Lastly, the customs of chivalry were maintained by their connexion with military service. After armies, which we may call comparatively regular, had superseded in a great degree the feudal militia, princes were anxious to bid high for the service of knights, the best-equipped and bravest warriors of the time, on whose prowess the fate of battles was for a long period justly supposed to depend. War brought into relief the generous virtues of chivalry, and gave lustre to its distinctive privileges. The rank was sought with enthusiastic emulation through heroic achievements, to which, rather than to mere wealth and station, it was considered to belong. In the wars of France and England, by far the most splendid period of this institution, a promotion of knights followed every success, besides the innumerable cases where the same honour rewarded individual bravery.[] It may here be mentioned that an honorary distinction was made between knights-bannerets and bachelors.[x] The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man could properly be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and could bring a certain number of lances into the field.[y] His distinguishing mark was the square banner, carried by a squire at the point of his lance; while the knight-bachelor had only the coronet or pointed pendant. When a banneret was created, the general cut off this pendant to render the banner square.[z] But this distinction, however it elevated the banneret, gave him no claim to military command, except over his own dependents or men at arms. Chandos was still a knight-bachelor when he led part of the prince of Wales's army into Spain. He first raised his banner at the battle of Navarette; and the narration that Froissart gives of the ceremony will illustrate the manners of chivalry and the character of that admirable hero, the conqueror of Du Guesclin and pride of English chivalry, whose fame with posterity has been a little overshadowed by his master's laurels.[a] What seems more extraordinary is, that mere squires had frequently the command over knights. Proofs of this are almost continual in Froissart. But the vast estimation in which men held the dignity of knighthood led them sometimes to defer it for great part of their lives, in hope of signalizing their investiture by some eminent exploit.
Decline of chivalry.
These appear to have been the chief means of nourishing the principles of chivalry among the nobility of Europe. But notwithstanding all encouragement, it underwent the usual destiny of human institutions. St. Palaye, to whom we are indebted for so vivid a picture of ancient manners, ascribes the decline of chivalry in France to the profusion with which the order was lavished under Charles VI., to the establishment of the companies of ordonnance by Charles VII., and to the extension of knightly honours to lawyers, and other men of civil occupation, by Francis I.[] But the real principle of decay was something different from these three subordinate circumstances, unless so far as it may bear some relation to the second. It was the invention of gunpowder that eventually overthrew chivalry. From the time when the use of fire-arms became tolerably perfect the weapons of former warfare lost their efficacy, and physical force was reduced to a very subordinate place in the accomplishments of a soldier. The advantages of a disciplined infantry became more sensible; and the lancers, who continued till almost the end of the sixteenth century to charge in a long line, felt the punishment of their presumption and indiscipline. Even in the wars of Edward III., the disadvantageous tactics of chivalry must have been perceptible; but the military art had not been sufficiently studied to overcome the prejudices of men eager for individual distinction. Tournaments became less frequent; and, after the fatal accident of Henry II., were entirely discontinued in France. Notwithstanding the convulsions of the religious wars, the sixteenth century was more tranquil than any that had preceded; and thus a large part of the nobility passed their lives in pacific habits, and if they assumed the honours of chivalry, forgot their natural connexion with military prowess. This is far more applicable to England, where, except from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VI., chivalry, as a military institution, seems not to have found a very congenial soil.[c] To these circumstances, immediately affecting the military condition of nations, we must add the progress of reason and literature, which made ignorance discreditable even in a soldier, and exposed the follies of romance to a ridicule which they were very ill calculated to endure.
The spirit of chivalry left behind it a more valuable successor. The character of knight gradually subsided in that of gentleman; and the one distinguishes European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as much as the other did in the preceding ages. A jealous sense of honour, less romantic, but equally elevated, a ceremonious gallantry and politeness, a strictness in devotional observances, a high pride of birth and feeling of independence upon any sovereign for the dignity it gave, a sympathy for martial honour, though more subdued by civil habits, are the lineaments which prove an indisputable descent. The cavaliers of Charles I. were genuine successors of Edward's knights; and the resemblance is much more striking, if we ascend to the civil wars of the League. Time has effaced much also of this gentlemanly, as it did before of the chivalrous character. From the latter part of the seventeenth century its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay, and yielded, perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth, more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and the levelling customs of social intercourse.[d]
Literature.
It is now time to pass to a very different subject. The third head under which I classed the improvements of society during the four last centuries of the middle ages was that of literature. But I must apprise the reader not to expect any general view of literary history, even in the most abbreviated manner. Such an epitome would not only be necessarily superficial, but foreign in many of its details to the purposes of this chapter, which, attempting to develop the circumstances that gave a new complexion to society, considers literature only so far as it exercised a general and powerful influence. The private researches, therefore, of a single scholar, unproductive of any material effect in his generation, ought not to arrest us, nor indeed would a series of biographical notices, into which literary history is apt to fall, be very instructive to a philosophical inquirer. But I have still a more decisive reason against taking a large range of literary history into the compass of this work, founded on the many contributions which have been made within the last forty years in that department, some of them even since the commencement of my own labour.[e] These have diffused so general an acquaintance with the literature of the middle ages, that I must, in treating the subject, either compile secondary information from well-known books, or enter upon a vast field of reading, with little hope of improving upon what has been already said, or even acquiring credit for original research. I shall, therefore, confine myself to four points: the study of civil law; the institution of universities; the application of modern languages to literature, and especially to poetry; and the revival of ancient learning.
Civil law.
The Roman law had been nominally preserved ever since the destruction of the empire; and a great portion of the inhabitants of France and Spain, as well as Italy, were governed by its provisions. But this was a mere compilation from the Theodosian code; which itself contained only the more recent laws promulgated after the establishment of Christianity, with some fragments from earlier collections. It was made by order of Alaric king of the Visigoths about the year 500, and it is frequently confounded, with the Theodosian code by writers of the dark ages.[f] The code of Justinian, reduced into system after the separation of the two former countries from the Greek empire, never obtained any authority in them; nor was it received in the part of Italy subject to the Lombards. But that this body of laws was absolutely unknown in the West during any period seems to have been too hastily supposed. Some of the more eminent ecclesiastics, as Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres, occasionally refer to it, and bear witness to the regard which the Roman church had uniformly paid to its decisions.[g]
The revival of the study of jurisprudence, as derived from the laws of Justinian, has generally been ascribed to the discovery made of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135, when that city was taken by the Pisans. This fact, though not improbable, seems not to rest upon sufficient evidence.[h] But its truth is the less material, as it appears to be unequivocally proved that the study of Justinian's system had recommenced before that era. Early in the twelfth century a professor named Irnerius[] opened a school of civil law at Bologna, where he commented, if not on the Pandects, yet on the other books, the Institutes and Code, which were sufficient to teach the principles and inspire the love of that comprehensive jurisprudence. The study of law, having thus revived, made a surprising progress; within fifty years Lombardy was full of lawyers, on whom Frederic Barbarossa and Alexander III., so hostile in every other respect, conspired to shower honours and privileges. The schools of Bologna were pre-eminent throughout this century for legal learning. There seem also to have been seminaries at Modena and Mantua; nor was any considerable city without distinguished civilians. In the next age they became still more numerous, and their professors more conspicuous, and universities arose at Naples, Padua, and other places, where the Roman law was the object of peculiar regard.[k]
There is apparently great justice in the opinion of Tiraboschi, that by acquiring internal freedom and the right of determining controversies by magistrates of their own election, the Italian cities were led to require a more extensive and accurate code of written laws than they had hitherto possessed. These municipal judges were chosen from among the citizens, and the succession to offices was usually so rapid, that almost every freeman might expect in his turn to partake in the public government, and consequently in the administration of justice. The latter had always indeed been exercised in the sight of the people by the count and his assessors under the Lombard and Carlovingian sovereigns; but the laws were rude, the proceedings tumultuary, and the decisions perverted by violence. The spirit of liberty begot a stronger sense of right; and right, it was soon perceived, could only be secured by a common standard. Magistrates holding temporary offices, and little elevated in those simple times above the citizens among whom they were to return, could only satisfy the suitors, and those who surrounded their tribunal, by proving the conformity of their sentences to acknowledged authorities. And the practice of alleging reasons in giving judgment would of itself introduce some uniformity of decision and some adherence to great rules of justice in the most arbitrary tribunals; while, on the other hand, those of a free country lose part of their title to respect, and of their tendency to maintain right, whenever, either in civil or criminal questions, the mere sentence of a judge is pronounced without explanation of its motives.