There is perhaps enough in the nature of this institution and its congeniality to the habits of a warlike generation to account for the respect in which it was held throughout Europe. But several collateral circumstances served to invigorate its spirit. Besides the powerful efficacy with which the poetry and romance of the middle ages stimulated those susceptible minds which were alive to no other literature, we may enumerate four distinct causes tending to the promotion of chivalry.
Regular education for knighthood.
The first of these was the regular scheme of education, according to which the sons of gentlemen from the age of seven years, were brought up in the castles of superior lords, where they at once learned the whole discipline of their future profession, and imbibed its emulous and enthusiastic spirit. This was an inestimable advantage to the poorer nobility, who could hardly otherwise have given their children the accomplishments of their station. From seven to fourteen these boys were called pages or varlets; at fourteen they bore the name of esquire. They were instructed in the management of arms, in the art of horsemanship, in exercises of strength and activity. They became accustomed to obedience and courteous demeanour, serving their lord or lady in offices which had not yet become derogatory to honourable birth, and striving to please visitors, and especially ladies, at the ball or banquet. Thus placed in the centre of all that could awaken their imaginations, the creed of chivalrous gallantry, superstition, or honour must have made indelible impressions. Panting for the glory which neither their strength nor the established rules permitted them to anticipate, the young scions of chivalry attended their masters to the tournament, and even to the battle, and riveted with a sigh the armour they were forbidden to wear.[n]
Encouragement of princes. Tournaments.
It was the constant policy of sovereigns to encourage this institution, which furnished them with faithful supports, and counteracted the independent spirit of feudal tenure. Hence they displayed a lavish magnificence in festivals and tournaments, which may be reckoned a second means of keeping up the tone of chivalrous feeling. The kings of France and England held solemn or plenary courts at the great festivals, or at other times, where the name of knight was always a title to admittance; and the masque of chivalry, if I may use the expression, was acted in pageants and ceremonies fantastical enough in our apprehension, but well calculated for those heated understandings. Here the peacock and the pheasant, birds of high fame in romance, received the homage of all true knights.[o] The most singular festival of this kind was that celebrated by Philip duke of Burgundy, in 1453. In the midst of the banquet a pageant was introduced, representing the calamitous state of religion in consequence of the recent capture of Constantinople. This was followed by the appearance of a pheasant, which was laid before the duke, and to which the knights present addressed their vows to undertake a crusade, in the following very characteristic preamble: I swear before God my Creator in the first place, and the glorious Virgin his mother, and next before the ladies and the pheasant.[p] Tournaments were a still more powerful incentive to emulation. These may be considered to have arisen about the middle of the eleventh century; for though every martial people have found diversion in representing the image of war, yet the name of tournaments, and the laws that regulated them, cannot be traced any higher.[q] Every scenic performance of modern times must be tame in comparison of these animating combats. At a tournament, the space enclosed within the lists was surrounded by sovereign princes and their noblest barons, by knights of established renown, and all that rank and beauty had most distinguished among the fair. Covered with steel, and known only by their emblazoned shield or by the favours of their mistresses, a still prouder bearing, the combatants rushed forward to a strife without enmity, but not without danger. Though their weapons were pointless, and sometimes only of wood, though they were bound by the laws of tournaments to strike only upon the strong armour of the trunk, or, as it was called, between the four limbs, those impetuous conflicts often terminated in wounds and death. The church uttered her excommunications in vain against so wanton an exposure to peril; but it was more easy for her to excite than to restrain that martial enthusiasm. Victory in a tournament was little less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in the field; since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valour. "Honour to the sons of the brave," resounded amidst the din of martial music from the lips of the minstrels, as the conqueror advanced to receive the prize from his queen or his mistress; while the surrounding multitude acknowledged in his prowess of that day an augury of triumphs that might in more serious contests be blended with those of his country.[r]
Privileges of knighthood.
Both honorary and substantial privileges belonged to the condition of knighthood, and had of course a material tendency to preserve its credit. A knight was distinguished abroad by his crested helmet, his weighty armour, whether of mail or plate, bearing his heraldic coat, by his gilded spurs, his horse barded with iron, or clothed in housing of gold; at home, by richer silks and more costly furs than were permitted to squires, and by the appropriated colour of scarlet. He was addressed by titles of more respect.[] Many civil offices, by rule or usage, were confined to his order. But perhaps its chief privilege was to form one distinct class of nobility extending itself throughout great part of Europe, and almost independent, as to its rights and dignities, of any particular sovereign. Whoever had been legitimately dubbed a knight in one country became, as it were, a citizen of universal chivalry, and might assume most of its privileges in any other. Nor did he require the act of a sovereign to be thus distinguished. It was a fundamental principle that any knight might confer the order; responsible only in his own reputation if he used lightly so high a prerogative. But as all the distinctions of rank might have been confounded, if this right had been without limit, it was an equally fundamental rule, that it could only be exercised in favour of gentlemen.[t]
The privileges annexed to chivalry were of peculiar advantage to the vavassors, or inferior gentry, as they tended to counterbalance the influence which territorial wealth threw into the scale of their feudal suzerains. Knighthood brought these two classes nearly to a level; and it is owing perhaps in no small degree to this institution that the lower nobility saved themselves, notwithstanding their poverty, from being confounded with the common people.
Connexion of chivalry with military service.
Knights-bannerets and bachelors.