book v
. canto 5. st. 37. The romance of the Morte D'Arthur says, that in early times there were no hermits, but who had been men of worship and prowess; "and the hermits held great household, and refreshed people that were in distress." Lib. 18. c. 10.
[26] The reader will find in Johnson's Dictionary the etymology of _sir_. When this word, acknowledging power and superiority, was first used as the title of chivalry, I do not know. Instances exist as high as the reign of Henry II.
[27] Coke, Instit. 4. In the Reports of the Lords' Committees respecting the Peerage, (printed 2d July 1821), doubts are often expressed regarding the meaning of the word Banneret. A little attention to the difference between the personal nobility of chivalry, and the nobility which arose as a franchise appurtenant to land, would have prevented the entertaining of such doubts, and the conclusion might have been drawn from principles, instead of being guessed from precedent, that the title of banneret had no relation to the dignity of Lord of Parliament. The Lords' Committees seem surprised that barons should sometimes have had the addition of knights, and at other times of bannerets but in truth chevalier was the title which comprehended all others, and, like the word 'Lord,' was used in a general sense.
[28] See Du Cange, Dissertation 9. on Joinville. This learned commentator seems inclined to confound knights-banneret with barons, chivalry with nobility; and a herd of subsequent writers, refining on his error, have gravely placed knights-banneret as an order or class of society mediate between Nobility and Knighthood.
[29] Some fortune was, however, always thought necessary for the support of the dignity of knight-banneret. In the 28th of Edward III. John de Cobham was made a banneret, and had a grant of an annuity of 100 marks, out of the issues of the county of Norfolk, expressly for the better support of that dignity. Dugdale's Baronage, vol. ii. p. 66. Many similar instances are mentioned in the Parliamentary Rolls.
[30] A note of Waterhouse on Fortescue will illustrate this. "The title of franklein is 'good man;' and yet they have oft knights' estates. Many are called by courtesy 'masters,' and even 'gentlemen;' and their sons are educated in the inns of court, and adopted into the orders of knights and squires."
[31] Illegitimacy seems not to have been a matter of the slightest consequence. Froissart. ii. 26.
[32] Favyn. i. 6.
[33] When Don Quixote was dubbed a knight, the landlord asked him whether he had any money. "Not a cross," replied the knight; "for I never read in any history of chivalry, that any knight-errant ever carried money about him."--"Respondio Don Quixote que no traia blanca, porque él nunca habia leido en las historias de los caballeros andantes, que ninguno los hubiese traido." This was a very singular error in Cervantes, for in Amadis de Gaul, which he characterizes as the best work of its class, and which is evidently one of his textbooks, we read that the queen gave Adrian the Dwarf enough money to last Amadis de Gaul his master for a whole year.
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