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Ebook has 842 lines and 192112 words, and 17 pages

PAGE 9

THE TRAINING OF PAGES 30

KNIGHTS AT HOME 36

LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE 51

DUELLING, DEATH, AND BURIAL 65

THE KNIGHTS WHO "GREW TIRED OF IT" 78

FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC 104

THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM 113

SIR GUY OF WARWICK, AND WHAT BEFELL HIM 133

GARTERIANA 148

FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER 170

THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR, AND THEIR DOINGS 184

THE KNIGHTS OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE 194

THE ORDER OF THE HOLY GHOST 200

JACQUES DE LELAING 208

THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY 228

THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET 263

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF 276

STAGE KNIGHTS 295

STAGE LADIES, AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY 312

THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; FROM THE NORMANS TO THE STUARTS 329

"THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN" 351

THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; THE STUARTS 358

THE SPANISH MATCH 364

THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; FROM STUART TO BRUNSWICK 375

RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD 388

RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE 410

ULRICH VON HUTTEN 420

SHAM KNIGHTS 439

PIECES OF ARMOR 455

THE

KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS.

A FRAGMENTARY .

The custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood is supposed, by the same author, to have been established among the nations that overthrew the Roman Empire; and he cites the familiar passage from Tacitus, descriptive of this custom among the Germans. At first, little but bodily strength seems to have been required on the part of the candidate. The qualifications and the forms of investiture changed or improved with the times.

In a general sense, chivalry, according to Hallam, may be referred to the age of Charlemagne, when the Caballarii, or horsemen, became the distinctive appellation of those feudal tenants and allodial proprietors who were bound to serve on horseback. When these were equipped and formally appointed to their martial duties, they were, in point of fact, knights, with so far more incentives to distinction than modern soldiers, that each man depended on himself, and not on the general body. Except in certain cases, the individual has now but few chances of distinction; and knighthood, in its solitary aspect, may be said to have been blown up by gunpowder.

As examples of the true knightly spirit in ancient times, Mr. Hallam cites Achilles, who had a supreme indifference for the question of what side he fought upon, had a strong affection for a friend, and looked at death calmly. I think Mr. Hallam over-rates the bully Greek considerably. His instance of the Cid Ruy Diaz, as a perfect specimen of what the modern knight ought to have been, is less to be gainsaid.

In old times, as in later days, there were knights who acquired the appellation by favor rather than service; or by a compelled rather than a voluntary service. The old landholders, the Caballarii, or Milites, as they came to be called, were landholders who followed their lord to the field, by feudal obligation: paying their rent, or part of it, by such service. The voluntary knights were those "younger brothers," perhaps, who sought to amend their indifferent fortunes by joining the banner of some lord. These were not legally knights, but they might win the honor by their prowess; and thus in arms, dress, and title, the younger brother became the equal of the wealthy landholders. He became even their superior, in one sense, for as Mr. Hallam adds:--"The territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming a title which the others had won by merit, till they themselves could challenge it by real desert."

The connection of knighthood with feudal tenure was much loosened, if it did not altogether disappear, by the Crusades. There the knights were chiefly volunteers who served for pay: all feudal service there was out of the question. Its connection with religion was, on the other hand, much increased, particularly among the Norman knights who had not hitherto, like the Anglo-Saxons, looked upon chivalric investiture as necessarily a religious ceremony. The crusaders made religious professors, at least, of all knights, and never was one of these present at the reading of the gospel, without holding the point of his sword toward the book, in testimony of his desire to uphold what it taught by force of arms. From this time the passage into knighthood was a solemn ceremony; the candidate was belted, white-robed, and absolved after due confession, when his sword was blessed, and Heaven was supposed to be its director. With the love of God was combined love for the ladies. What was implied was that the knight should display courtesy, gallantry, and readiness to defend, wherever those services were required by defenceless women. Where such was bounden duty--but many knights did not so understand it--there was an increase of refinement in society; and probably there is nothing overcharged in the old ballad which tells us of a feast at Perceforest, where eight hundred knights sat at a feast, each of them with a lady at his side, eating off the same plate; the then fashionable sign of a refined friendship, mingled with a spirit of gallantry. That the husbands occasionally looked with uneasiness upon this arrangement, is illustrated in the unreasonably jealous husband in the romance of "Lancelot du Lac;" but, as the lady tells him, he had little right to cavil at all, for it was an age since any knight had eaten with her off the same plate.

We confess to having more regard for Arthur than for his triple-wife Guinever. As I have had occasion to say in other pages, "I do not like to give up Arthur!" I love the name, the hero, and his romantic deeds. I deem lightly of his light o'love bearing. Think of his provocation both ways! Whatever the privilege of chivalry may have been, it was the practice of too many knights to be faithless. They vowed fidelity, but they were a promise-breaking, word-despising crew. On this point I am more inclined to agree with Dr. Lingard than with Mr. Hallam. Honor was ever on their lips, but not always in their hearts, and it was little respected by them, when found in the possession of their neighbor's wives. How does Scott consider them in this respect, when in describing a triad of knights, he says,

"There were two who loved their neighbor's wives, And one who loved his own."

Let me add here, as I have been speaking of the romance of "Lancelot du Lac," that I quite agree with Montluc, who after completing his chronicle of the History of France, observed that it would be found more profitable reading than either Lancelot or Amadis. La Noue especially condemns the latter as corrupting the manners of the age. Southey, again, observes that these chivalric romances acquired their poison in France or in Italy. The Spanish and Portuguese romances he describes as free from all taint. In the Amadis the very well-being of the world is made to rest upon chivalry. "What would become of the world," it is asked in the twenty-second book of the Amadis, "if God did not provide for the defence of the weak and helpless against unjust usurpers? And how could provision be made, if good knights were satisfied to do nothing else but sit in chamber with the ladies? What would then the world become, but a vast community of brigands?"

Lamotte Levayer was of a different opinion. "Les armes," he says, when commenting upon chivalry and arms generally; "Les armes detruisent tous les arts except? ceux qui favorisent la gloire." In Germany, too, where chivalry was often turned to the oppression of the weak rather than employed for their protection, the popular contempt and dread of "knightly principles" were early illustrated in the proverb, "Er will Ritter an mir werden," He wants to play the knight over me. In which proverb, knight stands for oppressor or insulter. In our own country the order came to be little cared for, but on different grounds.

There was striking, too, at the unmaking of a knight. His heels were then degraded of their spurs, the latter being beaten or chopped away. "His heels deserved it," says Bertram of the cowardly Parolles, "his heels deserved it for usurping of his spurs so long." The sword, too, on such occasions, was broken.

It is to be observed that when treating of precedency, Fuller places knights, or "soldiers" with seamen, civilians, and physicians, and after saints, confessors, prelates, statesmen, and judges. Knights and physicians he seems to have considered as equally terrible to life; but in his order of placing he was led by no particular principle, for among the lowest he places "learned writers," and "benefactors to the public." He has, indeed, one principle, as may be seen, wherein he says, "I place first princes, good manners obliging all other persons to follow them, as religion obliges me to follow God's example by a royal recognition of that original precedency, which he has granted to his vicegerents."

The Romans are said to have established the earliest known order of knighthood; and the members at one time wore rings, as a mark of distinction, as in later times knights wore spurs. The knights of the Holy Roman Empire were members of a modern order, whose sovereigns are not, what they would have themselves considered, descendants of the Caesars. If we only knew what our own Round Table was, and where it stood, we should be enabled to speak more decisively upon the question of the chevaliers who sat around it. But it is undecided whether the table was not really a house. At it, or in it, the knights met during the season of Pentecost, but whether the assembly was collected at Winchester or Windsor no one seems able to determine; and he would impart no particularly valuable knowledge even if he could.

A knight never surrendered his sword but to a knight. "Are you knight and gentleman?" asked Suffolk, when, four hundred years ago, he yielded to Regnault: "I am a gentleman," said Regnault, "but I am not yet a knight." Whereupon Suffolk bade him kneel, dubbed him knight, received the accustomed oaths, and then gave up his old sword to the new chevalier.

Clark considered that the order was degraded from its exclusively military character, when membership was conferred upon gownsmen, physician, burghers, and artists. He considered that civil merit, so distinguished, was a loss of reputation to military knights. The logic by which he arrives at such a conclusion is rather of the loosest. It may be admitted, however, that the matter has been specially abused in Germany. Monsieur About, that clever gentleman, who wrote "Tolla" out of somebody else's book, very pertinently remarks in his review of the fine-art department of the Paris Exhibition, that the difference between English and German artists is, that the former are well-paid, but that very few of them are knights, while the latter are ill-paid and consequently ill-clothed; but, for lack of clothes, have abundance of ribands.

Dr. Nares himself is of something of the opinion of Clark, and he ridicules the idea of a chivalric and martial title being given to brewers, silversmiths, attorneys, apothecaries, upholsterers, hosiers, tailors. &c. He asserts that knighthood should belong only to military members: but of these no inconsiderable number would have to be unknighted, or would have to wait an indefinite time for the honor were the old rule strictly observed, whereby no man was entitled to the rank and degree of knighthood, who had not actually been in battle and captured a prisoner with his own hands. With respect to the obligation on knights to defend and maintain all ladies, gentlewomen, widows, and orphans; the one class of men may be said to be just as likely to fulfil this obligation, as the other class.

France, Italy, and Germany, long had their forensic knights, certain titles at the bar giving equal privileges; and the obligations above alluded to were supposed to be observed by these knights--who found esquires in their clerks, in the forensic war which they were for ever waging in defence of right. Unhappily these forensic chevaliers so often fought in defence of wrong and called it right, that the actual duty was indiscriminately performed or neglected.

Some of these barons were the founders of parish churches, but the terms on which priest and patron occasionally lived may be seen in the law, whereby patrons or feudatarii killing the rector, vicar, or clerk of their church, or mutilating him, were condemned to lose their rights; and their posterity, to the fourth generation, was made incapable of benefice or prelacy in religious houses. The knightly patron was bound to be of the same religious opinions, of course, as his priest, or his soul had little chance of being prayed for. In later times we have had instances of patrons determining the opinions of the minister. Thus as a parallel, or rather in contrast with measures as they stood between Sir Knight and Sir Priest, may be taken a passage inserted in the old deeds of the Baptist chapel at Oulney. In this deed the managers or trustees injoined that "no person shall ever be chosen pastor of this church, who shall differ in his religious sentiments from the Rev. John Gibbs of Newcastle." It is rather a leap to pass thus from the baronial knights to the Baptist chapels, but the matter has to do with my subject at both extremities. Before leaving it I will notice the intimation proudly made on the tombstone in Bunhill Fields Cemetery, of Dame Mary Page, relict of Sir George Page. The lady died more than a century and a quarter ago, and although the stone bears no record of any virtue save that she was patient and fearless under suffering, it takes care to inform all passers-by, that this knight's lady, "in sixty-seven months was tapped sixty-six times, and had taken away two hundred and forty gallons of water, without ever repining at her case, or ever fearing its operation." I prefer the mementoes of knight's ladies in olden times which recorded their deeds rather than their diseases, and which told of them, as White said of Queen Mary, that their "knees were hard with kneeling."

I will add one more incident, before changing the topic, having reference as it has to knights, maladies, and baptism. In 1660, Sir John Floyer was the most celebrated knight-physician of his day. He chiefly tilted against the disuse of baptismal immersion. He did not treat the subject theologically, but in a sanitary point of view. He prophesied that England would return to the practice as soon as people were convinced that cold baths were safe and useful. He denounced the first innovators who departed from immersion, as the destroyers of the health of their children and of posterity. Degeneracy of race, he said, had followed, hereditary diseases increased, and men were mere carpet-knights unable to perform such lusty deeds as their duly-immersed forefathers.

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