The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

It cannot be doubted that this practice of wandering armed through Europe gave great scope to licentiousness in those who were naturally ill-disposed; and many a cruelty and many a crime was assuredly committed by that very order instituted to put down vice and to protect innocence. To guard against this the laws of Chivalry were most severe;[62] and as great power was intrusted to the knight, great was the shame and dishonour if he abused it. The oath taken in the first place was as strictly opposed to every vice, as any human promise could be, and the first principle of chivalrous honour was never to violate an engagement. I must here still repeat the remark, that it was the spirit which constituted the Chivalry, and as that spirit waned, Chivalry died away.

One of the most curious institutions of Chivalry was that which required a knight, on his return from any expedition,[63] to give a full and minute account to the heralds, or officers of arms, of all his adventures during his absence, without reserve or concealment; telling as well his reverses and discomfitures, as his honours and success. To do this he was bound by oath; and the detail thus given was registered by the herald, who by such relations learned to know and estimate the worth and prowess of each individual knight. It served also to excite other adventurers to great deeds in imitation of those who acquired fame and honour; and it afforded matter of consolation to the unfortunate, who in those registers must ever have met with mishaps to equal or surpass their own.

The spirit of Chivalry, however, led to a thousand deeds and habits not required nor regulated by any law. Were two armies opposed to each other, or even encamped in the neighbourhood of each other, though at peace,[64] the knights would continually issue forth singly from the ranks to challenge any other champion to come out, and break a lance in honour of his lady. Often before a castle, or on the eve of a battle, a knight would vow to some holy saint never to quit the field, or abandon the siege, till death or victory ended his design. Frequently, too, we find that in the midst of some great festival, where all the Chivalry of the land was assembled, a knight would suddenly appear, bearing in his hands[65] a peacock, a heron, or some other bird. Presenting it in turn to each noble in the assembly, he would then demand their oath upon that bird to do some great feat of arms against the enemy. No knight dared to refuse, and the vow so taken was irrevocable and never broken.

One of the most extraordinary customs of Chivalry, and also one of the most interesting, was the adoption of a brother in arms.[66]

This custom[67] seems to have taken its rise in England, and was in common use especially among the Saxons. After the Conquest, however, it rapidly spread to other nations, and seems to have been a favourite practice with the crusaders. Esteem and long companionship were the first principles of this curious sort of alliance, which bound one knight to another by ties more strict than those of blood itself.

It is true the brotherhood in arms was often contracted but for a time, or under certain circumstances,[68] which once passed by, the engagement was at an end; but far oftener it was a bond for life, uniting interests and feelings, and dividing dangers and successes. The brothers in arms[69] met all perils together, undertook all adventures in company, shared in the advantage of every happy enterprise, and partook of the pain or loss of every misfortune. If the one was attacked in body, in honour, or in estate, the other sprang forward to defend him. Their wealth and even their thoughts were in common; so that the news which the one received, or the design that he formed, he was bound to communicate to the other without reserve. Even if the one underlay a wager of battle[70] against any other knight, and was cut off by death before he could discharge himself thereof, his brother in arms was bound to appear in the lists, in defence of his honour, on the day appointed.

Sometimes[71] this fraternity of arms was contracted by a solemn deed; sometimes by a vow ratified by the communion and other ceremonies of the church. In many cases,[72] however, the only form consisted in the mutual exchange of arms, which implied the same devotion to each other, and the same irrevocable engagement.

I have now said sufficient concerning the habits and customs of the ancient knights, to give a general idea of the rules by which Chivalry was governed, and the spirit by which it was animated. That spirit waxed fainter, it is true, as luxury and pomp increased, and as the barbarities of an early age merged into the softer licentiousness that followed.

But the rules of the order themselves remained unchanged, and did far more than any other institution to restrain the general incontinence[73] of the age. Even in those days when chivalrous love was no longer pure, and chivalrous religion no longer the spring of the noblest morality, the spirit of the days of old lingered amid the ruins of the falling institution. An Edward, a Du Guesclin, a Bayard, a Sidney, would rise up in the midst of corrupted times, and shame the vices of the day by still showing one more true knight; and even now, when the order has altogether passed away, we feel and benefit by its good effects.

So complete a change has come over manners and customs, so rapid has been our late progress, and so many and vast have been the events of latter years, that to trace the remains of Chivalry in any of our present feelings or institutions, seems but a theoretical dream. The knights of old are looked upon as things apart, that have neither kin nor community with ourselves; their acts are hardly believed; and their very existence is doubted. Let him who would make historical remembrance more tangible, and see how nearly the days of Chivalry approach to our own, run his eye over one short page in the chronology of the world, and he will find that no more than three centuries have passed since Bayard himself died, a knight without reproach.