The History of Chivalry

tensive and permanent Effect-That Enterprise presented itself in the Crusades-Pilgrimage to Jerusalem-Harou

ed upon rather as a summary of its institutions and feelings, as they changed through many ages

as a spirit, to almost all the nations surrounding the cradle of its birth. In Spain Alphonso VI.[74] was already waging a completely chivalric war against the Moors, and many o

ed occurs in regard to the Normans, though from various circumstances connected with the accounts given by William of Jumieges,[76] of the reigns of William I. and Richard I., Dukes of Normandy, we are led to believe that Chivalry was very early introduced among that people. At all events it seems certain that after the

taly we find many traces of Chivalry at an early date, and it would appear that the institution which took its rise in France was no sooner known than adopted by most other nations. The Normans, whom we have seen above succouring the Prince of Salerno in his necessity, did not remain a sufficient length of time in Italy to spread the chivalrous spirit; but it is said that Guimard, after using every effort to induce them to stay, sent deputies after them to Normandy, praying for aid from the nobles of that country against the Saracens. Several large bodies of Norman adventurers, in consequence of his promises and persuasions, proceeded to establish themselves in

woke a thousand enthusiasms which could find no such fitting career as in the pursuits of knighthood. The first efforts of the feudal system, too, gradually extending themselves to every part of Europe, joined to make Chivalry spread through the different countri

instance, as we have recorded of the Normans) the order became more and more respected, and its establishment more firm, decided, and regular. It wanted but one great enterprise commenced an

ne an object of pilgrimage. In the earliest times, after the recognition of the Christian faith by Constantine, the subjects of the Roman empire had followed the example of the empress Helena, and had deemed it almost a Christian duty to visit the scenes o

resting them from their Christian possessors. The successors of Mahomet, who from a low station had become a great legislator, a mighty conqueror, and a pretended prophet, carried

fessed. Suffice it, that in the days of Charlemagne the fame of that great prince produced from the calif Haroun al R

rlemagne. It seemed as if the most remote corners of the earth had made an effort, at the same moment, to produce from the bosom of barbarism and confusion a great and intelligent monarch-an Alfred, a Haroun, and a Charlemagne. The likeness seemed to be felt by the two great emperors of the east and the west; and a reciprocation of courtesy[77] and friendship appears to have taken place between them, most rare in that remote age. Various presents were transmitted from one to the other; and the most pr

Christians of Jerusalem. The pilgrims also were more or less protected during the reigns that followed, both from motives of libe

whole of Palestine under the dominion of a wild and barbarous race, Jerusalem was taken and sacked; and while the Christian inhabitants were

en the value of the precious metals was infinitely higher than in the present day, few,

ith the bourn of all his long pilgrimage before him, the enthusiastic object of all his hopes in sight, the place of refuge and repose for which he had longed and prayed within his reach-unless he could pay the stipula

came almost universal, from a misinterpretation[80] of a prophecy in the Apocalypse. A general belief prevailed that at the end of the tenth century, the thousand years being concluded, the wor

ance could be more painful or more consistent with the prejudices of the multitude, than a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and thus the priests continued often to enforce the act, while the heads of the church themselves, as religion became corrupted, learned to see this sort of penitence in the same light as the people, and encouraged its execution. They found the great efficacy of external excitements in stimulating the populace to that superstitious obedience on wh

aken; and during the eleventh century several circumstances tended to increase it. Among others the terror spread through France by the Papal

inces of Europe, soliciting aid to repel the encroachments of the infidel; and if but a very small portion of the crimes and cruelty attributed to the Turks by these epistles were believed by the Christians, it is not at all astonishing that wrath and horror took possession of every chivalrous bosom. Pope Sylvester II. had made an ineffectual appeal to Christendom towards the end of the

ted in the Holy Land-sufferings of the church-insults to religion-and merciless massacres of countrymen and relations: still, also, the spirit of Chivalry was each day spreading further and rising more po

with the desire of visiting Jerusalem. He was, according to all accounts,[86] small in stature and mean in person; but his eyes possessed a peculiar fire and intelligence, and his eloquence was powerful and flowin

hings of earth, and superior in piety to all the bishops or abbots of the day. He fed upon neither flesh nor bread, says the s

honours rendered to any other person. He showed himself very generous, however, in the distribution of the things given to him. He brought back to their homes the women that had abandoned their husbands, not without adding gifts of his own, and re-established peace between those who lived unhappily, with wonderful authority. In every thing he said or did, it seemed as if there was something of divine; so much so,

ortunity gives scope for the display of the particular spirit whose efforts are destined to distinguish them. I mean not to class Peter the Hermit among great men; but certainly he deserves the character of one of the most extraordinary men

m as conferring eagerly with his host upon the enormous cruelties of the infidels, even before visiting the general objects of devotion. Doubtless the ardent, passionate, enthusiastic mind of Peter had been wrought upon at every step he took in the Holy Land, by the miserable state of his brethren, till his feelings and imagination became excited to almost frantic v

s them both in our estimation; but it also throws an historical light upon the character of Peter, which places him in a more elevated situation than modern historians have been willing to concede to him. The patriarch Simeon, a man as famous for his good sense as for his piety, would not, surely, have opened his inmost thoughts to a wand

riarch should write to the pope and the princes of the west, setting forth the miseries of Jerusalem and of the faithful people of the Holy City, and praying for aid and protection against

ently for aid in the great undertaking before him. On one of these occasions it is said that he fell asleep,[9

ral than for Peter the Hermit, with his mind full of the mission he was about to undertake, to dream that the Being in whose cause he believed himself engaged appeared to encourage him,

c chair, had inherited from Gregory wars and contestations with the emperor Henry IV., and was at the same time embroiled with the weak and luxurious Philip I. of France, on the subject of that king's adulterous intercourse with Bertrade. He,

tly, still in the family of Guiscard; and it seems that with Boemond, Prince of Tarentum, the gallant and chivalrous son of Robert, h

mly in the Vatican, and to forward Boemond's ambitious views in Greece. It seems to me, however, that such a supposition is perfectly irreconcilable with the subsequent conduct of either. The pope shortly after threw himself into the midst of his enemies, to hold a council on the subj

nce of the Holy Land through all the countries of Europe. Peter wanted neither zeal nor activity[99]-from town to town, from province to province, from country to country, he spread the cry of vengeance on the Turks, and deliverance to Jerusalem! The warlike spirit of the people was at its height; the genius of Chivalry was in the vigour of its ear

e emperor of Constantinople, who displayed the progress of the Turks, and set forth the danger to all Christendom of suffering their arms to advance unopposed. The opinion of the assembly was universally favourabl

dship and alliance. Whether it arose from fortitude of a just cause, or from reliance on political calculation, the prelate's judgment was proved by the event to be right. After one or two changes in regard to the place of meeting, the council was assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne,[102] and was composed of an unheard-of multitude of priests, princes, and nobles, both of France and Germany, all willing and eager to receive the pope's injunctions with

ure passions of the pagans, and that God's own altar, the symbols of salvation, and the precious relics of the saints were all desecrated by the gross and filthy abomination of a race of heathens. To whom, then, he asked-to whom did it belong to punish such crimes, to wipe away such impurities, to destroy the oppressors, and to raise up the oppressed? To whom, if not to those who heard him, who had received from God strength, and power, and greatness of soul; whose ancestors had been the prop of Christendom, and whose kings had put a barrier to the progress of infidels? "Think!" he cried, "of the sepulchre of Christ our Saviour possessed by the foul

ies, rich above all others, offer, so to speak, the delights of Paradise. That land, too, the Redeemer of the human race rendered illustrious by his advent, honoured by his residence, consecrated by his passion, repurchased by his death, signalized by his sepulture. That royal city, Jerusalem-situated in the centre of the world-held captive by infidels, who deny the God that honoured her-now call

ined silence, "Dear brethren, to-day is shown forth in you that which the Lord has said by his evangelist-'When two or three shall be assembled in my name, there shall I be in the midst of them;' for if the Lord God had not been in your souls, you would not all have pronounced the same words;

their own charge, those who can bear arms to the field. Still, let not priests nor clerks, to whatever place they may belong, set out on this journey without the permission of their bishop; nor the layman undertake it without the blessing of his pastor, for to such as do so their journey shall be fruitless. Let whoever is inclined to devo

after one of the cardinals. The pope then pronounced the absolution of their sins, and bestowed on them his benedic

ed, with great quickness, without any supernatural aid; and, to make use of the words of him from whom we have sketched the oration of the pope, "Throughout the earth, the Christians glorified themse

the day in which they themselves exist, have reproached the pope with not using the means in his hands for purposes which would have needed the heart of a Fenelon to conceive properly, and the head of a Napoleon to execute.

uthority by which the kings of that day could be checked in the course of evil. Whether the authority itself was or was not legitimate, is not here the question; but, being at the time undisputed, and employed for the best of objects, its use can in no way fairly be cited as an instance either of pride or ambition. The pope's conduct in preaching the crusade is equally justifiable. His views were of course those of the age in which he l

ings were prepared in Europe for the expedition to the Holy Land, by the spirit of religious and military enthusiasm; and the task was light, to aid in pouring on the current of popular feeling in the direction which it had already begun to take, when compared w

as any other warfare of the day, but as just as any that ever was waged. The object was, the protection and relief of a cruelly oppressed and injured people-the object was, to repel a strong, an active, and an encroaching enemy-the object was, to wrest from the hands of a bloodthirsty and sava

any cruelties committed in its course, the evils were not greater than ordinary ambition every day produces; a