Chivalry

Chivalry (derived through the French cheval from the 
Latin caballus) as an institution is to be considered 
from three points of view: the military, the social, 
and the religious. We shall also here consider the 
history of chivalry as a whole.

Military

In the military sense, chivalry was the heavy cavalry 
of the Middle Ages which constituted the chief and most 
effective warlike force. The knight or chevalier was 
the professional soldier of the time; in medieval 
Latin, the ordinary word miles (soldier) was equivalent 
to "knight." This pre-eminence of cavalry was 
correlative with the decline of infantry on the 
battlefield. Four peculiarities distinguished the 
professional warrior:

* his weapons; 

* his horse; 

* his attendants, and 

* his flag.

Weapons The medieval army was poorly equipped for long-
distance fighting, and bows and crossbows were still 
employed, although the Church endeavored to prohibit 
their use, at least between Christian armies, as 
contrary to humanity. At all events, they were regarded 
as unfair in combat by the medieval knight. His only 
offensive weapons were the lance for the encounter and 
the sword for the close fight, weapons common to both 
light-armed and heavy cavalry. The characteristic 
distinction of the latter, which really constituted 
chivalry, lay in their defensive weapons, which varied 
with different periods. These weapons were always 
costly to get and heavy to bear, such as the brunia or 
hauberk of the Carlovingian Era, the coat of mail, 
which prevailed during the Crusades, and lastly the 
plate armor introduced in the fourteenth century.

Horses

No knight was thought to be properly equipped without 
at least three horses:

* the battle horse, or dexterarius, which was led by 
hand, and used only for the onset (hence the saying, 
"to mount one's high horse"), 

* a second horse, palfrey or courser, for the route, 
and 

* the pack-horse for the luggage.

Attendants

The knight required several attendants:

* one to conduct the horses, 

* another to bear the heaviest weapons, particularly 
the shield or escutcheon (scutum, hence scutarius, 
French escuyer, esquire); 

* still another to aid his master to mount his battle 
horse or to raise him if dismounted; 

* a fourth to guard prisoners, chiefly those of 
quality, for whom a high ransom was expected.

These attendants, who were of low condition, were not 
to be confounded with the armed retainers, who formed 
the escort of a knight. From the thirteenth century the 
squires also went armed and mounted and, passing from 
one grade to the other, were raised finally to 
knighthood.

Flags

Banners were also a distinctive mark of chivalry. They 
were attached to, and carried on, the lance. There was 
a sharp distinction between the pennon, a flag pointed 
or forked at the extremity, used by a single chevalier 
or bachelor as a personal ensign, and the banner, 
square in form, used as the ensign of a band and 
reserved to the baron or baronet in command of a group 
of at least ten knights, called a constabulary. Each 
flag or banner was emblazoned with the arms of its 
owner to distinguish one from another on the 
battlefield. These armorial bearings afterwards became 
hereditary and gave birth to the complicated science of 
heraldry.

Social

The career of a knight was costly, requiring personal 
means in keeping with the station; for a knight had to 
defray his own expenses in an age when the sovereign 
had neither treasury nor war budget at his disposal. 
When land was the only kind of riches, each lord 
paramount who wished to raise an army divided his 
domain into military fiefs, the tenant being held to 
military service at his own personal expense for a 
fixed number of days (forty in France and in England 
during the Norman period). These fees, like other 
feudal grants, became hereditary, and thus developed a 
noble class, for whom the knightly profession was the 
only career. Knighthood, however, was not hereditary, 
though only the sons of a knight were eligible to its 
ranks. In boyhood they were sent to the court of some 
noble, where they were trained in the use of horses and 
weapons, and were taught lessons of courtesy. From the 
thirteenth century, the candidates, after they had 
attained the rank of squire, were allowed to take part 
in battles; but it was only when they had come of age, 
commonly twenty-one years, that they were admitted to 
the rank of knight by means of a peculiar ceremonial 
called "dubbing." Every knight was qualified to confer 
knighthood, provided the aspirant fulfilled the 
requisite conditions of birth, age, and training. Where 
the condition of birth was lacking in the aspirant, the 
sovereign alone could create a knight, as a part of his 
royal prerogative.

Religious

In the ceremonial of conferring knighthood the Church 
shared, through the blessing of the sword, and by the 
virtue of this blessing chivalry assumed a religious 
character. In early Christianity, although Tertullian's 
teaching that Christianity and the profession of arms 
were incompatible was condemned as heretical, the 
military career was regarded with little favour. In 
chivalry, religion and the profession of arms were 
reconciled. This change in attitude on the part of the 
Church dates, according to some, from the Crusades, 
when Christian armies were for the first time devoted 
to a sacred purpose. Even prior to the Crusades, 
however, an anticipation of this attitude is found in 
the custom called the "Truce of God" (q.v.). It was 
then that the clergy seized upon the opportunity 
offered by these truces to exact from the rough 
warriors of feudal times a religious vow to use their 
weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and 
defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of 
churches. Chivalry, in the new sense, rested on a vow; 
it was this vow which dignified the soldier, elevated 
him in his own esteem, and raised him almost to the 
level of the monk in medieval society. As if in return 
for this vow, the Church ordained a special blessing 
for the knight in the ceremony called in the 
Pontificale Romanum, "Benedictio novi militis." At 
first very simple in its form, this ritual gradually 
developed into an elaborate ceremony. Before the 
blessing of the sword on the altar, many preliminaries 
were required of the aspirant, such as confession, a 
vigil of prayer, fasting, a symbolical bath, and 
investiture with a white robe, for the purpose of 
impressing on the candidate the purity of soul with 
which he was to enter upon such a noble career. 
Kneeling, in the presence of the clergy, he pronounced 
the solemn vow of chivalry, at the same time often 
renewing the baptismal vow; the one chosen as godfather 
then struck him lightly on the neck with a sword (the 
dubbing) in the name of God and St. George, the patron 
of chivalry.

History

There are four distinct periods in the history of 
chivalry. The period of foundation, i.e. the time when 
the Truce of God was in force, witnessed the long 
contest of the Church against the violence of the age, 
before she succeeded in curbing the savage spirit of 
the feudal warriors, who prior to this recognized no 
law but that of brute force.

First Period: The Crusades

The Crusades (q.v.) introduced the golden age of 
chivalry, and the crusader was the pattern of the 
perfect knight. The rescue of the holy places of 
Palestine from Moslem domination and the defense of 
pilgrims became the new object of his vow. In return, 
the Church took him under her protection in a special 
way, and conferred upon him exceptional temporal and 
spiritual privileges, such as the remission of all 
penances, dispensation from the jurisdiction of the 
secular courts, and as a means of defraying the 
expenses of the journey to the Holy Land, knights were 
granted the tenth of all the church revenues. The vow 
of the crusader was limited to a specified period. For 
the distant expeditions into Asia, the average time was 
two or three years.

Second Period: The Military Orders

After the conquest of Jerusalem, the necessity of a 
standing army became peremptory, in order to prevent 
the loss of the Holy City to surrounding hostile 
nations. Out of this necessity arose the military 
orders (q.v.) which adopted as a fourth monastic vow 
that of perpetual warfare against the infidels. In 
these orders, wherein was realized the perfect fusion 
of the religious and the military spirit, chivalry 
reached its apogee. This heroic spirit had also its 
notable representatives among the secular crusaders, as 
Godfrey of Bouillon, Tancred of Normandy, Richard Couer 
de Lion, and above all Louis IX of France, in whom 
knighthood was crowned by sanctity. Like the monastic, 
the knightly vow bound with common ties warriors of 
every nation and condition, and enrolled them in a vast 
brotherhood of manners, ideals, and aims. The secular 
brotherhood had, like the regular its rule imposing on 
its members fidelity to their; lords and to their word, 
fair play on the battlefield, and the observance of the 
maxims of honour and courtesy. Medieval chivalry, 
moreover, opened a new chapter in the history of 
literature. It prepared the way and gave ready currency 
to an epic and romantic movement in literature 
reflecting the ideal of knighthood and celebrating its 
accomplishment and achievements. Provence and Normandy 
were the chief centres of this kind of literature,