The propriety of my writing a History of Chivalry, as a companion to my History of the Crusades, was suggested to me by a friend whose acquaintance with middle-age lore forms but a small portion of his literary attainments, and whose History of Italy shows his ability of treating, as well as his skill in discovering, subjects not hitherto discussed with the fulness which their importance merits.[1]

The works of Menestrier and Colombiere sleep in the dust of a few ancient libraries; and there are only two other books whose express and entire object is a delineation of the Institutions of chivalry. The first and best known is the French work called “MÉmoires sur l’ancienne Chevalerie; considÉrÉe comme un Etablissement Politique et Militaire. Par M. de la Curne de Sainte Palaye, de l’AcadÉmie FranÇoise,” &c. 2 tom. 12mo. Paris, 1759. The last half, however, of the second volume does not relate to chivalry, and therefore the learned Frenchman cannot be charged with treating his subject at very great length.[2] It was his purpose to describe the education which accomplished the youth for the distinction of knighthood, and this part of his work he has performed with considerable success. But he failed in his next endeavour, that of painting the martial games of chivalry, for nothing can be more unsatisfactory than his account of jousts and tournaments. As he wished to inform his readers of the use which was made in the battle field of the valour, skill, and experience of knights, a description of some of the extraordinary and interesting battles of the middle ages might have been expected. Here also disappointment is experienced; neither can any pleasure be derived from perusing his examination of the causes which produced the decline and extinction of chivalry, and his account of the inconveniences which counterbalanced the advantages of the establishment.

Sainte Palaye was a very excellent French antiquarian; but the limited scope of his studies disqualified him from the office of a general historian of chivalry. The habits of his mind led him to treat of knighthood as if it had been the ornament merely of his own country. He very rarely illustrates his principles by the literature of any other nation, much less did he attempt to trace their history through the various states of Europe. He has altogether kept out of sight many characteristic features of his subject. Scarcely any thing is advanced about ancient armour; not a word on the religious and military orders; and but a few pages, and those neither pleasing nor correct, on woman and lady-love. The best executed part of his subject regards, as I have already observed, the education of knights; and he has scattered up and down his little volume and a half many curious notices of ancient manners.

The other work is written in the German language, and for that reason it is but very little known in this country. It is called Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, (two volumes octavo, Leipzig, 1823,) and is the substance of a course of lectures on chivalry delivered by the author, Mr. BÜsching, to his pupils of the High School at Breslau. The style of the work is the garrulous, slovenly, ungrammatical style which lecturers, in all countries, and upon all subjects, think themselves privileged to use. A large portion of the book is borrowed from Sainte Palaye; much of the remainder relates to feudalism and other matters distinct from chivalry: but when the writer treats of the state of knighthood in Germany I have found his facts and observations of very great value.

Attention to the subjects of the middle ages of Europe has for many years been growing among us. It was first excited by Warton’s history of our national verse, and Percy’s edition of the Relics of ancient English Poetry. The romances of chivalry, both in prose and metre, and the numberless works on the Troubadour, and every other description of literature during the middle ages which have been published within the last few years, have sustained the interest. The poems of Scott convinced the world that the chivalric times of Europe can strike the moral imagination as powerfully and pleasingly in respect of character, passion, and picturesqueness of effect, as the heroic ages of Greece; and even very recently the glories of chivalry have been sung by a poetess whom Ariosto himself would have been delighted to honour.[3] Still, however, no attempt has been hitherto made to describe at large the institutions of knighthood, the foundation of all that elegant superstructure of poetry and romance which we admire, and to mark the history of chivalry in the various countries of Europe. Those institutions have, indeed, been allowed a few pages in our EncyclopÆdias; and some of the sketches of them are drawn with such boldness and precision of outline that we may regret the authors did not present us with finished pictures. Our popular historians have but hastily alluded to the subject; for they were so much busied with feudalism and politics, that they could afford but a small space for the play of the lighter graces of chivalry.

For a description, indeed, of antique manners, our materials are not so ample as for that of their public lives. But still the subject is not without its witnesses. The monkish chroniclers sometimes give us a glimpse of the castles of our ancestors. Many of the knights in days of yore had their biographers; and, for the most interesting time of chivalry, we possess an historian, who, for vividness of delineation, kindliness of feeling, and naÏvetÉ of language, is the Herodotus of the middle ages.

“Did you ever read Froissart?”

“No,” answered Henry Morton.

“I have half a mind,” rejoined Claverhouse, “to contrive that you should have six months’ imprisonment, in order to procure you that pleasure. His chapters inspire me with more enthusiasm than even poetry itself.”

Froissart’s[4] history extends from the year 1316 to 1400. It was begun by him when he was twenty years old, at the command of his dear lord and master, Sir Robert of Namur, Lord of Beaufort. The annals from 1326 to 1356 are founded on the Chronicles compiled by him whom he calls “The Right Reverend, discreet, and sage Master John la Bele, sometime canon in St. Lambertis of Liege, who with good heart and due diligence did his true devoir in writing his book; and heard of many fair and noble adventures from his being well beloved, and of the secret counsel of the Lord Sir John of Hainault.” Froissart corrected all this borrowed matter on the information of the barons and knights of his time regarding their families’ gestes and prowesses. He is the chronicler both of political events and of chivalric manners. Of his merits in the first part of his character it falls not within my province to speak. For the office of historian of chivalry no man could present such fair pretensions. His father being a herald-painter, he was initiated in his very early years into that singular form of life which he describes with such picturesque beauty. “Well I loved,” as he says of his youth, in one of his poems, “to see dances and carolling, and to hear the songs of minstrels and tales of glee. It pleased me to attach myself to those who took delight in hounds and hawks. I was wont to toy with my fair companions at school, and methought I had the art well to win the grace of maidens.”—“My ears quickened at the sound of opening the wine-flask, for I took great pleasure in drinking, and in fair array, and in fresh and delicate viands. I loved to see (as is reason) the early violets, and the white and red roses, and also chambers brilliantly lighted; dances and late vigils, and fair beds for my refreshment; and for my better repose, I joyously quaffed a night-draught of claret, or Rochelle wine mingled with spice.”

Froissart wrote his Chronicles “to the intent that the honourable and noble adventures of feats of arms, done and achieved in the wars of France and England, should notably be enregistered, and put in perpetual memory; whereby the preux and hardy might have ensample to encourage them in their well-doing.”[5] To accomplish his purpose, he followed and frequented the company of divers noble and great lords, as well in France, England, and Scotland, as in other countries; and in their chivalric festivals he enquired for tales of arms and amours. For three years he was clerk of the chamber to Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward III. He travelled into Scotland; and, though mounted only on a simple palfrey, with his trunk placed on the hinder part of his saddle, after the fashion in which a squire carried the mail-harness of a knight, and attended only by a greyhound, the favourite dog of the time, instead of a train of varlets, yet the fame of his literary abilities introduced him to the castle of Dalkeith, and the court of the Scottish King.

He generally lived in the society of nobles and knights,—at the courts of the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Namur, and the Earl of Blois. He knew and admired the Black Prince, Du Guesclin, the Douglas, and Hotspur; and while this various acquaintance fitted him to describe the circumstances and manners of his times, it prevented him from the bias of particular favouritism. The character of his mind, rather than his station in life, determined his pursuits. His profession was that of the church: he was a while curate of Lestines, in the diocese of Liege; and, at the time of his death, he was canon and treasurer of the collegiate church of Chimay. But he was a greater reader of romances than of his breviary; and, churchman though he was, knighthood itself could not boast a more devoted admirer of dames and damsels. He was, therefore, the very man to describe the chivalric features of his time.

The romances of chivalry are another source of information. Favyn says, with truth and fancy, “The greater part of antiquities are to be sought for and derived out of the most ancient tales, as well in prose as verse, like pearls out of the smoky papers of Ennius.” The romance-writers were to the middle ages of Europe what the ancient poets were to Greece,—the painters of the manners of their times. As Sir Walter Scott observes, “We have no hesitation in quoting the romances of chivalry as good evidence of the laws and customs of knighthood. The authors, like the artists of the period, invented nothing, but, copying the manners of the age in which they lived, transferred them, without doubt or scruple, to the period and personages of whom they treated.”

From all these sources of information I have done my devoir, in the following pages, to describe the origin of chivalry; and, after escaping from the dark times in which it arose, to mark the various degrees of the personal nobility of knighthood. An enquiry into the nature and duties of the chivalric character then will follow; and we cannot pass, without regard and homage, the sovereign-mistress and lady-love of the adventurous knight. After viewing our cavalier in the gay and graceful pastime of the tournament, and pausing a while to behold him when a peculiar character of religion was added to his chivalry, we shall see him vault upon his good steed; and we will accompany him in the achievement of his high and hardy emprises in Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy.

As a view of chivalry is, from its nature, a supplement or an appendix to the history of Europe, I have supposed my readers to be acquainted with the general circumstances of past ages, and therefore I have spoken of them by allusion rather than by direct statement. I have made the following work as strictly chivalric as the full and fair discussion of my subject would permit me, avoiding descriptions of baronial and feudal life, except in its connection with knighthood. I have not detailed military circumstances of former times, unless they proceeded from chivalric principles, or were invested with chivalric graces. Thus the celebrated battle of the Thirty had nothing in it of a knightly character, and therefore I have left it unnoticed. Judicial combats had their origin in the state of society from which both feudalism and chivalry sprang; but they were not regulated by the gentle laws of knighthood, and therefore have not been described by me. I have not imposed any dry legal facts and discussions upon my readers; for the incidents attached to the tenure of land called the tenure in chivalry were strictly feudal; and the courts of the constable and marshal, holding cognisance as they did of all matters regarding war, judicial combats, and blazonry of arms, relate not so much to chivalry as to the general preservation of the peace of the land, and the good order of society. And it should be mentioned, that it has not been my purpose to give a minute history of every individual cavalier: for a work strictly confined to biographical detail, however convenient it might be for occasional reference, would be tiresome and tedious by reason of the repetition of circumstances only varied with the difference of names, and would be any thing but historical. I have brought the great characters of chivalry, who have received but slight attention from the political historian, in illustration of the principles of knighthood. Thus full-length portraits of those English knights of prowess, Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny, will be more interesting than pictures of Edward III. and the Black Prince, whose features are so well known to us. From the lives of these royal heroes I have therefore only selected such chivalric circumstances as have not been sufficiently described and dwelt upon, or which it was absolutely incumbent on me to state, in order to preserve an unbroken thread of narrative.

I shall not expatiate on the interest and beauty of my subject, lest I should provoke too rigid an enquiry into my ability for discussing it. I shall therefore only conclude, in the good old phrase of Chaucer,—

“Now, hold your mouth, pour charitie,
Both knight and lady free,
And herkneth to my spell,
Of battaille and of chivalry,
Of ladies’ love and druerie,
Anon I wol you tell.”

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

THE HISTORY OF CHIVALRY.