Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/551

CHAP XXII altar. His bath had become a symbol of purification from sin. He heard Mass in the early morning, and then came the blessing of the sword, the benedictio ensis, of which the oldest extant formula is found in a Roman manuscript of the early eleventh century: "Exaudi, quaeso, Domine, preces nostras, et hunc ensem quo hic famulus N. se circumcingi desiderat, majestatis tuae dextera benedicere dignare."

Through the Middle Ages the fashions of feudalism did not remain unchanged; likewise its quintessential spirit. chivalry, was modified, and one may say, between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries, passed from barbarism to preciosity. Nevertheless the main ideals of chivalry endured, springing as they did from the fundamental and but slowly-changing conditions of feudal society. Since that society was constantly at war, the first virtue of the knight was valour. Next, since life and property hung on mutual aid and troth, and a larger safety was ensured if one lord could rely upon his neighbour's word, the virtues of truth-speaking and troth-keeping took their places in the chivalric ideal. Another useful quality, and means of winning men, was generosity (largesse.) When coin is scarce, and stipulations for fixed pay unusual, he who serves looks for liberality, which, in accordance with feudal conditions, made the third of the chief knightly virtues.

Valour, troth, largesse, had no necessary connection