The ages, we call barbarous, present us with many a subject of curious speculation. What, for instance, is more remarkable than the Gothic Chivalry? or than the spirit of Romance, which took its rise from that singular institution?
Nothing in human nature, my dear friend, is without its reasons. The modes and fashions of different times may appear, at first sight, fantastic and unaccountable. But they, who look nearly into them, discover some latent cause of their production.
as sings our philosophical bard; but to come at this knowledge, is the difficulty. Sometimes a close attention to the workings of the human mind is sufficient to lead us to it: sometimes more than that, the diligent observation of what passes without us, is necessary.
This last I take to be the case here. The prodigies we are now contemplating, had their origin in the barbarous ages. Why then, says the fastidious modern, look any further for the reason? Why not resolve them at once into the usual caprice and absurdity of barbarians?
This, you see, is a short and commodious philosophy. Yet barbarians have their own, such as it is, if they are not enlightened by our reason. Shall we then condemn them unheard, or will it not be fair to let them have the telling of their own story?
Would we know from what causes the institution of Chivalry was derived? The time of its birth, the situation of the barbarians amongst whom it arose, must be considered: their wants, designs, and policies, must be explored: we must inquire when, and where, and how, it came to pass that the Western world became familiarized to this prodigy, which we now start at.
Another thing is full as remarkable, and concerns us more nearly. The spirit of Chivalry was a fire which soon spent itself: but that of Romance, which was kindled at it, burnt long, and continued its light and heat even to the politer ages.
The greatest geniuses of our own and foreign countries, such as Ariosto and Tasso in Italy, and Spenser and Milton in England, were seduced by these barbarities of their forefathers; were even charmed by the Gothic Romances. Was this caprice and absurdity in them? Or, may there not be something in the Gothic Romance peculiarly suited to the views of a genius, and to the ends of poetry? And may not the philosophic moderns have gone too far in their perpetual ridicule and contempt of it?
To form a judgment in the case, the rise, progress, and genius of Gothic Chivalry must be explained.
The circumstances in the Gothic fictions and manners, which are proper to the ends of poetry (if any such there be) must be pointed out.
Reasons, for the decline and rejection of the Gothic taste in later times, must be given.
You have in these particulars both the Subject and the Plan of the following Letters.
I look upon Chivalry, as on some mighty river, which the fablings of the poets have made immortal. It may have sprung up amidst rude rocks, and blind deserts. But the noise and rapidity of its course, the extent of country it adorns, and the towns and palaces it ennobles, may lead a traveller out of his way, and invite him to take a view of those dark caverns,
I enter, without more words, on the subject I began to open to you in my last letter.
The old inhabitants of these North-West parts of Europe were extremely given to the love and exercise of arms. The feats of Charlemagne and our Arthur, in particular, were so famous as in later times, when books of Chivalry were composed, to afford a principal subject to the writers of them44.
But Chivalry, properly so called, and under the idea of “a distinct military order, conferred in the way of investiture, and accompanied with the solemnity of an oath and other ceremonies, as described in the old historians and romancers,” was of later date, and seems to have sprung immediately out of the Feudal Constitution.
The first and most sensible effect of this constitution, which brought about so mighty a change in the policies of Europe, was the erection of a prodigious number of petty tyrannies. For, though the great barons were closely tied to the service of their Prince by the conditions of their tenure, yet the power which was given them by it over their own numerous vassals was so great, that, in effect, they all set up for themselves; affected an independency; and were, in truth, a sort of absolute Sovereigns, at least with regard to one another. Hence, their mutual aims and interests often interfering, the feudal state was, in a good degree, a state of war: the feudal chiefs were in frequent enmity with each other: the several combinations of feudal tenants were so many separate armies under their head or chief: and their castles were so many fortresses, as well as palaces, of these puny princes.
In this state of things one sees, that all imaginable encouragement was to be given to the use of arms, under every different form of attack and defence, according as the safety of these different communities, or the ambition of their leaders, might require. And this condition of the times, I suppose, gave rise to that military institution, which we know by the name of Chivalry.
Further, there being little or no security to be had amidst so many restless spirits and the clashing views of a neighbouring numerous and independent nobility, the military discipline of their followers, even in the intervals of peace, was not to be relaxed, and their ardour suffered to grow cool, by a total disuse of martial exercises. And hence the proper origin of Justs and Turnaments; those images of war, which were kept up in the castles of the barons, and, by an useful policy, converted into the amusement of the knights, when their arms were employed on no serious occasion.
I call this the proper origin of Justs and Turnaments; for the date of them is carried no higher, as far as I can find, even in France (where unquestionably they made their first appearance) than the year 1066; which was not till after the introduction of the feudal government into that country. Soon after, indeed, we find them in England and in Germany; but not till the feudal policy had spread itself in those parts, and had prepared the way for them.
You see, then, my notion is, that Chivalry was no absurd and freakish institution, but the natural and even sober effect of the feudal policy; whose turbulent genius breathed nothing but war, and was fierce and military even in its amusements.
I leave you to revolve this idea in your own mind. You will find, I believe, a reasonable foundation for it in the history of the feudal times, and in the spirit of the feudal government.
If the conjecture, I advanced, of the rise of Chivalry, from the circumstances of the feudal government, be thought reasonable, it will not be difficult to account for the several CHARACTERISTICS of this singular profession.
I. “The passion for arms; the spirit of enterprize; the honour of knighthood; the rewards of valour; the splendour of equipages;” in short, every thing that raises our ideas of the prowess, gallantry, and magnificence of these sons of Mars, is naturally and easily explained on this supposition.
Ambition, interest, glory, all concurred, under such circumstances, to produce these effects. The feudal principles could terminate in nothing else. And when, by the necessary operation of that policy, this turn was given to the thoughts and passions of men, use and fashion would do the rest; and carry them to all the excesses of military fanaticism, which are painted so strongly, but scarcely exaggerated, in the old Romances.
II. “Their romantic ideas of justice; their passion for adventures; their eagerness to run to the succour of the distressed; and the pride they took in redressing wrongs, and removing grievances;” all these distinguishing characters of genuine Chivalry are explained on the same principle. For, the feudal state being a state of war, or rather of almost perpetual violence, rapine, and plunder, it was unavoidable that, in their constant skirmishes, stratagems, and surprizes, numbers of the tenants or followers of one Baron should be seized upon and carried away by the followers of another: and the interest, each had to protect his own, would of course introduce the point of honour, in attempting by all means to retaliate on the enemy, and especially to rescue the captive sufferers out of the hands of their oppressors.
It would be meritorious, in the highest degree, to fly to their assistance, when they knew where they were to be come at; or to seek them out with diligence, when they did not. This last feudal service soon introduced, what may be truly called romantic, the going in quest of adventures; which at first, no doubt, was confined to those of their own party, but afterwards, by the habit of acting on this principle, would be extended much further. So that in process of time, we find the Knights errant, as they were now properly styled, wandering the world over in search of occasions on which to exercise their generous and disinterested valour, indifferently to friends and enemies in distress;
III. “The courtesy, affability, and gallantry, for which these adventurers were so famous, are but the natural effects and consequences of their situation.”
For the castles of the Barons were, as I said, the courts of these little sovereigns, as well as their fortresses; and the resort of their vassals thither in honour of their chiefs, and for their own proper security, would make that civility and politeness, which is seen in courts and insensibly prevails there, a predominant part in the character of these assemblies.
This is the poet’s own account of
And again, more largely in B. VI. C. i. s. 1.
For Faery Court means the reign of Chivalry; which, it seems, had undergone a fatal revolution before the age of Milton, who tells us that Courtesy
Further, the free commerce of the ladies, in those knots and circles of the great, would operate so far on the sturdiest knights, as to give birth to the attentions of gallantry. But this gallantry would take a refined turn, not only from the necessity there was of maintaining the strict form of decorum, amidst a promiscuous conversation under the eye of the Prince and in his own family; but also from the inflamed sense they must needs have of the frequent outrages committed, by their neighbouring clans of adversaries, on the honour of the sex, when by chance of war they had fallen into their hands. Violations of chastity being the most atrocious crimes they had to charge on their enemies, they would pride themselves in the merit of being its protectors: and as this virtue was, of all others, the fairest and strongest claim of the sex itself to such protection, it is no wonder that the notions of it were, in time, carried to so platonic an elevation.
Thus, again, the great master of Chivalry himself, on this subject,
Not but the foundation of this refined gallantry was laid in the ancient manners of the German nations. Cæsar tells us how far they carried their practice of chastity, which he seems willing to account for on political principles. However that be, their consideration of the sex was prodigious, as we see in the history of their irruptions into the Empire; where among all their ravages and devastations of other sorts, we find they generally abstained from offering any violence to the honour of the women.
IV. It only remains to account for that “character of Religion,” which was so deeply imprinted on the minds of all knights, and was essential to their institution. We are even told, that the love of God and of the ladies went hand in hand, in the duties and ritual of Chivalry.
Two reasons may be assigned for this singularity:
First, the superstition of the times, in which Chivalry arose; which was so great, that no institution of a public nature could have found credit in the world, that was not consecrated by the churchmen, and closely interwoven with religion.
Secondly, the condition of the Christian states; which had been harassed by long wars, and had but just recovered a breathing-time from the brutal ravages of the Saracen armies. The remembrance of what they had lately suffered from these grand enemies of the faith, made it natural, and even necessary, to engage a new military order on the side of religion.
And how warmly this principle, a zeal for the faith, was acted upon by the professors of Chivalry, and how deeply it entered into their ideas of the military character, we see from the term so constantly used by the old Romancers, of Recreant [i. e. Apostate] Knight; by which they meant to express, with the utmost force, their disdain of a dastard or vanquished knight. For, many of this order falling into the hands of the Saracens, such of them as had not imbibed the full spirit of their profession, were induced to renounce their faith, in order to regain their liberty. These men, as sinning against the great fundamental laws of Chivalry, they branded with this name; a name of complicated reproach, which implied a want of the two most essential qualities of a Knight, COURAGE and FAITH.
Hence too, the reason appears why the Spaniards, of all the Europeans, were furthest gone in every characteristic madness of true chivalry. To all the other considerations, here mentioned, their fanaticism in every way was especially instigated and kept alive by the memory and neighbourhood of their old infidel invaders.
And thus we seem to have a fair account of that PROWESS, GENEROSITY, GALLANTRY, and RELIGION, which were the peculiar and vaunted characteristics of the purer ages of Chivalry.
Such was the state of things in the Western world, when the Crusades to the Holy Land were set on foot. Whence we see how well prepared the minds of men were for engaging in that enterprize. Every object, that had entered into the views of the institutors of Chivalry, and had been followed by its professors, was now at hand, to inflame the military and religious ardor of the knights, to the utmost. And here, in fact, we find the strongest and boldest features of their genuine character: daring to madness, in enterprises of hazard: burning with zeal for the delivery of the oppressed; and, which was deemed the height of religious merit, for the rescue of the holy city out of the hands of infidels; and, lastly, exalting their honour of chastity so high as to profess celibacy; as they constantly did, in the several orders of knighthood created on that extravagant occasion.
What think you, my good friend, of this learned deduction? Do not you begin to favour my conjecture, as whimsical as it might seem, of the rise and genius of Knight-errantry.
And yet (so slippery is the ground, on which we system-makers stand) from what I observed of the spirit, with which the Crusades were carried on, a hint may be taken, which threatens to overturn my whole system.
It is, “That, whereas I derive the Crusades from the spirit of Chivalry, the circumstances attending the progress of the Crusades, and even as pointed out by myself, seem to favour the opposite opinion of Chivalry’s taking its rise from that enterprize.”
For thus the argument is drawn out by a learned person45, to whom I communicated the substance of my last Letter.
“On the crumbling of the Western empire into small states, with regular subordinations of vassals and their chiefs, who looked up to a common sovereign, it was soon found that those chiefs had it in their power to make themselves very formidable to their masters; and, just in that crisis of European manners and empire, the Saracens having expelled Christianity from the East, the Western Princes seized the opportunity, and with great craft turned the warlike genius of their feudataries, which would otherwise have preyed upon themselves, into the spirit of Crusades against the common enemy.
But when, now, the ardour of the Crusades was abated in some sort, though not extinguished, the Gothic princes and their families had settled into established monarchies. Then it was, that the restless spirit of their vassals, having little employment abroad, and being restrained in a good degree from exerting itself with success in domestic quarrels, broke out in all the extravagances of KNIGHT-ERRANTRY.
Military fame, acquired in the Holy land, had entitled the adventurers to the insignia of arms, the source of Heraldry; and inspired them with the love of war and the passion of enterprize. Their late expeditions had given them a turn for roving in quest of adventures; and their religious zeal had infused high notions of piety, justice, and chastity.
The scene of action being now more confined, they turned themselves, from the world’s debate, to private and personal animosities. Chivalry was employed in rescuing humble and faithful vassals, from the oppression of petty lords; their women, from savage lust; and the hoary heads of hermits (a species of Eastern monks, much reverenced in the Holy land), from rapine and outrage.
In the mean time the courts of the feudal sovereigns grew magnificent and polite; and, as the military constitution still subsisted, military merit was to be upheld; but, wanting its old objects, it naturally softened into the fictitious images and courtly exercises of war, in justs and tournaments: where the honour of the ladies supplied the place of zeal for the holy Sepulchre; and thus the courtesy of elegant love, but of a wild and fanatic species, as being engrafted on spiritual enthusiasm, came to mix itself with the other characters of the Knights-errant.”
In this way, you see, all the characteristics of Chivalry, which I had derived from the essential properties of the feudal government, are made to result from the spirit of Crusades, which with me was only an accidental effect of it: and this deduction may be thought to agree best with the representation of the old Romancers.
This hypothesis, so plausible in itself, is very ingeniously supported. Yet I have something to object to it; or rather, which flatters me more, I think I can turn it to the advantage of my own system.
For what if I allow (as indeed I needs must) that Chivalry, such as we have it represented in books of Romance, so much posterior to the date of that military institution, took its colour and character from the impressions made on the minds of men by the spirit of crusading into the Holy land? Still it may be true, that Chivalry itself had, properly, another and an earlier origin. And I must think it certainly had, if for no other, yet, for this reason: that, unless the seeds of that spirit, which appeared in the Crusades, had been plentifully sown and indeed grown up into some maturity in the feudal times preceding that event, I see not how it could have been possible for the Western princes to give that politic diversion to their turbulent vassals, which the new hypothesis supposes.
In short, there are TWO DISTINCT PERIODS to be carefully observed, in a deduction of the rise and progress of Chivalry.
The FIRST is that in which the empire was overturned, and the feudal governments were every where introduced on its ruins, by the Northern nations. In this æra, that new policy settled itself in the West, and operated so powerfully as to lay the first foundations, and to furnish the remote causes, of what we know by the name of Chivalry.
The OTHER period is, when these causes had taken a fuller effect, and shewed themselves in that signal enterprize of the Crusades; which not only concurred with the spirit of Chivalry, already pullulating in the minds of men, but brought a prodigious encrease, and gave a singular force and vigour, to all its operations. In this æra, Chivalry took deep root, and at the same time shot up to its full height and size. So that now it was in the state of Virgil’s Tree—
From this last period, the Romancers, whether in prose or verse, derive all their ideas of Chivalry. It was natural for them to do so; for they were best acquainted with that period: and, besides, it suited their design best; for the manners, they were to paint, were then full formed, and so distinctly marked as fitted them for the use of description.
But that the former period, notwithstanding, really gave birth to this institution may be gathered, not only from the reason of the thing, but from the surer information of authentic history. For there are traces of Chivalry, in its most peculiar and characteristic forms, to be found in the age preceding the Crusades; and even justs and tournaments, the image of serious Knight-errantry, were certainly of earlier date than that event, as I had before occasion to observe to you.
Though I think, then, my notion of the rise of Chivalry stands unimpaired, or rather is somewhat illustrated and confirmed, by what the excellent person has opposed to it, yet I could not hold it fair to conceal so specious and well supported an objection from you. You are too generous to take advantage of the arms I put into your hands; and are, besides, so far from any thoughts of combating my system itself, that your concern, it seems, is only to know, where I learned the several particulars, on which I have formed it.
You are willing, you say, to advance on sure grounds; and therefore call upon me to point out to you the authorities, from which I pretend to have collected the several marks and characteristics of true Chivalry.
Your request is reasonable; and I acknowledge the omission, in not acquainting you that my information was taken from its proper source, the old Romances. Not that I shall make a merit with you in having perused these barbarous volumes myself; much less would I impose the ungrateful task upon you. Thanks to the curiosity of certain painful collectors, this knowledge may be obtained at a cheaper rate. And I think it sufficient to refer you to a learned and very elaborate memoir of a French writer, who has put together all that is requisite to be known on this subject. Materials are first laid in, before the architect goes to work; and if the structure, I am here raising out of them, be to your mind, you will not think the worse of it because I pretend not, myself, to have worked in the quarry. In a word, and to drop this magnificent allusion, if I account to you for the rise and genius of Chivalry, it is all you are to expect; for an idea of what Chivalry was in itself, you may have recourse to tom. xx. of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres.
And with this explanation I return, at length, to my proper business.
Supposing my idea of Chivalry to be fairly given, the conjecture I advance on the origin and nature of it, you incline to think, may deserve to be admitted. But you will, perhaps, admit it the more readily, if you reflect, “That there is a remarkable correspondency between the manners of the old heroic times, as painted by their great romancer, Homer, and those which are represented to us in books of modern knight-errantry.” A fact, of which no good account, I believe, can be given but by the assistance of another, not less certain, “That the political state of Greece, in the earlier periods of its story, was similar in many respects to that of Europe, as broken by the feudal system into an infinite number of petty independent governments.”
It is not my design to encroach on the province of the learned person46, to whom I owe this hint, and who hath undertaken, at his leisure, to enlarge upon it. But some few circumstances of agreement between the Heroic and Gothic manners, such as are most obvious and occur to my memory, while I am writing, may be worth putting down, by way of specimen only of what may be expected from a professed inquiry into this curious subject.
And, FIRST, “the military enthusiasm of the Barons is but of a piece with the fanaticism of the Heroes.” Hence the same particularity of description, in the account of battles, wounds, deaths, in the Greek poet, as in the Gothic romancers: hence that perpetual succession of combats and deeds of arms, even to satiety, in the Iliad: and hence that minute curiosity, in the display of the dresses, arms, accoutrements of the combatants, which we find so strange, in that poem. The minds of all men being occupied and in a manner possessed with warlike images and ideas, were much gratified by the poet’s dwelling on the very slightest circumstances of these things, which now, for want of their prejudices, appear cold and unaffecting to modern readers.
But the correspondency holds in more particular considerations. For,
2. “We hear much of Knights-errant encountering Giants, and quelling Savages, in books of Chivalry.”
These Giants were oppressive feudal Lords; and every Lord was to be met with, like the Giant, in his strong hold, or castle. Their dependants of a lower form, who imitated the violence of their superiors, and had not their castles, but their lurking-places, were the Savages of Romance. The greater Lord was called a Giant, for his power; the less a Savage, for his brutality.
All this is shadowed out in the Gothic tales, and sometimes expressed in plain words. The objects of the Knight’s vengeance go indeed by the various names of Giants, Paynims, Saracens, and Savages. But of what family they all are, is clearly seen from the poet’s description:
Here we have the great oppressive Baron very graphically set forth: and the Groom of evil guise is as plainly the Baron’s vassal. The Romancers, we see, took no great liberty with these respectable personages, when they called the one a Giant, and the other a Savage.
“Another terror of the Gothic ages was, Monsters, Dragons, and Serpents.” These stories were received in those days for several reasons: 1. From the vulgar belief of enchantments: 2. From their being reported, on the faith of Eastern tradition, by the adventurers into the Holy Land: 3. In still later times, from the strange things told and believed, on the discovery of the new world.
This last consideration we find employed by Spenser to give an air of probability to his Fairy Tales, in the preface to his second book.
Now in all these respects Greek antiquity very much resembles the Gothic. For what are Homer’s Læstrigons and Cyclops, but bands of lawless savages, with, each of them, a Giant of enormous size at their head? And what are the Grecian Bacchus and Hercules, but Knights-errant, the exact counter-parts of Sir Launcelot and Amadis de Gaule?
For this interpretation we have the authority of our great poet:
Even Plutarch’s life of Theseus reads, throughout, like a modern Romance: and Sir Arthegal himself is hardly his fellow, for righting wrongs and redressing grievances. So that Euripides might well make him say of himself, that he had chosen the profession and calling of a Knight-errant: for this is the sense, and almost the literal construction, of the following verses:
Accordingly, Theseus is a favourite Hero (witness the Knight’s Tale in Chaucer) even with the Romance-writers.
Nay, could the very castle of a Gothic giant be better described than in the words of Homer,
And do not you remember that the Grecian Worthies were, in their day, as famous for encountering Dragons and quelling Monsters of all sorts, as for suppressing Giants?
3. “The oppressions, which it was the glory of the Knight to avenge, were frequently carried on, as we are told, by the charms and enchantments of women.”
These charms, we may suppose, are often metaphorical; as expressing only the blandishments of the sex, by which they either seconded the designs of their Lords, or were enabled to carry on designs for themselves. Sometimes they are taken to be real; the ignorance of those ages acquiescing in such conceits.
And are not these stories matched by those of Calypso and Circe, the enchantresses of the Greek poet?
Still there are conformities more directly to our purpose.
4. “Robbery and piracy were honourable in both; so far were they from reflecting any discredit on the ancient or modern redressers of wrongs.”
What account can be given of this odd circumstance, but that, in the feudal times and in the early days of Greece, when government was weak, and unable to redress the frequent injuries of petty sovereigns, it would be glorious for private adventurers to undertake this work; and, if they could accomplish it in no other way, to pay them in kind by downright plunder and rapine?
This, in effect, is the account given us, of the same disposition of the old Germans, by Cæsar: “Latrocinia,” says he, “nullam habent infamiam, quæ extra fines cujusque civitatis fiunt.” And the reason appears from what he had just told us—“in pace, nullus est communis magistratus; sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt, controversiasque minuunt.” De Bello Gall. l. vi. § 21.
5. Their manners, in another respect, were the same. “Bastardy was in credit with both.” They were extremely watchful over the chastity of their own women; but such as they could seize upon in the enemy’s quarter were lawful prize. Or, if at any time they transgressed in this sort at home, the heroic ages were complaisant enough to cover the fault by an ingenious fiction. The offspring was reputed divine.
Nay, so far did they carry their indulgence to this commerce, that their greatest Heroes were the fruit of Goddesses approached by mortals; just as we hear of the doughtiest Knights being born of Fairies.
6. Is it not strange, that, together with the greatest fierceness and savageness of character, “the utmost generosity, hospitality, and courtesy, should be imputed to the heroic ages?” Achilles was at once the most relentless, vindictive, implacable, and the friendliest of men.
We have the very same representation in the Gothic Romances, where it is almost true what Butler says humorously of these benign heroes, that
How are these contradictions, in the characters of the ancient and modern men of arms, to be reconciled, but by observing that, as in those lawless times dangers and distresses of all sorts abounded, there would be the same demand for compassion, gentleness, and generous attachments to the unfortunate, those especially of their own clan, as of resentment, rage, and animosity against their enemies?
7. Again: consider the martial Games, which ancient Greece delighted to celebrate on great and solemn occasions: and see if they had not the same origin, and the same purpose, as the Tournaments of the Gothic warriors.
8. Lastly, “the passion for adventures, so natural in their situation, would be as naturally attended with the love of praise and glory.”
Hence the same encouragement, in the old Greek and Gothic times, to panegyrists and poets; the Bards being as welcome to the tables of the feudal Lords, as the ΑΟΙΔΟΙ of old, to those of the Grecian Heroes.
And, as the same causes ever produce the same effects, we find that, even so late as Elizabeth’s reign, the savage Irish (who were much in the state of the ancient Greeks, living under the anarchy, rather than government, of their numberless puny chiefs) had their Rhymers in principal estimation. It was for the reason just given, for the honour of their panegyrics on their fierce adventures and successes. And thus it was in Greece: