Volume II Part 15 (1/2)
CHAP. VI.
PROGRESS OF CHIVALRY IN GERMANY AND ITALY.
_Chivalry did not affect the public History of Germany ... Its Influence on Imperial Manners ... Intolerance and Cruelty of German Knights ... Their Harshness to their Squires ... Avarice of the Germans ... Little Influence of German Chivalry ... A remarkable Exception to this ... A Female Tournament ... Maximilian, the only chivalric Emperor of Germany ... Joust between him and a French Knight ... Edict of Frederic III. destroyed Chivalry ..._ CHIVALRY IN ITALY:--_Lombards carried Chivalry thither ... Stories of chivalric Gallantry ... But little martial Chivalry in Italy ... Condottieri ...
Chivalry in the North ... Italians excellent Armourers but bad Knights ... Chivalry in the South ... Curious Circ.u.mstances attending Knighthood at Naples ... Mode of creating Knights in Italy generally ... Political Use of Knighthood ... Chivalric Literature ... Chivalric Sports._
[Sidenote: Chivalry did not affect the public history of Germany.]
Chivalry may be considered either in a political or a military aspect, either as influencing the destinies of nations, or affecting the mode and circ.u.mstances of war. In Germany it offers to us no circ.u.mstances of the former cla.s.s. Germany was connected with Italy more than with any other country of Europe during the middle ages. The wars of the emperors for the kingdom of Italy did not proceed from any principles or feelings that can be termed chivalric; nor can any ingenuity torture the fierce contests between the popes and the emperors into knightly encounters. The chivalry of Germany seldom appeared in generous rivalry with that of any other country; and in circ.u.mstances which leave no doubt of the issue, if the chivalry of England or France had been engaged, the Imperial knights quailed before partially-disciplined militia. In Italy the power of Milan was more dreaded than that of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa; and he subdued the northern states rather by drawing their cities to his side, which were jealous of the Milanese authority, than by the force of his chivalry. A few years afterwards the cities of Lombardy formed a league against him; and when the question of Italian independence was debated in arms, the militia of the cities triumphed over the flower of German chivalry in the battle of Legnano. Nor could Germany ever afterwards thoroughly re-establish her power. Many political circ.u.mstances and moral reasons prevented it; but the weakness of her military arm was the chief and prevailing cause.
The Germans invented nothing in chivalry, and borrowed nothing from the superior inst.i.tutions of other countries. At the commencement of the fifteenth century the inferiority of their chivalry was plainly displayed.
The German cuira.s.siers, with whom the Emperor Robert descended into Italy, could not cope with the condottieri of Jacopo Verme, who protected the states of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. It was found that the horses of the Germans were not so well trained as those of the Italians, and the armour of the knights was heavy and unwieldy; and thus the bigoted attachment of the Germans to ancient customs saved Italy from subjugation.[210] The cuira.s.siers of Germany were equally impotent against the hardy peasantry of Switzerland.
[Sidenote: Its influence on imperial manners.]
Though not in the public history, yet in what may be called the manners, of the empire, there was one great chivalric feature. The dignity of service was strikingly displayed. The proudest n.o.bles were the servants of the Emperor, his butler, his falconer, his marshal, his chamberlain; and, insensibly, as every student of German history knows, the princ.i.p.al officers of state usurped from the other n.o.bles the right of electing the Emperor.
[Sidenote: Intolerance and cruelty of German knights.]
Chivalry was chiefly known in Germany as the embodying of a ferocious spirit of religious persecution. The nation, therefore, embarked in the crusades to the Holy Land with fierceness, unchecked by chivalric gallantry, and recklessly poured out its best blood in the chace of a phantom. Prussia, and other countries at the north of Germany, were tardy in embracing Christianity; and the sword became the instrument of conversion. The Teutonic knights were particularly active in this pious work, when the Mamlouk Tartars had driven them from Palestine. In other countries, the defence of the church, and hostilities against infidels, though considered as knightly duties, were not protruded beyond other obligations: but in Germany, so prominently were they placed, that a cavalier used to hold himself bound, by his general oath of chivalry, to prepare for battle the moment of a war being declared, either against infidels or heretics.[211]
The German knight differed in character from the knight of other countries, though his education was similar. The course of that education is detailed in one of the most interesting German poems, the Das Heldenbuch, or Book of Heroes.
”The princes young, were taught to protect all ladies fair, Priests they bad them honour, and to the ma.s.s repair; All holy Christian lore were they taught, I plight: Hughdietrick and his n.o.ble queen caused priests to guide them right.
Bechtung taught them knightly games; on the warhorse firm to sit; To leap, and to defend them; rightly the mark to hit; Cunningly to give the blow, and to throw the lance afar: Thence the victory they gain'd, in many a b.l.o.o.d.y war.
Right before their b.r.e.a.s.t.s to bear the weighty s.h.i.+eld, In battle and in tournament quaintly the sword to wield; Strongly to lace the helmets on, when call'd to wage the fight, All to the royal brothers, Bechtung taught aright.
He taught them o'er the plain far to hurl the weighty rock; Mighty was their strength, and fearful was the shock: When o'er the plain resounded the heavy stone aloud, Six furlongs threw beyond the rest Wolfdieterick the Proud.”[212]
[Sidenote: Cruelty of knights to their squires.]
Though the education of the squire in Germany resembled the education of the squire in other countries, yet his state was not equally happy. The duties of the German youth were painful; and, though menial, as, indeed, were many of the duties of all squires, yet they were ungraced by those softening circ.u.mstances of manners which distinguished chivalric nurture in France and England.[213] The squires, too, were more frequently persons of humble birth than of gentle condition; and knighthood, therefore, was not always the reward of their toils. The knights were cruel and severe to their young attendants. It happened once, and the circ.u.mstance ill.u.s.trates the general state of manners, that when a knight was in the midst of a baronial revelling, three of his squires rushed into the hall, with the wild action of fear, and stood trembling before him. He coldly demanded where were the rest. As soon as their fear allowed them to speak, they said that their whole band had been fighting with his enemies, and that eight of them had fallen. Totally unmoved by the fate of his brave and devoted young friends, and thinking only of the rigidness of discipline, he answered, ”You are rightly served: who bade you ride without my orders?”[214] Well, indeed, then, may we say, with the old German authority for this story, that the man who hath held the office of squire has learnt what it is to feel the depths of pain and ignominy.
No country was more desolated by private war in the middle ages than Germany; and chivalry, instead of ameliorating the mode of warfare, acquired a character of wildness from the perpetual scene of horror.[215]
[Sidenote: Avarice of the Germans.]
There was no Bertrand du Guesclin, no Black Prince, no Manny, no Chandos, in Germany: there was a rudeness about the knighthood of the Teutonic cavaliers different from its state in other nations. The humanities, which it was the principle of Christian chivalry to throw over the rugged front of war, were but little felt in Germany, though Germany was the very cradle of chivalry. I need not repeat the cruelties which were inflicted upon Richard Coeur de Lion, during his return from the Holy Land. Two centuries afterwards, when chivalry was in its high and palmy state in other countries, the Germans continued uncourteous knights. They were a high and proud people, never admitting foreign cavaliers to companions.h.i.+p and brotherhood. But avarice was their most detestable quality, and effectually extinguished all sentiments of honour. ”When a German hath taken a prisoner,” says Froissart, ”he putteth him into irons, and into hard prison, without any pity, to make him pay the greater finance and ransom.”[216] On the probability arising of a war between Germany and France, the French counsellors dissuaded their King, Charles V., from thinking of engaging in it in person, on account of the character of the enemy. It was said, if the King went into Germany, there would be but little chance of his returning. ”When they (the Germans) shall know that the King and all the great n.o.bles of France are entered into their country, they will then a.s.semble all together; and, by their better knowledge of the land, they may do us great damage; for they are a covetous people, above all other. They have no pity if they have the upper hand; and they demean themselves with cruelty to their prisoners: they put them to sundry pains, to compel them to make their ransoms the greater; and if they have a lord, or a great man, for their captive, they make great joy thereof, and will convey him into Bohemia, Austria, or Saxony, and keep him in some uninhabitable castle. They are people worse than Saracens or paynims; for their excessive covetousness quencheth the knowledge of honour.”[217]
[Sidenote: Little influence of German chivalry.]
As the corrective of the violences of feudal licentiousness, no where was chivalry more required, and no where was it less known than in Germany. It is not possible to exaggerate the enormities of the n.o.bility, and, I fear, of the clergy, during all that long tract of time which is called the age of chivalry. Each castle was a den of thieves; and an archbishop thought he had a fair revenue before him, when he built his fortress on the junction of four roads.[218] To preserve the people from the rapaciousness and cruelty of these n.o.ble and clerical robbers, knights-errant sometimes scoured the plain; but this mode of corrective was very imperfectly applied. It was in the cities and towns, which were protected by the Emperors, that the oppressed and injured people found refuge. While the German historians seldom mention the protecting influence of knight-errantry, they constantly represent the benefit of towns, and press the fact upon the readers, that it was the tyranny of the n.o.bles which occasioned their growth. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were confederacies among towns, and confederacies among the n.o.bility: the former a.s.sociations were formed in order to repel the aggressions of the latter. This is a feature in German history totally unknown to other countries of the great republic of Europe, and distinct from all chivalric origin or chivalric effects.
[Sidenote: A remarkable exception to this.]
Except in the occasional adventurousness of knights-errant, chivalry was but once concerned in repressing the evils of the time, and interwoven with the interesting circ.u.mstances of that occasion is one of the most amusing stories in all the long annals of knighthood. The citizens, in conveying their merchandizes from one place to another, suffered dreadfully from the rapine of the barons; and finding the weapons used by common people were an insufficient protection, they wisely and boldly armed themselves in the manner of their enemies. They wielded the lance and sword, rode the heavy war-horse, practised tournaments and other martial games, and even attended tournaments in castles and courts; a.s.suming for the occasion the armorial distinctions of n.o.ble families who were distant from the scene. So much did this state of citizens.h.i.+p resemble that of knighthood, that all the castles on the Rhine were not inhabited by barons and knights only.