CHIVALRY, shiv'al-ri (Fr. ebcra/cric, horse manship, knighthood, from chevalier, horseman, knight, from eh•val, horse, from Lat. •abahus, horse). In the Middle Ages, the body of cus toms and ideals relating to the duties and priv ileges of knighthood. It owed its development at first to feudal usages, with which it had 71Mily and later to the Church, which adopted and altered the customs of chivalry to further its own control of society. Chivalry probably had its origin in the ancient Germanic custom of arming the youth solemnly in the presence of the warriors. Tacitus refers to this usage, and it seems to have prevailed through out the early :Middle Ages. The chronicles re cord that Louis the Pious, at the age of thirteen, received hi arms from Charles the Great. and that Charles the Bald, at the of sixteen. re ceiverhis arms from Louis. The cavalry, after the middle of the Eighth Century, grew to he the most important part of the army, and as feu dalism developed there was a tendency to fix the eustoms for the assumption of the arms and to define the duties of the knight. The last were, to a great extent, the regular duties of a vassal, which included bravery, fidelity, and loyalty. The conception of knightly honor. which grew up slowly, was comparatively late. The Crusades and the intense interest in gious matters in the Twelfth Century tended to make chivalry more Christian. It was held to be the knights- duty to defend Christianity, to protect the Church, and to battle against the infidel. Lanfrane Cigala, a little later, wrote: "I do not hold him to he a knight who does not go with a willing heart and all his might to the aid of the Lord, who has so great need of hint." According to the medieval conception of chiv alry, no one was horn a knight. The candidate for the honor was sent, at the age of (ilualt seven. to act as page or valet in the household of some knight. There he obtained his education, and when old enough might become a squire. The duty of the squire was to attend the knight in battle or in tournament, to care for his horse and weapons. and to act as his aid. to time, the squire might be made a knight. The distinc tion could be conferred in the earlier period by any knight; at a subsequent period, the mon archs claimed the sole right to confer knighthood. The age when the squire became a knight varied; there are cases where the honor was conferred on boys of ten or eleven, but later it was usual to defer it until the age of twenty-one or later. In fact, some squires never became knights, in order to avoid the expense of the ceremony. In France, in the Thirteenth Century, a royal order I 'shed with a fine noble squires who had not become knights by the time that they were twenty-four years old.
The ceremony of admission into knighthood, known as 'dubbing.' usually took place on a festival, although squires were often made knights on the battlefield, in recognition of deeds of bravery. Occasionally before a battle took place the dignity was conferred upon a consider able number. The essential parts of the dub bing in the early Twelfth Century were the eolle:e. or accolade, a blow upon the neck or shoulder, and the running the tilting on horseback against a figure stuffed with straw. Later there was a symbolical and mystical development, which made the process of initiation mainly a religious ceremony. Ac cording to one ritual of the Fifteenth Century, the following were the details of the ceremony: After bathing, as a symbol of 'purity. the candi date 'watched' his arms for a whole night before the altar of some church or the grave of some saint, and in the morning he confessed, often aloud, attended communion and mass, and lis tened to a sermon on the duties of purity, fidel ity, honesty, the protection of the Church, wid ows, orphans, ladies, and all who were op pressed. A priest then blessed his sword and other pieces of armor: a knight made him take oath to fulfill all his duties: then the accolade, which consisted of three strokes with the sword, was given solemnly, and the following sentence uttered: "In the name of the Father. Son, and Holy Ghost, I make you knight." The knight who had given the accolade embraced the new knight, and girded him with his sword; the god fathers put on him the golden spurs, the symbol of knighthood; and the lords and ladies pres ent assisted in.clothing him with the other pieces of armor. Lastly. he mounted on horseback and ran 'la gointaine.' At the end of the Twelfth Century and later, chivalry was profoundly influenced by the popu lar romances of Arthur, Charlemagne. and other famous heroes. 3lanners became less brutal, and a spirit of knight-errantry grew- up. It be came the fashion to be rash, imprudent, and extravagant in conduct. The Orlando of Ari osto and Don Quixote have made the follies of declining chivalry familiar to all. Chivalry was at its best in the Twelfth Century. in the Fourteenth was declining rapidly, and in the Fifteenth was thoroughly decadent. Knight and squire gradually became mere titles of honor whieh might be hereditary. Consult: Gautier, La cheralcrie (Paris, 1884) ; id.. English trans lation by Firth (London, 1E590) ; Sir Walter Scott, Essay on Chivalry (London. 1868) ; and Stebbing, History of Chivalry and the Crusades (London, 1S30). See FEUDALISM; KNIGHT ; ORDERS.