General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

In theory, as we have seen, the holders of these petty estates were bound to serve and obey their overlords, and these great nobles were in turn the sworn vassals of the French king. But many of these lords were richer and stronger than the king himself, and if they chose to cast off their allegiance to him, he found it impossible to reduce them to obedience.

A second evil of the institution was its exclusiveness. It was, in theory, only the person of noble birth that could become the holder of a fief. The feudal lords constituted a proud and oppressive aristocracy. It was only as the lower classes in the different countries gradually wrested from the feudal nobility their special and unfair privileges, that a better form of society arose, and civilization began to make more rapid progress.

GOOD RESULTS OF THE SYSTEM.—The most noteworthy of the good results springing from the Feudal System was the development among its privileged members of that individualism, that love of personal independence, which we have seen to be a marked trait of the Teutonic character (see p. 369). Turbulent, violent, and refractory as was the feudal aristocracy of Europe, it performed the grand service of keeping alive during the later mediæval period the spirit of liberty. It prevented Royalty from becoming as despotic as it would otherwise have become. Thus in England, for instance, the feudal lords held such tyrannical rulers as King John in check, until such time as the yeomen and the burghers were bold enough and strong enough alone to resist their despotically inclined sovereigns. In France, where, unfortunately, the power of the feudal nobles was broken too soon,—before the common people, the Third Estate, were prepared to take up the struggle for liberty,—the result was the growth of that autocratic, despotic Royalty which led the French people to the Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

Another of the good effects of Feudalism was the impulse it gave to certain forms of polite literature. Just as learning and philosophy were fostered by the seclusion of the cloister, so were poetry and romance fostered by the open and joyous hospitalities of the baronial hall. The castle door was always open to the wandering singer and story-teller, and it was amidst the scenes of festivity within that the ballads and romances of mediæval minstrelsy and literature had their birth.

Still another service which Feudalism rendered to civilization was the development within the baronial castle of those ideas and sentiments— among others, a nice sense of honor and an exalted consideration for the female sex—which found their noblest expression in Chivalry, of which institution and its good effects upon the social life of Europe we shall now proceed to speak.

2. CHIVALRY.

CHIVALRY DEFINED: ORIGIN OF THE INSTITUTION.—Chivalry has been, aptly defined as the "Flower of Feudalism." It was a military institution, or order, the members of which, called knights, were pledged to the protection of the church, and to the defence of the weak and the oppressed. Although the germs of the system may be found in society before the age of Charlemagne, still Chivalry did not assume its distinctive character until the eleventh century, and died out during the fifteenth.

[Illustration: A KNIGHT IN FULL ARMOR. (Drawing by Alphonse de Neuville.)]

Chivalry seems to have had France for its cradle. That country at least was its true home. There it was that it exhibited its most complete and romantic development. Yet its influence was felt everywhere and in everything. It colored all the events and enterprises of the latter half of the Middle Ages. The literature of the period is instinct with its spirit. The Crusades, or Holy Wars, the greatest undertakings of the mediæval ages, were predominantly enterprises of the Christian chivalry of Europe.

TRAINING OF THE KNIGHT.—When Chivalry had once become established, all the sons of the nobility, save such as were to enter the holy orders of the Church, were set apart and disciplined for its service. The sons of the poorer nobles were usually placed in the family of some superior lord of renown and wealth, whose castle became a sort of school, where they were trained in the duties and exercises of knighthood.