail “in the name of God.” But whether the holy men did not act up to their profession, or the secular knights cared not to profit by their example, certain it is that in spite of the saintly services and formalities on board ship, the chevaliers were no sooner on shore, than they fell into the very worst of practices. De Joinville, speaking of them at Damietta, remarks that the barons, knights, and others, who ought to have practised self-denial and economy, were wasteful of their means, prodigal of their supplies, and addicted to banquetings, and to the vices which attend on over-luxuriant living. There was a general waste of everything, health included. The example set by the knights was adopted by the men-at-arms, and the debauchery which ensued was terrific. The men were reduced to the level of beasts, and wo to the women or girls who fell into their power when out marauding. It is singular to find De Joinville remarking that the holy king was obliged “to wink at the greatest liberties of his officers and men.” The picture of a royal saint winking at lust, rapine, and murder, is not an agreeable one. “The good king was told,” says the faithful chronicler, “that at a stone’s throw round his own pavilion, were several tents whose owners made profit by letting them out for infamous purposes.” These tents and tabernacles of iniquity were kept by the king’s own personal attendants, and yet the royal saint winked at them! The licentiousness was astounding, the more so as it was practised by Christian knights, who were abroad on a holy purpose, but who went with bloody hands, unclean thoughts, and spiritual songs to rescue the Sepulchre of Christ from the unworthy keeping of the infidel. Is it wonderful that the enterprise was ultimately a failure?
De Joinville himself, albeit purer of life than many of his comrades, was not above taking unmanly advantage of a foe. The rule of chivalry, which directed that all should be fair in fight, was never regarded by those chivalrous gentlemen when victory was to be obtained by violating the law. Thus, of an affair on the plains before Babylon, we find the literary swordsman complacently recording that he “perceived a sturdy Saracen mounting his horse, which was held by one of his esquires by the bridle, and while he was putting his hand on his saddle to mount, I gave him,” says De Joinville, “such a thrust with my spear, which I pushed as far as I was able, that he fell down dead.” This was a base and cowardly action. There was more of the chivalrous in what followed: “The esquire, seeing his lord dead, abandoned master and horse; but, watching my motions, on my return struck me with his lance such a blow between my shoulders as drove me on my horse’s neck, and held me there so tightly that I could not draw my sword, which was girthed round me. I was forced to draw another sword which was at the pommel of my saddle, and it was high time; but when he saw I had my sword in my hand, he withdrew his lance, which I had seized, and ran from me.”