Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/113

Rh enterprise procured for its heroes. The ransom of a noble prisoner was the backbone of the business to the warriors of the fifteenth century. Pensions, rents, governor’s places, occupy a large place in a knight’s life. His aim is “s’avanchier par armes” (to get on in life by arms). Commines rates the courtiers according to their pay, and speaks of “a nobleman of twenty crowns,” and Deschamps makes them sigh after the day of payment, in a ballad with the refrain:

As a military principle, chivalry was no longer sufficient. Tactics had long since given up all thought of conforming to its rules. The custom of making the knights fight on foot was borrowed by the French from the English, though the chivalrous spirit was opposed to this practice. It was also opposed to sea-fights. In the Debat des Hérauts d’Armes de France et d’Angleterre, the French herald being asked by his English colleague: Why does the king of France not maintain a great naval force, like that of England? replies very naïvely:—In the first place he does not need it, and, then, the French nobility prefer wars on dry land, for several reasons, “for (on the sea) there is danger and loss of life and God knows how awful it is when a storm rages and sea-sickness prevails which many people find hard to bear. Again, look at the hard life which has to be lived, which does not beseem nobility.”

Nevertheless, chivalrous ideas did not die out without having borne some fruit. In so far as they formed a system of rules of honour and precepts of virtue, they exercised a certain influence on the evolution of the laws of war. The law of nations originated in antiquity and in canon law, but it was chivalry which caused it to flower. The aspiration after universal peace is linked with the idea of crusades and with that of the orders of chivalry. Philippe de Mézières planned his “Order of the Passion” to insure the good of the world. The young king of France—(this was written about 1388, when such great hopes were still entertained of the unhappy Charles VI)—will be easily able to conclude peace with Richard of England, young like himself and also innocent of bloodshed in the past. Let them discuss the peace personally; let them