Knighthood

from William Berry's Encyclopædia Heraldica (c.1828)

The practice of horsemanship has ever been considered a noble exercise, and was once almost the privilege, as it has always been the ornament, of the nobly-born. Many of the epithets by which the ancient Greek poets have characterized their heroes, are expressive of their skill in this art; tamer, or ruler of the steed, is frequently employed to denote the high rank and martial character of him to whom it is applied. Argos is celebrated by the same poets for its breed of horses; but notwithstanding this, the southern states of Greece were very deficient in cavalry, and generally borrowed or hired, this part of their army from Thessaly, and this may explain, why an office which they so highly esteemed, never constituted, with them, a title of honour or order in the state, as it afterwards did with the Romans, and among all the countries of modem Europe. The word which answers to the German knecht, and the English knight, is, in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, formed from the word, which, in each language, signifies horse.

The origin of the equestrian order among the Romans may be discovered in the arrangement made by their first king Romulus who, after dividing his people into three tribes, selected from each of them one hundred young men, most distinguished for their rank and accomplishments, who were to serve on horseback and constitute a bodyguard for himself. But we must not consider this natural institution, in its first imperfect form, as a society possessed of any privileges, or governed by any peculiar laws; it was sometime before it assumed this character, and then it became a distinct order in the state. At what exact period this took place is uncertain; some assign it to the time of Servius Tullius, and it is not an improbable supposition, that, in this respect, as well as others, the Roman people continued to preserve that form into which he moulded it. It is certain that he greatly increased the number, and appointed a certain sum for each man to purchase a horse, and levied a tax especially for the support of their horses. A certain property was necessary to qualify a man for the rank and the requisite sum varied with the value of money: under the Emperors, it was fixed at four hundred sesterces, or about three thousand two hundred and thirty pounds of our money. At this period, when the severity of ancient manners was quite gone, and the moral character of the Roman people debased, any one could prove his possession of the sum required was of course admitted into the order of knights; but in the better times of the republic, when the office of censor was not an empty title, and public opinion ratified the sentence of an upright judge, none was allowed to continue members of the body, whose conduct could bring disgrace on the whole. If otherwise qualified, they were generally admitted at an age when their characters had not had time to develop themselves, but if they proved unworthy of the elevation, opportunity was at certain periods, to the censors to degrade them. While these laws were observed to preserve the purity of the equestrian order, it could not fail to be a most honourable portion of the people, and as it was filled up from plebeians, as well as patricians, it was of great advantage as an intermediate bond between those two divisions of the state, which in other respects were too widely and injudiciously separated.

The only duty of the order at first was to serve in the army, but afterwards, when the rest of the nation were sunk in a corruption from which their peculiar regulations had, in some measure preserved them, their comparative integrity suggested the advantage of transferring the right of serving as juries from the senators to them: this took place in the year of the city 631; Sylla restored it to the senate, but afterwards it was shared between the two orders. The right of farming the public revenues was also given exclusively to the knights, a profitable privilege, and one which required more than ordinary integrity, and this, perhaps, was the reason of its being bestowed on them, but it unfortunately became one of the most powerful means of corrupting them, and rendered them odious in the provinces, where they too commonly exercised with injustice an office which, even when most honestly administered could not but be invidious.

The badges of a knight were a horse, given him by the public, a golden ring which was put on his finger when he was solemnly admitted to the rank; Augustus Clavus, an ornament of purple with which their tunics were adorned (it was called Augustus, because senators wore a similar distinction of a larger size), and a separate place at the public spectacles. Of the first of these badges, it has already been remarked that it was given and maintained at the public expense, and that certainly was the case in the first establishment of the order; but afterwards, the horse was only furnished by the public, and maintained by the knight himself. In still later times, when the original object of the institution, the supplying of the army with cavalry, was entirely obviated by the indolence and unwarlike character of its members, the Emperors spared the state the useless expense, and deprived the knights of their misemployed ornament. The second badge of a ring became, after this, the distinction of the order.

Part of the outward dignity of the Roman knights consisted in a procession which was annually made by them on July l5th, from the temple of Honour, or Mars, without the city, to the Capitol, riding on horseback, with wreaths of olive on their heads, dressed in their togæ palmatæ, of a scarlet colour, and carrying the military ornaments which they had received from their general, as a reward for their valour. Every fifth of these processions was far more important than the others, because then, instead of an empty pageant, it assumed the character of a judicial investigation. The censor was seated in his curule chair before the Capitol, and each knight, as he approached, dismounted, and led his horse before him, and received judgement on his conduct: any one who was known to have been flagitious in his behaviour, to have reduced his fortune beneath the legal amount, or even to have neglected his horse, was directed by the censor to sell his horse, and was thereby considered as degraded from his rank. Those who were approved of were directed to lead their horses on, and their title to the rank of knight was thus renewed. There was a less ignominious way of degrading an unworthy knight than that just mentioned, and which was employed on occasion of minor offence: when the procession was ended, the censor read aloud a list of the knights, and the names of those whom he had before publicly degraded were omitted, and also of those who it was thought sufficient to remove from their rank in this silent manner. He whose name stood at the head of the list, in the censor’s books, was called Princeps Juventutis, a title which was afterwards given to the heir of the empire.

An attentive perusal of this historical account of the equestrian order among the Romans will suggest a comparison between it and the similar institutions of modem times, and bring to the mind of the reader many points of resemblance between them, above all, that high sense of honour which was the soul of both; but he must not conclude from these coincidences, that modern knighthood is a continuation of the ancient, or that one was formed in imitation of the other. Roman knighthood was quite extinct before that of modem Europe arose, which had its origin, as we shall presently see, in circumstances of a very peculiar nature. An order in Germany called the Ordo Equestris, and of which the members are styled Knights of the Sacred Roman Empire, seems at first sight to favour the supposition that the equestrian order of the ancient Romans might have survived the other institutions of the empire, and been perpetuated in this Germanic society; but an examination into the laws of its constitution will show its origin to have been the same with the other orders of Europe, and it is not difficult to account for the name, when we recollect that the German emperors were fond of considering themselves successors of the emperors of Rome, and might naturally enough affect to restore some resemblance to ancient customs. The title of the knights of this order is hereditary, and may be conferred by letters patent under the great seal of the empire, but it is necessary to hold a fee of the empire to be admitted a member of the body corporate, which all the knights, so qualified, compose. Here, then, we have a proof of the feudal origin of the order.

Some again have discovered in the barbarous state of early Germany the first traces of modern knighthood, and perhaps the custom and spirit which Tacitus describes, may have been transmitted from generation to generation, and have suggested some of the ceremonies which attended the creation of a knight: in the thirteenth chapter of his Germany, speaking of the inhabitants of that country, he says, ‘Nihil autem, neque publicæ neque privatæ rei, nisi armati agunt. Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quam civitas suffecturum probaverit. Tum in ipso concilio vel principum aliquis, vel pater, vel propinquus scuto frameaque juvenem ornant.’ ‘They transact no business, whether public or private, except in arms. But it is not allowed for any one to take arms before the state shall have given its approbation of him who is to take them up. Then, in the presence of the assembly, someone of the chiefs, or his father, or a near relation, decorates the youth with a shield and spear.’ There is not sufficient resemblance in this ceremony to give it a right to be called even a simple form of conferring knighthood, but it is agreeable with that order of things which has been called the feudal system, and to which we must refer the origin of knighthood, as of many other institutions of modem Europe.

It is contrary to all reason to suppose that the feudal system was a novel arrangement, then first devised and promulgated by the nations of Europe, by whom it was universally established; it must have had its origin in hereditary customs so far varied as was necessary for a people, who, from a wandering life turned to one more settled, and from necessity submitted to a regular government to a certain degree. Obedience is the first principle of every government, and independence was the ruling desire of the petty chiefs of these barbarous nations; the result was, submission to a sovereign on the conditions of exercising sovereignty over their own dependents. The rewards which the sovereign bestowed on his followers were grants of territory, and for these they were bound to bring their vassals, when summoned, to fight for him in the field. A hereditary title to these possessions was soon established, and the number of men fixed which each could afford for service of the sovereign, or more immediate lord.

He who was required to furnish one man was said to possess one knight’s fee, and hence estates came to be measured by the number of knight’s fees they contained: different ranks of dignity were claimed by the servers of these knight’s fees, according to the number they supplied, and he who held by one knight’s fee was entitled, or rather compelled to receive, the title of knight; and as the title and the service were connected, neither was likely to be forgotten. As yet there was nothing extraordinary in the character of knights; they were merely officers in the army, though certainly of more individual importance than the present system of war has rendered subordinate officers in modern times. The men who served as private soldiers were all ignoble; the rest were all noble, and therefore on an equality; the distinction that separated them from the plebeian part of the community, united them among themselves: the knight and the baron might be equally noble; they both served on horseback, and, as the fate of a battle was often decided by individual valour, the greater share of glory might light on the inferior dignity. The strength of an army lay in the noble part of it, and of this the greater number were knights, and hence the name knight became synonymous with soldier, and the general title of all warriors of every rank. It was the first step of dignity in the service of war, and as the being admitted to it was a consecration to the profession of arms, the ceremonies that attended it were more serious and imposing than those which accompanied any subsequent promotion.

The sons of kings and peers commenced their warlike career with this title, and learnt the art of fighting and the laws of honour in the company of experienced knights; and, when they were called to higher rank, were proud still to consider themselves members of a society ennobled by deeds of valour, and endeared by the recollections of youthful companions and exploits; and, amidst the display of acquired and hereditary honour, the name of knight was still a favourite and conspicuous title. But it was not till after the eleventh century, when the crusades began, that knighthood assumed that singular character which, from those events, has adorned the page of history and stored the volumes of romance.

Before that period knights were noble, were indispensable to it, and it is clear from this, that, among the occasions on which a lord might justly claim aid of his vassals, the calling of his son to the order of knighthood is specified, in a manner that shows it was an ordinary and yet important ceremony, and is classed with the marrying of his daughter. That the duties of a soldier were to be assumed when the title was received may be concluded from this, that on behalf of the vassals it was provided that their lord should not demand assistance from them for the ceremony of knighting his son, till he was fifteen years of age; and a still stronger proof is contained in the law which allowed minors to be released from wardship and all the disabilities of minority when knighted, as the sovereign by so doing had declared them arrived at years of discretion, and fit to perform the duties of a knight. Afterwards, indeed, when the title began to be perverted from its original intention, the honour was conferred on children of the tenderest age, and sometimes immediately after baptism, which was all the qualification required: but this was evidently a corruption. In the earliest times, earls and even knights themselves claimed the power of conferring knighthood, but it ultimately rested with the sovereign, the real source of all honours. To remove the appearance of favour and maintain the purity of the institution, it was customary with kings to send their sons to friendly monarchs to receive at their hands the dignity of knighthood: thus Henry the Second sent his son to be knighted by Malcolm, King of Scotland, and Edward the First sent his to the King of Castile.

The manner of conferring knighthood has been different at different periods, but became more ceremonious and sacred when the cause of religion was believed to be closely connected with it; then, instead of the brief form of earlier times, when the king created a knight, by putting a military belt over his shoulder, kissing his left cheek and saying, ‘In honour of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I make you a knight;’ or the still briefer form of modem times, the preparations occupied a considerable time, and the ceremonies were numerous. The words which were early in use on the occasion bear a near resemblance to those used at baptism, and, at the period now under discussion, some of the ceremonies also of that sacrament were introduced: a profanation occasioned by the superstitious zeal of those who fancied that the emblems of sanctification and regeneration could not be misapplied to men who adopted a new mode of life for the defence of religion and virtue. Fasts and vigils preceded the day of the intended knight’s admission; he passed through a bath, as a sign of purification, and then was arrayed in a garment, as an emblem of a new life which he purposed to follow. When the solemn day was arrived, he was conducted in pomp to a cathedral or church, where he was invested with the sword and spurs, and his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight blow, in token of the last affront which he was to endure. He then offered his sword on the altar, which was blessed by the ministers of religion, and again restored to him and he took an oath, the tenor of which was that he would speak the truth, maintain the right, protect the distressed, practice courtesy, pursue the infidels, despise the allurements of ease and safety, and vindicate, in every perilous adventure, the honour of his character.

Such were the ceremonies which, in the times of the holy wars, attended the creation of a knight; but when the duties which the title then required were changed or lost, and title itself became very general and comparatively insignificant, the solemnity gradually decayed, and all that remains in the making the knight bachelor, or simple knight, is the blow on the shoulder from the sword of the monarch, who says, Sois chevalier, au nom de Dieu. He who conferred the honour of knighthood became, in some sense, the father of whom he thus declared qualified for its duties and who was therefore said to be adopted by him, in Latin, adoptatus; and this word coming to our language, not by translation, but through the intermediate step of adobato, was corrupted into dubbed, which still retains its place; some however, derive the word from the Saxon dubban.

But it was not alone by the solemn rite of his admission and the sacred obligation of an oath that the obedience of the knight to the laws imposed on him was secured; a still stronger pledge was the ignominy which was certain to follow a desertion of duty, even though not inflicted with the exquisite cruelty of judicial degradation, which was appointed for such offenders by the laws of chivalry. By these laws it was directed, that every knight who had behaved traitorously should be apprehended, and after being armed cap-à-piè, should be placed on a scaffold erected in a church; then the priest sung some funeral psalms, as though he had been dead, and when these were finished they proceeded to strip him, first taking off his helmet to show his face, then his military girdle; next they broke his sword, cut off his spurs from his heels with a hatchet, pulled off his gauntlets, and, at last, all his armour: when this was done, his coat of arms was reversed, and he was thrown down the stage with a rope, the heralds exclaiming, this is a disloyal miscreant.

It was very seldom that there was any cause for such a scene, and still more seldom that opportunity was afforded for exhibiting it; but in judicial combats, a punishment almost as complete was inflicted on the vanquished, and, by the reasoning of those days, the consequently guilty party. Although he was killed in the combat, the punishment remained the same, for his death was the proof, not the punishment, of his guilt: this was inflicted by stripping the armour from his body, and casting it piece-meal into the lists.

The tournaments also which were well calculated to improve the skill of the combatants, by their regulations kept up the point of honour at the greatest height: none who was known to have disgraced himself in the slightest degree was admitted to contend, and of those who were admitted, such as were dismounted, were severely punished for their want of skill in the shame which attended it, and which was sometimes pushed to the extent of making them ride on the rails of the lists. Such were some of the habits of chivalry; and if the same motives could always have acted, if the manners of the world had remained the same, and knowledge and civilization had continued at the same point, they were well calculated to perpetuate the spirit that dictated them.

It has been remarked, that orders of knighthood, previous to the holy wars, are very rare, and information concerning them either very scanty, or very badly authenticated; but the crusades, that contributed so much to elevate the character of knighthood, gave rise also to a number of orders connected with the objects of the expedition. Sometimes a party of knights united for a purpose which required common exertions, and, when the object was achieved, remained bound by the recollection of common dangers, and the evident advantages of co-operation; and the sovereign knew no better way to reward then than by confirming their society, and granting them laws, privileges, and a common badge of distinction. To guard the holy sepulchre, or the tomb of some favourite saint, afforded the business and the name of many of these societies, and others originated with the prince, to commemorate a victory or to secure the co-operation of a number of knights for some particular duty. Thus the order of Templars began with the union among themselves of some knights, the more effectually to further the cause in hand, and who were rewarded for their services with habitations near Solomon’s Temple, from which they took their name. Again, the order of St. Catharine was, at first, but a party of knights bound together by the common resolution of defending the tomb of the saint, from whom they took their name. Some of these societies were purely military, and some partly military and partly religions; such was the Order of the Knights of Malta, which began in a monastery and hospital established in Jerusalem, for the advantage of pilgrims visiting the holy shrine.

When the objects which gave rise to these institutions lost their influence on the minds of men, and the other causes by which knighthood had grown into so much importance were gradually declining, by the alteration which took place in the discipline of war, and the reputation which the arts of peace began to acquire, the usual employment of knights was not sufficient to exercise their talents or procure distinction. The increase of population, and decrease in the value of money multiplied to such an extent the number of persons legally qualified for the title, that, it ceased to be sought or conferred as a testimony of merit. The Emperor Charles the Fifth is said to have created five hundred knights in one day, which may give some idea of the commonness of the title. To rescue it partially from degradation, and distinguish the more worthy bearers of it from the crowd, recourse was had to orders; some that were grown obsolete were restored, and new ones established; a victory gained, the marriage or accession of a prince, were the opportunities taken of doing so: those to which the holy wars gave rise were common to all the nations of Christendom, who were united by the same cause; but those which were instituted afterwards, by different sovereigns, were intended more particularly for the encouragement of their own subjects, although foreigners were occasionally admitted, and especially kings complimented one another by an interchange of the honours of knighthood. In this country, the permission of the king is necessary to publicly bearing a foreign order.

This description of knighthood, in its general features, is applicable to this country; it had here the same origin, the same causes of advancement and decline as elsewhere. Knight service, as it afterwards existed, was introduced into England by William the Conqueror, in whose time Stowe says the kingdom contained 60,211 knight’s fees. What value of land constituted a knight’s fee was a subject of much difference of opinion, and naturally varied at different times. In the reign of Henry the Third, fifteen pounds per annum in land was considered to make a knight’s fee: this was increased to twenty pounds in the reign of Edward the Second; and this again was doubled in the time of Edward the Sixth.

By this period it was become a financial expedient, to make a proclamation for the attendance of those who might be compelled to receive the title of knight, and then compound with such as declined it. Both Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth appointed commissioners to make composition with all persons who possessed lands to the amount of forty pounds a year, and who wished to escape the expensive honour of knighthood. Charles the First, who, to meet the novel circumstances into which he was thrown, had recourse to the worst of all expedients, a revival of the obsolete customs of his predecessors, issued a warrant to the sheriffs in 1626, to summons all persons who, for three years past, had held forty pounds per annum, or more, of lands or revenues in their own hands, or the hands of feoffees, and were not yet knights, to come before his Majesty by the 3lst of January following, to receive the order of knighthood. In 1630, he issued a commission to the Lord Keeper, Lord High Treasurer, etc. to compound with those who had made themselves liable to forfeiture by neglecting to receive knighthood: this brought into the treasury about one hundred thousand pounds, but that was but a poor compensation for the odium that accompanied it.

Queen Elizabeth had done the same, without creating any murmurs; but a great alteration had taken place since then in the opinions of the people, and the statute de militibus, which had lain dormant during the whole of James the First’s reign, was considered a mere dead letter when his successor came to the throne. When Charles discovered the mischief he had done, he hastened to remedy it, and issued a proclamation ‘for the ease of his subjects in making their compositions for not receiving the order of knighthood according to law.’ This, though it does credit to the goodness of his intentions, had no other effect than that of adding his own testimony to the public opinion of the ill-advisedness of the previous step. In the twelfth year of the reign of Charles the Second, knight-service was altogether abolished. From the time that the order of knighthood ceased to be appropriated to war, the honour was conferred as a reward for merit of every kind, at the pleasure of the sovereign, without any regard to qualification from property, and has been entirely so employed since the abolishment of knight’s service. While this existed, every one who held by a whole knight’s fee was bound to attend the king in war for forty days; he who held by half a knight’s fee for twenty days; and so on in proportion, and these did not begin to be reckoned till the army reached the enemy’s country. This service was called regale servitium, and was due to the king only; but, during the minority of Henry the Sixth, it was decided that the protector, or regent, had the same right to claim it. The fines, or compositions for them, that were exacted of those who declined to serve, was one source of revenue; but this method of raising money was abolished by an act of parliament in the sixteenth year of the reign of Charles the First.

It has been mentioned before, that a minor was relieved from all the disabilities of minority upon being knighted, but by a clause in Magna Charta it was fixed, that in such a case the land of the minor should remain in the usual guardianship of his lord till the legal age of taking it into his own charge. This, it was afterwards determined, did not apply to the case of a man knighted in the life-time of his father, and afterwards, by the death of his father, became minor, for then he could claim all the rights full age.

An instance of an earl creating a knight occurs in this country as late as Richard the Second; since then, the right has never been shared with the king, except by his lord-lieutenant of Ireland, who, in this respect, exercised the privilege of royalty. The title has gradually growing more general and less honourable, and it was to rescue it partially from debasement, that orders were introduced into this country as into others: the first of these was in instituted by Edward the Third, in 1350. The use of Sir, prefixed to the Christian name, belongs to knights of every kind, baronets, knights of orders, and knights bachelors, which last are simply called knights. The title of baronet is hereditary, but of the others, dies with the first possessor, but while he lives always makes a part of his name, and though he should be raised to higher honours, must be expressed in recounting his titles. The wives and widows of knights have, by courtesy, the title of Lady prefixed to their names, but are not strictly entitled to it. The Knights Commanders, who were added to the Order of the Bath in 1815, are not allowed the prefix of Sir, nor their wives that of Lady.