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Equestris Ordo: Chivalry as a Vocation in the Twelfth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Colin Morris
Colin Morris*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Extract

The motives of individuals are necessarily conditioned by the expectations of society. Some walks of life are recognised as demanding a high degree of self-sacrifice and noble motivation, as being (in modern terms) vocations. Others are careers worthy of esteem, and yet others are condemned, so that it is supposed that no ethically minded person would engage in them. As the social structure changes there is an adaptation in the pattern of esteem, and an interesting example of this process is provided by the new thinking about knighthood which emerged in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. So much has been written about chivalry that a broad review of the subject is out of the question in this paper, but it may be of interest to re-examine it in the light of this theme. An appropriate starting-point is provided by a passage from the history of the first crusade written about 1110 by Guibert of Nogent:

In our time God has instituted holy warfare so that the knightly order (ordo equestris) and the unsettled populace, who used to be engaged like the pagans of old in slaughtering one another, should find a new way of deserving salvation. No longer are they obliged to leave the world and choose a monastic way of life, as used to be the case, or some religious profession, but in their accustomed liberty and habit, by performing their own office, they may in some measure achieve the grace of God.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 15: Religious Motivation Biographical and Sociological Problems for the Church Historian , 1978 , pp. 87 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1978

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References

1 Guibcrt of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos i, RHC Occ 4 p 124 Google Scholar.

2 Letter of count Guy of Ponthieu to bishop Lambert of Arras, Recueil des Historiens . . . de la France , ed Brial, M. J. J., 15 (Paris 1808) p 187 Google Scholar: debeo Ludovicum Regisfilium armis militaribus adornare et honorare, et ad militiam promovere et ordinare. The reference in the Song of Roland is specifically to the weapons proper to knights, and not to any wider ‘law of chivalry’: [Bédier, J., La Chanson de] Roland (Paris 1937) line 1143 Google Scholar.

3 Geoffrey, , Declamationes ex S. Bernardi sermonibus 10, PL 184 (1879) col 444 Google Scholar A. Important contributions to our understanding of ordo have been made in a number of studies, written from different starting-points, by Y. Congar, M. D. Chenu and M. Mollat.

4 Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber de aedificio Dei 43, PL 194 (1855) col 1302 Google Scholar D. Gerhoh makes it clear that he is not referring only to monks, but to all the baptised, sive divites sive miseri, nobiles ac servi, mercatores et rustici et omnino cuncti, qui Christiana professione censentur . . .

5 See Cowdrey, [H. E. J.], [The Chmiacs and the Gregorian Reform] (Oxford 1970) part 3 Google Scholar.

6 Ed Richard, J., Le Cartulaire de Marcigny-stir-Loire (Dijon 1957) no 15, pp 15–17 Google Scholar, cited Cowdrey p 140.

7 Ed Jeanroy, A., Les Chansons de Guillaume IX (Paris 1913) no 11 p 28 Google Scholar.

8 Guibert of Nogent, De vita sua I. 15, ed Bourgin, G. (Paris 1904) p 52 Google Scholar.

9 Ibid I. 11, p 31.

10 There was ako however a contrary line of argument. William of St Thierry described St Bernard’s father as vir antiqtiae et legittime militiae, cultor Dei, jiistitiae tenax, PL 185 (1879) col 227 A.

11 Anselm ep 86 to contess Adela: vult dimitiere militiain, immo malitiam, quam hactenus . . . exercuit , ed Schmitt, F. S., S. Anselmi . . . Opera Omnia, 3 (Edinburgh 1946) p 211 Google Scholar.

12 Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Iherosolymitana , RHC Occ 3 p 324 Google Scholar. Some mss read nunc fiant Christi milites, qui dudum exstiterunt raptores but others omit the word Christi.

13 Roland line 899.

14 Stephen of Grandmont, Liber de Doctrina lxiii, 1, ed Becquet, J., Scriptores Ordinis Grandimontensis, CC (1968) p 33 Google Scholar.

15 John of Salisbury, Policraticus viii. 9, ed Webb, C. C. J. 2 (Oxford 1909) p 280 Google Scholar.

16 d’Alverny, M. Th., Alain de Lille. Textes inédits (Paris 1965) pp 16–17, n 30Google Scholar.

17 Bédier, J., Les Chansons de Croisade (Paris 1909) no 1 Google Scholar.

18 Paris, Ed Paulin, La Chanson d’Antioche (Paris 1848) I. pp 10 Google Scholar and 12.

19 The more radical followers of Gregory VII readily appealed to the laity in order to break the power of the simoniac clergy, and already in the ten-fifties at Milan Ariald was expounding some important views about the lay order. See Miccoli, G., ‘Per la storia della pateria milanese’, Chiesa Gregoriana. Ricerche sulla Riforma del secolo XI (Florence 1966) pp 101-68Google Scholar.

20 Caspar, E., Das Register Gregors VII, MGH Epp Sel 2, VI 35 p 450 Google Scholar. The passage is based ultimately on 1 Cor xii 4-11, but immediately it is an almost verbatim quotation from Gregory I. See Ewald, P. and Hartmann, L. M., Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolamm, MGH Epp 1, V 59, vol I, p 371 Google Scholar.

21 See the valuable discussion by Robinson, I. S., ‘Gregory VII and the Soldiers of Christ,’ History 58 (1973) pp 169-92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 The essential texts, ceaselessly quoted, were Acts ii, 42-7 and iv 32.

23 Aclred of Rievaulx, Speculum Caritatis ii. 17, PL 195 (1855) col 563 AB.

24 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica xxiii. 6, PL 183 (1879) col 887 A: omnes homines natura aequales genuit. Although hierarchy and obedience were constituted as a result of sin. Bernard still saw them as God-given dispensations which retained their force in this present world.

25 Hill, R. T. and Bergin, T. G., Anthology of the Provençal Troubadours (Yale 1973) no 11, I. PP 13–15 Google Scholar.

26 Cited Riley-Smith, J., The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus (London 1967) p 41 Google Scholar.

27 An influence which became important from at least the middle of the twelfth century was the ethical teaching of Seneca and Cicero. For the varied estimates of the impact of this, see Curtis, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (London 1953) pp 519-37Google Scholar, and Neumann, E., ‘Der Streit um das ritterliche Tugendsystem,’ Erbe der Vergangenheit. Festgabe für K. Helm (Tübingen 1951) 137-56Google Scholar.