KNIGHTHOOD
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KNIGHTHOOD
ed, to comfort the wretched, to repress or punish wrong, aiid in all honor to uphold and to do the right.
"He had abroad in amies wouue muchell fame, And flid far laudes with giorie of his might ; Plaine, faithful, true, and enimy of shame, And ever lov'd to light for ladies right; But in vaiue-glorious frayes he litle did delight."
While these calamitous generations writhed through their long agony in France, the progress of the Holy Warfare in Spain agamst the Saracens invited and en- riclied the princes, nobles, and adventurers who fought for the Cross against the Crescent. Religious fervor was thus intimately conjoined with martial prowess. But, both in France and Spain, and, in less degree, in other coun- tries, similar necessities concurred in the production of like phenomena. In all cases there was a relaxation of the direct connection of military achievement with landed estates and feudal subordination. High moral qualities and Christian zeal were required of the land- less or lonely luiight, or were annexed as requirements to complete the character of the accomplished feudal vassal. Thus the true knight came to be distinguished from the knight by feudal tenure; though the feudal knight might possess, and was expected to possess, knightly characteristics in addition to his feudal do- main and its attendant obligations.
Doubtless in France and Spain, and elsewhere, chiv- alrous emprise was encouraged, if not originated by the Church, the sole moral authority of those days, which was anxious for peace, earnest for order, vowed to the maintenance of right, and eager to subordinate to spir- itual ride and guidance the military ardor and the tem- poral power of the time.
All these influences and 'all these tendencies, of va- rious age and origin, converged and commingled, with augmented energy in each, in the Crusades. These ro- mantic and persistent enterprises maj' have been under- taken and prolonged by the instigation and for the in- terest of the Pajjacy, but they were none the less the outburst of popular enthusiasm, and of a popular en- thusiasm which gave form and active reality to an in- stinctive perception of urgent policy. Whole nations are not impelled for centuries to arduous and perilous undertakings by any extrinsic force; the enduring im- pidse by which they are set and kept in motion must be a living power in their ovni bosoms, " bequeathed by bleeding sire to son." Looking back from the safe van- tange gromid, which has been secured only within two hmidred years, it is difficult to appreciate justly the alarming dangers to which Christianity and Christian nations were exposed from Moslem aggression at the commencement of the second millennium of our rera. The apprehension -was not dispelled entirely till the victory of John Sobieski under the walls of Vienna (1683). It is equally difficult to estimate now the effect of a wild, warlike fanaticism against Saracens and Pa- gans in implanting the recently acquired and imper- fectly received creed in tiu'bulent spirits, and perhaps still more difficult to recognise the service rendered bv the Holy Wars m diftusing and deepening the sentiment of a common faith, a common interest, a common civil- ization throughout Western Europe — a Christendom, or dominion of Christ.
All of these feelings were quickened bj' the Crusades, and were both exalted and rendered, in some sort, self- conscious by them. It must be rememliered that the Crusades did not begin with Peter the Hermit and the Council of Clermont, but that the crusading spirit had been previously manifested and cherished in Spain, in Sicily, and in Northern Africa. This spirit only re- ceived its fuU development and definite purpose by be- ing directed to the recovery of Jerusalem. Through distant i^iatic expeditions the desultorj' and unregu- lated adventure for the maintenance of Christian belief and Christian security was generalized, organized, dis- ciplined, and refined. The disorderly violence of mar- tial barons was withdrawn from domestic discords, and
v.— I
guided to a great Em*opean aim. War was in some degree sanctified ; it was ennobled, at least in the con- ception of the warrior, by being emploj-ed for the de- fence and maintenance of the faith. A strange but not unfruitful miion was thus effected between devotion and mUitary prowess. There is no question here of the use which was made of this combination for the extension of ecclesiastical domination. All that is con- templated is the consequence of this vmion in the pro- duction of chivalry and of the knightly character — a magnificent and previously unimagined ideal, however far human vices, and passions, and frailties may have prevented the perfect realization of that ideal. Is Chris- tianity to be condemned in these late ages because so few of those who profess its behests reach their per- formance, and because so many fail to add the Christian graces to the plainer merits of Christian belief and mor- als ■? The vision of the Holy Grail may visit this sor- rowfid earth, but it is not on earth that it can be won even by Sir Galahad.
Another influence must be admitted to have exercised a beneficial effect on the formation of knighthood. This is the contact and comparison with the intellectual and social culti'j-e of the degenerate Greeks, and with the elegance and courtesy of the Saracens. This influence must have commenced early, for Bohemond, and Tan- cred, and Raj'mond of Toulouse, and Godfrey of Bouil- lon, and Robert of Normandy carried with them to the Holy Land in the First Crusade much of that courtly bearing and generous sentiment which did not become generally disseminated through the Christian West, or through the nobUitj' at home, tiU the Second and Third Crusades. These qualities may have been directly and indirectly communicated by the Saracens in Spain, Sic- ily, and Southern France.