The History of Chivalry. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ perhaps, more favoured the general progress of Chivalry than the state of religion in that day; which, overloaded with superstitions, and decked out with every external pomp and ornament, appealed to the imagination through the medium of the senses, and 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 countries where they were felt, by raising up a number of independent lords who—each anxious to reduce his neighbours to vassalage, and to preserve his own separate lordship—required continual armed support from others, to whom he offered in return honour and protection.

      Thus, for about a century, or perhaps a little more, after the first institution of knighthood, Chivalry slowly gained ground, and by each exploit of any particular body of knights (such, for 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 and carried through upon chivalrous principles alone to render Chivalry, combined as it was with religion and the feudal system, the great master power of Europe—and that enterprise was at hand.

      The natural reverence for those countries, sanctified and elevated by so many miracles, and rendered sublimely dear to the heart of every Christian, as the land in which his salvation was brightly but terribly worked out, had from all ages rendered Palestine 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 of our Saviour’s mortal career. For many ages while the whole of Judea remained under the sway of the Cesars, the journey was an easy one. Few difficulties waylaid the passenger, or gave pilgrimage even the merit of dangers encountered and obstacles overcome.

      Towards the seventh century, the eastern provinces of the Roman empire, already weakened by many invasions, had to encounter the exertions of another adversary, who succeeded in wresting 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 on the conquest which he had begun in Arabia, and one by one made themselves masters of Syria, Antioch, Persia, Medea, and in fact the greater part of the rich continent of Asia.

      It is not here my purpose to trace the progress of these conquerors, or to examine for a moment the religion they professed. Suffice it, that in the days of Charlemagne the fame of that great prince produced from the calif Haroun al Raschid many liberal concessions in favour of the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, now in the hands of the unbelievers.

      Particular ages seem fertile in great men; and it is very rare to find one distinguished poet, monarch, or conqueror standing alone in his own century. Nay more;—we generally discover—however different the country that produces them, and however opposite the circumstances under which they are placed—that there is a similarity in the character of the mind, if I may so express myself without obscurity, of the eminent persons produced in each particular age. This was peculiarly the case in the age of Charlemagne. 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 precious offering that the Christian monarch could receive, the keys of the Holy City, were sent from Bagdad to Aix, together with a standard, which has been supposed to imply the sovereignty of Jerusalem resigned by Haroun to his great contemporary. Nothing could afford a nobler proof of a great, a liberal, and a delicate mind, than the choice evinced by the calif in his gift. Charlemagne took advantage so far of Haroun’s liberality,[78] as to establish an hospital and a library for the Latin pilgrims.

      The successors of Haroun, and more particularly Monstacer Billah, continued to yield tolerance at least, if not protection, to the Christians of Jerusalem. The pilgrims also were more or less protected during the reigns that followed, both from motives of liberal feeling and of interest, as the great influx of travellers, especially from Italy, brought much wealth and commerce into Syria.

      Under the califs of the Fatemite race several persecutions took place; and when at length the invasion of the Turkish hordes had brought the whole of Palestine under the dominion of a wild and barbarous race, Jerusalem was taken and sacked; and while the Christian inhabitants were treated with every sort of brutal cruelty, the pilgrims were subject to taxation[79] on their arrival, as well as liable to plunder by the way.

      A piece of gold was exacted for permission to enter the Holy City; and at that time, when the value of the precious metals was infinitely higher than in the present day, few, if any, of the pilgrims on their arrival possessed sufficient to pay the cruel demand.

      Thus, after having suffered toils unheard of—hunger, thirst, the parching influence of a burning sky, sickness, danger, and often robbery, and wounds; when the weary wanderer arrived at the very entrance of the city, with 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 stipulated sum, he was driven by the barbarians from the gates, and was forced to tread back all his heavy way unfurnished with any means, and unsupported by any hope, or to die by the roadside of want, weariness, and despair.

      The pilgrimages nevertheless continued with unremitting zeal; and the number of devotees increased greatly in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In the tenth, indeed, the custom of pilgrimage became 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 world was to be judged; and crowds of men and women, in the frantic hope of expiating their sins by the long and painful journey to the Holy Land, flocked from all parts of Europe towards Jerusalem.

      Many of the more clear-sighted and sensible of the Christian prelates had from time to time attempted to dissuade the people from these dangerous and fatal pilgrimages; but the principle of bodily infliction being received as a mark of internal penitence and a means of obtaining absolution, had been so long inculcated by the church of Rome, that the current of popular opinion had received its impulse, and it was no longer possible to turn it from its course. No penance 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 which they were fast building up the authority of the Roman church, and probably also were not without a share in the bigoted enthusiasm which they taught. Thus in the tenth century the pilgrimages which fear lest the day of judgment should be approaching induced many to undertake in expiation of their sins, met but little opposition; while various meteoric phenomena, of a somewhat awful nature, earthquakes, hurricanes, &c., contributed to increase the general alarm.

      When these had passed by, and the dreaded epoch had brought forth nothing, the current still continued to flow on in the course that it had taken; and during the eleventh century several circumstances tended to increase it. Among others the terror spread through France by the Papal Interdict, called forth by the refractory adherence of Robert I. to his queen[81] Bertha, brought more pilgrims than usual from that country.

      Of many thousands who passed into Asia,[82] a few isolated individuals only returned; but these every day, as they passed through the different countries of Europe on their journey back, spread indignation and horror by their account of the dreadful sufferings of the СКАЧАТЬ