Life of Edward the Black Prince

by Louise Creighton

Let us look a little closer at this chivalry, and see what it meant and what was the ideal which it held up to its followers. It had no artificial origin, but sprang up as a natural outcome of feudalism, and so of early Teutonic manners. A feudal vassal owed certain definite duties to his superior. Knighthood was the formal act by which the fitness of a young man to take upon him these duties was recognised, and he was declared worthy to enter the rank of warriors.

It was to the Crusades that chivalry owed its religious character. By taking part in the Crusades the knight could best find a field in which he might give free play to all the noble sentiments which animated him. And if the knight was to fight for Christ, it was right that religion should take under her control the important act which initiated a young man into the rank of knighthood. The education of a future knight began at the age of seven. It was the custom for the sons of gentlemen to be brought up in the castles of the nobles, where first they acted as pages, attending upon the lords and ladies. Afterwards they were advanced, at the age of fourteen, to the rank of squires, and waited upon their lords both at home and abroad; they aided in their toilet, carved before them at table, and riveted their armour as they attended them to the tournament or the battle. Attention was paid to their education in all things connected with the management of arms or of horses; they were taught above all to be courteous to ladies, to be respectful and obedient to their superiors. Thus bred up in the atmosphere of chivalry, they were fit and eager, when manhood came, to be raised to the dignity of knighthood. This was accompanied by many solemn ceremonies. The squire who was to be knighted was first made to lay aside his clothes, and enter a bath, the symbol of purification. On coming out he was clothed with a white garment, the symbol of purity; next, in a red robe, the symbol of the blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith; and lastly, in a close black coat, the symbol of the death which awaited him. He then spent the next twenty-four hours in fasting. At evening he entered the church or chapel, and passed the night in prayers. In the morning he confessed and received absolution, and then partook of the Communion. He was next present at the mass of the Holy Ghost, and sometimes listened to a sermon on the duties of knighthood. Then, advancing to the altar, with the sword of a knight hanging from his neck, he knelt before the priest, who took the sword and blessed it, and then returned it to him. After this he went and knelt before the noble who was to arm him knight, who was called his godfather. Before him he swore to maintain the right, to fight for the faith, to serve his sovereign prince, to protect the weak and oppressed; above all, to be the champion of women, to obey his superiors, to honour his companions, to keep faith with all the world, to forswear all treason and avarice, to acknowledge as his only aims glory and virtue. When he had taken his oath, knights and ladies advanced to clothe him in his new armour, the spurs, the coat of mail, the cuirass, and the gauntlets, and to gird on his sword. Then his godfather struck him three blows with the flat of his sword, saying, "In the name of God, of Saint Michael, and of Saint George, I dub thee knight." The young knight then seized his helmet, and sprang upon his horse, brandishing his lance, and rode out to show himself to the crowd outside the church. There was always great feasting and joy when the eldest son was knighted. His father gathered round him all his vassals, who owed him a money contribution on this joyful occasion. They feasted together in the great hall of the castle. The lord himself was seated at the high table on the dais at one end of the hall, but with his face turned towards the hall, that all might see him. During the feast the guests were entertained with the performances of jesters, tumblers, and jugglers, who formed part of all the great households of that time; or they listened to the romances of the troubadours.

So amidst general rejoicings the young man entered on his new career. The ideal of perfect knighthood held before him was noble and exalted, and we cannot doubt but that it fired him with enthusiasm, and inspired him to do noble deeds. In an age of rough and rude manners, when the majority of men were wanting in all refinement and culture, when men for the most part were animated only by low and selfish aims, when the light shed around by religion was as yet only feeble and fitful, it was a great thing to have such an ideal as this held up before men. In the Crusades the knight found his true field. By them the use of the sword was sanctified, and the warrior could find joy in feats of arms whilst fighting for Christ. And as the Crusades sanctified the warlike feats of the knight, his worship of the Virgin sanctified that devotion to the ladies which was so distinguishing a feature of chivalry. "God and the ladies," was the motto of every true knight. He went both to tournament and to battle with his lady's badge upon his arm, and thoughts of her nerved him to deeds of valour. His honour was the dearest thing in a knight's eyes, and from this sprung his scrupulous fidelity to his word once pledged. As a lover, he must be faithful to the lady he served; as a vassal, he must be faithful to his lord; a promise once given, even to an enemy, must never be broken. During the French wars of Edward III. we hear often of knights being released on their word, to raise the money required for their ransom, and returning of their own accord to captivity if they could not raise this money.

Courtesy was another distinguishing feature of chivalry. By this was meant true courtesy, springing from the heart, and showing itself in modesty, consideration for others, self-denial, as well as in matters of outward gesture and punctilio. Courtesy was shown as much to foe as to friend, and did much towards softening the ferocity of war. A true knight must also be liberal; he must be inspired with an active sense of justice, and a burning indignation of wrong. But whilst extending the sympathy of a knight to all his companions in knighthood, whether friend or foe, chivalry narrowed his sympathy to those of his own class. Princes did their utmost to encourage chivalry, to provide tournaments where their knights might exhibit their valour, and to cover them with every possible distinction. But while caring for the knights they forgot the people. The spirit of chivalry was a class spirit, and narrowing in its tendency. It recognised neither the rights nor the interests of the people; and when once the people had grown strong enough to assert their rights, and make their importance felt, the doom of chivalry was sealed. It continued to exist with all its pageantry long after its real life and spirit was dead. Perhaps it was never so magnificent in its outward show as it was during the reign of Edward III., when its decay had already begun.

Never had there been so many and such splendid tournaments at the English court as now after the battle of Cressy. It is uncertain at which of these Edward founded the order of the Garter; but it is known to have been in existence in 1348. Most probably it was founded at the great tournament, held at Eltham in 1347. Ever since 1344, when Edward had made a Round Table at Windsor in imitation of the traditionary Round Table of King Arthur, he had been desirous of establishing a new order of knighthood. This desire was ripened into fulfilment by the prosperous condition of the country after the battle of Cressy. A trivial incident decided the motto and badge which he should adopt for the new order. One of the ladies of the court, by some supposed to be Queen Philippa herself, by others, the Countess of Salisbury, dropped her garter. Whilst the courtiers looked at one another and smiled, shrugging their shoulders as they pointed to the garter on the floor, Edward with the gallantry of a true knight picked it up, and handing it to the lady, said, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." ("Shame to him who thinks evil.") As he did so, the thought flashed through his mind that here were the badge and the motto for his new Order.

The Order was established with great pomp and ceremony. St. George was instituted as its patron saint. A chapel to St. George was ordered to be built at Windsor, as chapel for the Order. There each of the twenty-five knights, who were to be honoured with the garter, was to have his appointed stall, over which during his lifetime his helmet and sword were to hang. There all the knights were to assemble, if it were in any way possible, on the eve of St. George's-day. Then, sitting each in his stall, they were to hear mass. On St. George's-day itself, a great tournament and banquet was to be held; on the day following a requiem was to be sung for the souls of the faithful deceased. No knight of the Order was ever to pass near Windsor without coming to the chapel, and there was to put on his mantle and hear mass. Edward made a foundation at the chapel of thirteen secular canons and thirteen vicars, and also of twenty-six veteran knights, who were to be maintained there, and were to serve God continually in prayer. The kings of England were to be perpetual sovereigns of the Order. There were twenty-five knights-founders, amongst whom was, of course, the Black Prince, with his principal knights, Chandos, Sir James Audley and the Captale de Buche. They were nearly all young men; four of them were even under twenty, and ten under thirty; Edward III. himself was only thirty-five.

At the first feast we read that all these founders, together with the King, were clothed in gowns of russet, powdered with blue garters, wearing like garters also on their right legs, and mantles of blue, with escutcheons of St. George. Bareheaded, and in this apparel, they heard mass, which was celebrated by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, and afterwards went to the feast, setting themselves orderly at the table. Then followed splendid tournaments, at which there were two kinds of conflicts. In the tournaments proper the knights divided themselves into parties, and one party fought against another. There were also jousts, or conflicts between two knights. These were generally held in honour of the ladies, who presided as judges over them. The combatants used spears without heads of iron; their object was to strike their opponent upon the front of his helmet, so as to beat him backwards upon his horse, or else to break his spear.

Though the tournaments were only looked upon as sport, they were often attended with great danger, and the knights engaged in the combat were not seldom severely wounded, and even killed. But no thought of this danger, incurred for no good reason, diminished in the least the enthusiasm for them. They were attended with every possible kind of magnificence. The lists within which the combatants were to fight were superbly decorated, and were surrounded by pavilions belonging to the champions, and ornamented with their arms and banners. Scaffolds were erected for the noble spectators, both lords and ladies; those upon which the royal family sat were hung with tapestry and embroideries of gold and silver. Every spectator was decked in the most sumptuous manner. Not only the knights themselves, but their horses, their pages, and the heralds, were clothed in costly and glittering apparel. The clanging of trumpets, the shouts of the beholders, the cries of the heralds increased the excitement of the fray. When the tournament was over, the combatants retired to their pavilions to refresh themselves after the fight and remove their heavy armour, the weight of which was almost unbearable. In the evening they met together with the nobles and ladies who had been spectators of the sport, and the time was passed in feasting, dancing, and singing. The heralds named those who had fought best on both sides. The ladies chose a name for each party, and the champions received the rewards of their merit from the hands of two young and noble maidens.

Children were taught from their earliest childhood to relish these spectacles; their very toys were made in imitation of knights jousting. The number of these tournaments led to very great extravagance in dress. Each person wished to excel his neighbour in the magnificence of his attire. The great desire was to appear in something new and astounding, and this led to the most fantastic fashions. Ladies of the first rank and greatest beauty might be seen on these occasions dressed in parti-coloured tunics, half one colour and half another, with handsomely ornamented girdles of gold and silver, in which were stuck short swords or daggers. In this masculine attire they appeared mounted on the finest horses they could procure, ornamented with the richest furniture. Parti-coloured garments were in great favour. Men would wear one stocking of one colour, the other of another. Most noticeable among the many extravagant fashions were the trailing dresses, which lay in heaps upon the ground, in front as well as behind; the long and fantastically shaped sleeves trailed also on the ground. A contemporary writer says: "The taylors must soon shape their garments in the open field, for want of room to cut them in their own houses; because that man is best respected who bears upon his back at one time the greatest quantity of cloth and of fur." Edward III. himself set the example in these extravagant fashions. In his wardrobe-rolls we find accounts of dresses which were to be worn at tournaments. One was a tunic and a cloak with a hood, on which were to be embroidered one hundred garters, with buckles, bars, and pendants of silver; also a doublet of linen, having round the skirts and about the sleeves a deep border of green cloth, worked with representations of clouds with vine branches of gold, and this motto, given by the King, "It is as it is." The festival of the Garter was celebrated with great splendour in 1351. The King wore a robe of cloth of gold furred, another of red velvet embroidered with clouds and eagles of pearl and gold, each eagle having in his beak a garter with the motto of the order. The Queen wore a similar robe, and the Princess Isabel wore a red velvet robe, embroidered with 119 circles of silk and pearls, with trees of silk and gold embroidered on a ground of green velvet, with flowers and leaves. On another occasion we read that a grant of £200 (equal to £3,000 of our money) was made to Queen Philippa for her attire at a festival of the Garter.