not only receive the praise of this transitory combat, but be crowned with the palm of eternal victory." The Church considered chivalry as the protection of the weak and oppressed, and therefore as worthy of celestial benediction *. Dr. Lingard gives the prayer used on the occasion of making a knight from a manuscript copy of the "Sarum Missal," written after the conquest. "Deus, concede huic famulo tuo, qui sincero corde gladio se primo nititur cingere militari, ut in omnibus galea tuæ virtutis sit protectus: et sicut David et Judith contra gentis suæ hostes fortitudinis potentiam et victoriam tribuisti: ita tuo auxilio munitus contra hostium suorum sævitiam victor ubique existat, et ad sanctæ ecclesiæ tutelam proficiat. Amen." I am aware that in our age this constant reference of rank and chivalrous distinction to the service of religion will appear unintelligible, or contrary to prevailing views; but I am not the less sensible that it is beyond the power of any generation of men to alter the great laws of our nature, and the principles by which it has pleased the Creator to govern the moral world. That nobility should be intimately connected with religion, is not in consequence of human caprice, or of the inconsistency of any age, but of the unchangeable decree of Divine Wisdom. There might, indeed, have arisen an order of men possessing abundant riches and splendid titles, without being either the defenders or the examples of religion; but such persons, however respectable from possessing the ordinary moral virtues, would no more have resembled the ancient Christian nobility, than they would have revived the chivalry of Hercules and Theseus. They must have been satisfied with the material comforts which wealth could command, and with the homage which they would receive in common with all those who had been raised, by whatever means, above the ordinary class of society. The work of not given as absolutely certain, but as extremely probable :" and then he refers his reader to the work which I have consulted, the Bollandists' Acta, S.S. April. Tome iii. p. 100-163: a dissertation which, it would appear, he had not read, unless we prefer accusing him of wishing to deceive his reader. *Le P. Menesthir de la Chevalerie; La Gaule Poétique iv. jacobinism would have been done, as soon as there was introduced into the higher ranks an intellectual, and moral, and spiritual jacobinism, which, as a profound writer * observes, "is more mischievous than that which is political, and without which the latter could do but little ;" if nobility had adopted this spirit, and had been prepared to hold that it is but a human institution, without any consequence beyond the grave, and that Plato was mistaken in supposing that after death the great and the low would be weighed in a different balance †, to ridicule sentiment, to strip off custom, to demolish sublimity, to spoil beauty, to have its feelings blighted, its affections stifled, its heart seared as with a red-hot iron, its imagination killed from childhood, that is to say, if it had abandoned the cause of truth, according to which all rank and power proceeds from God, according to which sentiment is held in honour, custom venerated, sublimity excited, beauty cherished, the knowledge of which alone systematically preserves the feelings, fosters the affections, warms the heart, and purifies and exalts the imagination, then ancient and illustrious names might still have been sounded forth, but it would be only to fill the brave with shame and disgust and sorrow. Slaves and bondsmen might have trembled at beholding a stern aspect, or a gorgeous panoply, but the presence of men whose grandeur centered in themselves, would have excited no mysterious veneration, no enthusiasm in the generous and heroic part of mankind; fortune had placed them in the character of Agamemnon, but they chose to play the part of Thersites : Careless and rude or to be known or know, Religion offered to give them a part in her immortal reign, and they were deluded and base enough to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. No longer im Guesses at Truth. † Georgias, 169. Lusiad V. pressed with reverence for sacred muniments, they will blindly contribute to bring to a speedy and shameful end, even that external nobility which had survived through ages of violence and desolation, which had passed uninterrupted, and with a spotless renown, through all the wars of Palestine, and of the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Return we where eternal fame is due. It was a noble answer, and finely illustrative of this character belonging to chivalry, which King Louis VII. of France returned to the messengers of our Henry II., who had called upon him to give up St. Thomas à Becket; "Tell your king, that he will not give up certain customs, because they appertain to his Royal dignity; neither will I give up the hereditary privilege of my crown, which is to protect the unfortunate and the victims of injustice." In Froissart, we read the description which the Portuguese ambassadors gave of King John of Portugal to the Duke of Lancaster. 66 "He is," said they, a wyse and a dyscrete man, and fereth God, and loveth holy churche, and exalteth it as moche as he may, and is often tymes in his oratory on his knees in herying of devyne servyce; he hath ordeyned, that for what so ever busyness it be, that none speke to hym till he be out of his oratory, and is a grete clerke, and taketh lytell hede of ony grete sermones, and especyally he wyll have justyce kepte in all his royalme, and poore men maynteyned in theyr ryght." John of Salisbury describes the necessity and nature of the religious oath which every Norman knight took on his creation: he swore to "defend the Church, to attack the perfidious, to venerate the priesthood, to repel all injuries from the poor, to keep the country quiet, and to shed his blood, and, if necessary, to lose his life for his brethren." Even the institution of the round table is an example of this religious feeling, for the thirteen places were in memory of the thirteen Apostles, that of Judas remaining vacant. Romance savs that the twelve were successively filled during King Arthur's reign by fifty knights. The rules of the order may be seen in the romance of Merlin. Rodolph of Hapsbourg may be cited as an illustrious example of this religious chivalry. No family had ever a more honourable founder than his; for Rodolph was beloved by the surrounding country for his justice and his piety, his prudence and his courage. Schwz begged him to be its governor, Zurich to be her general; and when raised to the throne of the empire, he was still beloved by the country which gave him birth. When he was to be crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, the imperial sceptre could not be found at the moment when he was to invest the assembled princes; upon which, with admirable presence of mind, and in the true spirit of chivalry, he seized the crucifix, which stood on the altar, and said aloud, "With this sceptre will I for the future govern." His religious spirit descended to his posterity; for if we had to select any class of persons, who have been most conspicuous for the exercise of unostentatious, humble virtue, it would be the princes of the house of Austria. Many of these illustrious persons have been in the daily practice of acts of beneficence which the most eloquent panegyrist of benevolence and humanity would frequently disdain. The Empress Eleonora might be quoted as a striking example, and chiefly to represent the general character of her house in these particulars. The last choice of these princes is worthy of their faith. The coffins of the Cæsars are placed in a vault under the convent of the Capuchins, the bare-footed friars, the poorest of the religious orders, alternately the objects and the dispensers of mercy. We have another instance, in the last advice of Charlemagne to his son, as related by Theganus. "On the Sunday he put on the royal robe, placed his crown on his head, and assumed a superb habit; he proceeded to the church which he had built from its foundation, and coming before the altar, he ordered his golden crown, and also that which he wore on his head, to be placed upon it. After he had spent a long time in prayer, together with his son, he addressed him before all the assembly of pontiffs and nobles, admonishing him, in the first place, to love and fear Almighty God, to keep his precepts in all things, to provide for and defend the churches of God from bad men, then to honour priests as fathers, to love his people as sons, that he should appoint faithful ministers, who feared God, and who held unjust gifts in abhorrence, that he should shew himself at all times without reproach before God and all the people." That this religious character was generally understood as belonging to men of knightly rank, is evinced by a poet, E who wrote soon after the Canterbury Tales made their appearance, and who seems to have designed a supplement, called "The Marchaunt's Second Tale." In the prologue, he continued to characterise the pilgrims, by describing what each did, and how each behaved, on arriving at Canterbury. After dinner was ordered at the inn, they all proceeded to the cathedral. The knight, with the better sort of the company, went devoutly, in great order, to the shrine of St. Thomas. The miller and his companions ran staring about the church, pretending to blazon the arms painted on the glass windows, and entering into a dispute about heraldry. So falsely did the canting puritan argue in Pierce Ploughman's Creed, saying of the knight "The pennons and the poinetts, and pointes of sheldes The author of the Gesta Romanorum was more wise, when he made it the churl who could not say his Pater Noster, without thinking in the middle whether St, Bernard intended to give him his saddle, as well as his horse, by way of reward for his being able to say it without distraction. The reply of Tirante the White to the Emperor, who made him great offers, is a fine instance of this desire to employ all temporal riches and glory to the honour of God. "Great and illustrious Emperor, riches can never fully satisfy the heart; therefore, I desire not the goods of fortune; I only wish to serve your majesty in such a manner, that I may re-establish and augment the Greek empire. The treasures of honour and of glory suffice for me, if I can but amass them. All that I desire is to establish my relations and my friends. As for myself, I want no other riches but my horse and my arms. I pray your majesty to think no more about making me rich, or of giving me what may be necessary to your state. I serve God for the augmentation of the Catholic faith. Down to this hour His grace has not abandoned me." Yet in Amadis de Gaul, when Briolania saw four such knights in her palace as Amadis, Galaor, Florestan, and Agrayes, observing, how powerful she now was become, and how lately she had lived in fear in an unprotected castle, she knelt down, and thanked the Most High for the mercy He had vouchsafed her, saying, with great sense and piety, |