The crusaders, however, changed in more than one respect the character of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular reference to religion. Ingulfus indeed tells us that the Anglo-Saxons preceded the ceremony of investiture by a confession of their sins, and other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest, instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy, and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English before the Conquest.[t] We can hardly perceive indeed why the assumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself; and all bloodshed was subject in strictness to a canonical penance. But the purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use, that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a military institution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land was constantly at the heart of a brave and superstitious nobility; and every knight was supposed at his creation to pledge himself, as occasion should arise, to that cause. Meanwhile, the defence of God's law against infidels was his primary and standing duty. A knight, whenever present at mass, held the point of his sword before him while the gospel was read, to signify his readiness to support it. Writers of the middle ages compare the knightly to the priestly character in an elaborate parallel, and the investiture of the one was supposed analogous to the ordination of the other. The ceremonies upon this occasion were almost wholly religious. The candidate passed nights in prayer among priests in a church; he received the sacraments; he entered into a bath, and was clad with a white robe, in allusion to the presumed purification of his life; his sword was solemnly blessed; every thing, in short, was contrived to identify his new condition with the defence of religion, or at least of the church.[]
And with gallantry.
To this strong tincture of religion which entered into the composition of chivalry from the twelfth century, was added another ingredient equally distinguishing. A great respect for the female sex had always been a remarkable characteristic of the Northern nations. The German women were high-spirited and virtuous; qualities which might be causes or consequences of the veneration with which they were regarded. I am not sure that we could trace very minutely the condition of women for the period between the subversion of the Roman empire and the first crusade; but apparently man did not grossly abuse his superiority; and in point of civil rights, and even as to the inheritance of property, the two sexes were placed perhaps as nearly on a level as the nature of such warlike societies would admit. There seems, however, to have been more roughness in the social intercourse between the sexes than we find in later periods. The spirit of gallantry which became so animating a principle of chivalry, must be ascribed to the progressive refinement of society during the twelfth and two succeeding centuries. In a rude state of manners, as among the lower people in all ages, woman has not full scope to display those fascinating graces, by which nature has designed to counterbalance the strength and energy of mankind. Even where those jealous customs that degrade alike the two sexes have not prevailed, her lot is domestic seclusion; nor is she fit to share in the boisterous pastimes of drunken merriment to which the intercourse of an unpolished people is confined. But as a taste for the more elegant enjoyments of wealth arises, a taste which it is always her policy and her delight to nourish, she obtains an ascendency at first in the lighter hour, and from thence in the serious occupations of life. She chases, or brings into subjection, the god of wine, a victory which might seem more ignoble were it less difficult, and calls in the aid of divinities more propitious to her ambition. The love of becoming ornament is not perhaps to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from nature to give effect to those charms that are her defence; and when commerce began to minister more effectually to the wants of luxury, the rich furs of the North, the gay silks of Asia, the wrought gold of domestic manufacture, illumined the halls of chivalry, and cast, as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow. Courtesy had always been the proper attribute of knighthood; protection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm when woman became their object. There was little jealousy shown in the treatment of that sex, at least in France, the fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at tournaments, and sat promiscuously in the halls of their castle. The romance of Perceforest (and romances have always been deemed good witnesses as to manners) tells of a feast where eight hundred knights had each of them a lady eating off his plate.[x] For to eat off the same plate was an usual mark of gallantry or friendship.
Next therefore, or even equal to devotion, stood gallantry among the principles of knighthood. But all comparison between the two was saved by blending them together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress was held sure of salvation in the theology of castles though not of cloisters.[y] Froissart announces that he had undertaken a collection of amorous poetry with the help of God and of love; and Boccace returns thanks to each for their assistance in the Decameron. The laws sometimes united in this general homage to the fair. "We will," says James II. of Aragon, "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."[z] Louis II., duke of Bourbon, instituting the order of the Golden Shield, enjoins his knights to honour above all the ladies, and not to permit any one to slander them, "because from them after God comes all the honour that men can acquire."[a]
The gallantry of those ages, which was very often adulterous, had certainly no right to profane the name of religion; but its union with valour was at least more natural, and became so intimate, that the same word has served to express both qualities. In the French and English wars especially, the knights of each country brought to that serious conflict the spirit of romantic attachment which had been cherished in the hours of peace. They fought at Poitiers or Verneuil as they had fought at tournaments, bearing over their armour scarves and devices as the livery of their mistresses, and asserting the paramount beauty of her they served in vaunting challenges towards the enemy. Thus in the middle of a keen skirmish at Cherbourg, the squadrons remained motionless, while one knight challenged to a single combat the most amorous of the adversaries. Such a defiance was soon accepted, and the battle only recommenced when one of the champions had lost his life for his love.[] In the first campaign of Edward's war some young English knights wore a covering over one eye, vowing, for the sake of their ladies, never to see with both till they should have signalized their prowess in the field.[c] These extravagances of chivalry are so common that they form part of its general character, and prove how far a course of action which depends upon the impulses of sentiment may come to deviate from common sense.
It cannot be presumed that this enthusiastic veneration, this devotedness in life and death, were wasted upon ungrateful natures. The goddesses of that idolatry knew too well the value of their worshippers. There has seldom been such adamant about the female heart, as can resist the highest renown for valour and courtesy, united with the steadiest fidelity. "He loved," says Froissart of Eustace d'Auberthicourt, "and afterwards married lady Isabel, daughter of the count of Juliers. This lady too loved lord Eustace for the great exploits in arms which she heard told of him, and she sent him horses and loving letters, which made the said lord Eustace more bold than before, and he wrought such feats of chivalry, that all in his company were gainers."[d] It were to be wished that the sympathy of love and valour had always been as honourable. But the morals of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure. In the amusing fictions which seem to have been the only popular reading of the middle ages, there reigns a licentious spirit, not of that slighter kind which is usual in such compositions, but indicating a general dissoluteness in the intercourse of the sexes. This has often been noticed of Boccaccio and the early Italian novelists; but it equally characterized the tales and romances of France, whether metrical or in prose, and all the poetry of the Troubadours.[e] The violation of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of the brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems to have enjoyed as undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of opinion, as were claimed by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV.
Virtues deemed essential to chivalry.
But neither that emulous valour which chivalry excited, nor the religion and gallantry which were its animating principles, alloyed as the latter were by the corruption of those ages, could have rendered its institution materially conducive to the moral improvement of society. There were, however, excellences of a very high class which it equally encouraged. In the books professedly written to lay down the duties of knighthood, they appear to spread over the whole compass of human obligations. But these, like other books of morality, strain their schemes of perfection far beyond the actual practice of mankind. A juster estimate of chivalrous manners is to be deduced from romances. Yet in these, as in all similar fictions, there must be a few ideal touches beyond the simple truth of character; and the picture can only be interesting when it ceases to present images of mediocrity or striking imperfection. But they referred their models of fictitious heroism to the existing standard of moral approbation; a rule, which, if it generally falls short of what reason and religion prescribe, is always beyond the average tenor of human conduct. From these and from history itself we may infer the tendency of chivalry to elevate and purify the moral feelings. Three virtues may particularly be noticed as essential in the estimation of mankind to the character of a knight; loyalty, courtesy, and munificence.
Loyalty.
The first of these in its original sense may be defined, fidelity to engagements; whether actual promises, or such tacit obligations as bound a vassal to his lord and a subject to his prince. It was applied also, and in the utmost strictness, to the fidelity of a lover towards the lady he served. Breach of faith, and especially of an express promise, was held a disgrace that no valour could redeem. False, perjured, disloyal, recreant, were the epithets which he must be compelled to endure who had swerved from a plighted engagement even towards an enemy. This is one of the most striking changes produced by chivalry. Treachery, the usual vice of savage as well as corrupt nations, became infamous during the vigour of that discipline. As personal rather than national feelings actuated its heroes, they never felt that hatred, much less that fear of their enemies, which blind men to the heinousness of ill faith. In the wars of Edward III., originating in no real animosity, the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards the foe seems to have arrived at its highest point. Though avarice may have been the primary motive of ransoming prisoners instead of putting them to death, their permission to return home on the word of honour in order to procure the stipulated sum—an indulgence never refused—could only be founded on experienced confidence in the principles of chivalry.[f]