Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/493

Rh now presented to him, and his sword girded on, when the lord, striking him with the flat of his sword on the shoulders or the neck, said, "In the name of God, of St. Michael, and of St. George, I dub thee knight: be brave, bold, and loyal."

Sometimes knighthood was conferred with less ceremony upon the battle-field, as the reward of signal bravery or address.

The Tournament.—The tournament was the favorite amusement of the age of Chivalry. It was a mimic battle between two companies of noble knights, armed usually with pointless swords or

blunted lances. In the universal esteem in which the participants were held, it reminds us of the Sacred Games of the Greeks; while in the fierce and sanguinary character it sometimes assumed, especially before it was brought fully under the spirit of Chivalry, it recalls the gladiatorial combats of the Roman amphitheatre.

Decline of Chivalry.—The fifteenth century was the evening of Chivalry. The decline of the system resulted from the operation of the same causes that effected the overthrow of Feudalism. The changes in the mode of warfare which helped to do away with the feudal baron and his mail-clad retainers, likewise tended