CHAP. V.'] 



CHIVALRY. 



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valour, and united in prayer their generous liberators 

 with the powers of heaven. So natural is it for mis- 

 fortune to deify those who console it." 



" In those old times, as strength was a law, courage 

 should be a virtue. These men afterwards called knights, 

 carried it to the very highest degree. Cowardice was 

 punished among them as an unpardonable crime, and so 

 it is to refuse assistance to the oppressed. They held a 

 lie in horror, they branded with infamy, treachery and 

 breach of faith, and the most celebrated lawgivers of 

 antiquity have produced nothing comparable to their 

 statutes." 



" This league of warriors retained during more than a 

 century all its original simplicity, because the circum- 

 stances in the midst of which it arose changed slowly ; 

 but when a great political and religious movement 

 announced the coming revolutions in the human mind, 

 chivalry took a legal form and a rank among recog- 

 nised institutions." 



Before this we have seen that the feudal system had 

 already given an ascendency to the landed aristocracy, 

 anv. to the heavy armed horseman. Discipline had also 

 been at a very low ebb, and the infantry service had 

 fallen into disuse, or was of a very inferior quality. The 

 unsettled state of Europe, and the continual wars and 

 skirmishes between rival feudal chiefs, had destroyed the 

 art of manoeuvring in large masses, and had given con- 

 stant opportunities for the display of personal prowess. 

 This paved the way for the foundation of chivalry, for 

 the confidence of these mail-clad horsemen in their 

 personal skill in the use of arms, increased their courage, 

 and made them more adventurous and more greedy of 

 renown. So individual honour and glory became the 

 soul of chivalry and its primary principle. This idea is 

 more clearly shown by the customs of the knights-errant, 

 who fought not from national sentiment or religious 

 feeling, but from a desire of obtaining glory, and from a 

 sort of abstract spirit of justice. 



Chivalry, although a cosmopolitan institution, and 

 based upon the same general principles throughout 



