C H I V A L II Y. 



33.1 



with equal propriety and force to the more peculiar cha- 

 racteristics of chivalry a high sense of honour, cour- 

 tesy of manners, and especially delicate and respectful 

 attention to the female sex. These are not to be found 

 among most nation-, during that stage of society, in 

 :i tht-y appeared among the Gothic tribes. It may 

 be urged, indeed, that the violence and rapine of those 

 barbarous ages required that e.-pecial protection should 

 !,e shewn to the female sex ; but this protection would 

 not have been shown, unless their character had previ- 

 ously stoL-d much higher with the men of this nation, 

 it did among the Greeks, Romans, and the people 

 of the East. Besides, among the Gothic tribes, and 

 in the days of chivalry, the female sex was not merely 

 protected from violence, but they possessed a station of 

 high importance and influence, and were regarded as the 

 most proper and honourable rewardersof that valour, on 

 which the men most highly prided themselves. 



In the third place, chivalry, strictly and properly so 

 called, cannot be traced among the institutions of any 

 of the different nations whom we have considered. It 

 nowhere appears as a whule, embodied into form, and 

 infused with an active and animating spirit ; the disjecta 

 membra may be found, but even these are not complete ; 

 nor of that due proportion which they assumed, when 

 chivalry was reduced to a system. 



Lastly, in order to gain a clearer insight into the 

 period and the nation that gave rise to chivalry, pro- 

 perly so called, it is necessary carefully to distinguish 

 between a similarity of forms, ceremonies, and amuse- 

 ments, and a similarity in character, and in the nature 

 of the principles and duties of the times, when chivalry 

 actually flourished, and when it is supposed first to have 

 appeared. In this, as in all other questions of antiqua- 

 rian research, recourse must be had, in the first instance, 

 to direct historical evidence, if it is to be found ; if 

 this does not exist, internal and collateral evidence must 

 be had recourse to, which divides itself into two spe- 

 cies ; that which consists in the nature of the amuse- 

 ments and ceremonies, and that which consists in the 

 cha.-acter and habits of nations. On the question of the 

 origin of chivalry, direct historical evidence fails us. 

 Among different nations, very far removed from each 

 other in position, as well as in general habits, we can 

 trace many of the amusements, and some features of the 

 character of chivalry ; but these, as has been already 

 observed, were the necessary consequence of the cir 

 cumstances, in which, at a certain stage of society, al- 

 most all nations are placed ; it it only among the peo- 

 ple of one tribe, and among them from the earliest no- 

 tice we possess respecting them, that those characteris- 

 tics of chivalry, which strike us as the most singular and 

 uncommon, are to be clearly traced. 



Still, however, the period when chivalry became a re- 

 gular and systematic institution remains to be fixed ; 

 that the great principles of it are of Gothic origin, seems 

 to rest on as satisfactory a degree of evidence as the na- 

 ture of the question will admit ; but the state of society 

 among the Goths, at the period when we can trace the 

 peculiar features of chivalry among them, was not such, 

 as. either to call for its complete and regular institution, 

 or to enable them to have brought it about. The dif- 

 ferent periods, which have been assigned to the regular 

 institution of chivalry, are all connected by the authors, 

 who respectively advance and maintain them with some 

 theory on that subject. Those who maintain that chi- 

 valry arose out of the feudal system, fix the period of 

 its regular institution after the time oi Charlemagne, 

 when that system began to operate most powerfully oa 



the manners and laws of Europe. By other writers, the Chivalry. 

 institution of chivalry is supposed to have been a conse- "" ""Y~"*^ 

 quence of the Crusades ; and a period subsequent to 

 them is of course assigned to the origin of regular chi- 

 valry. Lastly, those who are of opinion, not only that 

 traces of chivalry may be perceived scattered among the 

 manners and institutions of the Scandinavians, but that 

 it existed in a regular and complete form among that 

 people, are disposed naturally to fix the period of its 

 origin prior to the time of Charlemagne. 



We shall, in the first place, attend to the evidence on 

 which the opinion of its origin prior to the time of Char- 

 lemagne rests ; but before examining it, it is necessary 

 to call to mind a position already laid down, viz. that 

 similarity in the peculiar features of chivalry, and not a 

 mere resemblance of a general and uncharacteristic na- 

 ture, must alone be admitted as relevant and satisfactory 

 evidence. 



In describing the manners and customs of the Scandi- 

 navian nations, tkeir mode of admitting their you'ig men 

 to the honour and the use of arms was particularly no- 

 ticed. The advocates for the opinion under examina- 

 tion contend, that this ceremony gradually acquired, long 

 before the time of Charlemagne, all that form and sig- 

 nificancy, which it possessed in the most flourishing day3 

 of chivalry. It may, therefore, b:.- proper to examine 

 some of the facts on which they build this opinion, since 

 it is of the utmost consequence to distingi'it-h bitween 

 the ceremonies which attended the investiture of the 

 youth with arms, and his adoption into the order of mi- 

 litary men, and those ceremonies with which he was ad- 

 mitted to the rank and privileges, and by which he 

 bound himself to discharge the duties of chivalry. 



One of the earliest* best authenticated, and meat par- 

 ticular and appropriate instances, is supplied by Cassio- 

 dorus. This author informs us, that Thoodoric, king 

 of the Ostrogoths, adopted the king of the Htruli, by 

 investing him with a sword, a shield, and other instru- 

 ments of war j and by presenting him with a horse. A 

 short time afterwards, the Emperor Justinian used simi- 

 lar ceremonies, in adopting Eutharic, the father of Atha- 

 laric, king of the same nation. These facts point out 

 the mode used in the Gth century. In the subsequent 

 century, it would appear from a passage in the life of 

 St Eloi by. St Owen, that a further advance had been 

 made towards the ceremonies employed in the acknow- 

 ledged period of chivalry, by distinguishing the knight 

 wita ornaments of gold. The passage, however, on 

 which this opinion is grounded," non esse dignum, 

 hos qui seculo militarent, incedere inauralos," is proved 

 by Mon. de St Palaye, to have been altered in its most 

 important word, since inorna'.os, and not inauralos ii 

 the original and genuine reading. 



It must not be concealed, however, that as we ap- 

 proach the times of Charlemagne, not only do instances 

 of military investiture occur more frequently, but they 

 were attended with much more solemnity and pomp, and 

 with the addition of these ceremonies, which are among 

 the most striking and characteristic of thivalry. Char- 

 lemagne sent for his sonLoui from Aquitaine, expressly 

 for the purpose of investing him ; and at the investiture 

 great splendour and ceremony were used. Similar splen- 

 dour and ceremony were employed by Louis, when he 

 invested his son Cnarle*. But the instance moat to the 

 point, as supplying a decisive proof of the -addition of a 

 ceremony very striking in chivalry, is given by Mennc- 

 nius in the Reports of ' Frie.vland, as taken from a cotem- 

 porary monument, (A. D. 80C2). Charlemagne, among 

 the other privileges which he granted to that part of tm 



