The union was deemed so intimate, that all the mem bers of the fraternity wore the same dress, and carried the same arms ; and no member could admit or acknow ledge as his friend, any who was not also the friend of the fraternity ; as they were mutually bound to assist one another, they could not undertake any enterprise ex cept in concert. The principal object of the fraterni ties was to free their country from robbers ; to go on ex peditions against the Infidels; and to accomplish with more effect and glory all the purposes and duties of chi valry.
These fraternities were entered into, sometimes for life ; but more frequently only during a campaign, a battle, a siege, or a war ; at the termination of the en gagement, each party rendered up an exact and faith ful account of what he had gained in booty or in pre sents, or of what he had expended or lost.
The education, the manners, and the employments of the ladies, in the days of chivalry, have, in the course of this article, been noticed with nearly as much fullness and minuteness, as the subject requires or admits of. The scattered observations on these points may be here briefly brought together, and it few additional circum stances introduced. The manners of the ladies were ne cessarily polite and courteous ; for such they taught, and expected those of the chevaliers to be. Their principal ambition was to deserve and obtain the love of a valiant knight ; but their idea of love led them to prefer his death to his dishonour. " According to the laws of gal lantry, I should have loved him better dead than alive. !'' was the exclamation of a damsel, on hearing that her knight had escaped alive, but with the loss of his honour, while the knights of her companions had died the death of cnivalry. To rouse him to enterprise, to reward hint with her approbation, with her smiles, perhaps with a kiss, if victorious ;—to shame him by her reproaches, if vanquished, were the great objects of her life. It was the business of the ladies to adorn the armour of the knights with favours ; to take it off when the tourna ments were finished ; to bestow on them the prize ; and to attend to them when wounded. They likewise join ed them in playing at chess, backgammon, and dice. It is probable, that they sometimes took the diversion of hawking ; at least, they scarcely ever appeared in public without a falcon on their finger, as a mark of their dig nity. The bath was much used by them, not only for the purpose of preserving or increasing their beauty, but also for the sake of enjoying free and uninterrupted con versation. Their magnificence and luxury, like those of the knights, were great, and was discovered in their dress, and in all their domestic arrangements. One in stance may be given : they had always burning in their chambers, while they were in bed, the most delicate and costly perfumes.
The effects which chivalry produced on the age in which it existed, the circumstances which led to its de cline and extinction, and the traces of its character and influence that still appear, may be briefly and rapidly told.
The qualifications and duties that chivalry imposed and required, which have been so fully detailed and ex plained, though they were sometimes evaded or trans gressed, sometimes altogether wanting in its knights, and too often overpowered by the ignorance and violence of the age, or mixed up with its vices, yet undoubtedly tended, in a very considerable degree, to give efficacy to laws in the time of their weakness, and to supply their place in many important cases, which they could not touch. This institution also infused humanity into war, at a time when the disposition of the age made it the al most constant business of life, and the ruling passion of all conditions of men ; it introduced courtesy of man ners, when men, from ignorance, and want of mutual as sistance and intercourse, were naturally rude and uncul tivated ; it exacted and produced a scrupulous adherence to truth, at a time when the temptations to falsehood and breach of engagements were numerous, and the person al and social evils resulting from these vices, were im perfectly understood and feebly felt. It added an addi tional impulse and motive to that respectful and delicate attention to the female sex, (which distinguished the Go thic ancestors of Europe,) at a period when this atten tion, and the protection and support which accompanied it, were particularly necessary to them.
In sketching out the causes of the decline and extinc tion of chivalry, the period when they took place will be sufficiently marked. As it rose to splendour, and was embodied into form and regularity by the feudal system, so it fell along with it. The causes which broke up this system ; the change of manners, habits, and pursuits among mankind in general, and of the principles and con duct of governments, and especially of their military and financial institutions, and of their mode of carrying on war, were fatal alike to the feudal system and to chi valry. The same era which witnessed the discovery of gunpowder and artillery, and the invention of printing, and in which there sprung up the seeds of commerce, witnessed and produced the decline of chivalry. All these circumstances operated on the habits and the man ners of the age, and, in conjunction with the destruc tion of the feudal system, put a period to the existence of chivalry. As it arose principally from a peculiar state of society, the evils of which it was calculated to remove or alleviate, so it fell, when that state and those evils had given way to the general diffusion of knowledge and of wealth.