CAVALLERIA

The origin of this characteristic institution, which played so large a part in medieval life, is not clear. It was fully established by the end of the 11th century, and in the 12th century it was in full bloom; but its earliest origins go back to the early Middle Ages, and it persisted, albeit with different characteristics, into the Renaissance and beyond. In its constant development, and particularly during its golden age, it is only natural that chivalry should present different features from country to country, especially in France, Germany, and Italy.

Above all, as a result of the barbarian invasions, there was a great and slow military transformation, by which the decisive weapon of the army was no longer the infantry but cavalry. With the establishment of the Carolingian Empire, the army came to be composed entirely of knights, who were free landowners who served at their own expense: the warrior was still the free man. Moreover, to maintain a good horse and its equipment, and sometimes one or more servants and one or more spare horses, a certain degree of wealth was required, which, in a period when the economy had reverted to a state of nature, could be provided only or chiefly by landed property. But with the rise of feudalism, property itself tended to become feudal, and the army came to be made up of feudal knights; by the end of the 10th century, the term *miles* was equivalent to a warrior on horseback bound by an oath to his lord.

In France, however, where the Frankish fief was divisible only in its entirety to the eldest son, there arose an ever-growing class of younger sons, not bound to any lord because they were not landowners, thus excluded from the ranks of true feudal life, to whom only enough was granted to equip themselves and a horse.

Throughout the 10th century, these knights appear in the sources and in the chansons de geste as particularly turbulent and adventurous elements: through them, feudal anarchy seemed to reach its peak. But already at the beginning of the 11th century, the Church began its provident action to curb them, tame them, and channel their exuberant and disorderly energies toward pious and generous deeds; and the State, which was regaining strength and authority, also supported the Church’s work. Moreover, these knights, poor and restless, shared common needs and aspirations; and from this arose the possibility of creating a common spiritual bond and a common organization based on an association of equals: equals first in courage, in their common scorn of danger, and then, through the Church’s influence, in a series of increasingly elevated moral obligations, such as the protection of churches, widows, orphans, and those who found no defense or protection in the existing order. Thus, as Pivano keenly argued, chivalry could assert itself as an institution with its own characteristics, born in the feudal world but not itself feudal in nature; for chivalry was open to all nobles, and every knight could make another knight. It filled the period from the beginning of the Crusades to the end of the 12th century with its own deeds and literature, both in verse and prose, and spread its ideals and customs throughout Romano-Germanic Europe, making them prevail in the feudal world and truly creating a single chivalry.

In Germany, the main body of this chivalry, according to Delbrück, seems at a certain point to have consisted especially of the *ministeriales*, that is, the new class of warriors created by the State alongside the free feudal lords, drawn from both free and unfree men, and ennobled by the grant of sufficient land to maintain themselves and their horses, with their equipment: *milites* par excellence, placed directly under the king or dukes and counts, or scattered in small courts in the feudal manner. And in all Italy, where the Lombard fief predominated, with its patrimonial character and thus divisible among all sons, chivalry identified with the multitude of small feudal lords, who played a large part in the formation of our communes.

Younger sons of the nobility, ministeriales, and milites ended by feeling themselves united in a single great ideal; and the religious motive accompanied the new knights in the Crusades, in the struggle for German expansion toward the Baltic, in the reconquest of Spain, and in the very struggle that the Italian communes waged to defend their autonomy against the German emperors. Chivalry was open to all, and in Italy especially the nouveaux riches were easily elevated to knighthood: yet this did not prevent the communal chivalry from holding its own against the German variety. But all these struggles enabled the knights not only to win glory but also lands, fiefs, and noble titles, thus consolidating their position economically and politically. From the beginning of the 13th century onward, chivalry tended not only to merge ever more closely with the true feudal nobility (the more so since in France the Frankish fief became less rigid and even younger sons obtained a share, however small, of the fief, with corresponding feudal dependence), but also to close itself into a caste, reducing or altogether suppressing the acceptance of non-nobles into its ranks; and it tended to become an aristocracy within the nobility.

But precisely at this point its flowering began to wane: with the death of Louis IX in France and the end of the Swabians in Germany. It seemed to grow more rigid and austere, rejecting unsuitable bourgeois elements; but in doing so it no longer admitted many non-noble men who were morally worthy and physically capable, and that noble competition among equals through which the most worthy could truly rise was lost. The monarchical power tended increasingly to bridle it and make it an instrument at its direct service; and the sovereigns created knightly orders, emphasizing in them above all the duties of loyalty and faithful subjection, alongside the warrior and Christian virtues. In Italy more than anywhere else, where chivalry had taken shallower and less deep roots, it wasted away in an increasingly empty formalism, the more pompous it became, and on the contrary continued to admit unsuitable elements, although vigorous companies of mercenaries still sprang from the feudal and chivalric stock—those companies that toward the end of the 14th century would free Italy from the scourge of the transalpine companies.

Yet everywhere the great ideals for which, and partly at whose expense, chivalry had first fought and triumphed had now vanished.

— See Plate LXIX.

Kriegskunst, III, Berlin 1923; A. Abram, Chivalry, in The Cambridge Medieval History, VI, Cambridge 1929, pp. 799 ff.
Piero Pieri

II. Chivalric Education

The situation, in fact, of chivalry in relation to the State and the Church required a special education, and the knight had first of all to learn to conquer himself, to overcome his inclinations and caprices in order to render himself capable of defending, and then making triumph, truth and right. The principal virtues, therefore, were temperance and self-mastery; to which were added: love of God, delicate and respectful love for the lady, unyielding love of arms and of risk, a lofty sense of honour and duty, fidelity to one’s word, veracity, pleasantness—though sustained and detached—in conversation and manners, gentleness and mercy. Externally: decorum, dignity, nobility; in a word: courtesy.

Up to the age of seven, the future knight remained under the care of his mother and gentlewomen, who instilled in him the first principles of Christian education; games occupied most of his time. At seven, the boy became a page, and generally passed to the court of a prince or castellan, whose honour and pride it was to display a numerous group of pages, and where his principal occupation was to learn to serve his lady or castellan, and also his lord, accompanying him on hunts or journeys. Religious instruction was not neglected, but entrusted to the chaplain. The rest of the time was spent in practising the seven "probitates" of the knight: swimming, horsemanship, archery, duelling or fencing, hunting, chess, and the art of versifying. During the long winter evenings, the page might listen to the chaplain narrating the deeds of the Old and New Testaments and the legends of the saints; or sometimes hear the minstrel, who had arrived at the castle, entertaining with his viol and accompanying the tales of the exploits of ancient knights.

At fourteen, the page or "domicellus" (i.e. young squire) became a squire, receiving from the priest, at the foot of the altar, the sword and scarf, which he girded on after they had been blessed; while the assistants, promising in his name love and loyalty, fastened silver spurs to his heels. From that moment, arms became his principal occupation; and his office consisted in accompanying his lord to war, bearing his arms, or on the hunt, taking an active part in II.
At about twenty-one, the squire was dubbed a knight. Yet beforehand he had already set out to perform some deed, an arm-ring or leg-ring as a token of his vow. The ceremonial was imposing and rich in symbolism. On the evening before, the candidate took a bath, then received and donned a black tunic (symbol of death), a white shirt (symbol of purity), and a red mantle (symbol of the blood he must be ready to shed for the faith); then, fasting, he passed to the chapel and kept vigil with his arms. In the morning, after Confession, Mass, Communion, and the blessing of the sword, he listened on his knees to the reading of the duties incumbent upon him. Then his godfathers helped him into a tunic and over it the hauberk, fastened his greaves of iron and his sword. Then came the solemn oath to remain valiant and faithful. Lastly, his lord struck him three times on the shoulder with the flat of the sword, saying: "In the name of God, of St Michael and of Our Lady, I dub thee knight."

In practice, as in all human things, not all knights proved faithful to their ideal; nor did the institution always live up to the nobility and loftiness of its purpose; this is partly attested by the ironies of the novellistic and heroicomic epic; yet it remains always true that chivalry represented an effective contribution to the rebirth of justice and gentleness in times of easy and common oppression and violence.