The same kind of knight appeared also in the lands of the Longobard feudal system. The small gentry in Italy, unsatisfied with what little they possessed, often offered their military services to the rapidly growing townships. This eventually bettered their economic as well as their political status.
Two types of knighthood were then in existence, the older form of territorial knighthood concentrated in ruling fief-holders, and the newer form, that of chivalry founded on individual military service. Since the latter was bestowed upon a soldier independently of a fief, it might be called non-feudatory knighthood.
As the non-feudal knights grew to be the more numerous, knighthood became a separate class of society. Like any other social institution, knighthood passed through the storm-and-stress period of adolescence. Knights in the tenth and part of the eleventh centuries were often enough no more than bands of lawless brigands. Living as they did outside the ranks of the feudal hierarchy, these “gentlemen” interpreted the fact of not being bound by fealty to any particular master as a kind of charter of freedom from all laws and prohibitions. As narrated in the medieval lays or ballads, the examples of lawlessness and cruelty among some knights are, of course, outstanding. Yet, this new social class was indeed a menace to society. It was understandable, in the long run, that the authorities should look for means to call a halt to the excesses. In this effort the civil authorities were strongly supported by the Church, which launched a kind of peace offensive, endeavoring to direct the crude energies of knighthood into right channels and make of the new class an instrument of good in the social structure. There was success so that little by little knighthood became respectable to a remarkable degree. The reaction described had set in at the end of the tenth century, and a century later a change for the better in the moral life of the knights was everywhere in evidence. The reform was, however, not due exclusively to outside forces. As a class, the knights had the same needs and the same aspirations; and the better elements among them would try to enter into some sort of common tie. That common bond was a code of honor for knighthood and came to be generally accepted by the end of the eleventh century, namely around the time of the first Crusade. The motto of a good knight was succinctly expressed in the following Italian rhyme: “La mia anima a Dio, la mia vita al Re, il mio cuore alla Dama, l’onore per me (My soul to God, my life to the Crown, my heart to the Lady, my own the renown).” The duties of a knight broadened into that of protecting and defending the Church, the widows, the orphans and the oppressed, of vindicating justice, and of avenging evil. The catalogue of the cardinal virtues for chivalry included courtesy, valor, class loyalty, self-denial, munificence, and hospitality. The code was well-nigh theoretically perfect, even if all knights did not observe it in practice. As a matter of fact, the virtues to which the knight was dedicated sometimes led to exaggerations, distortions, and their very opposite.
The high point in the age of chivalry came during the Crusades, those religious wars waged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the Christians of Western Europe against the Mohammedans for the recovery of the Holy Land. An interaction came about between the Crusades and chivalry. The spirit of chivalry was largely responsible for making possible these campaigns for a religious ideal. Thereby, the Crusades provided a powerful impetus in the development of knighthood, for it was during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that chivalry attained its highest peak both in quality and quantity. The Crusades did not create a new type of knighthood, but they gave the knights a chance to show their mettle.
When the landless soldiers of the Cross distinguished themselves in battle just as well or perhaps even better than the feudal knights, it was reasonable that they should claim their reward. If they fought as well as those who owed knighthood to their feudal status, why should they not claim the honors and benefits of knighthood? In that way the Crusades gave the horsemen large scale opportunity to become knights through personal valor. However, the conditio sine qua non for becoming a knight at this time was still the old law that the candidates should be of noble birth, that is to say, that they could trace their descent from the ancient feudal families. In the century following the Crusades the decline of knighthood set in, and it is generally admitted that by 1500 the age of chivalry had passed. Then it was that its tradition and spirit were kept alive in the orders of knighthood.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD
The first orders of knighthood were radically of a religious nature inasmuch as they pursued a religious purpose and were organized like other religious communities. The order of knighthood was composed of a body of knights, united by some common objective as the care of the sick or the defense of the Catholic faith, and who were pledged with the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, led a community life under a chosen head and professed a common rule approved by the ecclesiastical authorities.
The birthplace of all orders of knighthood was the Holy Land and they appeared during the period of the Crusades. True, some historians attempt to date the origin of the military orders as far back in antiquity as possible, for instance, to Charlemagne and his paladins or to Constantine the Great and his mother, Saint Helena. The claims of such ancestry fanatics to the contrary notwithstanding, it can safely be said that no military order of knighthood, either regular or secular, came into existence before the first Crusade, as the Bollandist Papebrock said in 1738: “Fallunt aut volentes falluntur adulatores studio placendi abrepti, quicumque militarium religionum principia ante XII saeculum requirunt” (AA. SS. Boll., Apr., III, 155).
The Holy Land was the scene of the rise of three types of religious orders. Some were orders of charity, or hospital orders, dedicating themselves to the care of the poor and sick pilgrims who came to visit the holy places. The oldest and most famous was the Order of Saint Lazarus which was functioning even before the Crusades began. Its scope was the care of lepers; moreover, lepers could become members of the congregation, and it has been alleged that during a period of its existence the grand master was chosen from among these sorely afflicted members. The confraternity always remained primarily an order of charity. The fact that the brothers admitted some knights stricken with leprosy who gave aid to the crusaders, particularly during the siege of Acre, when the common cause demanded everybody’s efforts, is certainly not sufficient reason to call the congregation of Saint Lazarus a military order of knighthood. Nonetheless, many centuries after their expulsion from the Holy Land, the remnants of this congregation were absorbed into a military order, as we shall see hereafter.
A second group of religious orders founded in the Holy Land had an exclusively military objective, inasmuch as their purpose was to protect the pilgrims against the attacks of the Moslems and to defend the cause of the Cross. The prototype of such knightly societies was the Order of the Temple.