LECTURES

ON THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

MODERN HISTORY.

LECTURE XXII.

Of the history of Chivalry.

THE preceding lectures have comprehended a survey of the dispositions of the principal governments of Europe to the formation of a political system, so far as they were manifested before the commencement of the fourteenth century. The philosophical consideration of history would however be extremely imperfect, if it were limited to an examination of the several governments, and should not also include an investigation of those general causes, which have operated with a common, though necessarily a varying influence, on the entire combination. While the principal states of the

west were separately assuming the forms best accommodated to their subsequent relations, agencies of various kinds were affecting the whole state of European society, and assisting the development of the system, in which its maturity was afterwards displayed; these were the institution of chivalry, the expeditions distinguished by the name of the crusades, the revival of commerce, and the first beginnings of the restoration of learning. The subject of the present lecture is accordingly the institution of chivalry, which has so remarkably characterised the history of the middle ages, and so decisively influenced the social system of Europe.

The ridicule which was incurred by the extravagancies of chivalry, when the ages to which it was accommodated had passed away, and the institution itself had degenerated from its original principles, long caused it to be regarded as a remarkable example of the capricious absurdity of the human mind, arising from no settled principles of manners, and tending to induce no beneficial modification of the intercourses of society and the relations of political order. But more modern writers have considered this subject with a more philosophical spirit, and while they have been able to trace the institution to the peculiarities of that state of society in which it was formed, they have also discerned that it has exercised a most

important influence in improving the social, and even the political arrangements of the nations of Europe. If indeed we would select that distinction, which has most remarkably discriminated the social habits of the modern Europeans, we should fix on chivalry; for no similar institution has ever existed, (a) either among the nations of antiquity, or (b) among the modern orientals, though some traces of the feudal government, with which it appears to have had a connection, have been discovered in the monarchies of Asia. A system of manners thus important in its influences, and thus characteristic of that predominating portion of the world, which is the grand subject of our exami nation, is well deserving of your attentive consideration. I shall accordingly proceed to review the circumstances of its origin, and the causes from which it derived its existence; and shall then examine its operation on the state of European society.

St. Palaye, who has given the most complete and distinct account of this extraordinary institution, has declared his opinion to be, that it would be difficult to trace it to an epoch earlier than the eleventh century, and has ascribed its immediate origin to the aggrandizement of the French barons, as it existed at the beginning of

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*Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tome 20.

the third, or Capetian dynasty, of the sovereigns of France. Chivalry, he remarks, considered merely as the ceremony by which a youthful warrior was presented with his arms, was practised in the time of Charlemagne, and may even be discovered in the account which Tacitus has given of the simple manners of the northern conquerors of the empire; but considered as a dignity which (c) conferred the first rank in the military order, and was bestowed with a species of investiture (d) accompanied by certain religious ceremonies and a solemn oath, it cannot be derived from a period antecedent to that in which the kingdom of France began to assume a regular form, after the confusion attending the extinction of the second or Carlovingian race of princes. Hugh Capet, who began the third race, was placed on the throne towards the conclusion of the tenth century, and in the succeeding century by a combination of various causes was formed that system of manners, which blended the violence of anarchy with the refinement of civilization.

The independence enjoyed by the French barons at the beginning of the third race, and which this series of princes so successfully laboured through several centuries to repress, disposed every noble to emulate in his castle the pomp of his sovereign, which the encreasing authority of the crown had begun to render

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respectable; in every district accordingly the ceremony of a court was ostentatiously maintained, and each of these innumerable courts became a school of manners in which the young nobility received their education. every castle the same offices were established, which had been instituted in the court of the sovereign; and as the king appointed to such offices the princes of his blood, so every noble distributed those of his little court among his own relatives, who were gratified in discharging even menial occupations. In the course of the attendance which these offices required, the young nobles were gradually trained to the accomplishments of chivalry, and at the age of twenty-one years became entitled to receive the honourable distinction of knighthood. The peculiar characteristic of the manners of a knight bears attestation to this original of the institution, the quality of courtesy, which was inculcated with extrordinary attention, (e) having received its name from the courts in which it was acquired, as the less polished quality of urbanity or civility was so denominated from the comparative refinement observable in the inhabitants of towns.

The rival ceremoniousness of these numerous courts can however be regarded only as having provided circumstances favourable to the institution of this singular system of man