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 noble Enforcement of Chivalric Duties towards Woman ... Order of Bourbon ... Strange Titles of Orders ... Fabulous Orders ... The Round Table ... Sir Launcelot ... Sir Gawain ... Order of the Stocking ... Origin of the Phrase Blue Stocking.

Such were the institutions 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.

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,

Like the monks they were bound by the three great monastic vows of chastity, 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 chastity was mitigated into a vow of connubial fidelity; and when men of noble 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 God 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]

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 nobleness 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 nobility, 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 assisting to give currency to fraud, for the title, 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 associations obtained a papal sanction, but they were small and insignificant, and their history did not affect the general state of any country.

Use of these orders to Palestine.

Not so, however, the noble fraternities of Saint John and the Temple[355], and next, though the intervening space 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.

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 noble 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 shore 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 circumstances 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.

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 assertion, 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, anticipating 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 nobility 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 illustrious 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 Condé 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 Cossé 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 Fabré Palaprat, and there are colleges in England and in many of the chief cities in Europe.

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 noble principles of chivalry. It has mourned as well as flourished; but there is in its nature and constitution a principle of vitality which has carried it through all the storms of fate. Its continuance, by representatives as well as by title, is as indisputable a fact as the existence of any other chivalric fraternity. The Templars of these days claim no titular rank, yet their station is so far identified with that of the other orders of knighthood, that they assert 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 lustre of their order, without at the same time shaking to its centre the whole venerable fabric of knightly honor.[357]

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.

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 association 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 assertions by appealing to his authority.

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 chastity, 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 substituted for that of chastity. 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.

Its objects.

The guarding of the passages 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 association being forgotten, their glories became associated 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, assisted 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-shell, 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-shell 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 gratitude 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 titular 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.

Change of its objects.

The object of the association, 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 nobility; 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 chastity 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 mass a cavalier in the name of all his brothers pronounced 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 superstition.[360]

Order of Calatrava.

The next station in the dignity of rank was occupied by the knights of Calatrava, who, considering the circumstances 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 noble 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.

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 principally 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 title of the Religious Fraternity of Calatrava, and Pope Alexander III. accepted their vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. The new religious order of knighthood, like that of Saint James of Compostella, was a noble bulwark of the Christian kingdom.

Discipline of the order. Fame of this order.

Nothing could be more perfect than the simplicity of the knights of Calatrava. Their dress was formed from the coarsest woollen, and the edges were not like those of many a monk of the time, purfiled or ornamented with vair or gris, or other sorts of rich fur. Their diet, too, reproached the usual luxury of the monastery, for the fruits of the earth sustained them. They were silent in the oratory, and the refectory, one voice only reciting the prayers, or reading a legend of battle; but when the first note of the Moorish atabal was heard by the warder on the tower, the convent became a scene of universal uproar. The caparisoning of steeds, and the clashing of armour, broke the repose of the cloister, while the humble figure of the monk was raised into a bold and expanded form of dignity and power. Through all the mighty efforts of the Christians for the recovery of their throne, the firm and dense array of the knights of Calatrava never was tardy in appearing on the field; but the kingdom, as its power and splendour increased, overshadowed the soldiers of every religious order of chivalry. The grand mastership of the Calatrava fraternity became annexed to the thrones of Castile and Leon by the decree of Pope Innocent VIII., and the Kings of Spain kept alive the chivalry of their nation by using the crosses and other emblems of the ancient knighthood as signs of military merit.[361]

Order of Alcantara.

Inferior in dignity and power to both these orders was the order of Alcantara. It was formed soon after the establishing of the fraternity of Saint James of Compostella, at a town called Saint Julian of the Pear-tree, near Ciudad Rodrigo. The ancient badge was a pear-tree, in allusion to the origin of the order. The knights of the Pear-tree were so poor in worldly estate and consideration, that the knights of Calatrava took them under their protection, and gave them the town of Alcantara. The knights of the Pear-tree then quitted their humble title for a name of loftier sound, though ideas of dependence were associated with it. For nearly two centuries the cavaliers of Alcantara remained the vassals and retainers of the knights of Calatrava; but the spirit of independence gradually rose with their prowess in the field; and about the year 1412 their martial array was led to battle by their own grand master. Until the union of the Spanish crowns in the persons of Ferdinand and Isabella, they rivalled their former lords and the knights of Saint James in power and rank: the crown then placed them within its own control, and like the other fraternities, the main object of whose institution had been the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the cross of the order of Alcantara became a mere decoration of nobility.[362]

Knights of our Lady of Mercy.

Co-existent with these religious brotherhoods was a charitable establishment, which completed the blessings of chivalry in Spain. Experience of the wretchedness of imprisonment taught James I. of Arragon to sympathise with the hapless fate of others; and about the year 1218 he associated several valiant knights and pious ecclesiastics in Barcelona, whose whole thoughts and cares were to have for their chief end and aim the applying of the alms of the charitable towards the liberation of Christian captives. Knights of our Lady of Mercy was their title; and every cavalier at his inauguration professed his heart’s resolve to observe the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, to apply the whole energies of his mind and feelings to succour such of his unhappy countrymen as, by the chance of battle, were in Moorish prisons, and if necessary to remain a slave in the hands of the Saracens rather than abandon his duty of procuring the redemption of captives. The general course of their lives was directed by the rule of Saint Benedict, for a knight as a monk,—

So zealous were the Spaniards in promoting the noble objects of this order, that within the first six years of its institution no less than four hundred captives were ransomed. Originally the government of the order was in the hands of the knights, afterwards the priests obtained a share of the command, and finally they usurped it altogether, a matter of little reprehension, considering that the purpose of the institution had no military features. After the complete triumph of the Christian cause the scene of charity was changed from Spain to Africa; and it is curious to observe, that the order sullied the impartiality of its principle by releasing first the monks who had fallen into the hands of the African Moors, and then, but not before, the laity.[365]

Knights of St. Michael.

Superstition as well as charity gave birth to some religious orders of knighthood. The Knights of the Wing of Saint Michael, in Portugal, a very honourable order in chivalric times, had their origin in the opinion of Alfonso, King of Portugal, that Saint Michael the Archangel assisted him in 1171 to gain a great victory over the Moors. Only persons of noble birth could be admitted members of this order. The knights lived in their monastery agreeably to the rule of Saint Benedict. Their most anxious care in private life was to discharge the chivalric duty of protecting widows and orphans, and when they marched into the field of battle, the support of the Catholic faith was the motto on their standard.[366]

Military orders.

But it would be profitless to pursue the subject; for the religious orders of knighthood are only worthy of enquiry as far as they are connected with the defence of the Holy Land, and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.

the military orders founded in imitation of those whose history has just been related; not that I shall transcribe their statutes or paint their costume,—such matters belong to the herald. It is the part of the historian to notice their existence, to trace the principles which gave rise to them, and to mark such parts of their rules or their annals as reflect the state of manners.

Though knights were often created before battle, for the purpose of stimulating them to achieve high exploits, yet many were invested after they had fought, and proved themselves worthy of their spurs. But knighthood was so much diffused through society, that it almost ceased to be a distinction; and kings and other rulers who wished to shew their power or their gratitude were obliged to give a new form to chivalric dignity. The religious orders of knighthood presented a fair example of the benefits of close fraternity; and as those societies often gave a patriotic direction to chivalric feelings, so kings found the orders of military merit which they established admirable means of uniting in a bond of brotherhood their high-spirited nobles. When Louis, King of Hungary, avenged the murder of his brother Andrew, he endeavoured to unite the Hungarian and Neapolitan nobles by associating them in a fraternity called the Order of the Knot. The order did not live long. There were some singular provisions in this order of the Knot: there was to be an annual meeting of the knights on the day of Pentecost; and each knight was obliged to deliver to the chaplain of the order a written account of his adventures in the preceding year. The chaplain delivered it to the king and council, who ordered such parts as they approved of to be registered in the great book of the order. The order of the Argonautes of Saint Nicholas, at Naples, was instituted by Charles the Third, for the avowed purpose of fraternising his lords; and in the year 1579, when indeed the days of chivalry may be considered as past, the order of the Holy Ghost was established in France: the friendly union of the nobility and prelates of the land was declared to be a great purpose of the order. The throne of France had already been strengthened by the order of Saint Michael, founded about a century before by Louis XI., to draw the affections of the nobility to himself.

Knights who were associated under one title, and lived under one code of regulations, were in truth companions in arms; and, like any two cavaliers who had vowed to live in brotherhood, the banded knights were united for weal or woe, and were bound to assist each other with council and arms, as if a perfect community of interest existed. This was the general principle, but it was relaxed in favour of knights of foreign countries. Kings frequently interchanged orders, stipulating at the same time that in case of war they should be at liberty to return them. Instances of this nature occur repeatedly in the history of the middle ages; and in the last days of chivalry the principle of the companionship of knights was very artfully applied by Henry VII. to the support of his own avarice. The French king wished to borrow from him a sum of money in order to prosecute a war with the King of Naples; but Henry replied that he could not with honour aid any prince against the sovereign of Naples, who had received the Garter, and was therefore his companion and ally. To give such assistance would be to act contrary to the oath which he had taken to observe the statutes of the order.[367]

Imitations of the religious orders. Instanced in the Garter order.

The rewarding of noble achievements in the higher classes of society was a principle that ran through all the martial orders, but they were not exclusively aristocratic when simple knighthood fell into disuse, and the military brotherhood represented the ancient chivalry. These associations of merit adopted many of the principles and usages of the religious orders of knighthood. Notwithstanding the real causes of their foundation, religious objects were always set forth. Fraternisation and the reward of military merit were undoubtedly the reasons for instituting the most noble order of the Garter; and yet in the statutes the exaltation of the holy faith, Catholic, is declared to be the great purpose of the brotherhood. This is expressed in the statutes of the order promulgated in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and the words are evidently copied from earlier authorities.[368] As the exaltation of the Roman Catholic religion is certainly not in the minds of the modern members of the Garter, I may adduce these facts in proof of my position in an early part of this chapter, that the orders of knighthood have always been flexible to the change of society.

The military, like the religious orders, had their establishments of priests. Thus, to the knights companions of the Garter were added a prelate, a chancellor, and the chapel of Saint George at Windsor, with its dean and chapter. Prayers and thanksgivings were perpetually to be offered to heaven, and masses were ordered to be celebrated for the souls of deceased companions. Some military orders, like their religious exemplars, forgot not the promotion of charitable objects, and Edward the Third, with particular propriety, connected with that most noble order which he founded, a number of poor or alms-knights, men who through adverse fortune were brought to that extremity, that they had not of their own wherewith to sustain them, or live so richly and nobly as became a military condition.[369]

Every military fraternity had a cross of some shape or other among its emblems. To the highest order of merit in England a cross, as well as a garter, was assigned; but the silver star of eight points, which Charles I. with so little propriety, and with such wretched taste, commanded the knights to wear, renders insignificant the original chivalric designation of the order. The associations of nobles were always expressed to have been formed to the honor of God, or of some of his saints. Thus, even in the present days, a knight of the Garter is admonished at his installation to wear the symbols of his order, that, by the imitation of the blessed martyr and soldier of Christ, Saint George, he may be able to overpass both adverse and prosperous adventures; and that, having stoutly vanquished his enemies, both of body and soul, he may not only receive the praise of this transitory combat, but be crowned with the palm of eternal victory.

Few of the present orders are of chivalric origin.

Considering the fact that many of the honours of the present day have a chivalric form, we might expect that most of our military orders could be traced to the splendid times of knighthood. Attempts to prove so high an origin have been often made. Knights of the order called the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle justly think that a foundation in the sixteenth century scarcely merits so august a title. They have ascended, therefore, to the days of Charlemagne himself; and, boasting an union between their king Fergus and that emperor, have contended that the order of the Thistle was founded to commemorate the glorious event. The supporters of this hypothesis tread with timid steps the sombre walks of antiquity; others, with bolder march, have ascended several centuries higher, and fancied that they saw a great battle between the Scots and the English, when the former won the victory by the aid of Saint Andrew, and that an equestrian order, properly called the Order of St. Andrew, and vulgarly, the Order of the Thistle, was founded. With equal extravagance, the order of St. Michael, in France, pretends to the possession of a regular descent from Michael the Archangel, who, according to the enlightened judgment of French antiquarians, was the premier chevalier in the world, and it was he, they say, who established the earliest chivalric order in Paradise itself. But, in simple truth, the order of Saint Michael was founded by Louis XI., King of France in the year 1469, and the name of Michael was used, for he stood as high in favour in France as Saint George did in England. Except the orders of the Garter and the Golden Fleece, the one established in 1344, the other in 1429, and the order of St. Michael already mentioned, a chivalric origin cannot be successfully claimed for any of the institutions of knighthood. Thus, the order of Saint Stephen was founded in 1561, that of Saint Michael, in Germany, in 1618, and those of the Holy Ghost in 1579, and of Saint Louis in 1693; and none of these years dates with the age of chivalry. A view, therefore, of most of the military orders that now flourish comes not within the scope of the present work. On one of them, however, a few words may be said.

Order of the Bath.

England, above all other countries, can pride herself on the chivalric nature of her military rewards; for her Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a revival of an institution of chivalry, while her Most Noble Order of the Garter has suffered no suspension of its dignity. In tracing the progress of chivalry in England, I shall show that the knighthood of the Bath was an honour distinct from that which constituted the ordinary knighthood of the sword; and that from very early times to the days of Charles II. it was conferred on occasions of certain august solemnities, with great state, upon the royal issue male, the princes of the blood-royal, several of the nobility, principal officers, and other persons distinguished by their birth, quality, and personal merit. George I., in the year 1727, not only revived that order of knighthood, but converted it into a regular military order.

The curious ceremonies regarding the Bath itself were dispensed with; but in many other respects the imitation was sufficiently exact. It was ordained that a banner of each knight was to be placed over, and a plate of his crest, helmet, and sword, was to be affixed to his stall in the chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. All the romantic associations of early times were pleasingly attended to; for on the seal of the order were to be represented three imperial crowns Or, being the arms usually ascribed to the renowned King Arthur. The lady-love of chivalric times was to be commemorated in the collar; for its seventeen knobs, enamelled white, which linked imperial crowns of gold and thistles, were intended to represent the white laces mentioned in the ancient ceremonial of conferring knighthood of the Bath, and which were worn till the knight had achieved some high emprise, or till they had been removed by the hand of some fair and noble lady. The collar, however, is an honorary distinction of the order, whereas the white laces were regarded as a stigma. The form of the old oath was also strictly preserved, even with the singular clause that a knight would defend maidens, widows, and orphans, in their rights; and, as it had been said in old times, a newly-made companion was admonished to use his sword to the glory of God, the defence of the Gospel, the maintenance of his sovereign’s right and honour, and of all equity and justice, to the utmost of his power. At the close of the ceremony, and without the door of the abbey, the king’s master-cook made the usual admonition to him, viz. “Sir, you know what great oath you have taken; which, if you keep it, will be great honour to you; but if you break it, I shall be compelled, by my office, to hack off your spurs from your heels.”

Dormant orders.

Of those orders, which are either dormant or extinct, the account needs only be brief; for their history contains little matter that is either fanciful or instructive. An enlightened curiosity could find no satisfaction in investigating the annals of the extinct order of Saint Anthony of Hainault, or of the order of the Sword of Cyprus, and a thousand others, whose history, presenting only a list of grand masters, and the ceremonies of knightly inauguration, adds nothing to our pleasure or our knowledge.

Order of the Band. Its singular rules.

A few exceptions may be made to this opinion. In the year 1330 Alphonso XI., King of Spain, attached many of the nobility to his interests by founding an order of merit, which from the circumstance of every knight wearing a red ribbon three inches broad across the breast and shoulder was called the order of the Band or Scarf. Some of the rules of the institution are exceedingly interesting, as reflecting the state of manners and opinions in Spain during the fourteenth century. Not only were the duties of patriotism and loyalty inculcated by the statutes of the order, but, singular as it may seem in the history of Spain, virtue was to be cultivated at court, for every knight was charged to speak nothing but truth to his sovereign, and to abhor dissimulation and flattery. He was not to be silent whenever any person spoke against the king’s honour, upon pain of being banished from the court, and deprived of his band: but he was to be always ready to address the king for the general good of the country, or on the particular affairs of any individual; and supposing that his patriotic virtue might be checked by his attachment to his sovereign, the punishment for neglecting this duty was a forfeiture of all his patrimony, and perpetual banishment. Of the two extremes, taciturnity was to be preferred to loquaciousness: he was to be rather “checked for silence” than “taxed for speech;” and if in his conversation he uttered an untruth, he was to walk in the streets without a sword for a month. He was bound to keep his faith to whomever he had pledged it; but he was to associate only with men of martial rank, despising the conversation of mechanics and artisans.

Every knight was enjoined always to have good armour in his chamber, good horses in his stable, good lances in his hall, and a good sword by his side; nor was he to be mounted upon any mule nor other unseemly hackney, nor to walk abroad without his band, nor to enter the king’s palace without his sword; and he was to avoid all ascetic practices, for he was particularly enjoined not to eat alone. The vices of flattery and of scoffing were to be shunned; and the penalty for committing them was for the knight to walk on foot for a month, and to be confined to his house for another month. Boasting and repining were both prohibited: the reproof of the grand master and the neglect of him by his companions were to punish the offender. A knight was not permitted to complain of any hurt[370]; and even while he was being mangled by the surgeons of the times, he was to deport himself with stoical firmness. In walking, either in the court or the city, the gait of the knight was to be slow and solemn; and he was exhorted to preserve a discreet and grave demeanour, when any vain and foolish person mocked at and scorned him.

Duties to women.

Chivalric duties to women were more insisted upon in this order than in any other. If a knight instituted an action against the daughter of a brother-knight, no lady or gentlewoman of the court would ever afterwards be his lady-love, or wife. If he happened, when he was riding, to meet any lady or gentlewoman of the court it was his duty to alight from his horse, and tender her his service, upon pain of losing a month’s wages and the favour of all dames and damsels. The circumstance was scarcely conceived to be possible, but the statutes of the order, to provide for every imaginable as well every probable offence, decreed that he who refused to perform any service which a fair lady commanded should be branded with the title, The Discourteous Knight.

The statutes echoed the voice of nature in all her appeals to the heart; and thus every cavalier was enjoined to select from the ladies of the court some one upon whom his affections might rest, some one who was to be to him like a light leading him forward in the noble path of chivalry. There was no penalty for disobedience to this command, for disobedience seems to have been thought impossible. All the higher acts of chivalric devotion to his lady-love were presumed to be performed by the knight; and to show that his daily duties to his Order were to give way to his attention to his mistress, it was commanded that whenever she pleased to walk, he was to attend upon her on foot or on horseback, to do her all possible honour and service. When by his valiant feats against the Moors he had proved himself worthy of her love, the day of his marriage was a festival with his brother-knights, who made rich presents to the lady, and honoured the nuptials with cavaleresque games and shows. Nor did this generous consideration for woman stop here; for when a knight died, his surviving brothers were bound to solicit the King to make such grants of land and money to the family as would enable the widow to maintain her wonted state, and would furnish the marriage-portions of his daughters.

The band of the deceased knight was, agreeably to the general usage of the military orders, to be re-delivered to the king, who was to be solicited to bestow it upon one of the sons of its last wearer. The king was to select the knights from among the younger sons of men of station in the country, but no elder brother or other heir-apparent could be received; for it was the purpose of the founder to advance the fortunes of the nobly born, but indifferently provided, gentlemen of his court. Only one species of exception was made to this form of introduction. The honor of the order was conferred upon any stranger-knight who overcame one of the companions in the joust or tournament. This regulation was made for the general honor of chivalry, and the promotion of noble chevisance among the knights of the band. It was a bold defiance, and was seldom answered.[371]

The order of Bourbon, called of the Thistle, and of Our Lady, must not pass unnoticed. It was instituted at Moulins, in the Bourbonnois, in the year 1370, by Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, who was named, on account of his virtues, the Good Duke. It had for its object the winning of honor by acts of chivalry. The device of the order was a golden shield; and when it was given to knights they were exhorted to live as brethren, and die for each other if occasion should require it. They were told that every good action which beseemed chivalry ought to be performed by the knights of Bourbon. Above all things, they were exhorted to honor ladies, not permitting any man to speak slanderous matters of them, because, after God, comes from them all honor which men can acquire. Nothing could be more base than to vilify that sex which had not the strength to redress its wrongs. The knights were charged not to speak evil of each other, for that was the foulest vice which a nobleman or gentleman could be taxed with; and in conclusion, as the summary of their duty, they were exhorted to practise faith and loyalty, and to respect each other as became knights of praise and virtue.[372]

Strange titles of orders.

The occasions of the titles of many of the military orders are more interesting than a view of the external marks of their chivalry. Notwithstanding the haughtiness of knighthood, one of the most celebrated orders took its name from no chivalric source. The order was instituted by Philip Duke of Burgundy, who named the fraternity the Knights of the Golden Fleece, in gratitude to the trade in woollens by which he and his family had been so much enriched. In the fifteenth century, the order of the Porcupine was highly celebrated in France; and it was furnished with its singular title from the fancy of the founder (Louis Duke of Orleans, second son of Charles V. King of France), that by such a sign he should commemorate the fact, that he had been abandoned by his friends in adversity, and that he was able to defend himself by his own weapons. While the Porcupine was a favourite order in France, that of the Dragon-overthrown was famous in Germany; and by this ferocious title, the Emperor Sigismond intended to express his conquest over heresy and schism. The Dukes of Mantua fancied that they possessed three drops of our Saviour’s blood; and an order of knighthood was instituted in the year 1608, which took for its title the order of the Precious Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, at Mantua.

Fabulous orders.

The chivalric nations of Europe attached as much consequence to orders which existed only in their own fervid imagination as to those whose lineage was certain. To Constantine the Great was ascribed the honor of inventing the first military order of knighthood. The great captains of his court were said to have been associated under the title of the order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, that Saint being in Greece, as well as in England, the patron of military men. The grand-mastership resided in the Imperial family. After the fall of the Eastern empire, the order passed into Italy; and the knights of that country imagined the existence of papal bulls, which permitted the grand masters to sit at the same table with the Popes, to coin money, and to confer titles of honor, whether in nobility or learning, and exercise every prerogative of independent princes. But it would be in vain to enquire after the names of any of these mensal companions of the Pope; and no cabinet of curiosities contains any coins which they struck in attestation of their power.

The memory of Charles Martel’s great victory over the Moors was preserved in the middle ages of France, by the belief that the conqueror had established an order of knighthood called the Order of the Gennet; and lists of cavaliers were drawn out, and statutes imagined, attesting only the love of the French for chivalric distinctions. The Spaniards delighted to imagine that their early victories over the Moors were commemorated by an order called the Order of the Oak in Navarre, and founded on occasion of the Holy Cross, adored by an infinite number of angels, appearing to a Gothic chief who led the Christians.

The Round Table.

But of all these imaginary orders none is so interesting as that of the Round Table, instituted by Uther Pendragon, King of Great Britain, and which reached its perfection of martial glory in the reign of his son Arthur. While our ancient historians exaggerated into heroism the patriotic efforts of the last of the British kings, the minstrels who sang in the baronial halls superadded the charms of chivalric circumstance. Since the time of Adam, God hath not made a man more perfect than Arthur, was the favourite opinion; and when his remains were discovered in the Abbey of Glastonbury, in the year 1189, the people from their idea that prowess always corresponded with size of limb fancied that his bones were of gigantic frame.[373]

The court of Arthur was supposed to be the seminary of military discipline of knights of all countries; and it was thought that his hundred and fifty[374] good companions felt it their chief devoir to protect widows, maidens, and orphans[375], not only in England, but in every country whither they might be invited. They were champions of the public weal, and like lions repulsed the enemies of their country. It was their duty to advance the reputation of honor, and suppress all vice, to relieve people afflicted by adverse fortune, to fight for holy church, and protect pilgrims. They were likewise supposed to be enjoined to bury soldiers that wanted sepulture, to deliver prisoners, ransom captives, and heal men who had been wounded in the service of chivalry and their country. Independently of these patriotic and humane charges, they were thought to have formed a standing court for the redress of injuries; for Arthur, in case of any complaint being laid before him, was bound to send one of his knights to redress it.

Sir Launcelot.

The virtues of the knights of the Round Table were the mirror in which the chivalry of England arrayed themselves. These virtues are admirably described in the lamentation of Sir Ector over the dead body of Sir Launcelot of the Lake, the prowest of all the companions of Arthur:—“Thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands; and thou wert the curtiest knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever struck with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spere in the rest.”[376] Next in rank to Sir Launcelot was his friend Sir Tristram, the history of whose emprises and love entered so largely into the fancies and conversation of our ancestors. Then came Sir Gawaine, a nephew of Arthur, the bright exemplar of courtesy, the virtue which was so highly prized in chivalric times. Chaucer makes a very pleasing allusion to him in his Squire’s Tale. Describing the entrance of the strange knight, our old bard says that he

The most prominent of all the chivalric virtues which the institutions of Arthur shadowed forth was that of fraternity: for it was believed that round one vast and mysterious table, the gift of the enchanter Merlin, Arthur and all his peerage sat in perfect equality; and to this idea may be traced the circumstance that the friendly familiarity of a chivalric round table broke down the iron distinctions of feudal haughtiness, and not only “mitigated kings into companions, but raised private men to be fellows with kings.” Localities unlock the gates of memory, whether the stores within be treasured there by imagination or the sterner powers of the mind; and with a more serious interest than that with which the modern traveller follows Don Quixote in the Sierra Morena our ancestors were wont to mark Winchester and Windsor, Camelot in Somersetshire, Carlion in Monmouthshire, where

held his solemn feasts about the Round Table.

Order of the Stocking. Origin of the phrase Blue Stocking.

Many of the orders whose histories fill the pages of works on knighthood have no claims to their places; for they were only associations of cavaliers without royal or pontifical authority, and wearing no badge or cross, except in the imagination of the writer. Only one of these fraternities merits mention here. The Society de la Calza (of the Stocking) was formed at Venice in the year 1400, to the honor of the inauguration of the Doge, Michele Steno. The employments of the members were conversation and festivity; and so splendid were the entertainments of music and dancing, that the gay spirits of other parts of Italy anxiously solicited the honor of seats in the society. All their statutes regarded only the ceremonies of the ball or the theatre; and the members being resolved on their rigorous performance, took an oath in a church to that tendency. They had banners and a seal like an authorised order of knighthood. Their dress was as splendid and elegant as Venetian luxury and taste could fashion it; and, consistently with the singular custom of the Italians of marking academies and other intellectual associations by some external signs of folly, the members when they met in literary discussion were distinguished by the colours of their stockings. The colours were sometimes fantastically blended, and at other times one colour, particularly the blue, prevailed. The Society de la Calza lasted till the year 1590[377] when the foppery of Italian literature took some other symbol. The rejected title then crossed the Alps, and found a congenial soil in the flippancy and literary triflings of Parisian society, and particularly branded female pedantry as the strongest feature in the character of French pretension. It diverged from France to England, and for a while marked the vanity of the small advances in literature of our female coteries. But the propriety of its application is now gradually ceasing; for we see in every circle that attainments in literature can be accomplished with no loss of womanly modesty. It is in this country, above all others, that knowledge asserts her right of general dominion, or contends that if she be the sustaining energy of one sex, she forms the lighter charm, the graceful drapery of the other.