The History of the Crusades (vol. 3 of 3)

by J. Fr. Michaud

The crusades, however, were not unproductive of good fruit for the nobility; gentlemen acquired principalities in the East; most of the cities of Greece and Syria became so many lordships, which recognised as masters counts and barons enrolled under the banners of the holy wars; some, still more fortunate, ascended the throne of David, or that of Constantine, and took place among the greatest monarchs of Christendom.

The military orders likewise presented the nobility with amends for the losses they experienced in ruinous wars. These orders had immense possessions in both the West and the East; they were for the European nobility, an asylum in peace, and a school of heroism in war.

It was at this period that the use of surnames was introduced, and coats of arms were assumed. Every gentleman added to his own name the name of his estate, or the title of the lordship he possessed; he placed in his coat of arms a sign which distinguished his family and marked his nobility; genealogy became a science, and consecrated, by its researches, the illustration of races. Whatever value may be now-a-days attached to this science, it must be admitted that it often threw a great light upon the history of illustrious families, and sometimes upon the general history of a country to which these families belonged.

Everything leads us to believe that the origin of surnames,[100] but more particularly of coats of arms, is due to the Crusaders. The lord stood in no need of a mark of distinction when he did not go off his own manor; but he became aware of the necessity for distinguishing himself from others when he found himself at a distance from home, and confounded in the crowd of the Crusaders: a great number of families ruined themselves, or became extinct, in the holy wars. Such as were ruined attached themselves more strongly to the remembrance of their nobility, the only wealth that was left them; after the extinction of families, the necessity for replacing them was felt; it was under Philip-le-Hardi that the practice of creating nobles was introduced.[101] As soon as there were new nobles, it became of more consequence to be considered ancient ones. Property did not appear sufficient to preserve and transmit a name which itself became a property, consecrated by history and acknowledged by society. It was then that nobility attached more value to marks of distinction.

At the end of the feudal government, the nobility, it is true, still constituted, in a great degree, the strength of the army; but it served the state in a new character; it conformed more with the spirit of chivalry than with that of feudalism. A gentleman no longer paid homage to his sovereign for his estate, but he swore upon his sword to be faithful to him.

As soon as feudal services ceased to be required, the nobility increased in zeal for personal service. Kings eagerly welcomed them when they were no longer formidable; thus they recovered in the favour of courts a great portion of the advantages they had lost. As they still held the first rank in society, and preserved a great ascendancy over the other classes, they continued, by their example, to polish the spirit and the manners of the nation; and it is by their means particularly, that those elegant manners were formed which have so long distinguished the French among all the nations of Europe.

It is difficult, however, to say with precision what the nobility gained and what they lost by the changes that were effected. Their existence, doubtless, had something more brilliant in it, but also something less solid. The honorary prerogatives which they retained, without giving them any real strength, armed more jealous passions against them than territorial power had done; for it may be remarked, that man’s self-love endures riches and power in others, with a better grace than it endures distinctions.

We must add, likewise, that as society progressed, new means of illustration, new kinds of notability arose; the moral power of opinion, which had been attached exclusively to nobility, communicated itself by degrees to those who contributed to the prosperity of society by their talents, their knowledge, or their industry.

We have seen the brilliant side of feudalism; we have now to speak of the state in which the inhabitants of the cities and the country groaned. Most of the villages and cities depended upon some baron, whose protection they purchased, and who exercised an arbitrary jurisdiction over them. Man, reduced to servitude, or rather slavery, had no law which guarded him against oppression; the produce of labour, the wages of his sweat, did not belong to him; he was himself a property which could be claimed anywhere, if he fled away from his home. Chained to the glebe, he must often have envied the animal who helped him to trace the furrow, or the palfrey, the noble companion of his master. The serf had no other hope but that which religion afforded him, and left nothing to his children but the example of his patience in suffering. He could neither make a contract during his lifetime, nor a testament at the hour of death. His last will was not recognised by law; it died with him. To excuse the barbarity of this gross age, we must remember the still more frightful fate of slaves among the Greeks and Romans. We have no need to point out the obstacles this state of things must have opposed to the development of the industry and the social faculties of man. Thus the country was covered with forests, and most of the cities presented nothing but an aspect of poverty and misery.