of tournaments, both by the Church and by the more peaceful sovereigns, had also its necessary effect in impoverishing the knightsbachelors, to whom, as we have seen, these exhibitions afforded one principal means of subsistence. This is touched upon in one of the French fabliaux, as partly the cause of the poverty of a chevalier, whose distresses are thus enumerated :

"Listen, gentles, while I tell

How this knight in fortune fell:
Lands nor vineyards had he none,
Justs and war his living won ;
Well on horseback could he prance,
Boldly could he break a lance,
Well he knew each warlike use;
But there came a time of truce,
Peaceful was the land around,
Nowhere heard a trumpet sound;
Rust the shield and falchion hid,
Just and tourney were forbid ;
All his means of living gone,
Ermine mantle had he none,
And in pawn had long been laid
Cap and mantle of brocade,
Harness rich and charger stout,
All were eat and drunken out."*

As the circumstances which we have mentioned, tended to bring the order of knight-bachelor in many instances into contempt, the great and powerful attempted to intrench themselves within a circle which should be inaccessible to the needy adventurers whom we have described. Hence the institution of knights-banneret was generally received.

The distinction between the knight-banneret and the knight-bachelor was merely in military rank and precedence, and the former may rather be accounted an institution of policy than of chivalry. The bachelor displayed, or was entitled to display, a pennon or forked ensign. The knight-banneret had the right of raising a proper banner, from which his appellation was derived. He held a middle rank, beneath the barons or great feudatories of the crown, and above the knights-bachelors. The banner from which he took his title was a flag squared at the end, which, however, in strictness was oblong, and not an exact square on all the sides, which was the proper emblem of a baron. Du Tillet reports, that the Count de Leval challenged Sir Roul de Couequens' right to raise a square banner, being a banneret, and not a baron, and adds, that he was generally ridiculed for this presumption, and called the knight with the square ensign. The circumstance of the encroachment plainly shows, that the distinction was not absolutely settled, nor have we found the ensign of the bannerets anywhere described except as being generally a square standard. Indeed it was

See the original in the republication of Barbazan's Fabliaux. vol. iii., p. 410.

only the pennon of the knight a little altered; for he who aspired to be a banneret received no higher gradation in chivalry, as attached to his person, and was inducted into his new privileges, merely by the commander-in-chief, upon the eve of battle, cutting off the swallow-tail or forked termination of the pennon.

In the appendix of Joinville's Memoirs, there is an essay on the subject of the bannerets, in which the following account of them is quoted from the ancient book of Ceremonies :

"COMME UN BACHELIER PEUT LEVER BANNIERE, ET DEVENIR BANNERET.

"Quant un bachelier a grandement servi et suivy la guerre, et que il a assez terre, et que 'il puisse avoir gentilshommes ses hommes, et pour accompagner sa banniere, il peut licitement lever banniere, et non autrement. Car nul homme ne doit porter, ne lever banniere en battaille, s'il n'a du moins cinquainte hommes d'armes, tous ses hommes et les archiers, et arbalestriers qui y appartiennent. Et s'il les a 'il doit à la première battaille, ou il se trouvera, apporter un pennon, de ses armes, et doit venir au connestable, ou aux marischaux, ou à celui qui sera lieutenant de l'ost pour le prince, requirer qu'il porte banniere; et s'il lui octroient, doit sommer les heraux pour tesmoignage, et doivent couper la queue du pennon, et alors de loit porter et lever avant les autres bannieres, au dessoubs des autres barons."

There is this same ceremonial, in a chapter, respecting the banneret, in these terms:

"COMME SE DOIT MAINTENIR UN BANNERET EN BATTAILLE. "Le banneret doit avoir cinquante lances, et les gens de trait qui y appartiennent: c'est à savoir les xxv. pour lui, et sa banniere garder. Et doit estre sa banniere dessoubs des barons. Et s'il y a autres banniere ils doivent mettre leurs bannieres à l'onneur, chacun selon son endroit, et pareillement tout homme qui porte banniere."

Froissart, always our best and most amusing authority, gives an account of the manner in which the celebrated Sir John Chandos was made banneret by the Black Prince, before the battle of Navarete. The whole scene forms a striking picture of an army of the middle ages moving to battle. Upon the pennons of the knights, penoncels of the squires, and banners of the barons and bannerets, the army formed, or, in modern phrase, dressed its line. The usual word of the attack was, “Advance banners, in the name of God and Saint

George."

"When the sun was risen, it was a beautiful sight to view these battalions, with their brilliant armour glittering with its beams. In this manner, they nearly approached to each other. The Prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and saw very clearly the enemy marching straight towards them. Upon descending this hill, he extended his line of battle in the plain, and then halted.

14--2

"The Spaniards, seeing the English halted, did the same, in order of battle; then each man tightened his armour, and made ready for instant combat.

"Sir John Chandos advanced in front of the battalions with his banner uncased in his hand. He presented it to the Prince, saying, 'My lord, here is my banner; I present it to you, that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you; for, thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands that will enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought to hold.

"The Prince, Don Pedro being present, took the banner in his hands, which was blazoned with a sharp stake gules, on a field argent; after having cut off the tail to make it square, he displayed it, and, returning it to him by the handle, said, 'Sir John, I return you your banner, God give you strength and honour to preserve it.'

"Upon this, Sir John left the Prince, went back to his men, with the banner in his hand, 'Gentlemen, behold my banner and yours; you will, therefore, guard it as it becomes you.' His companions, taking the banner, replied with much cheerfulness, that 'if it pleased God and St. George, they would defend it well, and act worthily of it, to the utmost of their abilities.'

"The banner was put into the hands of a worthy English squire, called William Allestry, who bore it with honour that day, and loyally acquitted himself in the service. The English and Gascons soon after dismounted on the heath, and assembled very orderly together, each lord under his banner or pennon, in the same battle-array as when they passed the mountains. It was delightful to see and examine these banners and pennons, with the noble army that was under them."

It should not be forgotten, that Sir John Chandos exerted himself so much to maintain his new honour, that, advancing too far among the Spaniards, he was unhorsed, and, having grappled with a warrior of great strength, called Martin Ferrand, he fell undermost, and must have been slain had he not bethought him of his dagger, with which he stabbed his gigantic antagonist. (Johnes's Froissart, vol. i. p. 731.) A banneret was expected to bring into the field at least thirty menat-arms, that is, knights or squires mounted, and in complete order, at his own expense. Each man-at-arms, besides his attendants on foot, ought to have a mounted crossbowman, and a horseman armed with a bow and axe. Therefore, the number of horsemen alone, who assembled under a banner, was at least three hundred, and, including followers on foot, might amount to a thousand men. The banneret night, indeed, have arrayed the same force under a pennon, but his accepting a banner bound him to bring out that number at least. There is no room, however, to believe, that these regulations were very strictly observed.

In the reign of Charles VII., the nobles of France made a remon

strance to the king, setting forth, that their estates were so much wasted by the long and fatal wars with England, that they could no longer support the number of men attached to the dignity of banneret. The companies of men-at-arms, which had hitherto been led by knights of that rank, and the distinction between knights-bannerets and knightsbachelors, was altogether disused from that period.* In England the title survived, but in a different sense. Those who received knighthood in a field of battle, where the royal standard was displayed, were called knights-bannerets. Thus, King Edward VII. notices in his Journal, that, after the battle of Pinkie, "Mr. Brian Sadler and Vane were made bannerets."

The distinction of banneret was not the only subdivision of knighthood. The special privileged fraternities, orders, or associations of knights, using a particular device, or embodied for a particular purpose, require also to be noticed. These might, in part, be founded upon the union which knights were wont to enter into with each other as "companions in arms," than which nothing was esteemed more sacred. The partners were united for weal and woe, and no crime was accounted more infamous than to desert or betray a companion-atarms. They had the same friends and the same foes; and as it was the genius of chivalry to carry every virtuous and noble sentiment to the most fantastic extremity, the most extravagant proofs of fidelity to this engagement were often exacted or bestowed. The beautiful romance of Ames and Amélin, in which a knight slays his own child to make a salve with its blood to cure the leprosy of his brother-in-amas, turns entirely on this extravagant pitch of sentiment.

To this fraternity only two persons could, with propriety, bind themselves. But the various orders, which had in view particular objects of war, or were associated under the authority of particular sovereigns, were also understood to form a bond of alliance and brotherhood amongst themselves.

The great orders of the Templars and Knights-Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, as well as that of the Teutonic knights, were military associations, created, the former for defence of the Holy Land, and the last for conversion (by the edge of the sword of course) of the Pagans in the north of Europe. They were managed by commanders or superintendents, and by a grand master, forming a sort of military republic, the individuals of which were understood to have no distinct property or interest from the order in general. But the system and history of these associations will be found under the proper heads.

Other subdivisions arose from the various associations, also called orders, formed by the different sovereigns of Europe, not only for the natural purpose of drawing around their persons the flower of knight

See the works of Pasquier, Du Tillet, Le Gendre, and other French antiquaries.

INSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER BY EDWARD III. 53 hood, but often with political views of much deeper import. The ro mances which were the favourite reading of the time, or which, at least, like the servant in the comedy, the nobles "had read to them,” and which were on all occasions quoted gravely, as the authentic and authoritative records of chivalry, afforded the most respectable precedents for the formation of such fraternities under the auspices of sovereign princes; the Round Table of King Arthur, and the Paladins of Charlemagne, forming cases strictly in point. Edward III., whose policy ‘ was equal to his love of chivalry, failed not to avail himself of these precedents, not only for the exaltation of military honour and exercise of warlike feats, but questionless that he might draw around him, and attach to his person, the most valiant knights from all quarters of Europe. For this purpose, in the year 1344, he proclaimed as well in Scotland, France, Germany, Hainault, Spain, and other foreign countries, as in England, that he designed to revive the Round Table of King Arthur, offering free conduct and courteous reception to all who might be disposed to attend the splendid justs to be held upon that occasion at Windsor Castle. This solemn festival, which Edward proposed to render annual, excited the jealousy of Philip de Valois, King of France, who not only prohibited his subjects to attend the Round Table at Windsor, but proclaimed an opposite Round Table to be held by himself at Paris. In consequence of this interference, the festival of Edward lost some part of its celebrity, and was diminished in splendour and frequency of attendance. This induced King Edward to establish the memorable Order of the Garter. Twenty-six of the most noble knights of England and Gascony were admitted into this highly honourable association, the well-known motto of which (Honi soit qui mal y pense) seems to apply to the misrepresentation which the French monarch might throw out respecting the order of the Garter, as he had already done concerning the festival of the Round Table. There was so much dignity, as well as such obvious policy, in selecting from the whole body of chivalry a select number of champions to form an especial fraternity under the immediate patronage of the sovereign; it held out such a powerful stimulus to courage and exertion to all whose eyes were fixed on so dignified a reward of ambition, that various orders were speedily formed in the different courts of Europe, each having its own peculiar bandages, emblems, and statutes. To enumerate these is the task of the herald, not of the historian, who is only called upon to notice their existence and character. The first effect of these institutions on the spirit of chivalry in general, was doubtless favourable, as holding forth to the knighthood a high and honourable prize of emulation. But when every court in Europe, however petty, had its own peculiar order and ceremonial, while the great potentates established several; these dignities became so common, as to throw into the shade the order of knights-bachelors, the parent and proper degree

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