Knighthood

Sir Harris Nicolas contends that the order had no loftier imme diate origin than a joust or tournament. It consisted of the king and the Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into two bands of 2 like the tilters in a hastilude—at the head of the one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the sovereign's or the prince's side of St. George's chapel. No change was made in the numbers until 1786, when the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible not withstanding that the chapter might be complete. In 18o5 another alteration was effected by the provision that the lineal descendants of George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of Wales for the time being, who was declared to be "a constituent part of the original institution"; and again in 1831 it was further ordained that the privilege accorded to the descend ants of George II. should extend to those of George I. The records during the 14th and 15th centuries show that ladies were received into the order leaves no doubt that they were regularly received into it. The queen consort, the wives and daughters of knights, and some other women of exalted position, were desig nated "Dames de la Fraternite de St. George," and entries of the delivery of robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe Accounts from 1376 to 1495. The effigies of Mar garet Byron, wife of Sir Robert Harcourt, K.G., at Stanton Har court, and of Alice Chaucer, wife of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms.

Persons Empowered to Confer Knighthood.

It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer knighthood. But it may be questioned whether the privilege was thus indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days of chivalry ; the sounder conclu sion appears to be that the right was always restricted to sovereign princes, to those acting under their authority or sanction, and to a few other personages of exalted rank and station. In several of the writs for distraint of knighthood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make knights in the iith and 12th cen turies. At all periods the commanders of the royal armies had the power of conferring knighthood; under James I. an ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a proclamation of 1623, for the registra tion of knights in the college of arms, is rendered applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or any of his lieutenants. But when in 1543 Henry VIII. appointed Sir John Wallop to be captain of Guisnes, it was considered necessary that he should be authorized in express terms to confer knight hood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset. In the middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub each other knights much as they were afterwards, and are now, in the habit of exchanging the stars and ribbons of their orders. Long after the military importance of knighthood had practically disappeared, a knight's title was recognized in all European coun tries, and not only in that country in which he had received it.

In modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the sovereign's permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knight hood, but further that such permission shall not authorize "the assumption of any style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a knight bachelor of the United Kingdom." Degradation.—The cases in which a knight has been formally degraded in England are exceedingly few; Dallaway says that only three were on record in the College of Arms when he wrote in 1793• The case of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were hacked from his heels, his sword belt cut, and his sword broken over his head by the heralds in Westminster Hall, was the last until that of Roger Casement (q.v.) in 1916.

Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the battle of Bosworth. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys were even occasionally held until after the death of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were dis credited by the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1599. The golden age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it' two or three generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romancers present a more favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in which the unselfish championship of "God and the ladies" was anything but a rare exception.

The Spirit of Chivalry.

It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the limitations of mediae val society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts of the knightly code were a legacy from earlier ages, and have survived the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed, the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their highest development in the middle ages. As a conscious effort to bring religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass. the average mediaeval knight in dis cipline, self-control and outward or inward refinement. In its own age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour; and if many of its most brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers. The knightly ages will always enjoy the glory of having formulated a code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of their exceptional privileges ; yet we must judge chivalry not only by its formal code but also by its practical fruits.