The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 17

In the West the tournament and joust survived chivalry itself, whose image they had reflected and brightened, for changes in the military art did not immediately affect manners; and the world long clung with fondness to those splendid and graceful shows which had thrown light and elegance over the warriors and dames of yore.

CHAP. VII.

THE RELIGIOUS AND MILITARY ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD.

_General Principles of the Religious Orders ... Qualifications for them ... Use of these Orders to Palestine ... Modern History of the Knights Templars ... Their present Existence and State ... Religious Orders in Spain ... That of St. James ... Its Objects ... Change of its Objects ... Order of Calatrava ... Fine Chivalry of a Monk ...

Fame of this Order ... Order of Alcantara ... Knights of the Lady of Mercy ... Knights of St. Michael ... Military Orders ... Imitations of the Religious Orders ... Instanced in the Order of the Garter ... Few of the present Orders are of Chivalric Origin ... Order of the Bath ... Dormant Orders ... Order of the Band ... Its singular Rules ...

Its n.o.ble Enforcement of Chivalric Duties towards Woman ... Order of Bourbon ... Strange t.i.tles of Orders ... Fabulous Orders ... The Round Table ... Sir Launcelot ... Sir Gawain ... Order of the Stocking ...

Origin of the Phrase Blue Stocking._

Such were the inst.i.tutions by which the character of the true knight was formed; and we might now resume our historical course did not a matter of considerable interest detain us, which, as it belongs to chivalry in general, and not entirely to any state in particular, can no where be treated with so much propriety as in this place.

It has been shown that from the union of religion and arms chivalry arose, and that the defence of the church and the promoting of its interests were among the chief objects of the new system of principles and manners. But knighthood had various duties to discharge, and the cavalier, who was sometimes distracted by their number, consecrated his life to the single purpose of upholding the cross of Christ. Thus orders called the Religious Orders of Knighthood were founded, and in imitation of them, fraternities, called Military Orders, appeared, all being ranged within the general pale of chivalry.

[Sidenote: General principles of the religious orders.]

The religious orders, as might be expected, were sanctioned by papal authority. They were both martial and monastic in their general principles, but their internal conduct was entirely regulated by the discipline of the cloister; and, like the establishments of monks, they took some existing rule of a favourite saint as their guide. Theirs was a singular compound of the chivalric and the cloisteral characters,

"The fine vocation of the sword and lance With the gross aims and body-bending toil Of a poor brotherhood who walk the earth Pitied."[351]

Like the monks they were bound by the three great monastic vows of chast.i.ty, poverty, and obedience. The first of these matters needs no explanation[352]; the second meant a total oblivion of individuality, the community and not a peculiar possession of property; and by the third, the members were confined to obey the head of their order, to the exclusion of all other authority. These general principles of the religious societies of knighthood gave way, however, and fitted themselves to the occasions and demands of society, for like the chain-mail, which was flexible to all the motions of the body, the orders of chivalry have varied with every change of European life. Ascetic privations gave place to chivalric gallantry, the vow of chast.i.ty was mitigated into a vow of connubial fidelity; and when men of n.o.ble birth and high fortune became knights of the holy and valiant societies of Saint John, the Temple, or Saint James, the vow of poverty was dispensed with, or explained away to the satisfaction of conscientious scruples. In the fraternity of the Temple a knight was permitted to hold estates, so that at his death he bequeathed some portion of them to his order.[353]

In another very important respect the religious brotherhoods were moulded to the general frame of political society. Their independence of civil authority was given up, as the papal power declined, and kings refused admittance of the bulls of Rome into their states without their previous license. The knights of the religious fraternities became connected with the state by professing that their duties to G.o.d and their country were prior and paramount to the rules and statutes of the brotherhood; and they adopted this form of phrase rather to prevent the suggestions of malice than from any existing necessity, for they contended that the obligations of chivalry, instead of contravening the duty of a citizen, gave it strength, and dignity, and grace.[354]

[Sidenote: Qualifications for them.]

In their origin all the military orders and most of the religious ones were entirely aristocratic; proofs of gentility of birth were scrupulously examined; and no soldier by the mere force of his valiancy could attain the honours of an order, though such a claim was allowed for his admission into the general fraternity of knighthood. These requisites for n.o.bleness of birth kept pace with the political state of different countries, for the sovereigns of Europe and chivalry did not accord upon any particular form. Thus a French candidate for the knighthood of Saint John of Jerusalem must have shown four quarters of gentility on his coat-armour, but in the severer aristocracies of Spain and Germany no less than eight heraldic emblasonings were requisite. In Italy, however, where commerce checked the haughtiness of n.o.bility, it was not expected that the pedigree should be so proud and full, and at length the old families conceded, and the new families were satisfied with the concession, that the sons of merchants should be at liberty to enter into the religious orders.

It would be tedious and unprofitable to detail the history of all these chivalric societies; and were I to repeat or abridge the usual books on the topic I should in many cases be only a.s.sisting to give currency to fraud, for the t.i.tle, a religious order of knighthood, was often improperly bestowed on an establishment, while in truth it was only a fraternity of monks who maintained some soldiers in their pay: other a.s.sociations obtained a papal sanction, but they were small and insignificant, and their history did not affect the general state of any country.

[Sidenote: Use of these orders to Palestine.]

Not so, however, the n.o.ble fraternities of Saint John and the Temple[355], and next, though the intervening s.p.a.ce of dignity was considerable, the Teutonic knights. These religious orders of chivalry by their principles and conduct are strongly marked in the political history of the world, for they formed the firm and unceasing bulwark of the Christian kingdom in Palestine during the middle ages. They were its regular militia, and maintained the Holy Land in the interval between the departure of one fleet of crusaders and the arrival of another. Generous emulation sometimes degenerated into envy, and the heats and feuds of the knights of Saint John and the Temple violated the peace of the country; but these dissensions were usually hushed when danger approached their charge, and the atabal of the Muselmans was seldom sounded in defiance on the frontier of the kingdom without the trumpets of the military orders in every preceptory and commandery receiving and echoing the challenge.

[Sidenote: Particularly of the Templars.]

The valiancy of the Templars was particularly conspicuous in the moments of the kingdom's final fate; for when the Christians of the Holy Land were reduced to the possession of Acre, and two hundred thousand Mameluke Tartars from Egypt were encamped round its walls, the defence of the city was entrusted to Peter de Beaujeau, Grand Master of the Templars. And well and chivalrously did he sustain his high and sacred charge. Acre fell, indeed, but not until this heroic representative of Christian chivalry and most of the n.o.ble followers of his standard had been slain. The memory of the Templars is embalmed in all our recollections of the beautiful romance of the middle ages, for the red cross knights were the last band of Europe's host that contended for the possession of Palestine. A few survived the fall of Acre and retired to Sis in Armenia. They were driven to the island of Tortosa, whence they escaped to Cyprus, and the southern sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean no longer rang with the cry of religious war.

The origin and peculiar nature of these three great religious orders have been detailed by me in another work, and also their history as far as it was connected with the crusades; but on one subject our present deductions may be carried further: for though the annals of the cavaliers of Saint John and also of the Teutonic knights are mixed with general European history, yet those of the Templars stand isolated. In the History of the Crusades, I described the circ.u.mstances of the iniquitous and sanguinary persecution of the brotherhood of the Temple, the consequent suspension of their functions[356], and the spoliation of all those possessions with which the respect of the world had enriched them.

[Sidenote: Modern history of the Templars.]

But the persecution of the Templars in the fourteenth century does not close the history of the order, for though the knights were spoliated the order was not annihilated. In truth, the cavaliers were not guilty, the brotherhood was not suppressed, and, startling as is the a.s.sertion, there has been a succession of Knights Templars from the twelfth century down even to these days; the chain of transmission is perfect in all its links.

Jacques de Molai, the Grand Master at the time of the persecution, antic.i.p.ating his own martyrdom, appointed as his successor, in power and dignity, Johannes Marcus Larmenius of Jerusalem, and from that time to the present there has been a regular and uninterrupted line of grand masters.

The charter by which the supreme authority has been transmitted is judicial and conclusive evidence of the order's continued existence. This charter of transmission, with the signatures of the various chiefs of the Temple, is preserved at Paris, with the ancient statutes of the order, the rituals, the records, the seals, the standards, and other memorials of the early Templars. The brotherhood has been headed by the bravest cavaliers of France, by men who, jealous of the dignity of knighthood, would admit no corruption, no base copies of the orders of chivalry, and who thought that the shield of their n.o.bility was enriched by the impress of the Templars' red cross. Bertrand du Guesclin was the grand master from 1357 till his death in 1380, and he was the only French commander who prevailed over the chivalry of our Edward III. From 1478 to 1497, we may mark Robert Lenoncourt, a cavalier of one of the most ancient and valiant families of Lorraine. Philippe Chabot, a renowned captain in the reign of Francis I., wielded the staff of power from 1516 to To 1543. The ill.u.s.trious family of Montmorency appear as Knights Templars, and Henry, the first duke, was the chief of the order from 1574 to 1614. At the close of the seventeenth century the grand master was James Henry de Duras, a marshal of France, the nephew of Turenne, and one of the most skilful soldiers of Louis XIV.

The grand masters from 1734 to 1776 were three princes of the royal Bourbon family. The names and years of power of these royal personages who acknowledged the dignity of the order of the Temple were Louis Augustus Bourbon, Duke of Maine, 1724-1737; Louis Henry Bourbon Conde 1737-1741; and Louis Francis Bourbon Conty 1741-1746. The successor of these princes in the grand-mastership of the Temple was Louis Hercules Timoleon, Duke de Cosse Brissac, the descendant of an ancient family long celebrated in French history for its loyalty and gallant bearing. He accepted the office in 1776, and sustained it till he died in the cause of royalty at the beginning of the French Revolution. The order has now its grand master, Bernardus Raymundus Fabre Palaprat, and there are colleges in England and in many of the chief cities in Europe.

[Sidenote: Present existence and state of the Templars.]

Thus the very ancient and sovereign order of the Temple is now in full and chivalric existence, like those orders of knighthood which were either formed in imitation of it, or had their origin in the same n.o.ble principles of chivalry. It has mourned as well as flourished; but there is in its nature and const.i.tution a principle of vitality which has carried it through all the storms of fate. Its continuance, by representatives as well as by t.i.tle, is as indisputable a fact as the existence of any other chivalric fraternity. The Templars of these days claim no t.i.tular rank, yet their station is so far identified with that of the other orders of knighthood, that they a.s.sert equal purity of descent from the same bright source of chivalry. Nor is it possible to impugn the legitimate claims to honorable estimation, which the modern brethren of the Temple derive from the antiquity and pristine l.u.s.tre of their order, without at the same time shaking to its centre the whole venerable fabric of knightly honor.[357]

[Sidenote: Religious orders in Spain.]

The Holy Land was not the only country which gave birth to the religious orders of knighthood. Several arose in Spain, and their arms were mainly instrumental in effecting the triumph of the Christian cause over that of the Moors. War with the usurpers was the pristine object of some of these societies, and in other cases it was based and pillared upon a foundation of charity. Perpetual enmity to the Arabian infidels was the motto of all.

Unlike the Christian kings of Spain, the orders never relaxed in their hostility; they never mingled with the Moors in the delights of peace, and their character was formed by their own rules and principles, unaffected by the graceful softenings of oriental luxury and taste.

[Sidenote: That of St. James.]

The most considerable of these Spanish religious orders of knighthood was that of Saint James, of Compostella, which sprang from the a.s.sociation of some knights and monks in the middle of the twelfth century, for the protection of the pilgrims who flocked from all countries to bow before the relics of the tutelar saint of Spain.[358] The monks were of the society of St. Eloy, a holy person of great fame among our English ancestors; for Chaucer's demure prioress was wont to verify her a.s.sertions by appealing to his authority.

"Her greatest oath n'as but by St. Eloy."

The monks and knights lived in friendly communion, the prior of the convent regulating the spiritual concerns, and a grand master, chosen by the cavaliers, leading the soldiers. They were taken under the protection of the papal see, on their professing the vows of chast.i.ty, poverty, and obedience; but afterwards Pope Alexander the Third sank the ascendancy of the monastic portion of their character, for he permitted an oath of connubial fidelity to be subst.i.tuted for that of chast.i.ty. A descent of two degrees of gentle birth was required for admission into the order of Saint James, and the Christian blood must have been uncontaminated with any Jewish or Moorish mixture.

[Sidenote: Its objects.]

The guarding of the pa.s.sages to the shrine of Saint James from the incursions of the Moors became extended into a general defence of the kingdom against the hostilities of those enemies of the Christian name; and in time their active military operations far exceeded their defensive wars in consequence and splendour. The simple object of their a.s.sociation being forgotten, their glories became a.s.sociated with the earliest struggles of the Christians for the repossession of their inheritance; and they pretended to trace their line up to the ninth century, when Saint James himself, riding on a white horse, and bearing a banner marked with a red cross in his hand, a.s.sisted them to discomfit the Moors. A cross, finished like the blade of a sword, and the hilt crossleted, became the ensign of the order, and the order was then appropriately called _La Orden de Santiago de la Espada_. The centre of the crosslet was ornamented with an escalop-sh.e.l.l, the badge of Saint James; and nothing can more strongly mark the popularity of his shrine in the middle ages than the fact of the escalop-sh.e.l.l being the usual designation of an European palmer. The cross was worn on a white cross mantle, and was painted red, agreeably, as it might seem, to that on the banner already alluded to. But Don Rodrigo Ximines, an archbishop of Toledo, who dealt in allegories, observed the reason to be that the sword was red with the blood of the Arabs, and that the faith of the knights was burning with charity.

The grand master of the order of Saint James had precedence over the grand masters of other Spanish orders; but the internal government of the fraternity was in the hands of a council, whose decrees were obligatory, even on the grand master himself. The order of Saint James had two great commanderies, one in Leon and the other in Castile; and to them all other establishments were subordinate. There were perpetual disputes for precedency between these commanderies, and the kings of Castile and Leon fomented them, thus preventing an union which might be dangerous to the state itself, and obtaining military aid in return for occasional interference. The grat.i.tude of sovereigns enriched the order with various possessions; but it was its own good swords that won for it the best part of its territories.

Notwithstanding that, like all other religious orders of knighthood, the order of Saint James had originally enjoyed independence of royal authority, yet in the course of time the kings of Castile acquired the right of delivering to every newly-elected grand master the standard of the order. The obedience was only t.i.tular till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Emperor Charles V. obtained from Popes Leo X.

and Adrian VI. the supreme direction of all the affairs of the order, and, consequently, the dignity of grand master became attached to the crown.

But the power of the king was not suffered to be absolute; for the popes compelled him to consent that the affairs of the order should be managed by a council, with a right of appeal to the pope himself. The power of the Spanish kings then became a species of influence, rather than of direct prerogative.

[Sidenote: Change of its objects.]

The object of the a.s.sociation, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, being accomplished, this religious order became an order of merit,--a feather in the plume of Spanish dignity. It could be gained only by the n.o.bility; for it then behoved every knight to prove the gentility of his descent, maternal and paternal, for four degrees. The old vows of poverty, obedience, and conjugal chast.i.ty were preserved, with a mental reservation regarding the two former.

In the year 1652, the knights of St. James as well as the knights of Calatrava and Alcantara, in the fervour of their zeal for what they called religion, added a vow to defend and maintain the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The people of Madrid were invited to three churches to witness the taking of the vows by the knights. After the celebration of the ma.s.s a cavalier in the name of all his brothers p.r.o.nounced the vow[359], and every one repeated it, placing his hand on the cross and the Gospels. And thus an order, which in its origin was charitable, in its progress patriotic, had the bright glories of its days of honor sullied by superst.i.tion.[360]

[Sidenote: Order of Calatrava.]

The next station in the dignity of rank was occupied by the knights of Calatrava, who, considering the circ.u.mstances of their origin, may be regarded as a more honourable fraternity than the brotherhood of St.

James. About the year 1147, Alfonso King of Spain recovered from the Moors the fortress of Calatrava, which was the key of Toledo. The king committed it to the charge of the Knights Templars. That n.o.ble order of Christian soldiers was then in the very infancy of its career of honour, and so few were the red crosses in Spain, that they could not drive back the swelling tide of Muselman power. After retaining it for only eight years, the Templars resigned it into the hands of Don Sancho, successor of Alfonso, who endeavoured to secure for it defenders, by proposing to accord Calatrava and its lands in perpetual possession to such knights as would undertake the guarding of the fortress. The chivalry of Spain, remembering that the brave militia of the Temple had quailed before the Moors, hung back in caution and dismay; and Sancho already saw the fate of Calatrava sealed in Arabian subjection, when the cloisters of a convent rang with a cry of war which was unheard in the baronial hall.

[Sidenote: Fine chivalry of a monk.]

The monastery of Santa Maria de Fetero in Navarre contained a monk named Diego Velasquez, who had spent the morning of his life in arms, but afterwards had changed the mailed frock for a monastic mantle, for in days of chivalry, when religion was the master spring of action, such conversions were easy and natural. The gloom of a convent was calculated only to repress the martial spirit; but yet the surrounding memorials of military greatness, the armed warrior in stone, the overhanging banner and gauntlet, while they proved the frail nature of earthly happiness, showed what were the subjects wherein men wished for fame beyond the grave. The pomp of the choir-service, the swelling note of exultation in which the victories of the Jews over the enemies of Heaven were sung, could not but excite the heart to admiration of chivalric renown, and in moments of enthusiasm many a monk cast his cowl aside, and changed his rosary for the belt of a knight.

And thus it was with Velasquez. His chivalric spirit was roused by the call of his king, and he lighted a flame of military ardor among his brethren. They implored the superior of the convent to accept the royal proffer; and the king, who was at first astonished at the apparent audacity of the wish, soon recollected that the defence of the fortress of Calatrava could not be achieved by the ordinary exertions of courage, and he then granted it to the Cistertian order, and princ.i.p.ally to its station at Santa Maria de Fetero, in Navarre. And the fortress was wisely betowed; for not only did the bold spirits of the convents keep the Moors at bay in that quarter, but the valour of the friars caused many heroic knights of Spain to join them. To these banded monks and cavaliers the king gave the t.i.tle of the Religious Fraternity of Calatrava, and Pope Alexander III. accepted their vows of poverty, obedience, and chast.i.ty. The new religious order of knighthood, like that of Saint James of Compostella, was a n.o.ble bulwark of the Christian kingdom.

[Sidenote: Discipline of the order.]