The History of Chivalry Volume II Part 12

Among the privileges of a knight of the Golden Spur, it is curious to notice that no person could sit at table with him except one of his own rank; no one of an inferior order was permitted to deny the infallibility of his opinion, and to contradict him: and for offences against the state, a knight of this cla.s.s was to be beheaded, and not put to death in the vulgar mode.

The circ.u.mstances in his conduct which were punishable with degradation are interesting, as descriptive of Spanish manners. It was thought necessary to forbid him from stealing the arms of another knight, from selling his own, or losing them at play, or giving them to courtezans. The punishment of degradation, as consequent on the admission of improper persons into the order, is intelligible and just: his girdle and spur-leathers were also to be cut, if he exercised any trade; except, indeed, in captivity, when he was kindly permitted to support his life by the best means of his ingenuity.[179]

The other cla.s.s of knights was formed of cavalleros Armados, who enjoyed most of the privileges of n.o.bility. A knight of this rank was free from the payment of taxes and tribute; and so were the knights of the Golden Spur, not, however, as knights, but as hidalgos. The cavalleros d'Armados were always made by the king's own hand; but the right of creating cavalleros d'Espuela d'Orada existed in the will of every cavalier of the order, though it was usually exercised only by the king.

These were the two bodies in which the chivalry of Spain was arranged. The t.i.tle of Cavallero was also given to every man who was a soldier, in consequence of holding his lands by a military and feudal tenure; but he was not, from that circ.u.mstance, necessarily a knight. Regarding chivalry as an order of merit, the cavalleros d'Espuela d'Orada and the cavalleros d'Armados were the only true chivalric knights in Spain.

There were some interesting circ.u.mstances in Spanish chivalry. Thus, in Catalonia, besides the squire who bore his shield and lance, each knight was attended by an armed man, whose t.i.tle was, Companion of the Knight, and who was considered as a gentleman that followed the art of chivalry.

He was also attached to the knight by feudal relations; for the knight was compelled to grant him land, or rent, in fealty. A knight who was ent.i.tled to be attended by this companion was a knight by creation, a miles vero; and he who had not received the order of chivalry, although an hidalgo, was considered as a knight minor, whom, indeed, chivalry would have disowned, but that his birth, rank, and fortune, made him a part of the military state.[180]

It is curious to notice that, by the general laws of Spanish chivalry, it was usual for every knight to embrace a newly-made knight the first time he met him, in honour of faith and love; and it was contrary to those laws for one knight to affront another, unless he should first send his defiance or publication of that breach of the bond of companionship.

[Sidenote: Spanish poetry.]

The pillars of Spanish chivalry were of the same quality and character as those of other countries. Spain had her military orders, her inst.i.tutions of Calatrava, Saint James, and Alcantara; while the militia of the Temple and the friars of the Hospital were richer in possessions in Spain than in any country of the West. She had, also, her ballads and romances, in prose and verse, descriptive of the wars and loves of chivalry: but I cannot discover, with some writers, that the chivalric muse sung either a sweeter or a higher strain in Spain than in France or England. Her minstrelsy, indeed, was peculiar, and so was her national character. On one side, longings for patriotic independence, and consequent hatred of the Moors; on the other, the loves and friendships of humanity, unaffected by difference of religion or country. The Troubadour chaunted his lays of love and war in Spain; and his appeals found a ready way to the heart in Arragon; for of that part of the Peninsula the Provencal was the vernacular dialect.

[Sidenote: Heroes of chivalry.]

[Sidenote: Pelayo.]

Spain is rich in her heroes, both of romance and chivalry. The Spaniard will not acknowledge that the Moor was, for a moment, left in tranquil possession of his conquest; and he points to a hero, named Pelayo, as collecting the remnants of the Christians in the mountains of Asturias, immediately after the general triumph of the Moorish arms. He resisted the Moors till his three hundred followers dwindled to thirty. His enemies then left him to perish, for hitherto his food had only been honey, found in the crevices of the rocks. But, in after times, the folly of this disdain was seen; for these thirty men were the nucleus round which the scattered Spaniards collected.[181]

[Sidenote: Bernardo del Carpio.]

Truth does not cast many gleams on Bernardo del Carpio, the next in time and rank of Spanish knights. If we may credit the historians of his country, it was he who nourished, in the Asturias, the plant of national liberty; for when Alfonso the Chaste would have made the land over which he ruled part of the dominions of Charlemagne, the n.o.bility, headed by Bernardo, repelled the invader, and annihilated the French peerage at Fontarabbia. Much of this, perhaps the whole, is the mere dreaming of national pride, not deserving regard: but when I find mingled with the story the a.s.sertion that Bernardo gained the alliance of some of the Moors, and that, in after parts of his life, he fought also under Moorish banners, I accept these circ.u.mstances as valuable, and consider them as indications of general principles and manners, whoever may be the hero of the tale.

[Sidenote: Charlemagne's expedition into Spain.]

Of the far-famed expedition of Charlemagne into Spain, little or nothing is known, though some French writers have defined the extent of his dominion in that country with the precision with which the political changes of modern times can be traced. Tradition, song, and history, unite in proving that he went into Catalonia and Arragon; but it does not seem that he established any government in those countries; and his march was rather the wild adventure of a knight than the grave purpose of kingly ambition. The Spaniards, as we have seen, claim the honour of defeating him in the valley of Ronscesvalles; but the Arabs also a.s.sert their t.i.tle to the same feat of chivalry: and, still further to embarra.s.s the matter, it has been contended, with equal plausibility, that the French under Charlemagne were worsted by the Navarrese and people of Acquitain; and thus that the French of the Adour and the Garonne defeated the French of the Seine. The land between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and called the Spanish March, was governed, some centuries before the twelfth, by the counts of Barcelona, who owned the feudal sovereignty of the kings of France. This territorial acquisition has been generally referred to the sword of Charlemagne, not, however, on sound historical proof, but rather from the practice of monkish chroniclers, of honouring that emperor with all the deeds of arms which could not accurately be ascribed to any other warrior.

[Sidenote: The life of the Cid.]

In the life of Count Fernan Gonsalez fiction and fact are blended beyond all power of extrication; and we must descend to the eleventh century for a genuine picture of the Spanish cavalier. No one is dearer to the proud recollections of a Spaniard than the Cid Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar: for it was by the valour of his arms that the momentous question of superiority between the two great powers in the Peninsula was decided as every Christian and Spanish heart could have wished. The honour of his chivalry is bright and pure; for to swear by his knighthood, affe de Rodrigo, is still the most solemn form of a Spaniard's a.s.severation.

The marriage of Don Diego Laynez, a Castilian gentleman, and Donna Teresa Rodriguez, daughter of a count and governor of Asturias, was followed in the year 1026 by the birth of a son at Burgos, who was called Rodrigo Diaz, and of Bivar, from the conquest made by his father of a town two leagues north of Burgos; but he was more generally designated as the Cid, from the Asiatic t.i.tle, Es Sayd, (my Lord,) which five Moorish emirs whom he conquered gave him, and which his king confirmed.[182] Indeed, from the number of his victories over the Moors, he emphatically merited this t.i.tle.

[Sidenote: His early ferocious heroism.]

While yet a youth he gave an earnest of his martial and ferocious disposition. His father had been insulted by a blow from Count Don Gomez, Lord of Gormaz, but he was unable, from old age and infirmities, to take vengeance, and he mourned in solitude and dishonour. Rodrigo, in order to restore peace to his father's mind, defied and fought the mighty man of arms: he slew him, and returned to his home with the head of the vanquished hanging at his saddle-bow. His father was seated at table with dinner, untasted, before him. Rodrigo presented to him the head, which he called the herb that would restore his father's appet.i.te. The old man embraced his son, and, placing him at the head of his table, declared that he alone was worthy of being at the head of the house of Layn Calvo. His father soon afterwards died. Rodrigo next distinguished himself by beating back an invasion of five Moorish emirs who had fearfully ravaged the country; and instead of treating them with severity, he gave them liberty, receiving their submission and tribute.[183]

[Sidenote: His singular marriage.]

The Cid's affair with Gomez was productive of an interesting circ.u.mstance, and ill.u.s.trative of the manners of that remote and singular period.

Ximena, the daughter of the Count, required of Don Ferdinand, King of Castile, the strange boon of Rodrigo of Bivar in marriage, alleging as her reason that his possessions would one day be greater than those of any man in the Castilian dominions. She declared that the power of pardon rested in her breast; and, like other amatory enthusiasts, she gave a colouring of religion to her wishes, by urging that the marriage would be for the service of G.o.d. The King consented, and summoned the Cid to his court; who, on receiving the message, incontinently dighted himself full gallantly, and, accompanied by many knights and other armed peers in festival guise, he repaired to the King at Valentia. Ferdinand received him with so much honour as to excite the envy of the courtiers. The purpose of the summons was communicated, and Rodrigo had no difficulty in consenting to marry the lady whose father he had killed. The marriage was celebrated; and the satisfaction of the King is peculiarly marked, for he made him large grants of land, being aware of his military prowess, and thinking that by this marriage he had secured his allegiance.[184] The Cid took his bride home, and, commending her to the kindest care of his mother, he went towards the Moorish frontier; for, in order to give a zest to his marital pleasures, he had vowed not to solace himself with Ximena's love till he had won five battles in the field.

[Sidenote: Enters the service of King Ferdinand.]

He was soon called to be the champion of his king; for a quarrel between Don Ferdinand and his brother Don Ramirio, King of Arragon, regarding the city of Caldhorra, was to be decided by arms. The Cid and the other champion, Don Martin Gonzales, entered the lists, and the judges placed them in such situations that the sun and wind favoured neither. They careered so fiercely against each other that their lances broke, but in the closer encounter of swords the Cid prevailed: he slew his adversary; and the judges declared that the city of Caldhorra belonged to Don Ferdinand.

[Sidenote: The Cid's chivalric gallantry.]

This victory was rewarded by the grat.i.tude of the King, and the envy of the courtiers; and the latter, in the bitterness of their rage, endeavoured to plot with the Moorish emirs, the subjects of the Cid, for his destruction. But the Moors not only disdained the alliance, but revealed the meditated treason to their lord. Many of the conspirators were banished; but regarding one person the chivalric gallantry of the conqueror prevailed over his just resentment. The wife of the Count Don Garcia prayed for the pardon of her lord: she fell at the knees of the Cid, but he would not listen to her until she rose. She requested him to command the Moorish emir, into whose country she and her husband were sentenced to be banished, to treat them with mildness and benevolence.

The Cid spoke according to her will; and the King of Cordova, for the love he bore that hero, treated them kindly, and gave Cabra to Garcia as a habitation. As far as Garcia was concerned this kindness was misplaced; for he made war upon his benefactor, the King of Cordova, till the Cid went and punished him. The circ.u.mstances attending this punishment will be told in a subsequent and very interesting part of our hero's life.

The Cid then a.s.sisted his sovereign in wresting Viseu, Lamego, and other cities from the Moors. There were no circ.u.mstances of his valour so remarkable as the cruel vengeance of Ferdinand on a man taken at Viseu, who had slain King Don Alfonso, his wife's father. He cut off the foot which had prest down the armatost, or instrument by means of which the cross-bow wag charged, he lopt off the hands which had held the bow and fitted the quarrel, and plucked out the eyes which had taken the mark. The archers then made a b.u.t.t of the living trunk.[185] Thus, whatever might have been the influence of chivalry on the mind of the Cid, it certainly had not tempered the ferocity of his Gothic sovereign.

[Sidenote: He is knighted.]

Coimbra was one of the new conquests, and in that city Rodrigo was knighted. The ceremony was performed in the church of Saint Mary, which had once been the great mosque of Coimbra. The King girded on the sword and gave him the kiss, but not the blow, for the Cid needed no remembrancer of his duties. The ladies were his honourable attendants on this august occasion. The Queen gave him his horse, and the Infanta, Donna Urraca, fastened on his spurs. His names, Rodrigo Diaz, were now compressed into Ruydiez, agreeably to a frequent custom at invest.i.ture, which in so many respects was similar to baptism. By permission of the King he then exercised the privileges of his new rank by knighting nine n.o.ble squires. By this time the vow of the Cid was performed, and he retired awhile from the court to the society of his wife.

[Sidenote: Death of King Ferdinand.]

[Sidenote: The Cid becomes the knight of Sancho, King of Castile.]

Ferdinand soon afterwards died, having, contrary to the principles of the nation's const.i.tution, divided his kingdom among his children. This breaking up the interests of the Gothic monarchy was most unwise; for the Goths were a fierce race, and in the cause of ambition brother had shed brother's blood.[186] The Cid went into the service of Don Sancho, King of Castile, the eldest son of the late sovereign; and in all his wars, whether with Christians or Musulmans, he deported himself after his wonted manner: and his great feats of arms won so entirely the heart of the King that he made him his campeador, or officer whose duty it was to mark the place for the encampment of the host.

[Sidenote: Mixture of evil and good in the Cid's character.]

[Sidenote: Supports the King in his injustice.]

Sancho expressed his purpose of possessing himself of what he chose to consider his inheritance,--the whole kingdom of his late father. His iniquitous design was manfully opposed by one of his counsellors, who n.o.bly declared that there was not a man in the world who would advise him to break the command of his father, and the vow which he had made to him.

Sancho then turned to the Cid, stating to him, singularly enough, that he solicited his advice, for his father had charged him upon pain of his curse not to act without his judgment. The Cid replied, that it would ill behove him to counsel his sovereign to contradict the will of the late King. Sancho rejoined, with admirable casuistry, that he did not think he was breaking his oath to his father, for he had always denied the justice of the part.i.tion, and the oath alluded to had been forcibly extorted. The Cid found the King was resolute in his purpose; and in the conflict of duties which the circ.u.mstances gave rise to, his martial spirit overcame his virtue, and he determined to continue his soldier.

[Sidenote: The Cid's romantic heroism.]

He prevailed upon Sancho, however, not to pa.s.s into the territory of Don Garcia, his brother, King of Gallicia, unless he obtained the love and licence of his brother, Don Alfonso, King of Leon. Numerous battles were fought, without, however, wearing any chivalric feature, and therefore not within my purpose to describe. In all of them the green pennon of the Cid floated conspicuously and triumphantly; and his achievements were so far beyond mortal comparison, that he was called the fortunate Cid--he of good fortune--he that was born in a happy hour. On one occasion Sancho was taken prisoner, but he was rescued by the Cid; and the circ.u.mstances are ill.u.s.trative of the romantic character of the age. Thirteen knights were bearing the King away, when the Cid alone and lanceless, for he had shivered his weapon in the battle, galloped after them. He cried to them, "Knights, give me my Lord, and I will restore yours to you." They scornfully bade him avoid contending with them, or they would make him prisoner too. "Give me but a lance, and, single as I am, I will rescue my Lord from all of ye," was the heroic rejoinder of the Cid; adding, with increased energy and confidence, "By G.o.d's help, I will do it." The chivalric request could not be denied by cavaliers, and they gave him a lance. But such was the spirit and force with which he attacked them, that he slew eleven of the thirteen: on the two survivors he had mercy; and thus he rescued his King.[187]

[Sidenote: Sancho's further injustice opposed by the Cid.]

Don Sancho became king both of Gallicia and Leon, confining his brother Garcia in irons as if he had been a traitor, and compelling Alfonso to seek for brotherly affection among the Moors. He robbed also his sister, Donna Elvira. Still his ambition was not satisfied; the little town of Zamora, belonging to his sister, Donna Urraca, was wanting to fill the measure of his desires. He dispatched the Cid to her on the painful office of requiring Zamora for a price or in exchange, and of communicating the King's purpose of seizing it by force in case she did not accede to his wishes. The great men of Zamora dissuaded the Infanta from surrendering the place: their courageous spirits declared that they would rather eat their mules and their horses, yea, their very wives and children; and the danger of yielding was shadowed out to her in that dark proverbial manner in which the Spaniards often conveyed their wisdom. "He who besieges you on the rock," they said, "will soon drive you from the plain."

The Cid returned to the King with the answer which this counsel dictated.

Sancho, in his anger at the failure of the emba.s.sy, reproached his campeador with unskilful management of his task; for his conscience told him that he who, like the Cid, had been bred up in the same house with Urraca, must have felt some compunctions at requiring her to give up the right of her inheritance. The campeador did not defend himself by stating that he had discharged his duty as an advocate for the King's purposes; he only declared that he had discharged faithfully his bidding as a true va.s.sal; but he added, that he would not bear arms against the Infanta, nor against Zamora, because of the days that were past.[188]

[Sidenote: Death of Sancho.]

[Sidenote: Instance of the Cid's virtuous boldness.]

Incensed at this opposition to his authority, Sancho banished his faithful campeador, who joined King Alfonso in the Moorish territories, with twelve hundred horse and foot, knights and squires, all men of approved worship.

Alarmed at this defection of his bravest cavaliers, the counsellors of Sancho advised him to revoke his edict: it was revoked: the campeador returned, but he would not bear arms against the Infanta nor Zamora, because of the days that were past. The King attacked the town, and lost his life in the attempt. There were circ.u.mstances about his death that impeached both his brother Alfonso and his sister Urraca. The Castilians murmured their suspicions; but when Alfonso came to be crowned, the Cid was the only man of sufficient virtue and spirit to decline doing homage.

Much astonishment was expressed in the countenances of the courtiers and prelates, who had already kissed the hands of Alfonso; and when he was called on by the sovereign-elect to perform his acknowledgment, he boldly declared, that all who were then present suspected that by his counsel the King, Don Sancho, had come by his death, "and therefore I say," he continued, "unless you clear yourself of this, as by right you should do, I will never kiss your hand, nor receive you for my lord."

The King expressed his pleasure at these sentiments, and swore to G.o.d and to St. Mary that he never slew his brother nor took counsel for his death; neither did his death please him, though Sancho had taken his kingdom from him. Alfonso then desired his courtiers to describe the means by which he might clear himself. They replied, that he and twelve of his knights, as his compurgators, must take that oath in the church of St. Gadra, at Burgos. Accordingly, the King and his knights repaired to Burgos, in whose church of St. Gadra ma.s.s was celebrated before the royal family, the n.o.bility, and the people. The King then took a conspicuous station near the altar. The Cid left his place, and, opening the Gospels, he laid the book upon the altar. The King placed his hand upon the volume; and the Cid said to him, with a seriousness of manner approaching to sternness, while the people attended with the intensest curiosity, "King Don Alfonso, you appear in this place to swear on the subject of your brother's death. You swear that you neither slew him, nor took counsel for his death: say now, you and these hidalgos, your friends and compurgators, if ye swear this?"

And the King and his knights answered, "Yea, we swear it." The Cid continued, "If you knew of this matter, or commanded that it should be performed, may your fate be similar to that of your brother. May you die by the hand of a villain, in whom you trust; one who is not a hidalgo; one who is not a Castilian, but a foreigner." The King and his knights cried, "Amen." But Alfonso's colour faded; and the Cid, marking this sign of guilt, repeated the oath to him. The King a.s.sented, but again his countenance paled. A third time did the Cid press him, for the laws of Castile allowed this reiteration; and once more did the King's language and countenance contradict each other. But the compurgation was now completed, and the Cid was compelled to do homage.[189]

[Sidenote: Character of Alfonso, successor of Sancho.]

[Sidenote: Story of his chivalric bearing.]