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PART XI.

ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD.

Chivalry, or Knighthood,

As connected with. Free-masaury.

IT has been very justly remarked, that there is scarcely any subject of antiquarian research, so free from the reproach of uninteresting and unprofitable labor, as that which relates to the origin, the causes, the institutions, and the effects of CHIVALRY or KNIGHTHOOD. Some of our earliest and most pleasing associations are connected with the tales of romance; and even after our judgment is disposed to reject them as rude and extravagant, the subjects which the most admired poets, of almost every nation, have chosen, lead us back to our former pleasures, and strengthen the hold they have on our imagination, by enlisting on their side the approbation of a refined and cultivated taste. Nor are the antiquarian researches, which have Chivalry for their object, less interesting and instructive to the philosopher. If he wish to inform himself of the opinions, the manners, and the pursuits of nations, at different periods of their progress from barbarism and ignorance, to civilization and knowledge;-if he wish to analyze and account for those great and leading points of character, which distinguish modern from ancient manners, he must go back to the age of Chivalry. Courtesy of manners, the point of honor, a more jealous and habitual attachment to truth than obtained among the nations of antiquity, and a refined, respectful and delicate gallantry, may be traced from the period when Chivalry first dawned, to the present times.

Chivalry has been defined as a military institution, prompted by enthusiastic benevolence, sactioned by religion, and combined with religious ceremonies; the purpose of which was to protect the weak from the oppression of the powerful, and to defend the right. cause against the wrong. It has also been beautifully characterized as consisting in a passion for arms; in a spirit of enterprize; in the honor of Knighthood; in rewards of valor; in splendid equipages; in romantic ideas of justice; in a passion for adventures; in an eagerness to run to the succor of the distressed ; in a pride in redressing wrongs and removing grievances; in the courtesy, affability and gallantry, the devotion and respectful attachment to the female sex, for which those who attached themselves to it were distinguished; and in that character of religion, which was deeply imprinted on the minds of all Knights, and was essential to their institution.

The origin of Chivalry is involved in almost impenetrable obscurity. In seeking its source, we find that scarcely any two authors have followed the same track, or arrived at the same results. While some have suppossed that it descended from the equestrian order of the ancient Romans, others have imagined that the Franks, and the rest of the German nations, who, on the fall of the Roman empire, subdued and divided Gaul, brought with them those seeds which spontaneously grew up into that extraordinary plant, which has flourished but once in the annals of the world. Others, again, suppose it to be derived from the ancient warlike tribes of Northmen, or Normans, who, towards the ninth century, invaded, in large bodies, the southern parts of Europe, and established themselves principally

in France. Warburton maintains the hypothesis, that romance, rhyme and Knighthood, originated with the Arabians, and through them were introduced, first into Spain, and subsequently into France and the rest of Europe. Mallet advances the opinion, that it originated with the Scandinavians. Percy and Pinkerton advocate this opinion; while Wharton offers a modification, or rather an admixture of the hypotheses of Warburton and Mallet, tracing Chivalry to the East, but deriving it from that quarter, partly through the medium of the Arabians, on the conquest of Spain, and partly through Odin and his followers, when they emigrated from Asia to the north of Europe. Herder, also adopts the two hypotheses, and ascribes the life and body which were given to Chivalry, as arising from a concurrence of causes, proceeding from "two extremities of the earth," from Arabia through Spain, and from the Normans, as before remarked, on their settlement in France. A learned and ingenious English writer, rejecting all these hypotheses, considers Armorica, and the connected provinces of Britian, as the countries which gave the "very decisive impulse to the character of modern civilization," by the introduction of romance, rhyme and Knighthood. And, finally, the learned author of the history of the Crusades, contends that Chivalry had its origin in the turbulent times which followed the demise of Charlemagne. That illustrious monarch "expired like a meteor that, having broken suddenly upon the night of ages, and blazed brilliantly over a whole world for a brief space, fell and left all in darkness, even deeper than before. His dominions divided into petty kingdoms-his successors waging long and inveterate wars against each other-the nations

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