Chapter V: Part 5

Notwithstanding, however, the grief of the queen-mother, who, in spite of her devotion to the holy cause, feared lest the absence of the king might prove disadvantageous to France, Louis IX., having once taken the vow, was determined faithfully to perform it. Moreover, he was encouraged by seeing that his example alone had more influence than the warmest exhortations of his preachers, for, as soon as it was known that their revered sovereign had assumed the cross, zeal revived among all classes, faith regained its sway, and an impatience to set forth on the crusade manifested itself on all sides.

But the king, sagacious and prudent in spite of his ardour, and forewarned by the errors of his predecessors, was unwilling to give the signal until he had taken all proper precautions and made all necessary arrangements. Three years elapsed, during which Louis IX. continued his preparations, and collected provisions of every kind, which were conveyed to Cyprus, the spot chosen for the general rendezvous of the Crusaders; in the meantime, he busied himself in preparing, in the interests of his kingdom, for the events that might take place in his absence. At length, having appointed his mother regent, he embarked from the port of Aigues-Mortes on the 15th of August, 1248, with his wife, his brother, and his principal adherents. At Cyprus he was joined in turn by all the nobles of France, with their men-at-arms and their vassals. He passed the winter in organizing the expedition, which was first destined for Egypt; for, of all the Mahometan chiefs who were at that time contending for the possession of Palestine, the Sultan of Cairo, who had already made himself master of Syria, was considered the most powerful, and it was the opinion of the most competent soldiers that the conquest of the Holy Land must commence on the shores of the Nile.

Everything seemed to promise a happy result. A considerable fleet, a numerous and well-disciplined army, an abundant supply of provisions, arms, and military stores, the supreme command concentrated in one hand, and, above all, a real feeling of devotion to the sacred cause--a feeling inspired by the exhortations and the example of the king--such were the elements from which the Seventh Crusade might have hoped to attain success.

In the spring, eighteen hundred vessels sailed from Cyprus, where they had been fitted out, and conveyed the crusading army to Damietta. The king, armed from head to foot, was one of the first to spring ashore. Several of his knights and men-at-arms followed him, and, in the midst of a shower of darts, dispersed the Saracens, with whom the shore was covered, and drove them back in disorder into the town (Fig. 107). The attack was so bold and so unforeseen, that the infidels, struck with terror, no longer believed themselves secure behind the walls which thirty years before had sustained a siege of eighteen months, and abandoned Damietta without striking a blow in its defence.

The possession of this stronghold, situated on the sea-coast at the mouth of the Nile, would have been of but little importance to the Crusaders, but its conquest had been so rapid and easy that they were led by the intoxication of success to neglect the first elements of prudence and discipline. Their entry into the town was the signal for its pillage, in spite of the orders and entreaties of the king, whose humane and generous character was repugnant to this act of barbarism.

The Christian host should have profited by the enemy’s discomfiture, and immediately have penetrated into the interior of the country, instead of remaining, as it did, stationary for five months, either on account of the periodic inundations of the river, or in expectation of the reinforcements which were due from Europe. This long delay, which fostered idleness, dissipation, and insubordination, was fatal to the expedition. When the king at last gave the order to advance, he had under his orders none but effeminate, enervated troops, without obedience and without discipline; and the Saracens, who had had plenty of time to forget their panic and overcome their discouragement, found, in the demoralization of their enemies, a still further ground for comfort, and a fresh motive for confidence.

Thenceforward the Christian cause proceeded from bad to worse. After several engagements in which they were worsted, after several battles, the effect of which was merely to sacrifice life--particularly after the battle of Mansourah, in which Robert of Artois, the king’s brother, was killed, with the flower of the nobility--the Crusaders found themselves surrounded in their camp, a prey to a pestilential epidemic produced by want, which daily made considerable ravages in their ranks. French valour, however, was not to be daunted, and over and over again the soldiers, though exhausted by fatigue and disease and dying of hunger, put forth fresh efforts, and defeated the Saracens; at a cost to themselves, however, that each victory made them less able to endure. At last they were forced to retreat on Damietta, where the Queen with some reserve troops was awaiting them, and where they hoped to reorganize themselves.

After they had been three or four days on the march, during which this weary host of sick and wounded had been ceaselessly harassed by the enemy, the king--who was seriously ill himself, but who always rode and fought in the rear to protect the remnant of his _ost_, whose safety, he said, he valued far more than his own life--was forced to halt in a village, which the Saracens surrounded and attacked on all sides, while the bravest and most devoted of Louis’s knights allowed themselves to be cut to pieces to prevent their _good sire_ from falling into the hands of the infidels.

Louis was lying on the field in a dying condition, quite incapable of giving any command, when some traitor cried out in the midst of the fight, “Yield, sir knights, yield all of you, the king orders it; do not cause him to be slain.” The fight immediately ceased, the knights threw down their arms and asked for quarter. The Saracens pitilessly massacred not only the sick, from whom they feared the effects of contagion, but every Christian beneath the rank of knight. The king was taken prisoner, together with his two brothers (Fig. 108), his principal barons, and the officers of his household. This occurred on the 6th of April, 1250.

History records the most touching incidents of the captivity of the pious monarch. Never was Louis IX. so noble, so heroic, as during these thirty days of trial, of suffering, and of danger. Though a captive in the hands of the unbelievers, subjected to the grossest outrages, loaded with chains, and threatened with death, he still displayed in the gentleness of his disposition and the serenity of his soul the high virtues of the Christian faith and the nobility pertaining to his kingly dignity. The Saracens greatly admired this magnanimity in misfortune, and their principal leader, the terrible Sultan of Damascus, entered into negotiations with his august prisoner, who was prepared to die rather than submit to some of the demands of his conquerors. A million of golden _besants_ (about half a million of French livres) for the ransom of the Franks, the restitution of Damietta for that of their king, and ten years’ truce between the Christians and the Mussulmans of Egypt and of Syria, were the conditions that Louis was obliged to accept. Joinville tells us that the emirs of the sultan were content to accept, as their only guarantee, the bare word of this Frankish prince, the noblest Christian, they said, they had ever seen in the East. Some of the Saracens, indeed, according to the same chronicler, had conceived the intention of offering the throne of Egypt to King Louis (Fig. 109), so much respect and esteem had he inspired them with.

Louis having recovered his liberty, would not return to France without having tried every means in his power to alleviate the miseries of Palestine, or at least to deliver the Christian prisoners whom the infidels still detained. He went, with seven hundred knights who still remained under his orders, to the Holy Land, and then, rather by conciliation than by force, and by the exercise of a marvellous sagacity, he was enabled to a certain extent to re-establish the prestige of the defenders of the cross. He devoted four years to this good work, and only consented to return to France on hearing of the death of his beloved mother. He re-entered Paris, after an absence of six years (1254), with a wounded and broken spirit, “because,” says the English chronicler, Matthew Paris, “through him disorder had overspread Christendom.”

Palestine in 1268 had fallen into the deepest misery and desolation; the few towns and strongholds which remained in the hands of the Eastern Christians had been pillaged and sacked by the Mamelukes, who at last took Antioch, where they slew seventeen thousand of the inhabitants, and sold a hundred thousand more into slavery (Fig. 110). These dreadful tidings, which two centuries earlier would have caused a general indignation in Christendom, reached the West without creating much excitement, in the midst of the political troubles which were agitating most of the states of Europe. But since his return to France, St. Louis had worn the cross, if not on his garments, at least in his heart, and had always cherished the hope of realising the dream of his youth. “The cries of the miserable Eastern Christians,” says an old chronicle, “deprived him of rest; and he felt within him a deep anguish of soul and a passionate desire for martyrdom.”

Accordingly he convened a solemn parliament, when he announced to his assembled nobles his intention of undertaking a new crusade. At first many were greatly surprised and afflicted, thinking, writes the Sire de Joinville, “that those who had counselled the undertaking had committed an evil deed and a mortal sin.” Some, indeed, of the king’s most faithful servants openly refused to join his crusade, not through fear, but from wisdom, and with the intention perhaps of persuading him to abandon his fatal project; but the majority of the barons and feudal lords found it impossible to gainsay the will of their sovereign, and the example of the king was of still greater power than his orders. His three sons, the Counts of Toulouse, of Champagne, and of Flanders, took up the cross, as well as his brother, Charles of Anjou, who had recently been raised to the throne of Sicily, and many other princes of the royal house of France.

The preparations for the crusade required three years, during which St. Louis, in the hope of persuading every Christian state to send its troops against the infidels, did his best, but without success, to put an end to the political quarrels that divided kings from their subjects. He embarked, in 1270, with his sons and his principal nobles, for Sardinia, which had been fixed upon as the rendezvous of the Crusaders. On his arrival there it was decided that Tunis should be attacked first. A French chronicler mentions that the king had been given to understand that “Tunis afforded great assistance to the Sultan of Cairo, which was very injurious to the Holy Land, and the barons believed that if that root of evil, the city of Tunis, were destroyed, it would be of much advantage to Christendom.” Other chroniclers, on the contrary, and amongst them Matthew Paris, give a more plausible motive for the expedition, viz., that the king had heard that the Moorish sovereign of that part of the coast had shown a disposition to embrace Christianity and join the western powers in their attempt to conquer Egypt.

However that may have been, the crusading fleet sailed for Tunis, carrying an army sadly tried by sickness, and whose ardour had already strangely begun to cool. The Moors permitted the Christians, almost unopposed, to disembark and take possession of Carthage (Fig. 111), which had dwindled down to a mere village. Some of the Crusaders housed themselves in the ruins of the ancient Carthaginian city, the remainder bivouacked under the burning sun of Africa, surrounded and harassed by the infidels, whose light cavalry kept continuously skirmishing around them. It was not long before the plague broke out in the Christian army, whilst it was still awaiting the arrival of the King of Sicily and his troops, and Louis IX., already in feeble health, bowed down by premature old age, and heartbroken in consequence of the death of one of his sons, was attacked by it.

As soon as this culminating misfortune was known in the camp there was unusual consternation and despondency, for every one knew that the king was the life and soul of the expedition. From his sickbed, where he was undergoing the most cruel sufferings, he still continued to issue his orders with that composure and gentleness which were habitual to him; but every hour increased his feebleness, every moment brought him nearer to his end. As soon as he perceived that his death was at hand, he tranquilly dictated his last instructions to his son Philip--instructions which have rightly been termed celestial;--then kneeling at the bedside he received extreme unction, after which, stretching himself upon a bed of ashes as a sign of repentance and humility, his eyes turned beseechingly towards heaven, and the words of the psalmist on his lips, “O Lord, I will enter thy temple and glorify thy name,” he quietly breathed his last (August 25th, 1270).

And with the last beat of this grand and noble heart terminated the eighth crusade, the last on the heroic list of these adventurous expeditions in which the power and the influence of the Christian faith had been so signally manifested. It had indeed required all the personal influence of the revered monarch to re-awaken the religious enthusiasm, to quicken into life the zeal and faith of a state of society which had become more sceptical, if not more corrupt, as it had become more civilised, and which occupied itself less with the spiritual consolations of the soul than with the material pleasures of the body. Never again was the sceptre of France to pass into such sainted hands, never again was the martyr’s halo of glory to illuminate its crown. It is true that more than once since the death of St. Louis a call to the crusade has resounded from the pontifical chair and from the dais of the council hall, but it never found an echo in the heart of either prince or peasant. Nevertheless on two subsequent occasions have voices as persuasive as those of Peter the Hermit and the Monk of Clairvaux attempted to re-awaken popular enthusiasm. In the middle of the fifteenth century, while Mahomet II., master of Constantinople, was advancing full of confidence to conquer the West, John Corvin, vayvode of Transylvania, better known under the name of Huniades, put himself at the head of the Crusaders who had been assembled by the eloquent appeals of St. John of Capistran (Fig. 112). Carried away with the enthusiasm of this man of God, who, crucifix in hand, was wont to penetrate the ranks in the hottest part of an engagement, the Crusaders showed themselves worthy of their heroic leader, Huniades. At the close of a tremendous struggle, the Turks were put to flight; Belgrade remained in the hands of the Christians, and the haughty Mahomet II. was wounded and hurried off the field by his followers.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century, the King of Spain and the Italian princes concluded arrangements with Pope Pius V. and the Venetians for a crusade to defend Christian Europe against the Turks. Don Juan of Austria (Fig. 113), who was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops by Pius V., obtained, on the 7th of October, 1571, that tremendous victory in which the Turks lost thirty thousand men and two hundred and twenty-four vessels, a loss that destroyed their naval supremacy and saved Europe. But in the meantime the Holy Land had again fallen beneath the yoke of the infidel, and there was soon no trace left of those principalities beyond the seas which the crusading nobles had founded in the Archipelago and in Asia Minor, and which for a brief, a very brief, space had seemed so flourishing; there was soon, indeed, no trace left of even the name of the ephemeral kingdom of Jerusalem, for the creation of which the nations of Europe had lavished, for nearly two centuries, so much blood, so much wealth, and so much heroism.

The effect of the Crusades was nevertheless a complete revolution in the manners and customs of the Western nations; the suppression of servitude, the founding of the free towns, the alienation and the division of the feudal lands, and the development of the communal system, were the immediate consequences of the tremendous emigration of men who went forth to fight and die in Palestine. The nobles ceased to wage their perpetual private quarrels, knighthood assumed a regular and solemn character, judiciary duels diminished, religious orders multiplied, and charitable institutions were established on every side. Men’s minds became more enlightened and their manners softened under the influence of the growing expansion of science, art, and literature. Law, natural history, philosophy, and mathematics came to them in direct descent from the Greeks and the Arabians; a new literature, abounding in poetic gems, sprang forth all at once from the imagination of troubadours, minstrels, and minnesingers; art, the fine arts particularly, architecture, painting, sculpture, and embroidery, began to unfold their thousand wonders; industry and commerce multiplied a hundredfold the public wealth, which at one time had seemed nearly swallowed up in ruinous expeditions; and the art of war, as well as the art of navigation, made immense strides in the direction of progress.

CHIVALRY.

DUELS AND TOURNAMENTS.

Origin of Chivalry.--Its different Characteristics.--Chivalric
Gallantry.--Chivalry and Nobility.--Its Relations
with the Church.--Education of the Children of the
Nobility.--Squires.--Chivalric Exercises.--Pursuivants
at Arms.--Courts and Tribunals of Love.--Creation of
Knights.--Degradation of Knights.--Judicial Duels.--Trials by
Ordeal.--Feudal Champions.--Gages of Battle.--The Church forbids
Duels.--Tournaments invented by the Sire de Preuilly in the
Tenth Century.--Arms need in a Tournament.--Tilt.--Lists.--The
part taken by Ladies.--King René’s Book.

The word Chivalry, according to M. Philarète Chasles, whose ingenious opinions we often borrow, expresses a mixture of manners, of ideas, and of customs peculiar to the Middle Ages of Europe, and to which no analogy is to be traced in the annals of the human race.

Illustration: Fig. 115.--King Artus, protected by the Virgin, is fighting a Giant.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Chroniques de Bretagne,” of Alain Bouchard; 4to, Paris, Galliot du Pré, 1514.]

The Eddas, Tacitus, and the Dano-Anglo-Saxon poems of Béowulf contain the only positive documents concerning the origin of chivalry. It reached its apogee rapidly after its birth, and gradually declined towards the close of the thirteenth century. At that period ladies took a very prominent position; they armed the knights, conferred the order of knighthood, and bestowed the prizes of honour. It was under the influence of the ideas peculiar to this epoch that Dante wrote his great poem, “for the sole purpose,” he said, “of glorifying Beatrice Portinari,” a child of eleven years of age whom he had accidentally seen in a church. It was at this time that the Suabian knights, invaded by the barbarous Hungarians, who were in the habit of slaying their enemies with their enormous bows and arrows, implored them, “in the name of the ladies,” to take sword in hand, in order to fight in “a more civilised manner.” But chivalry soon began to decline, both as an institution and as a doctrine. Froissart characterizes and describes with picturesque liveliness this tendency to decay, which, as time advanced, gradually resulted in a complete transformation, so that the chivalric ideal became lost, and the independence of the soldier, once the slave only of his God and of his lady, gave way to the obsequiousness of the courtier, and finally became a selfish and pitiful servility.

At these different epochs of organic transformation, chivalry was constantly modifying itself according to each nation’s particular tendency. In Thuringia and Saxony, in Ireland and in Norway, it resisted longer than elsewhere the growing influence of Christianity. It exhibits its semi-paganism in certain passages of the “Niebelungen,” a German epic poem of the thirteenth century, in which the rude impress of ancient Teutonism is still clear and distinct. Between the seventh and the eleventh centuries the traces of this rudeness of origin still strongly showed themselves among the Franks, whose bravery consisted in spilling their blood, in fearing nothing, and in sparing nobody. This thirst for blood was unknown in the south of Europe; there men’s dispositions were amiable and gentle, and as far back as the eleventh century chivalric gallantry was regulated by fixed laws, and gave birth to a learned and refined school of poetry. From Provence this spirit of gallantry and poetry made its way into Italy and Sicily, where the barbarous Teutonic knights had been so frequently turned into ridicule. Little by little, however, German chivalry was affected by these southern influences. The minnesingers softened to the best of their ability the Teutonic language to permit of its repeating the softer songs of the Provençal muse, and the light but lively imaginations of the troubadours assumed a gentle melancholy and often a metaphysical grace in their German verses. In Great Britain, where the actual has always overshadowed the ideal, chivalry remained cold, feudal, and aristocratic, whilst it was passionately worshipped by the Spaniards, those noble and knightly descendants of the Goths and Iberians, whose struggle with the Arabs was one long tournament that lasted for more than seven centuries (Fig. 116). In religious countries chivalry assumed monastic characteristics; among nations of a gay and lively disposition it verged on the voluptuous and licentious. Alphonso X., King of Leon and Castile, forced his subjects to submit to monkish regulations, and prescribed the shape of their clothes as well as the manner in which they were to spend their time. In Provence, chivalry regarded unlawful love with an indulgent eye, and made a jest of marriage.

Chivalry was in fact a fraternal association, or rather an enthusiastic compact between men of feeling and courage, of delicacy and devotion; such at least was the noble aim it had in view, and which it constantly strove to attain (Fig. 117).

However praiseworthy its motives and intentions, chivalry was not favourably regarded by everybody. In its feudal aspect it was displeasing to sovereigns, who constantly endeavoured to create beside it, and sometimes above it, a nobility of the sword, an individual and personal rank that could not be handed down from father to son (Fig. 118). Thus Philippe le Bel, being in want of soldiers after the Flemings had destroyed his chivalry--that is to say, his nobility--attempted immediately to replace it by ordering that the elder of two sons of a villain, and the two elder of three sons, should be admitted into the order of knighthood. In this way Frederick Barbarossa knighted peasants who had displayed personal bravery on the field of battle.

As for the Church, it contented itself with warning the knights against too bellicose a spirit, and with imbuing them as far as possible with the sentiments of Christian charity; in fact, knights were frequently considered to be a species of Levite. “There was,” says the “Ordène de Chevalerie”[10] “a great resemblance between the duties of a knight and those of a priest.” Thence the reason that the priest was “the hero of the faith,” and the knight “the pontiff of true honour.” Thence the name of _ordène_, or _ordination_, given to the investiture of knighthood. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish knight Don Ignatio de Loyola, who became so famous as the founder of the Order of the Jesuits, made himself a knight of the Virgin, and solemnised his entrance into God’s service, according to ancient custom, by keeping the _veillée des armes_[11] before the sacred image of the mother of Christ.

The Church, although it seeks to maintain peace and has a horror of bloodshed, has never forbidden legitimate wars, and thus good King St. Louis never shrank on the field of battle from driving his sword up to the very hilt into his enemy’s heart. And the Church, whilst approving of the noble character as well as of the enthusiasm of chivalry, always endeavoured to restrain its more romantic and warlike tendencies. Its pacific and charitable spirit is expressed in the solemn blessing on the sword of a knight, which we take from the “pontifical:”--“Most holy Lord,” said the officiating prelate, “omnipotent Father, eternal God, who alone ordainest and disposest all things; who, to restrain the malice of the wicked and to protect justice, hast, by a wise arrangement, permitted the use of the sword to men upon this earth, and willed the institution of the military order for the protection of thy people; O thou who, by the mouth of the thrice-blessed John, didst tell the soldiers who came to seek him in the desert to oppress no one, but to rest content with their wages,--we humbly implore thy mercy, Lord. It is thou who gavest to thy servant David to overcome Goliath, and to Judas Maccabeus to triumph over the nations who did not worship thee; in like manner now to this thy servant here, who has come to bend his head beneath the military yoke, grant strength and courage for the defence of the faith and justice; grant him an increase of faith, hope, and charity; inspire him with thy fear and love; give him humility, perseverance, obedience, and patience; make his disposition in everything such that he may wound no person unjustly either with this sword or with any other, but that he may use it to defend all that is just and all that is right.”

The bishop gave the naked sword to the new knight, saying, “Receive this blade in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and use it for your own defence and for that of God’s Holy Church, and for the confusion of the enemies of the cross of Christ and of the Christian faith; and as far as human frailty permits it, wound no one unjustly with it.” The new-made knight then rose, brandished the sword, wiped it on his left arm, and replaced it in its scabbard. The prelate then gave him the kiss of peace, saying, “Peace be with thee.” Then with the naked sword in his right hand, he struck the knight gently thrice across the shoulders, saying, “Be thou a peaceable, brave, and faithful warrior.” After which the other knights present put on his spurs (Fig. 119), whilst the bishop said, “Valiant warrior, thou who surpassest in beauty the children of men, gird thyself with thy sword upon thy thigh.”

The son of a noble, or even of a commoner, intended for the ranks of knighthood, was at the age of seven taken away from the care of the women; who, however, never allowed him to reach that age without instilling into him such sentiments of right and valour as should govern his conduct during the rest of his life. He was then entrusted to the men, of whom he became not only the pupil, but the servitor; for, says the “Ordène de Chevalerie,” “it is proper that he should learn to obey before he governs; for otherwise he would not appreciate the nobility of his rank when he became a knight.” Moreover, the chivalric code, which distrusted the prejudices and weaknesses of paternal affection, required “every knight to place his son in the service of some other knight.” These youthful novices, particularly if they belonged to a noble and honourable family, always found plenty of princely courts, seignorial households, manors, and castles to receive them, which were, so to speak, the public schools of chivalry. There existed, besides, hospitals founded and maintained by wealthy and generous nobles, in the same manner as are the colleges of the University of Paris; and these hospitals were governed by old knights without family or fortune, who considered it no shame to accept, not a salary in money, but a retiring pension in the shape of a house with board, in which to hold a kind of school of chivalry for the benefit of the youths, who promised at some future time to prove a credit to the institution.

These youths were termed pages, varlets, and damoiseaux, and they performed under their masters and mistresses the most humble and the most domestic functions: they followed them in their travels and to the chase; they formed part of their suites on occasions of ceremony; they wrote their letters and carried their messages; they waited on them at meals, carved their dishes, and poured out their drinks.

In the eyes even of those nobles who were most jealous of their birth and of their name, this temporary and casual servitude had nothing in it either of a humiliating or degrading character, and its only effect was to knit still closer the ties of respect, obedience, and sympathy which bound the youth to his adopted parents, the aspirant for knighthood to his master and teacher. The latter by no means neglected the moral and religious education of the neophyte; the first lessons which were given him taught him not only to love God, but to respect women.

As soon as the young page had acquired sufficient experience and discernment to direct his own movements in the intricacies of chivalric life, he was bidden to choose an ideal sovereign from among the noble and beautiful ladies of the aristocratic world that he frequented, a sort of terrestrial divinity whom he was to swear to serve, and to whom he was henceforth to recount all his thoughts and actions, treating her at the same time with all the delicacy and devotion which the example of those around him had shown him to be her due.

He was taught, above all, to revere the august character of chivalry, and to respect, in the persons of the knights who composed this institution, the dignity to which he himself aspired. It was thus that, led by the instinct of imitation peculiar to the young, the pages habitually played at doing everything they saw done by the knights. They practised wielding the lance and the sword; they played at combats, attacks, and duels between themselves. Excited by emulation, they coveted the honour of being considered brave, hoping if they attained their wish, that it would lead to their being attached to the service of some person of mark, or to their being promoted to the rank of esquire.

When the young men abandoned the position of pages in order to be made esquires, an event that never took place before their fourteenth year, their change of social condition was celebrated by a religious ceremony, which the Church appointed for the purpose of consecrating their knightly vocation, and of hallowing the use of the arms they were henceforward destined to carry. Standing at the altar and surrounded by his nearest relations, the youthful novice received the consecrated sword from the hands of the priest, promising always to wield it in the interests of religion and honour. A higher position in the household of his lord or lady was then assigned to the new esquire. He was admitted to their private gatherings, he took part in all assemblies and state ceremonies, and it was now his duty to superintend the reception, that is to say, to regulate the laws of etiquette relating to the foreign nobles who visited his master’s court.

A passage from the history of Boucicaut, a marshal of France in the reign of Charles VI., will give an idea of the laborious and arduous existence of the young esquire who aspired to become a worthy knight: “Now cased in armour, he would practise leaping on to the back of a horse; anon, to accustom himself to become long-winded and enduring, he would walk and run long distances on foot, or he would practise striking numerous and forcible blows with a battle-axe or mallet. In order to accustom himself to the weight of his armour, he would turn somersaults whilst clad in a complete suit of mail, with the exception of his helmet, or would dance vigorously in a shirt of steel; he would place one hand on the saddle-bow of a tall charger, and the other on his neck, and vault over him.... He would climb up between two perpendicular walls that stood four or five feet asunder by the mere pressure of his arms and legs, and would thus reach the top, even if it were as high as a tower, without resting either in the ascent or descent.... When he was at home, he would practise with the other young esquires at lance-throwing and other warlike exercises, and this continually.”

Besides all this, it was necessary for an esquire who wished to fulfil his duties properly to possess a number of physical qualities, great versatility of talent and capability, and a zeal that never flagged. At court, as in the larger seignorial households, there were various classes or categories of esquires who performed totally distinct duties, which in less important households were all entrusted to the same individual. The first in importance was the body esquire, or the esquire of honour; then the chamber esquire, or chamberlain; the carving esquire, the stable esquire, the cup-bearing esquire, &c., all separate personages, whose names sufficiently indicate their duties.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that esquires, besides the domestic services expected from them within their master’s house, had especially to give proofs of their vigilance and skill in the duties of the stable--duties which, as an historian aptly observes, were of necessity noble, since the military aristocracy never fought but on horseback. It was the duty of all first esquires to break in their master’s chargers, and to teach the younger esquires the routine of the stable. The duty of attending to the arms and armour devolved upon another class of esquires. We may add that, as each seignorial castle was also a species of fortress, most of the esquires, in addition to their other tasks, were required to perform certain military duties analogous to those practised in a regular stronghold, such as rounds, sentry duty, watches, &c. (Fig. 121).

When their lord mounted his horse, his esquires shared amongst them the honour of assisting him; some held his stirrup, others carried various parts of his armour, such as the armlets, the helmet, the shield, the gauntlets, &c. When a knight was merely going for a ride or on a journey, he usually bestrode a sober kind of hack that was called a palfrey, but when he was going to take the field, one of his esquires led at his right hand (whence the name of _destrier_ given to this sort of steed) a charger or high horse, which the knight only mounted at the last moment. Hence the expression, “to ride the high horse,” which has become proverbial.

As soon as the knight had decided to mount his charger, his squires proceeded to arm him, that is to say, they firmly fastened together all the different pieces of his armour on his body with straps attached to metal buckles for the purpose; and it may be well conceived that no slight care was required to properly adjust such a cumbrous and complicated steel or iron casing; an esquire’s neglect, indeed, frequently caused his master’s death.

When a single combat took place, the esquires, drawn up behind their lord, remained for a few moments inactive spectators of the struggle, but as soon as it had once fairly begun their share in the affray commenced. Watching the slightest movement, the smallest signals of their master, they stood ready to assist him in an indirect but efficacious manner if he attained any advantage, without actually becoming aggressors themselves, in order to assure his victory; if the knight were hurled from his steed, they helped him to remount, they brought him a fresh horse, they warded off the blows that were aimed at him; if he were wounded and placed _hors de combat_, they did their utmost, at the risk of their own life, to carry him off before he was slain outright. Again, it was to his esquires that a successful knight confided the care of the prisoners he had taken on the battle-field. In fine, the esquires, short of actually fighting themselves, a thing forbidden by the code of chivalry, were expected to display the greatest zeal, the greatest skill, and the greatest courage, and consequently had it very materially in their power to contribute to their master’s success.

A long novitiate and the consciousness of an aptitude for a military career were not always, however, sufficient to enable an esquire to obtain the rank of knight. He was frequently obliged, in the intermediate rank of _pursuivant-at-arms_, to travel through foreign countries, either as the acknowledged envoy of some prince or noble, or merely in the character of an ordinary traveller, and be present at chivalric games and tournaments, without actually taking part in them himself; he thus acquired, by constant intercourse with distinguished soldiers and high-born ladies, a thorough technical knowledge of the military calling, and an intimate acquaintance with all the elegant refinements of courtesy.

In this way pursuivants-at-arms went about everywhere, one day being ceremoniously received at the court of a powerful noble, the next being simply entertained in the lowly manor of a poor gentleman; acting, wherever they might be, honourably both in word and in deed, observing scrupulously the precepts both of honour and virtue, showing themselves to be noble, brave, and devoted, and seeking every opportunity of proving themselves worthy of ranking with the noble knights whose deeds and whose names were the theme of constant and universal praise.

Chance alone was not allowed to direct their wandering and adventurous steps, they eagerly sought the most renowned princely and seignorial courts, at which they were certain to meet with chivalry’s loftiest traditions; they thought themselves fortunate indeed when they were able to make their obeisance to some hero famous for his deeds in arms, or to elicit a smile from some lady celebrated for her beauty and her worth.

And while the most perfect respect and courtesy to ladies were the first duties instilled into each youthful aspirant, it must be owned that the education received by the former was one calculated to make them in every way worthy of such homage. To fit ladies for the queenly part they were destined to play in the world of chivalry, they were taught from their childhood to practise every virtue, to cherish every noble feeling, and generally to emulate the dignity demanded by the social privileges of their rank. They were profuse in their acts of kindness and civility to the knights, whether friends or strangers, who entered the gates of their castles (Figs. 122 and 123); on a knight’s return from tournament or battle, they unbuckled his armour with their own hands, they prepared perfumes and spotless linen for his wear, they clothed him in gala dress, in mantle and scarf that they had themselves embroidered, they prepared his bath, and waited on him at table. Destined to become the wives of these same knights who frequented their homes, they did their utmost to bring themselves under their notice by their modest demeanour, and to make themselves beloved by the courtesy and the attentions which they lavished upon them. It was theirs to respond, with admiration and tenderness, to the boldness and to the bravery of the knights, who sought glory only to lay it at their mistresses’ feet, and who asked for nothing better than to be subject to the gentle sway of beauty, grace, and virtue.

It was thus, for instance, that in Provence, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the most powerful nobles humbly obeyed, in everything that concerned the heart, the decrees issued by the _courts_ or _tribunals of love_, a kind of feminine areopagus which was held with great ceremony on certain days, and at which the ladies most distinguished by birth, beauty, intelligence, and knowledge, met to deliberate, publicly or with closed doors, with proper gravity and solemnity, on delicate questions of gallantry, which in those days were considered highly important. These courts of love, which appear to have been regular and permanent institutions in the twelfth century, had a special code, in accordance with which the sentences pronounced were more or less rigorously in conformity; but this code has not been handed down to our day, and we only possess its outline conveyed in the commentaries of the legal writers of the fifteenth century. Causes in these courts were sometimes decided on written evidence, sometimes the parties themselves were allowed to appear in person. Among the celebrated women who at different epochs and in different places presided over these romantic assizes, may be cited the beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France, and afterwards of England; Sibyl of Anjou, who married Thierry, Count of Flanders; the Countess of Die, surnamed the Sappho of France; and the famous Laura or Lauretta of Sade, whom Petrarch, who chose her for the lady of his love, has immortalised in his verse.

But to return to the esquire, who was left undergoing his laborious novitiate. When he had at last performed all its numerous requirements, the investiture of knighthood was conferred upon him, a symbolical ceremony, as indeed were all that went to make up a chivalric ordination, but one of a more serious and solemn character than the rest.

We have already said that this word ordination (_ordène_) implies that the arming of a knight was a kind of sacred ceremony. A very curious poem entitled “L’Ordène de Chevalerie” is still in existence. Its author, Hugues de Tabarie or de Tibériade, undertook the task of explaining all the forms of the investiture. In order to make his explanations more intelligible, Hugues de Tibériade supposes himself before an aspirant entirely ignorant of all the usages of chivalry: he pretends that the Sultan Saladin, whose prisoner he is, has forced him to confer upon him the order of knighthood. The first thing Hugues does is to order him to comb his hair and beard, and to carefully wash his face:--

TEXT. TRANSLATION.

Caviaus et barbe, et li viaire His hair, his beard, and his face Li fist appareiller moult bel; He made him carefully arrange; Ch’est droit à chevalier nouvel. It is the duty of a new knight. Puis le fist en un baing entrer. Then he made him enter a bath. Lors li commenche à demander Then the sultan began to ask Le soudan, que che senifie. What all this signified.

“Sire,” answers Hugues, “like the babe that leaves the font cleansed from original sin,--

“Sire, tout ensement devez “Sire, it is thus that you must Issir, sanz nule vilounie Emerge without any stain De ce baing, car chevalerie From this bath; for knighthood Si doit baingnier en honesté, Must be clothed with honesty, En courtoisie et en bonté With courtesy, and with goodness, Et fere amer à toutes gens.” And make itself beloved by all.”

“By the great God,” says Saladin, “this is a wonderful beginning!” “Now,” answers Hugues, “leave the bath and recline on this great bed. It is an emblem of the one you will obtain in paradise, the bed of rest that God grants to his followers, the brave knights.” Shortly after, whilst dressing him from head to foot, he says: “The snow-white linen shirt with which I am clothing you, and which touches your skin, is to teach you that you must keep your flesh from every stain if you wish to reach heaven. This crimson robe indicates--

“Que votre sanc devez épandre “That you must pour out your blood Pour Dieu servir et hounorer; To serve and honour God; Et pour défendre Sainte Eglise; And to defend the holy Church; Car tout chou doit chevalier faire, For all this must a knight do S’il veust à Dieu de noient plaire; If he wishes entirely to please God; Ch’est entendu par le vermeil. Such is the meaning of the crimson.

“These trunk-hose of brown silk by their sombre hue are meant to remind you of--

(TEXT.) (TRANSLATION.)

“La mort, et la terre où gisrez, “Death, and the earth where you will rest, Dont venistes, et où irez. Whence you came and whither you will return; A chou doivent garder votre œil; This is what you must keep before your eyes; Si n’enkerret pas en orguel, Thus you will not fall into pride, Car orgueus ne doit pas régner For pride should never govern En chevalier, ni demorer. A knight nor reign within him. A simpleche doit toujours tendre. Humility should always be his aim.

“This white girdle which I place around your loins is to teach you to keep your body pure and to avoid luxury. These two golden spurs are to urge on your horse; imitate its ardour and its docility, and as it obeys you, so be you obedient to the Lord. Now I fasten your sword to your side; strike your enemies with its double edge, prevent the poor from being crushed by the rich, the weak from being oppressed by the strong. I put upon your head a pure white _coif_ to indicate that your soul similarly should be stainless.”

Every pursuivant was perfectly well acquainted with the meaning of the ordination of knighthood. The vigil of arms, the strict fasts, the three nights spent in prayer in a lonely chapel, the white garments of the neophyte, the consecration of his sword in front of the altar, were sufficient to prove to the novice the gravity of the engagement he was contracting under the auspices of religion. At last a day was fixed for the great ceremony, and the neophyte--after hearing mass on his bended knees, and with his sword, which he had not yet acquired the right to gird to his side, suspended from his neck--received from the hands of some noble or of some noble lady his spurs, his helmet, his cuirass, his gauntlets, and his sword. The ceremony was completed by the _colée_; that is to say, the investing knight, before presenting him with the sword, struck him across the shoulder with its flat side, and then gave him the _accolade_ as a sign of brotherly adoption. His shield, his lance, and his charger, were then brought to the new-made knight, and he was thenceforward at liberty to commence the career of glory, of devotion, and of combat, to which for so many years he had aspired.

The Christian symbolism, which had accompanied the first steps of the novice, followed and surrounded him in some way or other during the whole

of his knightly career. Indeed, it took part in his punishment and degradation if he broke his plighted faith or if he forfeited his honour. Exposed on a scaffold in nothing but his shirt, he was stripped of his armour, which was broken to pieces before his eyes and thrown at his feet, while his spurs were thrown upon a dunghill. His shield was fastened to the croup of a cart-horse and dragged through the dust, and his charger’s tail was cut off. A herald-at-arms asked thrice, “Who is there?” Three times an answer was given naming the knight about to be degraded, and three times the herald rejoined, “No, it is not so; I see no knight here, I see only a coward who has been false to his plighted faith.” Carried thence to the church on a litter like a dead body, the culprit was forced to listen while the burial service was read over him, for he had lost his honour, and was now only looked upon as a corpse (Fig. 124).

Although the Church was the protectress of chivalry, and even invested it with an almost sacred dignity, she always refused to extend her protection to tournaments, tilts, and assaults of arms, brilliant, but often dangerous manifestations of the chivalric spirit, and particularly to judicial duels, which were of German origin, and which dated from a period long prior to the institution of Christian chivalry. When the Church found itself obliged to show indulgence to these ancient traditions, which custom had interwoven with the habits of the Middle Ages, she did so in as reserved a manner as possible. She was always indignantly protesting against the barbarous custom which compelled or allowed women, children, churches, and convents, to choose from among the knights a special champion (_campeador_) who should be always ready to sustain against all the patron’s cause. The Church, while approving the generous protection which chivalry extended to the weak and to the oppressed, always endeavoured to destroy the savage doctrine of paganism which confounded might with right; but it was in vain that she opposed all her influence and authority to the custom of duelling; she was obliged to restrict herself to lessening the evil effects of the opinions that generally prevailed, without hoping to destroy the opinions themselves.

The _point of honour_ had no existence in the breasts of the warriors of antiquity. They sacrificed themselves to their country and to the commonwealth, and they loved glory--a sentiment which with them was collective and not individual, for with them society, as a whole, was everything, its unit, nothing. The modern duel, whether it be considered a brutal and speedy method of settling private quarrels, or a proper act of submission to the divine will which cannot fail to crown right with success, springs from the strong individuality of barbarism, and from the personal tendency of savage dignity and independence.

This strange confusion of ideas relative to victory and innocence, to might and right, first gave rise to _trial by ordeal_, or the _judgment of God_, which included ordeal by fire, by boiling water, by the cross, and by the sword, to which women, and even princesses, were subjected. Mankind, in the simplicity of its belief, appealed to God, the sovereign judge, and implored Him to grant strength and victory to the just cause. _Trial by ordeal_ fell into discredit about the time of Charlemagne, and was superseded, towards the latter half of the twelfth century, by the judicial duel. The institution of chivalry favoured this hasty method of decision, which was in accordance with the manners and ideas of the period. Questions which otherwise would have been difficult to solve were thus abruptly settled, and from these bloody decisions there was no appeal. In some countries, indeed, the judge who had decided between two antagonists had himself to submit to the judgment of God, as represented by the judicial duel, and was forced to come down from his judgment-seat and contend in arms against the criminal he had just condemned. On the other hand, however, it must be said that the judge, in his turn, possessed the privilege of challenging a prisoner who refused to bow to his decision.

If the principle of this rough combatant justice be once admitted, it must be acknowledged that a spirit of wisdom dictated every possible precaution to render its inconveniences as few as possible. The duel, in fact, only took place when a crime punishable by death had been committed, and then only when there were no witnesses to the crime, but merely grave suspicions against the supposed criminal. All persons less than twenty-one or more than sixty years of age, priests (Fig. 125), invalids, and women (Fig. 126), were dispensed from taking part in these combats, and were allowed to be represented by champions. If the two parties to a dispute were of a different rank in life, certain regulations were drawn up in favour of the plaintiff. A knight who challenged a serf was forced to fight with a serf’s weapons, that is to say, with a shield and a staff, and to wear a leathern jerkin; if, on the contrary, the challenge came from the serf, the knight was allowed to fight as a knight, that is to say, on horseback and in armour. It was customary for the two parties to a judicial duel to appear before their count or lord; after reciting his wrongs, the plaintiff threw down his gage--generally a glove or gauntlet--which his adversary then exchanged for his own as a sign that he accepted the challenge. Both were then led to the seignorial prison, where they were detained till the day fixed for the combat, unless they could obtain substantial sureties who would make themselves responsible for their safe custody, and bind themselves, in case their bailee failed to appear at the appointed time, to undergo the penalties attached to the committal of the act that had necessitated the appeal to arms. This was termed the _vice prison_.