military title) was a great step towards the destruction of the former distinction of races, and the establishment of a new order of things, under which all families were in future to take rank or to be classed solely according to their station and personal influence, or the value of their landed possessions. However, notwithstanding the sort of equality which the union of the burgesses and knights of the shires in a separate assembly seemed at the outset to establish between these two classes of men, that portion of the nation which was formerly held to be inferior, retained for some time longer the mark of its inferiority. It attended at the deliberations on war and peace, and political matters, without any part in the debate, or withdrew during the discussion of such state affairs; and its aid was called for only in voting the taillages and subsidies, required by the king to be levied upon goods and chattels.

The reign of Henry VII. may be considered as the period when the distinction of ranks ceased to correspond in a general manner with that of races, and as the commencement of the state of society at present existing in England. Thierry.

CHIVALRY.

THE best school of moral discipline which the Middle Ages afforded was the institution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our most sceptical criticism must assign a decisive influence to this great source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more we shall become sensible of its importance. There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies

of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honor. It was the principal business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these three. And whatever high magnanimous energy the love of liberty or religious zeal has ever imparted, was equalled by the exquisite sense of honor which this institution preserved.

It appears probable that the custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood with some solemnity was of immemorial antiquity among the nations that overthrew the Roman Empire. For it is mentioned by Tacitus to have prevailed among their German ancestors; and his expressions might have been used with no great variation to describe the actual ceremonies of knighthood. There was even in that remote age a sort of public trial as to the fitness of the candidate, which, though perhaps confined to his bodily strength and activity, might be the germ of that refined investigation which was thought necessary in the perfect stage of chivalry. Proofs, though rare and incidental, might be adduced to show, that in the time of Charlemagne, and even earlier, the sons of monarchs at least did not assume manly arms without a regular investiture. And in the eleventh century, it is certain this was a general practice.

This ceremony, however, would perhaps of itself have done little towards forming that intrinsic principle which characterised the genuine chivalry. But in the reign of Charlemagne we find a military distinction that appears in fact as well as in name, to have given birth to that institution. Certain feudal tenants, and I suppose also allodial * proprietors, were bound to serve on horseback equipped with the coat of mail. These were called Caballarii, from which the word chevaliers is an obvious corruption. But he who fought on horseback, and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner, wanted nothing more to render him a knight. Chivalry therefore may, in a general sense, be referred to the age of Charlemagne. We may,

* Allodial, freehold - opposed to feudal.

however, go farther, and observe that these distinctive advantages above ordinary combatants were probably the sources of that remarkable valor and that keen thirst for glory which became the essential attributes of a knightly character. For confidence in our skill and strength is the usual foundation of courage; it is by feeling ourselves able to surmount common dangers that we become adventurous enough to encounter those of a more extraordinary nature, and to which more glory is attached. The reputation of superior personal prowess, so difficult to be attained in the course of modern warfare, and so liable to erroneous representations, was always within the reach of the stoutest knight, and was founded on claims which could be measured with much accuracy. Such is the subordination and mutual dependence in a modern army, that every man must be content to divide his glory with his comrades, his general or his soldiers. But the soul of chivalry was individual honor, coveted in so entire and absolute a perfection, that it must not be shared with an army or a nation. Most of the virtues it inspired were what we may call independent, as opposed to those which are founded upon social relations. The knights-errant of romance perform their best exploits from the love of renown, or from a sort of abstract sense of justice, rather than from any solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind. If these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are, however, more connected with elevation of character than the systematic prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary and independent spirit of chivalry dwelt as it were upon rock, disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity.

a

In the first state of chivalry it was closely connected with the military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies*, the Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,

* Capitularies, acts or body of laws passed in a chapter (of knights or canons); but also acts made by Charlemagne, &c., in assemblies of the people.

were land-holders who followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land was termed in England a knight's fee, or, in Normandy, feudum loricæ, fief de haubert, from the coat of mail which it entitled and required the tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry. To serve as knights, mounted and equipped, was the common duty of vassals; it implied no personal merit, it gave of itself a claim to no civil privileges. But this knight-service founded upon a feudal obligation is to be carefully distinguished from that superior chivalry in which all was independent and voluntary. The latter, in fact, could hardly flourish in its full perfection till the military service of feudal tenure began to decline, namely, in the thirteenth century. The origin of this personal chivalry I should incline to refer to the ancient usage of voluntary commendation.

Men commended themselves, that is, did homage and professed attachment to a prince or lord; generally indeed for protection or the hope of reward, but sometimes probably for the sake of distinguishing themselves in his quarrels. When they received pay, which must have been the usual case, they were literally his soldiers, or stipendiary troops. Those who could afford to exert their valor without recompense were like the knights of whom we read in romance, who served a foreign master through love, or thirst of glory, or gratitude. The extreme poverty of the lower nobility, arising from the subdivision of fiefs, and the politic generosity of rich lords, made this connection as strong as that of territorial dependence. A younger brother, leaving the paternal estate in which he took a slender share, might look to wealth and dignity in the service of a powerful count. Knighthood, which he could not claim as his legal right, became the object of his chief ambition. It raised him in the scale of society, equalling him in dress, in arms, and in title, to the rich landholders. As it was due to his merit, it did much more than equal him to those who had no pretensions

but from wealth; and the territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming the title till they could challenge it by real desert.

This class of noble and gallant cavaliers, serving commonly for pay, but on the most honorable footing, became far more numerous through the Crusades, a great epoch in the history of European society. In these wars, as all feudal service was out of the question, it was necessary for the richer barons to take into their pay as many knights as they could afford to maintain, speculating, so far as such motives operated, on an influence with the leaders of the expedition, and on a share of plunder proportioned to the number of their followers. During the period of the Crusades, we find the institution of chivalry acquire its full vigor as an order of personal nobility; and its original connection with feudal tenure, if not altogether effaced, became in a great measure forgotten in the splendor and dignity of the new form which it wore.

The Crusades, however, changed in more than one respect the character of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular reference to religion. Ingulfus, indeed, tells us that the Anglo-Saxons preceded the ceremony of investiture by a confession of their sins and other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy, and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English before the Conquest. We can hardly perceive, indeed, why the assumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself. But the purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use, that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a military institution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land was constantly at the heart of a brave and