CHIVALRY (Fr. chevalerie, from chevalier, a knight or horseman), the system of knighthood, together with the privileges, duties, and manners of knights. The social arrangement to which this term is applied seeing first to have assumed the character of a positive institution during the 11th c.; but so far from being an invention of that period, it had its roots in the manners of the Germanic races, amongst whom it ultimately arose, at the earliest period at which they are historically traceable. In the description which Tacitus has given us of the manners of the Germans, we find the most unequivocal indications of the existence, not only of the general spirit, but, in a partially developed form, of many of the special arrangements of chivalry. But it was in connection with feudality that C. attained to its full proportions, and in many respects it must be regarded as the complement of that institution. See FEUDAL SYSTEM. Whilst feudality exhibits the political, in C. we see the moral and social side of the arrangements of mediaeval life. It was in the feudal mansions of the barons that the system was developed; and to the lay portion of the youth of the higher classes, the instruction which they there received in the usages of C. formed by far the most impor tant part of education. In addition to the inertial accomplishments, which corresponded to those of a modern cavalry-offlcer, they were instructed in the political relations which subsisted between the vassal and his lord, by which the whole body of society was then bound together; and in what might almost be called a 'system of ethics, strangely enough exhibiting unmistakable traces of the stoic philosophy. The analogy between the severer virtues recommended to the special cultivation of their disciples by the followers of Zeno, and those inculcated on the novice in C., and practiced by the knights of the middle ages, might be ascribed to other than historical causes, were it not that we are able to trace the connection between them with something approaching to certainty. If any one wishes to convince himself of the truth of our assertion, let him compare the last production of the intellectual life of antiquity with one of the earliest and most important of our own literature, the Consolations of Philosophy of Boethius with Chaucer's Testament of Love. The resemblance is so close, that the latter work has, not without reason, been regarded as an imitation of the former; but the main features which distin guish them, and mark Chaucer's work as belonging to the modern world, are more instructive than even their similarity. The place which Philosophy, the celestial con soler, occupies in the work of Boethius, in that of Chaucer is supplied by Lore—a being whom we must in nowise confound either with the heathen goddess, or, as some have done, with the divine love of the Christian religion. She is neither more nor less than the embodiment of an abstract idea which formed the central point of the whole system of C.; and her substitution for the philosophy or reason of Boethius is very character istic of a state of society in which the affections and passions, rather than the intelli gence, were the motive principles. The "Love" of Chaucer is a complete generaliza ticin, altogether independent of individual object, and the consolation which she proffers to her votary is that of enlisting in his favor the special guardian, the "Margarite," who is supposed to watch over his individual fortunes. The "Margarite " seems to corre
spond to the chivalrous idea of the Lady-love, in its purest sense, when its reference to a person was by no means indispensable, but when it signified rather "the love of woman," the highest object of the knight's ambition. 'Under the protection of this guardian spirit, the lover is represented as altogether sheltered from the caprices of fortune, and in her name he has a dose of rather frigid comfort administered to him, greatly resembling that which Boethius receives at the hands of Philosophy. Such is the general idea of the book, and it is a noble idea, embracing the very essence of society as it existed then, and presenting a much deeper view of that singular institution C. than is usually to be met with in writers who have not been actually brought in con tact with its influences. But to the two elements which we have mentioned as ingredi ents in the spiritual life of C., the Germanic traditions on the one hand, and those of classical antiquity on the other, a third tails to be mentioned, which was, perhaps, the most important of all—that of Christianity as represented by the. church. The clergy were too fully aware of the importance of early impressions, not to seize on the imagina tion of the aspirant to C. at the all-important moment of his inauguration. The purifi cations, prayers, and vigils, the sacrament and the vows by which this solemn rite was accompanied, are detailed elsewhere (see Knoirr, BANNEurri., BATH, etc.); and their influence in casting a rellgions character over the whole institution of C., and occasion ally in directing its energies specially to the propagation of Christianity, by means of the various religious orders of knighthood and the crusades, is well known. or was the poet behind the priest iu availing himself of the influences of C., and developing them in the region of the imagination. What Chaucer has exhibited in the work to which we have referred, may lie regarded rather as the philosophical than the poetical side of the institution. But to poets of a lighter and more imaginative cast of mind, C. has furnished, from the days of the troubadours down to the present poet-laureate, no insignificant portion of their subject-matter. King Arthur and his knights of the round table, the traditions regarding whom had been taken from a period altogether mythical, and long anterior to the existence of C. as an institution, became to the poetry of the middle ages very much what the heroes of the Trojan war were to th It of the whole ancient world. Much astonishment has often been expressed at the contrast between the lofty and ideal purity the code of Morals inculcated by C., and the gross mess of the lives of the men who were trained under its influences The case is one which in a remarkable degree proves the practical importance of the inculcation of sound doctrine, for the practice gradually, though slowly, conformed itself to the principles; and it is probably in no insignificant degree to the elevated tone of the latter that we owe the moral superiority of the modern over the ancient world.