File:Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance (1870) (14598398438).jpg

Identifier: gri_33125008050011 (find matches)
Title: Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Jacob, P. L., 1806-1884
Subjects: Middle Ages Civilization, Medieval Civilization, Renaissance Costume Military art and science Christian life
Publisher: London : Bickers & Son
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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m, which made a mans strength and personalskill the guardians of his honour, was sustained and encouraged by thespirit of chivalry and by that of German feudalism. Sometimes, however,the practice was considered justifiable on other grounds. History, forinstance, has honourably recorded the Battle of the Thirty, which tookplace in 1351, between thirty knights of Brittany, under the Sire de Beau-manoir, and thirty English knights; and another equally bloody struggle ofthe same kind between Bayard and ten other French knights, and elevenSpaniards, before the walls of Tranni. The national honour alone was themotive of these two celebrated duels; but they were only the exceptionsto the rule. It almost seems as if the nobility, in their efforts to cling tothe shadow and the memory of the rapidly-expiring traditions of chivalry, CHIVALRY. ibi became more inveterate in their adherence to the cruel system of duelling.In the sixteenth century, under the last monarchs of the house of Valois, the
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Fig. 129. - Single Combat to be decided by the judgement of God. -From a miniature in the "Conqêtes de Charlemagne," a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.
Place Royale and the Pre aux Clercs were often watered with the blood ofthe best families of France. In vain did Henry IV. and Louis XIII. issue Y CHIVALRY. the most stringent edicts against this barbarous custom ; in vain did thedecree, called the decree of Blois, render nugatory all letters of pardongranted to duellists, even if they were signed by the king himself. Inspite of everything, the nobles, upon whose privileges the monarchy dailymade fresh encroachments, had recourse to duelling as if to assert theirconnection with a chivalric and adventurous past, and the most trivial,ridiculous, and shameful motives served as pretexts for a renewal of thesanguinary struggles, which had been originally inspired by a generouscourage and a loyal sympathy with justice. But we must go back to the time of the zenith of the Middle Agesto see its tournaments, its tilts, and its passages of arms. In the halcyonperiod of chivalry, its sham fights, its courteous tournaments, and its war-like exhib

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