[54] Spelman, “De milite dissertatio,” Posthumous Works, p. 181.
[55] London Gazette, December 6, 1823, and May 15, 1855.
[56] On the Continent very elaborate ceremonies, partly heraldic and partly religious, were observed in the degradation of a knight, which are described by Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 316 seq., and after him by Mills, History of Chivalry, i. 60 seq. Cf. Titles of Honor, p. 653.
[57] Dallaway’s Heraldry, p. 303.
[58] Even in 13th century England more than half the population were serfs, and as such had no claim to the privileges of Magna Carta; disputes between a serf and his lord were decided in the latter’s court, although the king’s courts attempted to protect the serf’s life and limb and necessary implements of work. By French feudal law, the villein had no appeal from his lord save to God (Pierre de Fontaines, Conseil, ch. xxi. art. 8); and, though common sense and natural good feeling set bounds in most cases to the tyranny of the nobles, yet there was scarcely any injustice too gross to be possible. “How mad are they who exult when sons are born to their lords!” wrote Cardinal Jacques de Vitry early in the 13th century (Exempla, p. 64, Folk Lore Soc. 1890).
[59] Sainte Palaye, ii. 90.
[60] Medley, English Constitutional History (2nd ed., pp. 291, 466), suggests that Edward might have deliberately calculated this degradation of the older feudal ideal.
[61] Being made to “ride the barriers” was the penalty for anybody who attempted to take part in a tournament without the qualification of name and arms. Guillim (Display of Heraldry, p. 66) and Nisbet (System of Heraldry, ii. 147) speak of this subject as concerning England and Scotland. See also Ashmole’s Order of the Garter, p. 284. But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great extent independently of these considerations. At almost every period there have been men of obscure and illegitimate birth who have been knighted. Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman; “for, when a king gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is requisite for the completing of that which he bestows.” By the common law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were knighted both his minority and wardship terminated. (Order of the Garter, p. 43; Nicolas, British Orders of Knighthood, i. 5.)
[62] Gautier, pp. 21, 249.
[63] Du Cange, s.v. miles (ed. Didot, t. iv. p. 402); Sacchetti, Novella, cliii. All the medieval orders of knighthood, however, insisted in their statutes on the noble birth of the candidate.