The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 21

[9] Tacitus Germania, s. 13. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p.

197.

[10] Tacitus Germania. Caesar, lib. 6. s. 14.

[11] Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, lib. 16. c. 13.

[12] Chron. Saxon, 57, &c. Florence, ad an. 784. William of Malmsbury, 7.

[13] Athenaeus, lib. iv. c. 36.

[14] Treatise on the Virtue of the Female s.e.x.

[15] Tacitus Germania, s. 18. c. 19.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Strabo, lib. iv. Tacitus Historia, lib. iv. c. 61. 65. Pomponius Mela, lib. iii. c. 6.

[18] Tacitus, Hist. lib. iv. c. 18. Life of Agricola, s. 32. Germania, s.

7.

[19] Barthol. p. 54. as cited by Warton, Dissert. I. Of the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe, in the first volume of the late admirable edition of his History of English Poetry.

[20] It is also curious that this blow was said to have been customary.--"Dato eisdem, sicut consuetudinis est, manu colapho."

[21] Not exactly according to the form, for by this time a belt with a sword inserted was girded round the military candidate, instead of delivering a javelin to him. See the preceding page.

[22] William of Malmsbury, lib. ii. c. 6.

[23] Ingulph, p. 512.

[24] Caxton, Fayts of Arms and Chivalry, chapter ent.i.tled "Of the Honor that ought to be done to a Knight."

[25] Spencer's Fairy Queen, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tle of chivalry, I do not know. Instances exist as high as the reign of Henry II.

[27] c.o.ke, Inst.i.t. 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 n.o.bility of chivalry, and the n.o.bility 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 n.o.bility; and a herd of subsequent writers, refining on his error, have gravely placed knights-banneret as an order or cla.s.s of society mediate between n.o.bility 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 ill.u.s.trate this. "The t.i.tle 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 el 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 cla.s.s, 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.

Book III. c. 6.

[34] Froissart, i. c. 448.

[35] Froissart, ii. c. 49.

[36] Thus, as Bracton observes, if a villain be made a knight, he is thereby immediately enfranchised, and consequently accounted a gentleman, l. iv. f. 198. b.

[37] Froissart, i. 384.

[38] Du Cange says, the third order of Chivalry consisted of the Esquires; but he evidently thinks they were the personal attendants of knights, for he calls them infancons or damoiseaux. He does not seem to have thought that a grave old squire ever existed.

[39] ----"Mais le dit escuyer s'excusa; et dit qu'il ne pouvoit trouver son bacinet."--Froissart, i. 211.

[40] favour.

[41] soon.

[42] diligently.

[43] attempted.

[44] against.

[45] rule.

[46] the minstrelsy art.

[47] went.

[48] knew.

[49] Geste of Kyng Horn, v. 233.

[50] Mr Rose's note on the Romance of Partenopex of Blois, p. 51.

[51] Caxton, Fayt of Armes and of Chyvalrye, c. 9., Memoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit Boucicaut, Marechal de France, c. 5, 9. in the sixth volume of the large collection of French Memoirs.

[52] L'Histoire de Guerin de Montglaive.

[53] L'Histoire et plaisante Cronicque du pet.i.t Jehan de Saintre, vol. 1.

c. 3-6. I have the authority of Sir Walter Scott and other able writers on chivalry, to cite this romance as good evidence for the laws and manners of knighthood. It was written in 1459; the first edition was printed in Gothic characters in 1523, and it was reprinted in three volumes, 12mo. in 1724.

[54] Caxton, Fayt of Armes and Chevalrye, c. 9.

[55] _Damoisel_ et Eescuyer sont arrives a Novandel demandant chivalarie, lequel layant recu n'est plus appelle de tels tiltres, ains seulement des tiltre de chevalier.--Amadis de Gaul, liv. 3. c. 3.