Chapter XXII: Feudalism and Knighthood (2)

“Monseigneur Hugues de Trichatel, the lord of Conflans, who carried my
banner. I and my knights spurred to deliver Monseigneur Raoul de
Wanou, who was thrown to the ground. As I was making my way back, the
Turks struck at me with their lances; my horse fell on his knees under
the blows, and I went over his head. I recovered myself as I might,
shield on neck and sword in hand; and Monseigneur Erard de Siverey
(whom God absolve!), who was of my people, came to my aid, and said
that we had better retreat to a ruined house, and there wait for the
king who was approaching.”

One notes the high-born courtesy with which the Sire de Joinville speaks of the gentlemen who had the honour of serving him. The fight goes on.

“Monseigneur Erard de Siverey was struck by a sword-blow in his face,
so that his nose hung down over his lips. And then I was minded of
Monseigneur Saint Jacques, whom I thus invoked: ‘Beau Sire Saint
Jacques help and succour me in this need.’

“When I had made my prayer, Monseigneur Erard de Siverey said to me:
‘Sire, if you think that neither I nor my heirs would suffer reproof,
I would go for aid to the Count of Anjou, whom I see over there in the
fields.’ And I said to him: ‘Messire Erard, I think you would do
yourself great honour, if you now went for aid to save our lives; for
your own is in jeopardy.’ And indeed I spoke truly, for he died of
that wound. He asked the advice of all our knights who were there, and
all approved as I had approved. And when he heard that, he requested
me to let him have his horse, which I was holding by the bridle with
the rest. And so I did.”

The knightliness of this scene is perfect, with its liege fealty and its carefulness as to the point of honour, its carefulness also that the vassal knight shall fail in no duty to his lord whereby the descent of his fief may be jeopardized. Monseigneur Erard (whom God absolve, we say with Joinville!) is very careful to have his lord’s assent and the approval of his fellows, before he will leave his lord in peril, and undergo still greater risk to bring him succour.

Well, the Count of Anjou brought such aid as created a diversion, and the Saracens turned to the new foe. But now the king arrives on the scene:

“There where I was on foot with my knights, wounded as already said,
comes the king with his whole array, and a great sound of trumpets and
drums. And he halted on the road on the dyke. Never saw I one so
bravely armed: for he showed above all his people from his shoulders
up, a gilded casque upon his head and a German sword in his hand.”

Then the king’s good knights charge into the battle, and fine feats of arms are done. The fighting is fierce and general. At length the king is counselled to bear back along the river, keeping close to it on his right hand, so as to reunite with the Duke of Burgundy who had been left to guard the camp. The knights are recalled from the melée, and with a great noise of trumpets and drums, and Saracen horns, the army is set in motion.

“And now up comes the constable, Messire Imbert de Beaujeu, and tells
the king that the Count of Artois, his brother, was defending himself
in a house in Mansourah, and needed aid. And the king said to him:
‘Constable go before and I will follow you.’ And I said to the
constable that I would be his knight, at which he thanked me greatly.”

Again one feels the feudal chivalry. Now the affair becomes rather distraught. They set out to succour the Count of Artois, but are checked, and it is rumoured that the king is taken; and in fact six Saracens had rushed upon him and seized his horse by the bridle; but he had freed himself with such great strokes that all his people took courage. Yet the host is driven back upon the river, and is in desperate straits. Joinville and his knights defend a bridge over a tributary, which helps to check the Saracen advance, and affords an uncertain means of safety to the French. But there is no cessation of the Saracen attack with bows and spears. The knights seemed full of arrows. Joinville saved his life with an arrow-proof Saracen vest, “so that I was wounded by their arrows only in five places”! One of Joinville’s own stout burgesses, bearing his lord’s banner on a lance, helped in the charges upon the enemy. In the melée up speaks the good Count of Soissons, whose cousin Joinville had married. “He joked with me and said: ‘Seneschal, let us whoop after this canaille; for by God’s coif (his favourite oath) we shall be talking, you and I, about this day in the chambers of the ladies.’”

At last, the arbalests were brought out from the camp, and the Saracens drew off--fled, says the Sire de Joinville. And the king was there, and

“I took off his casque, and gave him my iron cap, so that he might get
some air. And then comes brother Henry de Ronnay, Prevost of the
Hospital, to the king when he had passed the river, and kisses his
mailed hand. And the king asked him whether he had news of the Count
of Artois, his brother; and he said that he had indeed news of him,
for he was sure that his brother the Count of Artois was in Paradise.
‘Ha! sire,’ said the Prevost, ‘be of good cheer; for no such honour
ever came to a king of France as is come to you. For to fight your
enemies you have crossed a river by swimming, have discomfited your
enemies and driven them from the field, and taken their engines and
tents, where you will sleep this night.’ And the king replied that God
be adored for all that He gave; and then the great tears fell from his
eyes.”

One need not follow on to the ill ending of the campaign, when king and knights all had to yield themselves prisoners, in most uncertain captivity. The Saracen Emirs conspired and slew their Sultan; the prisoners’ lives hung on a thread; and when the terms were arranging for the delivery and ransom of the king, his own scruples nearly proved fatal. For the Emirs, after they had made their oath, wished the king to swear, and put his seal to a parchment,

“that if he the king did not hold to his agreements, might he be as
shamed as the Christian who denied God and His Mother, and was cut off
from the company of the twelve Companions (apostles) and of all the
saints, male and female. To this the king consented. The last point of
the oath was this: That if the king did not keep his agreements, might
he be as shamed as the Christian who denied God and His law, and in
contempt of God spat on the Cross and trod on it. When the king heard
that, he said, please God, he would not make that oath.”

Then the trouble began, and the Emirs tortured the venerable patriarch of Jerusalem till he besought the king to swear. How the oath was arranged I do not know, says Joinville, but finally the Emirs professed themselves satisfied. And after that, when the ransom was paid, the Saracens by a mistake accepted a sum ten thousand livres short, and Louis, in spite of the protest of his counsellors, refused to permit advantage to be taken and insisted on full payment.

Many years afterwards, when Louis was dead and canonized, a dream came to his faithful Joinville who was then an old man.

“It seemed to me in my dream that I saw the king in front of my chapel
at Joinville; and he was, so he seemed to me, wonderfully happy and
glad at heart; and I also was glad at heart, because I saw him in my
chateau. And I said to him: ‘Sire, when you go hence, I will prepare
lodging for you at my house in my village of Chevillon.’ And he
replied, smiling, and said to me: ‘Sire de Joinville, by the troth I
owe you, I do not wish so soon to go from here.’ When I awoke I
bethought me; and it seemed to me that it would please God and the
king that I should provide a lodging for him in my chapel. So I have
placed an altar in honour of God and of him there, where there shall
be always chanting in his honour. And I have established a fund in
perpetuity to do this.”

Godfrey of Bouillon and St. Louis of France show knighthood as inspired by serious and religious motives. We pass on a hundred years after St. Louis, to a famous Chronicle concerning men whose knightly lives exhibit no such religious, and possibly no such serious, purpose, so far at least as they are set forth by this delightful chronicler. His name of course is Sir John Froissart, and his chief work goes under the name of _The Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the adjoining Countries_. It covers the period from the reign of Edward II. to the coronation of Henry IV. of England. Have we not all known his book as one to delight youth and age?

Let us, however, open it seriously, and first of all notice the Preface, with its initial sentence giving the note of the entire work: “That the _grans merveilles_ and the _biau fait d’armes_ achieved in the great wars between England and France, and the neighbouring realms may be worthily recorded, and known in the present and in the time to come, I purpose to order and put the same in prose, according to the true information which I have obtained from valiant knights, squires, and marshals at arms, who are and rightly should be the investigators and reporters of such matters.”[687]

“Marvels” and “deeds of arms”--soon he will use the equivalent phrase _belles aventures_. With delicious garrulity, but never wavering from his point of view, the good Sir John repeats and enlarges as he enters on his work in which “to encourage all valorous hearts, and to show them honourable examples” he proposes to “point out and speak of each adventure from the nativity of the noble King Edward (III.) of England, who so potently reigned, and who was engaged in so many battles and perilous adventures and other feats of arms and great prowess, from the year of grace 1326, when he was crowned in England.”

Of course Froissart says that the occasion of these wars was King Edward’s enterprise to recover his inheritance of France, which the twelve peers and barons of that realm had awarded to Lord Philip of Valois, from whom it had passed on to his son, King Charles. This enterprise was the woof whereon should hang an hundred years of knightly and romantic feats of arms, which incidentally wrought desolation to the fair realm of France. Yet the full opening of these matters was not yet; and Froissart begins with the story of the troubles brought on Queen Isabella and the nobles of England through the overbearing insolence of Sir Hugh Spencer, the favourite of her husband Edward II.

The Queen left England secretly, to seek aid at Paris from her brother King Charles, that she might regain her rights against the upstart and her own weak estranged husband. King Charles received her graciously, as a great lord should receive a great dame; and richly provided for her and her young son Edward. Then he took counsel of the “great lords and barons of his kingdom”; and their advice was that he should permit her to enlist assistance in his realm, and yet himself appear ignorant of the matter. Of this, Sir Hugh hears, and his gold is busy with these counsellors; so that the Court becomes a cold place for the self-exiled queen. On she fares in her distress, and, as advised, seeks the aid of the great Earl of Hainault, then at Valenciennes. But before the queen can reach that city, the earl’s young brother, Sir John, Lord of Beaumont, rides to meet her, ardent to succour a great lady in distress, “being at that time very young, and panting for glory like a knight-errant.” In the evening he reached the house of Sir Eustace d’Ambreticourt, where the queen was lodged. She made her lamentable complaint, at which Sir John was affected even to tears, and said, “Lady, see here your knight, who will not fail to die for you, though every one else should desert you; therefore will I do everything in my power to conduct you and your son, and to restore you to your rank in England, by the grace of God, and the assistance of your friends in those parts; and I, and all those whom I can influence, will risk our lives on the adventure for your sake.”

Is not this a chivalric beginning? And so the Chronicle goes on. King Edward III. is crowned, marries the Lady Philippa, daughter of the Earl of Hainault, and afterwards sends his defiance to Philip, King of France, for not yielding up to him his rightful inheritance, and this after the same King Edward had, as Duke of Aquitaine, done homage to King Philip for that great duchy.

So the challenge of King Edward, and of sundry other lords, was delivered to the King of France; and thereupon the first bold raid is made by the knightliest figure of the first generation of the war, Sir Walter Manny, a young Hainaulter who had remained in the train of Queen Philippa. The war is carried on by incursions and deeds of derring-do, the larger armies of the kings of England and France circumspectly refraining from battle, which might have checked the martial jollity of the affair. It is all beautifully pointless and adventurous, and carried out in the spirit of a knighthood that loves fighting and seeks honour and adventure, while steadying itself with a hope of plunder and reward. There are likewise ladies to be succoured and defended.

One of these was the lion-hearted Countess of Montfort, who with her husband had become possessed of the disputed dukedom of Brittany. The Earl of Montfort did homage to the King of England; the rival claimant, Charles of Blois, sought the aid of France. He came with an army, and Montfort was taken and died in prison; the duchess was left to carry on the war. She was at last shut up and besieged in Hennebon on the coast; the burghers were falling away, the knights discouraged; emissaries from Lord Charles were working among them. His ally, Lord Lewis of Spain, and Sir Hervé de Leon were the leaders of the besiegers. Sir Hervé had an uncle, a bishop, Sir Guy de Leon, who was on the side of the Countess of Montfort. The nephew won the uncle over in a conference without the walls; and the latter assumed the task of persuading the Lords of Brittany who were with the countess to abandon the apparently hopeless struggle. Re-entering the town, the bishop was eloquent against the countess’s cause, and promised free pardon to the lords if they would give up the town. Now listen to Froissart, how he tells the story:

“The countess had strong suspicions of what was going forward, and
begged of the lords of Brittany, for the love of God, that they would
not doubt but she should receive succours before three days were over.
But the bishop spoke so eloquently, and made use of such good
arguments, that these lords were in much suspense all that night. On
the morrow he continued the subject, and succeeded so far as to gain
them over, or very nearly so, to his opinion; insomuch that Sir Hervé
de Leon had advanced close to the town to take possession of it, with
their free consent, when the countess looking out from a window of the
castle toward the sea, cried out most joyfully, ‘I see the succours I
have so long expected and wished for coming.’ She repeated this twice;
and the town’s people ran to the ramparts and to the windows of the
castle, and saw a numerous fleet of great and small vessels, well
trimmed, making all the sail they could toward Hennebon. They rightly
imagined it must be the fleet from England, so long detained at sea by
tempests and contrary winds.

“When the governor of Guingamp, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, Sir Galeran de
Landreman, and the other knights, perceived this succour coming to
them, they told the bishop that he might break up his conference, for
they were not now inclined to follow his advice. The bishop, Sir Guy
de Leon, replied, ‘My lords, then our company shall separate; for I
will go to him who seems to me to have the clearest right.’ Upon which
he sent his defiance to the lady, and to all her party, and left the
town to inform Sir Hervé de Leon how matters stood. Sir Hervé was much
vexed at it, and immediately ordered the largest machine that was with
the army to be placed as near the castle as possible, strictly
commanding that it should never cease working day nor night. He then
presented his uncle to the Lord Lewis of Spain, and to the Lord
Charles of Blois, who both received him most courteously. The
countess, in the meantime, prepared and hung with tapestry halls and
chambers to lodge handsomely the lords and barons of England, whom she
saw coming, and sent out a noble company to meet them. When they were
landed, she went herself to give them welcome, respectfully thanking
each knight and squire, and led them into the town and castle that
they might have convenient lodging: on the morrow, she gave them a
magnificent entertainment. All that night, and the following day, the
large machine never ceased from casting stones into the town.

“After the entertainment, Sir Walter Manny, who was captain of the
English, inquired of the countess the state of the town and the
enemy’s army. Upon looking out of the window, he said, he had a great
inclination to destroy that large machine which was placed so near,
and much annoyed them, if any would help him. Sir Yves de Tresiquidi
replied, that he would not fail him in this his first expedition; as
did also the lord of Landreman. They went to arm themselves, and then
sallied quietly out of one of the gates, taking with them three
hundred archers, who shot so well, that those who guarded the machine
fled, and the men at arms, who followed the archers, falling upon
them, slew the greater part, and broke down and cut in pieces this
large machine. They then dashed in among the tents and huts, set fire
to them, and killed and wounded many of their enemies before the army
was in motion. After this they made a handsome retreat. When the enemy
were mounted and armed they galloped after them like madmen.

“Sir Walter Manny, seeing this, exclaimed, ‘May I never be embraced by
my mistress and dear friend, if I enter castle or fortress before I
have unhorsed one of these gallopers.’ He then turned round, and
pointed his spear toward the enemy, as did the two brothers of
Lande-Halle, le Haze de Brabant, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, Sir Galeran
de Landreman, and many others, and spitted the first coursers. Many
legs were made to kick the air. Some of their own party were also
unhorsed. The conflict became very serious, for reinforcements were
perpetually coming from the camp; and the English were obliged to
retreat towards the castle, which they did in good order until they
came to the castle ditch; there the knights made a stand, until all
their men were safely returned. Many brilliant actions, captures, and
rescues might have been seen. Those of the town who had not been of
the party to destroy the large machine now issued forth, and, ranging
themselves upon the banks of the ditch, made such good use of their
bows, that they forced the enemy to withdraw, killing many men and
horses. The chiefs of the army, perceiving they had the worst of it,
and that they were losing men to no purpose, sounded a retreat, and
made their men retire to the camp. As soon as they were gone, the
townsmen re-entered, and went each to his quarters. The Countess of
Montfort came down from the castle to meet them, and with a most
cheerful countenance, kissed Sir Walter Manny, and all his companions,
one after the other like a noble and valiant dame.”

In this manner the genial chronicler goes on through his long delightful ramble. After a while the chief combatants close. Cressy is fought and Poictiers. The Black Prince, that extremest bit of knightly royalty, fills the page. The place of Sir Walter Manny is taken by the larger figure of Sir John Chandos, and, on the other side, the usually unfortunate but unconquerable Bertrand du Guesclin. Froissart is at his best when he tells of the great expedition of the Black Prince to restore the cruel Don Pedro of Castille to the throne from which he had been expelled by that picturesque bastard brother Henry, who had a poorer title but a better right, by virtue of being fit to rule.

This whole expedition was--as we see it in Froissart--neither politics nor war, but chivalry. What interest had England, or Edward III., or the Prince of Wales in Don Pedro? None. He was a cruel tyrant, rightfully expelled. The Prince of Wales would set him back upon his throne in the interest of royal legitimacy, and because there offered a brilliant opportunity for fame and plunder: the Black Prince thought less of the latter than the Free Companies enlisted under his banner, and less than his own rapacious knights.

So in three divisions, headed by the most famous knights and in a way generalled by Sir John Chandos, the host passes through the kingdom of Navarre, and crosses the Pyrenees. Then begin a series of exploits. Sir Thomas Felton and a company set out just to dare and beard the Castillian army, and after entrancing feats of knight-errantry, are all captured or slain. Much is the prince annoyed at this; but bears on, gladdened with the thought, often expressed, that the bastard Henry is a bold and hardy knight, and is advancing to give battle.

And true it was. One of Henry’s counsellors explains to him how easy it is to hem in the Black Prince in the defiles, and starve him into a disastrous retreat. Perish the thought! “By the soul of my father,” answers King Henry, “I have such a desire to see this prince, and to try my strength with him, that we will never part without a battle.”

So the unnecessary and resultless battle of Navaretta took place. Don Pedro, the cruel rightful king, was knighted, with others, by the Prince of Wales before the fight. The tried unflinching chivalry of England and Aquitaine conquered, although one division of King Henry’s host had du Guesclin at its head. That knight was captured; somehow his star had a way of sinking before the steadier fortune of Sir John Chandos, who was here du Guesclin’s captor for a second time. King Henry, after valiant fighting, escaped. Don Pedro was re-set upon his throne; and played false with the Black Prince and his army, in the matter of pay. The whole expedition turned back across the Pyrenees. And not so long after, Henry bestirred himself, and the tardily freed du Guesclin hurried again to aid him. This time there was no Black Prince and Sir John Chandos; and Don Pedro was conquered and slain, and Henry was at last firm upon his throne.

Could anything have been more chivalric, more objectless, and more absolutely lacking in result? It is a beautiful story; every one should refresh his childhood’s memory of it by reading Froissart’s delightful pages. And then let him also read at least the subsequent story of the death of Sir John Chandos in a knightly brush at arms; he, the really wise and great leader, perishes through his personal rash knighthood! It is a fine tale of the ending of an old and mighty knight, the very flower of chivalry, as he was called.

So matters fare on through these Chronicles. All is charming and interesting and picturesque; charming also for the knights: great fame is won and fat ransoms paid to recoup knightly fortunes. Now and then--all too frequently, alas! and the only pity of it all!--some brave knight has the mishap to lose his life! That is to say, the only pity of it from the point of view of good Sir John. But we can see further horrors in this picture of chivalry’s actualities: we see King Edward pillage, devastate, destroy France;[688] we see the awful outcome of the general ruin in the rising of the vile, unhappy peasants, the Jacquerie; then in the indiscriminate slaughter and pillaging by the Free Companies, no longer well employed by royalties; and then we see the cruel treachery of many an incident wrought out by such a flower of chivalry even as du Guesclin.[689] Indeed all the horrors of ceaseless interminable war are everywhere, and no more dreadful horror through the whole story than the bloody sack of Limoges commanded by that perfect knight, the Black Prince, himself stricken with disease, and carried in a litter through the breach of the walls into the town, and there reposing, assuaging his cruel soul, while his men run hither and thither “slaying men, women and children according to their orders.”[690]

But when King Edward was old, and the Prince of Wales dying with disease, the French and their partisans gathered heart, and pressed back the English party with successful captures and reprisals. Du Guesclin was made Constable of France; and there remained no English leader who was his match. From this second period onwards, the wars and slaughters and pillagings become more embittered, more horrid and less relieved. The tone of everything is brutalized, and the good chronicler himself frequently animadverts on the wanton destruction wrought, and the frightful ruin. All is not as in the opening of the story, which was so fascinating, so knightly and almost as purely adventurous as the Arthurian romances--only that there was less love of ladies and a disturbing dearth of forests perilous, and enchanted castles. It was then that the reader had ever and anon to remind himself that Froissart is not romance or legend, but a contemporary chronicle; and that in spite of heightened colours and expanded (if not invented) dialogues, his narrative does not belong to the imaginative or fictitious side of chivalry, but to its actualities.[691]

Froissart’s pictures of the depravity and devastation caused by the wars of England and France, disclose the unhappy actuality in which chivalry might move and have its being. And the knights were part of the cruelty, treachery, and lust. One may remark besides in Froissart a certain shallowness, a certain emptying, of the spirit of chivalry. One phase of this lay in the expansion of form and ceremony, while life was departing;--as, for example, in the hypertrophe of heraldry, and in the pageantry of the later tournaments, where such care was taken to prevent injury to the combatants. A subtler phase of chivalry’s emptying lay in its preciosity and in the excessive growth of fantasy and utter romance--of which enough will be said in the next chapter.