The Age of Chivalry | Page 5

and valor, justice,
modesty, loyalty to superiors, courtesy to equals, compassion to
weakness, and devotedness to the Church; an ideal which, if never met
with in real life, was acknowledged by all as the highest model for
emulation.
The word "Chivalry" is derived from the French "cheval," a horse. The
word "knight," which originally meant boy or servant, was particularly
applied to a young man after he was admitted to the privilege of
bearing arms. This privilege was conferred on youths of family and
fortune only, for the mass of the people were not furnished with arms.
The knight then was a mounted warrior, a man of rank, or in the service
and maintenance of some man of rank, generally possessing some

independent means of support, but often relying mainly on the gratitude
of those whom he served for the supply of his wants, and often, no
doubt, resorting to the means which power confers on its possessor.
In time of war the knight was, with his followers, in the camp of his
sovereign, or commanding in the field, or holding some castle for him.
In time of peace he was often in attendance at his sovereign's court,
gracing with his presence the banquets and tournaments with which
princes cheered their leisure. Or he was traversing the country in quest
of adventure, professedly bent on redressing wrongs and enforcing
rights, sometimes in fulfilment of some vow of religion or of love.
These wandering knights were called knights-errant; they were
welcome guests in the castles of the nobility, for their presence
enlivened the dulness of those secluded abodes, and they were received
with honor at the abbeys, which often owed the best part of their
revenues to the patronage of the knights; but if no castle or abbey or
hermitage were at hand their hardy habits made it not intolerable to
them to lie down, supperless, at the foot of some wayside cross, and
pass the night.
It is evident that the justice administered by such an instrumentality
must have been of the rudest description. The force whose legitimate
purpose was to redress wrongs might easily be perverted to inflict them
Accordingly, we find in the romances, which, however fabulous in
facts, are true as pictures of manners, that a knightly castle was often a
terror to the surrounding country; that is, dungeons were full of
oppressed knights and ladies, waiting for some champion to appear to
set them free, or to be ransomed with money; that hosts of idle retainers
were ever at hand to enforce their lord's behests, regardless of law and
justice; and that the rights of the unarmed multitude were of no account.
This contrariety of fact and theory in regard to chivalry will account for
the opposite impressions which exist in men's minds respecting it.
While it has been the theme of the most fervid eulogium on the one part,
it has been as eagerly denounced on the other. On a cool estimate, we
cannot but see reason to congratulate ourselves that it has given way in
modern times to the reign of law, and that the civil magistrate, if less
picturesque, has taken the place of the mailed champion.

THE TRAINING OF A KNIGHT
The preparatory education of candidates for knighthood was long and
arduous. At seven years of age the noble children were usually
removed from their father's house to the court or castle of their future
patron, and placed under the care of a governor, who taught them the
first articles of religion, and respect and reverence for their lords and
superiors, and initiated them in the ceremonies of a court. They were
called pages, valets, or varlets, and their office was to carve, to wait at
table, and to perform other menial services, which were not then
considered humiliating. In their leisure hours they learned to dance and
play on the harp, were instructed in the mysteries of woods and rivers,
that is, in hunting, falconry, and fishing, and in wrestling, tilting with
spears, and performing other military exercises on horseback. At
fourteen the page became an esquire, and began a course of severer and
more laborious exercises. To vault on a horse in heavy armor; to run, to
scale walls, and spring over ditches, under the same encumbrance; to
wrestle, to wield the battle-axe for a length of time, without raising the
visor or taking breath; to perform with grace all the evolutions of
horsemanship,--were necessary preliminaries to the reception of
knighthood, which was usually conferred at twenty-one years of age,
when the young man's education was supposed to be completed. In the
meantime, the esquires were no less assiduously engaged in acquiring
all those refinements of civility which formed what was in that age
called courtesy. The same castle in which they