These ties of fidelity, which arose from feudal relations, were so powerful over men’s minds, that the preachers of the crusades sometimes invoked them in their exhortations. They preached the duties of feudalism concurrently with the precepts of the Gospel, and in order to excite Christian warriors to take the cross, they called them “the vassals of Jesus Christ.”
It is to the times of the feudal government we must go back, to find in all its purity, that susceptibility upon the point of honour, that inviolable fidelity to the word, which then supplied the absence of laws, and which in polished societies often render men better than laws themselves. All our ideas of military glory, that boundless esteem which we accord to bravery, that profound contempt which, amongst us, is attached to falsehood or felony, are to be traced to this remote period. Feudalism was so completely mixed up with the spirit and character of nations, that modern societies have no institutions that have not some relation with it; and we have everywhere traces of it in our habits, our manners, and even in our speech.
Let me be allowed to add here one single observation. It is in vain we protest against our origin by our words; we are incessantly reminded of it by our tastes, by our sentiments, and sometimes by our pleasures. In fact, if, on one side, our reason, formed in the school of new ideas, finds nothing that is not revolting in the middle ages, why, on the other, does our imagination, moved by the spectacle of generous passions, delight in representing to itself olden times, and mingling with gallant knights and paladins? Whilst a severe philosophy heaps measureless blame upon the barbarous customs of feudalism, and the gothic manners of our ancestors, how is it that the remembrances which these manners and these customs have left us inspire still our poets with pictures which appear to us so full of charms? Why are these remembrances revived every day with the same success, in our poems, in our romances, and upon our stage? Would it be true to say that there is more patriotism in our imagination than in our reason, since the one would make us forget the history of our country, and the other unceasingly reminds us of it?
The crusades assisted in destroying the abuses of the feudal system; they served to preserve all that the system inspired of generous sentiments, and concurred at the same time in developing that which it contained that was favourable to civilization. We will finish our sketch of the manners of feudalism and the salutary effects of the crusades, by describing the revolution which operated at this time upon the different classes of society. The nobility will fix our attention in the first place.
Nobles are found in every nation where the memory of ancestors is reckoned for anything. There can be no doubt that nobility was common among the Franks and other barbarous people who invaded Europe. But in what point of view was this nobility looked upon before the eleventh and twelfth centuries? How was it at first constituted? How was the illustration of races transmitted? We are in possession of very few monuments to assist in deciding these questions; and when we have thoroughly studied the history of the middle ages, we have nothing better to do than to imitate the genealogists, who, when embarrassed in explaining the origin of the most ancient families, content themselves with assigning it to the night-time of the past.
When we reflect upon the rapidity with which generations pass away, and how difficult it is, even in civilized times, for most families to make out their own history during a single century, can we be astonished that, in times of ignorance and barbarism, there have been so few means of preserving the memory of the most illustrious families? In addition to the almost entire absence of written documents, the idea of true grandeur, the idea of that which constitutes heroic illustration, did not yet strike men’s minds sufficiently forcibly to make them preserve a long remembrance of it.[97] In these barbarous times, men, and even princes, were most frequently only distinguished by their physical qualities or their bodily defects. To be convinced of this truth we have but to glance at the list of kings of the middle ages, in which we find the names of Pepin-le-Bref (Pepin the Short), Charles-le-Chauve (Charles the Bald), William-le-Roux (William Rufus, or the Red), Louis-le-Gros (Louis the Fat), Frederick-Barbereusse (Frederick Barbarossa, or Red Beard), and many others, whom their age only designated by that which struck their eyes and was obvious to the grossest perception. There are few things more curious for an observer, than to see how old chronicles make us acquainted with the personages whose actions they give an account of. They never omit in their pictures, either the colour of the hair, or the stature, or the countenance of the princes and heroes; and their historical portraits (may I be allowed the comparison?) bear much less resemblance to a passage of history, than to those descriptions which are now-a-days written upon the passports of travellers.
If, as a writer has said, entire man was not yet understood, it cannot be said that virtue was not known, as at any other period; but the idea of virtue was then lost in that of duty, and with the single sentiment of duty, which was but the voice of conscience or the modest instinct of habit, they dreamt not of living in the memory of men.[98] The desire for illustrating a name belongs to a nascent civilization. When civilization threw forth its first rays, moral ideas of greatness were attached to the name of ancient families; and it may be safely said that nobility was not truly instituted before the value of glory began to be felt. But what is very certain is, that in the crusades nobility acquired an eminence that it had never before enjoyed. The exploits of nobles in the cause of Christianity, were very different affairs from those wars of castle against castle, with which they employed themselves in Europe. Nobility from that time found its archives in history, and the opinion the world entertained of its valour became its loftiest title.
If we consult the most authentic facts and the most probable opinions, we have reason to believe that the distinctions of nobility were at first founded upon great offices, but principally upon property. It was for the land or estate that, in the feudal system, the oath of fealty or homage was taken, and the protection of the sovereign claimed. For the man who was not a proprietor there was no contract, no privilege; he had nothing to give, nothing to receive; in the times of Joinville, nobles were called rich men. In France, a great proprietor was, by right, noble; if he was ruined or despoiled, his descendants sank into the crowd again: thus had the customs of a barbarous age established it. A strange thing it is, that there are times in which extreme civilization can make a nation revert to the same estate as extreme barbarism. When political illusions shall be dispersed, and there shall remain nothing but the mere substance of society, it is still property, it is the estate which will establish pre-eminence and denote ranks. Lands will no longer furnish soldiers, but they will pay taxes for the support of them; they will no longer be held by the tenure of complying with the duty of feudal aid; but they will still owe the sovereign the support of their influence, in exchange for the protection they shall receive from the sovereign authority.
If, in the middle ages, aristocracy was founded upon land, society derived a great advantage from the circumstance; for territorial property, which does not change, which is always the same, preserves the institutions and manners of a people better than industrial property, which most frequently belongs no more to one country than another, and which, on that account, bears within itself the germs of corruption. If it was for this reason that formerly nobility was degraded by giving itself up to the speculations of commerce and industry, it must be agreed that the usage thus established, had at least a respectable aim, and arose from a salutary principle.[99]
Territorial property had then such an influence over the social state, that it is quite enough to be acquainted with the changes it experienced, to judge of the changes to which society was subjected. “As soon as the state of the property of a certain period is discovered,” says Robertson, “we may determine with precision what was at the same time the degree of power then enjoyed by the king or the nobility.” During the crusades, ecclesiastical and civil laws permitted nobles to alienate their domains. A great number of them availed themselves of this fatal privilege, and did not hesitate to sell their lands; which displaced property, and consequently power. The nobility thus lost its power, and the crown gained that which the aristocracy lost.