44 Tactitus, Germania, 13. According to Honoré de Sainte Marie (Dissertations historiques et critiques sur la Chevalerie, p. 30 sqq.), Chivalry is of Roman, according to some other writers, of Arabic origin. M. Gautier (La Chevalerie, pp. 14, 16) repudiates these theories, and regards Chivalry as “un usage germain idéalisé par l’Église.” See also Rambaud, Histoire de la civilisation française, i. 178 sq.
45 Scott, ‘Essay on Chivalry,’ in Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 16. Mills, History of Chivalry, i. 10 sq. For a description of the various religious ceremonies accompanying the investiture, see The Book of the Ordre of Chyualry or Knyghthode, fol. 27 b sqq. Cf. also Favyn, Theater of Honour and Knight-Hood, i. 52.
46 Favyn, op. cit. i. 52.
47 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 31 a sq.
48 Mills, op. cit. i. 71.
49 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 11 b.
50 Le Jouuencel, fol. 94 sqq.
51 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 12 a.
52 Scott, loc. cit. p. 15.
The duties which a knight took on himself by oath were very extensive, but not very well defined. He should defend the holy Catholic faith, he should defend justice, he should defend women, widows, and orphans, and all those of either sex that were powerless, ill at ease, and groaning under oppression, and injustice.53 In the name of religion and justice he could thus practically wage war almost at will. Though much real oppression was undoubtedly avenged by these soldiers of the Church, the knight seems as a rule to have cared little for the cause or necessity of his doing battle. “La guerre est ma patrie, Mon harnois ma maison: Et en toute saison Combatre c’est ma vie,” was a saying much in use in the sixteenth century.54 The general impression which Froissart gives us in his history is, that the age in which he lived was completely given over to fighting, and cared about nothing else whatever.55 The French knights never spoke of war but as a feast, a game, a pastime. “Let them play their game,” they said of the cross-bow men, who were showering down arrows on them; and “to play a great game,” jouer gros jeu, was their description of a battle.56 Previous to the institution of Chivalry there certainly existed much fighting in Christian countries, but knighthood rendered war “a fashionable accomplishment.”57 And so all-absorbing became the passion for it that, as real injuries were not likely to occur every day, artificial grievances were created, and tilts and tournaments were invented in order to keep in action the sons of war when they had no other employments for their courage. Even in these images of war—which were by no means so harmless as they have sometimes been represented to be58—the intimate connection between Chivalry and religion displays itself in various ways. Before the tournament began, the coats of arms, helmets, and other objects were carried into a monastery, and after the victory was gained the arms and the horses which had been used in the fight were offered up at the church.59 The proclamations at the tournaments were generally in the name of God and the Virgin Mary. Before battle the knights confessed, and heard mass; and, when they entered the lists, they held a sort of image with which they made the sign of the cross.60 Moreover, “as the feasts of the tournaments were accompanied by these acts of devotion, so the feasts of the Church were sometimes adorned with the images of the tournaments.”61 It is true that the Church now and then made attempts to stop these performances.62 But then she did so avowedly because they prevented many knights from joining the holy wars, or because they swallowed up treasures which might otherwise with advantage have been poured into the Holy Land.63
53 Ordre of Chyualry, foll. 11 b, 17 a. Sainte-Palaye, Mémoires sur l’ancienne Chevalerie, i. 75, 129.
54 De la Nouë, Discours politiques et militaires, p. 215.
55 See Sir James Stephen’s essay on ‘Froissart’s Chronicles,’ in his Horæ Sabbaticæ, i. 22 sqq.
56 Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 61.
57 Millingen, History of Duelling, i. 70.
58 Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. i. 179; ii. 75. Du Cange, ‘Dissertations sur l’histoire de S. Louys,’ in Petitot, Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, iii. 122 sq. Honoré de Sainte Marie, op. cit. p. 186.
59 Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. i. 151.
60 Ibid. ii. 57.
61 Ibid. ii. 57 sq.
62 Du Cange, loc. cit. p. 124 sqq. Honoré de Sainte Marie, op. cit. p. 186. Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 75.
63 Du Cange, loc. cit. p. 125 sq.
Closely connected with the feudal system was the practice of private war. Though tribunals had been instituted, and even long after the kings’ courts had become well-organised and powerful institutions, a nobleman had a right to wage war upon another nobleman from whom he had suffered some gross injury.64 On such occasions not only the relatives, but the vassals, of the injured man were bound to help him in his quarrel, and the same obligation existed in the case of the aggressor.65