These short references[655] do not indicate the nature of the ceremony. But one notes the use of the Latin words miles and militia as meaning knight and knighthood. Like so many other classical words, miles took various meanings in the Middle Ages. But it came commonly to signify knight, chevalier, or ritter.[656] And whatever other meanings militia and militare retained or acquired, they signified knighthood and the performance of its duties. Frequently they suggested the relationship of vassal to a lord: and in this sense miles meant one who held a fief under the obligation to do knightly service in return.
But how did this word miles (which in classical Latin meant a soldier and sometimes specifically a foot-soldier as contrasted with an eques) come to mean a knight? It was first applied to the warriors of the various Teutonic peoples, who for the most part fought on foot. But the wars with the Saracens in the eighth century appear to have made clear the need of a large and efficient corps of horse. From the time of Charles Martel the warrior class began to fight regularly on horseback;[657] and thus, apparently, the term miles began to signify primarily one of these tried and well-armed riders.[658] Such were the very ones who would regularly be invested with their arms on reaching manhood. Many of them had inherited the sentiments of fealty to a chief, and probably were vassals of some lord from whom they had received lands to be held on military tenure. They were not all noble (an utterly loose term with reference to these early confused centuries) nor were they necessarily free (another inappropriate term with respect to these incipiently mediaeval social conditions).[659] But their mainly military duties would naturally develop into a retainer’s relationship of fealty.
The ninth century passes into the tenth, the tenth into the eleventh, the eleventh into the twelfth. Classes and orders of society become more distinct. The old warrior groups have become lords and vassals, and compose the feudal class whose members upon maturity are formally girt with the arms of manhood, and thereupon become knights. The ceremony of their investiture has been gradually made more impressive; it has also been imbued with religious sentiment and elaborated with religious rite. It now constitutes the initiation to a universally recognized fighting Order which has its knightly code of honour, if not its knightly duties. In a word, along with the clearer determination of its membership, and the elaboration of the ceremonies of entry or “adoubement,” knighthood has become a distinct conception and has attained existence as an Order. And an Order it remains, into which one is admitted, but into which no one is born, though he be hereditary king or duke or count. Moreover, although the candidates normally would be of the feudal class, the Order is not closed against knightly merit in whomsoever found.[660] Of course there was no written regula or charter, except of certain special Orders. Yet there was no uncertainty as to who was or was not a knight.
A knight could be “made” or “dubbed” at any time, for example, on the field of battle or before the fight. But certain festivals of the Church, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, came to be regarded as peculiarly appropriate for the ceremony. Any knight, but no unknighted person however high his rank, could “dub” another knight.[661] This appears to have been the universal rule, and yet it suffered infringements. For example, at a late period a king might claim the right to confirm the bestowal of knighthood, which in fact commonly was bestowed by a great lord or sovereign prince. On its negative side, the general rule may be said to have been infringed when Church dignitaries, no longer content with blessing the arms of the young warrior, usurped the secular privilege of investing him with them and dubbing him a knight.[662]
The ceremony itself probably originated in the girding on of the sword. As these warriors in time changed to mounted riders with elaborate arms and armour, it became more of an affair to invest them fully with their equipment. There would be the putting on of helm and coat of mail, and there would be the binding on of spurs; and at some time it became customary for the youth to prepare himself by a bath. But girding on the sword was still the important point, although perhaps the somewhat enigmatical blow, given by him who conferred the dignity, and not to be returned (non repercutiendus), became the finish to the ceremony. That blow existed (we find it in the Chansons de geste) in the twelfth century as a thwack with the fist on the young man’s bare neck; then in course of years it refined itself into a gentle sword-tap on the mailed shoulder.[663]
At an early period the Church sought to sanctify the ceremony through religious rites; for it could not remain unconcerned with the consecration of the warriors of Christendom, whose services were needed and whose souls were to be saved. What time so apt for inculcating obedience and other Christian virtues as this solemn hour when the young warrior’s nature was stirred with the pride and hopes of knighthood? And the young knight needed the Church’s blessing. Heathen peoples sought in every enterprise the protection of their gods, usually obtained through priestly magic. And when converted to the faith of Christ, should they not call on Him who was mightier than Odin? Should not His power be invoked to shield the Christian knight? Will not the sword which the priest has blessed and has laid upon Christ’s miracle-working altar, more surely guard the wearer’s life? Better still if there be blessed relics in its hilt. The dying Roland speaks to his great sword:
“O Durendel cum ies bele et seintisme!”
“O Durendel how art thou fair and holy! In thy hilt what store of relics: tooth of St. Peter, blood of St. Basil, hairs of my lord St. Denis, cloth worn by the Holy Mary.”[664] These relics made the “holiness” of that sword, not in the way of sentiment, but through their magic power. And we shall not be thinking in mediaeval categories if we lose sight of the magic-religious effect of the priest’s blessing on the novice’s sword: it is a protection for the future knight.
Doubtless the religious features of the “adoubement” revert to various epochs. The ancient watch-nights preceding Easter and Pentecost, followed at daybreak by the baptism of white-robed catechumens, may have been the original of the novice’s night vigil over his arms laid by the altar. His bath had become a symbol of purification from sin. He heard Mass in the early morning, and then came the blessing of the sword, the benedictio ensis, of which the oldest extant formula is found in a Roman manuscript of the early eleventh century: “Exaudi, quaeso, Domine, preces nostras, et hunc ensem quo hic famulus N. se circumcingi desiderat, majestatis tuae dextera benedicere dignare.”[665]
Through the Middle Ages the fashions of feudalism did not remain unchanged; likewise its quintessential spirit, chivalry, was modified, and one may say, between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries, passed from barbarism to preciosity. Nevertheless the main ideals of chivalry endured, springing as they did from the fundamental and but slowly-changing conditions of feudal society. Since that society was constantly at war,[666] the first virtue of the knight was valour. Next, since life and property hung on mutual aid and troth, and a larger safety was ensured if one lord could rely upon his neighbour’s word, the virtues of truth-speaking and troth-keeping took their places in the chivalric ideal. Another useful quality, and means of winning men, was generosity (largesse). When coin is scarce, and stipulations for fixed pay unusual, he who serves looks for liberality, which, in accordance with feudal conditions, made the third of the chief knightly virtues.