deed was the instrument of pardon to Henry II. for the murder of Becket,' and was supposed to be the means of cure to St. Louis in a dangerous illness. Fighting against infidels took rank with fastings, penitential discipline, visits to shrines, and almsgivings, as meriting the divine mercy. He who fell in the battle could be confident that his soul was admitted directly into the joys of Paradise. And this held good not only of wars against Muhammedans. The massacres of Jews and heretics seemed no less meritorious than the slaughter of the more remote enemies of the Gospel. Nay, even a slight shade of difference from the liturgy of Rome became at last a legitimate cause of war. 4 It is true that these views were not shared by all. At the Council of Lyons, in 1274, the opinion was pronounced, and of course eagerly attacked, that it was contrary to the examples of Christ and the Apostles to uphold religion with the sword and to shed the blood of unbelievers. In the following century, Bonet maintained that, according to Scriptures, a Saracen or any other disbeliever could not be compelled by force to accept the Christian faith." Franciscus a Victoria declared that "diversity of religion is not a cause of just war";" and a similar opinion was expressed by Soto, Covarruvias a Leyva, and Suarez." According to Balthazar Ayala, the most illustrious Spanish lawyer of the sixteenth century, it does not belong to the Church to punish infidels who 1 Lyttelton, History of the Life of King Henry the Second, iii. 96. 2 Cf. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, iv. 209. 3 Cf. Laurent, Études sur l'histoire de l'humanité, vii. 257. 4 Bethune-Baker, op. cit. p. 73. 5 Bonet, L'arbre des batailles, iv. 2, p. 86: "Selon la sainte Escripture nous ne pouvons et si ne devons contredire ne efforcer ung mescreant à recepvoir ne le saint bapteme ne la sainte foy ainsi les devons laisser en leur franche volonté que Dieu leur a donnée." 6 Franciscus a Victoria, Relectiones Theologica, vi. 10, p. 231: "Caussa iusti belli non est diuersitas religionis.' Yet infidels may be constrained to allow the Gospel to be preached (ibid. v. 3. 12, p. 214 sq.). 7 Soto, De justitia et jure, v. 3. 5, fol. 154. 8 Covarruvias a Leyva, Regula, Peccatum, ii. 10. 2 (Opera omnia, i. 496): "Infidelitas non priuat infideles dominio, quod habent iure humano, vel habuerunt ante legem Euangelicam in prouinciis et regnis, quae obtinent." 9 Suarez, cited by Nys, Droit de la guerre et les précurseurs de Grotius, p. 98. 2 have never received the Christian faith, whereas those who, having once received it, afterwards endeavour to prevent the propagation of the Gospel, may, like other heretics, be justly persecuted with the sword.'. But the majority of jurisconsults, as well as of canonists, were in favour of the orthodox view that unbelief is a legitimate reason for going to war. And this principle was, professedly, acted upon to an extent which made the history of Christianity for many centuries a perpetual crusade, and transformed the Christian Church into a military power even more formidable than Rome under Cæsar and Augustus. Very often religious zeal was a mere pretext for wars which in reality were caused by avarice or desire for power. The aim of the Church was to be the master of the earth rather than the servant of heaven. She preached crusades not only against infidels and heretics, but against any disobedient prince who opposed her boundless pretensions. And she encouraged war when rich spoils were to be expected from the victor, as a thankoffering to God for the victory He had granted, or as an atonement for the excesses which had been committed. Out of this union between war and Christianity there was born that curious bastard, Chivalry. The secular germ of it existed already in the German forests. According to Tacitus, the young German who aspired to be a warrior was brought into the midst of the assembly of the chiefs, where his father, or some other relative, solemnly equipped him for his future vocation with shield and javelin. Assuming arms was thus made a social distinction, which subsequently derived its name 1 Ayala, De iure et officiis bellicis et disciplina militari, i. 2. 29 sq. 2 Nys, op. cit. p. 89. Idem, in his Introduction to Bonet's L'arbre des batailles, p. xxiv. According to Conradus Brunus (De legationibus, iii. 8, p. 115), for instance, any war waged by Christians against the enemies of the Christian faith is just, as being undertaken for the defence of religion and the glory of God in order to recover the possession of dominions unjustly held by infidels. la Tactitus, Germania, 13. According to Honoré de Sainte Marie (Dissertations historiques et critiques sur Chevalerie, p. 30 sqq.), Chivalry is of Roman, according to some other writers, of Arabic origin. M. Gautier (La Chevalerie, pp. 14, 16) repudiates these theories, and regards Chivalry as usage germain idéalisé par l'Église.” See also Rambaud, Histoire de la civilisation française, i. 178 sq. un 1 3 2 from one of its most essential characteristics, the riding a war-horse. But Chivalry became something quite different from what the word indicates. The Church knew how to lay hold of knighthood for her own purposes. The investiture, which was originally of a purely civil nature, became, even before the time of the crusades, as it were, a sacrament. The priest delivered the sword into the hand of the person who was to be made a knight, with the following words, "Serve Christi, sis miles in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen." The sword was said to be made in semblance of the cross so as to signify "how our Lord God vanquished in the cross the death of human lying"; and the word "Jesus and the word "Jesus" was sometimes engraven on its hilt. God Himself had chosen the knight to defeat with arms the miscreants who wished to destroy his Holy Church, in the same way as He had chosen the clergy to maintain the Catholic faith with Scripture and reasons." The knight was to the body politic what the arms are to the human body: the Church was the head, Chivalry the arms, the citizens, merchants, and labourers the inferior members; and the arms were placed in the middle to render them equally capable of defending the inferior members and the head." "The greatest amity that should be in this world," says the author of the 'Ordre of Chyualry,' " ought to be between the knights and clerks." The several gradations of knighthood were regarded as parallel to those of the Church. And after the conquest of the Holy Land the union between the profession of arms and the religion of Christ became still more intimate by the institution of the two military orders of monks, the Knights Templars and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 8 1 Scott, 'Essay on Chivalry,' in Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 16. Mills, History of Chivalry, i. 10 sq. For a description of the various religious ceremonies accompanying the investiture, see The Book of the Ordre of Chyualry or Knyghthode, fol. 27 b sqq. Cf. also Favyn, Theater of Honour VOL. 1 and Knight-Hood, i. 52. 2 Favyn, op. cit. i. 52. 3 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 31 a sq. 5 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 11 b. A A The duties which a knight took on himself by oath were very extensive, but not very well defined. He should defend the holy Catholic faith, he should defend justice, he should defend women, widows, and orphans, and all those of either sex that were powerless, ill at ease, and groaning under oppression and injustice. In the name of religion and justice he could thus practically wage war almost at will. Though much real oppression was undoubtedly avenged by these soldiers of the Church, the knight seems as a rule to have cared little for the cause or necessity of his doing battle. "La guerre est ma patrie, 3 Mon harnois ma maison: Et en toute saison Combatre c'est ma vie," was a saying much in use in the sixteenth century. { The general impression which Froissart gives us in his history is, that the age in which he lived was completely given over to fighting, and cared about nothing else whatever. The French knights never spoke of war but as a feast, a game, a pastime. "Let them play their game,' they said of the cross-bow men, who were showering down arrows on them; and "to play a great game," jouer gros jeu, was their description of a battle. Previous to the institution of Chivalry there certainly existed much fighting in Christian countries, but knighthood rendered war "a fashionable accomplishment." And so all-absorbing became the passion for it that, as real injuries were not likely to occur every day, artificial grievances were created, and tilts and tournaments were invented in order to keep in action the sons of war when they had no other employments for their courage. Even in these images of warwhich were by no means so harmless as they have sometimes been represented to be "-the intimate connection 1 Ordre of Chyualry, foll. 11 b, 17 a. Sainte-Palaye, Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie, i. 75, 129. 2 De la Noue, Discours politiques et militaires, p. 215. 3 See Sir James Stephen's essay on 'Froissart's Chronicles,' in his Hora Sabbaticæ, i. 22 sqq. Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 61. 2 between Chivalry and religion displays itself in various ways. Before the tournament began, the coats of arms, helmets, and other objects were carried into a monastery, and after the victory was gained the arms and the horses which had been used in the fight were offered up at the church.1 The proclamations at the tournaments were generally in the name of God and the Virgin Mary. Before battle the knights confessed, and heard mass; and, when they entered the lists, they held a sort of image with which they made the sign of the cross. Moreover, "as the feasts of the tournaments were accompanied by these acts of devotion, so the feasts of the Church were sometimes adorned with the images of the tournaments." It is true that the Church now and then made attempts to stop these performances.* But then she did so avowedly because they prevented many knights from joining the holy wars, or because they swallowed up treasures which might otherwise with advantage have been poured into the Holy Land.5 Closely connected with the feudal system was the practice of private war. Though tribunals had been instituted, and even long after the kings' court had become wellorganised and powerful institutions, a nobleman had a right to wage war upon another nobleman from whom he had suffered some gross injury. On such occasions not only the relatives, but the vassals, of the injured man were bound to help him in his quarrel, and the same obligation existed in the case of the aggressor. Only greater crimes were regarded as legitimate causes of private war, but this rule was not at all strictly observed. As 8 History of the Reign of Charies V. i. 329). But it was also granted to the French communes, and to the free towns in Germany, Italy, and Spain (Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes, ii. 348). 7 Du Cange, loc. cit. pp. 450, 458. 8 Ibid. p. 445 sq. Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 341. von Wächter, Beiträge zur deutschen Geschichte, p. 46. 9 We read of a nobleman who declared war against the city of Frankfort, |