Chapter XXII

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[648] P. 225.

[649] Pp. 179, 180.

[650] P. 324.

[651] See Bourgain, _La Chaire française au XII{e} siècle_; Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française au XIII{e} siècle_.

[652] Certain kinds of literature, in nature satirical or merely gross, portray, doubtless with grotesque exaggeration, the ways and manners of clerks and merchants, craftsmen and vile serfs, as well as those of monks and bishops, lords and ladies. A notable example is offered by the old French _fabliaux_, which with coarse and heartless laughter, rather than with any definite satirical intent, display the harshness, brutality, the degradation and hardship of the ways of living coming within their range of interest. In them we see the brutal and deceived husband, the wily clerk, the merchant with his tricks of trade, the _vilain_, raised above the brute, not by a better way of life as much as by a certain native wit. The women were reviled as coarsely as in monkish writings; but a Rabelaisian quality takes the place of doctrinal prurience. In weighing the evidence of these fabliaux their satirical nature should be allowed for. Cf. Langlois, _La Vie en France au moyen âge d’après quelques moralistes du temps_ (Paris, 1908); also the _Sermons_ of Jacques de Vitry; Pitra, _Analecta novissima spicilegii Solesmensis_, t. ii., and Haurèau upon the same in _Journal des savants_, 1888, p. 410 _sqq._

[653] Such immunities were common before Charlemagne. Cf. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 243-302.

[654] _Gesta regum Anglorum_, iii. (Migne 179, col. 1213).

[655] Taken from the note to p. 274 of Gautier’s _Chevalerie_.

[656] See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, under “Miles,” etc.; where much information may be found uncritically put together.

[657] Cf. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 202-216.

[658] The way that _miles_ came to mean knight, has its analogy in the etymological history of the word “knight” itself. In German and French the words “Ritter” and “chevalier” indicate one who fought on horseback. Not so with the English word “knight,” which in its original Anglo-Saxon and Old-German forms (see Murray’s _Dictionary_) as _cniht_ and _kneht_ might mean any armed follower. It lost its servile sense slowly. “In 1086 we read that the Conqueror _dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere_; this ... is the next year Englished by _cniht_” (Kington-Oliphant, _Old and Middle English_, p. 130; Macmillan, 1878).

[659] We naturally use the term “free” with reference to modern conditions, where law and its sanctions emanate, in fact as well as theory, from a stable government. But in these early feudal periods where a man’s life and property were in fact and theory protected by the power of his immediate lord, to whom he was bound by the strongest ties then recognized, to be “free” might be very close to being an unprotected outlaw.

[660] In these respects it exhibits analogies to monkhood, which likewise was recruited commonly from the upper classes of society.

[661] See Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, p. 256 _sqq._; Du Cange, under the word “Miles.”

[662] Cf. Gautier, _o.c._ 296-308. It must be remembered that an abbot or a bishop might also be a knight and so could make knights. See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, “Abbas” (_abbates miletes_).

[663] On this blow, called in Latin _alapa_, in French _accolée_, in English _accolade_, see Du Cange under “Alapa,” and Gautier, _o.c._ pp. 246-247, and 270 _sqq._

[664] _Chanson de Roland_, 2344 sqq. Lines 2500-2510 speak of Charlemagne’s sword, named _Joiuse_ because of the honour it had in having in its hilt the iron of the lance which pierced the Saviour.

[665] Gautier, _Chevalerie_, pp. 290, 297. Examples of these ceremonies may be found as follows: the actual one of the knighting of Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou by Henry I. of England, at Rouen in 1129, in the Chronicle of Johannis Turonensis, _Historiens de France_, xii. p. 520; Gautier, _Chevalerie_, p. 275. Gautier gives many examples, and puts together a typical ceremony, as of the twelfth century, in _Chev._ p. 309 _sqq._ Perhaps the most famous account of all is that of the poem entitled _Ordene de Chevalerie_ (thirteenth century), published by Barbazan, _Fabliaux, etc._, i. 59-82 (Paris, 1808). It relates how a captive Christian knight bestowed the order of chivalry, _i.e._ knighthood, upon Saladin. See other accounts cited in Du Cange under “Miles.”

[666] Not war as we understand it, where with some large purpose one great cohesive state directs its total military power against another; but neighbourhood war, never permanently ended. When not actually attacking or defending, men were anticipating attack, or expecting to make a raid. Perhaps nothing better suggests the local and neighbourly character of these feudal hostilities than the most famous means devised by the Church to mitigate them. This was the “Truce of God,” promulgated in the eleventh century. It forbade hostilities from Thursday to Monday and in Lent. Whether this ordinance was effective or not, it indicates the nature of the wars that could stop from Thursday to Monday!

[667] Courtly, chivalric, or romantic, love as an element of knightly excellence is so inseverably connected with its romantic literature that I have kept it for the next chapter.

[668] The following remarks upon the _regula_ of the Templars, and the extracts which are given, are based on the introduction and text of _La Règle du Temple_, edited by Henri de Curzon for the Société de l’Histoire de France (Paris, 1886).

[669] The phraseology of the Latin _regula_ often follows that of the Benedictine rule.

[670] Chaps. 33, 35.

[671] Chaps. 40, 41.

[672] Chap. 42.

[673] Chaps. 46, 48.

[674] Chap. 62 Latin _regula_ and chap. 14 of French _regle_.

[675] Chap. 51.

[676] Chap. 58 of the Latin, chap. 11 of the French. The chapters of the French translation do not follow the order of the Latin.

[677] Page 167 of de Curzon’s edition.

[678] See in de Curzon’s edition, sections 431, 436, 448, 454, and 657 _sqq._

[679] It would seem as if military discipline, as moderns understand it, took its rise in these Templars and Hospitallers.

[680] See _e.g._ de Curzon’s edition, sections 419, 420, 574.

[681] Raimundus de Agiles, _Hist. Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem_, cap. 38-39. (Migne 155, col. 659).

[682] On these poems see Pigeonneau, _Le Cycle de la Croisade_ (St. Cloud, 1877); Paulin Paris, in _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 22, pp. 350-402, and _ibid._ vol. 25, p. 507 _sqq._; Gaston Paris, “La Naissance du chevalier au Cygne,” _Romania_, 19, p. 314 _sqq._ (1890).

[683] “Vita Ludovici noni auctore Gaufrido de Belloloco” (_Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France_, t. xx. pp. 3-26).

[684] The Testament of St. Louis, written for his eldest son, is a complete rule of conduct for a Christian prince, and indicates St. Louis’ mind on the education of one. It has been printed and translated many times. Geoffrey of Beaulieu gives it in Latin (chap. xv.) and in French at the end of the _Vita_. It is also in Joinville.

[685] One sees here the same religious anxiety which is so well brought out by Salimbene’s account of St. Louis, _ante_,