heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

24 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
lust, or greed, when legal justice was rude, difficult, and often biassed,
it was at any rate a great and noble ideal to elaborate Christian principles
in a form at once so practical and popular as to produce a sentiment an
enthusiasm, I should rather say which should not only hallow the natural
ties of kindred or earthly interest, but should draw men together, give
them mutual confidence in each other, and hold in subjection, yea, stamp
with ignominy, those grosser impulses which nothing then existing
could
touch.
If you have patience to look through the outer film of poetic romance,
or to study the tinsel of Heraldic ornament, you will find that there was
an intense reality beneath of purpose and action.
What are mere empty titles now, mere vague forms, then expressed
duties, which those who held them had bound themselves to discharge,
or qualities which they had pledged themselves to
cultivate.
Abstract legal power to control men scarcely existed, and abstract
religious teaching
or devotional habits would have influenced but few.
Chivalry caught the fancy of the time, and exerted an influence which
nothing else could have done.
For instance, to be a Knight represented not merely the unmeaning
ceremony or the empty title of the present day, but the solemn dedication
of self, after a period of retirement, meditation, and prayer, to a life of
unselfishness and beneficence.
" Be thou brave, true, and loyal," was the
final charge delivered to him when the sword was laid upon his shoulder.
The very word Knight (in its original Saxon "knecht") means a servant or
pupil. To call oneself an Esquire comprised not merely the unmeaning
affix of " Esq." after the name, but a period of discipline and subordination
to another, required even of the noblest, by which alone he could become
worthy of the higher degree. And to be a Retainer implied conduct
consistent with his reputation whose service men entered and whose
badge they bore.
Was this a foolish ?
phantasy Was it the baseless fabric of a vision ?
Nay! What subsequent period has put forth a higher aim or produced
more substantial results ?
" The period before us," says Charles Knight,*
" is
undoubtedly one
" of the most grossly brutal in the history of European society
; one in
"which we find the greatest amount of crime and violence; in which the
" public peace was most incessantly disturbed ;
in which the most dissolute
" manners prevailed. But while the deeds are habitually detestable, while
"crime and disorder of every description abound, yet we find dwelling in
"the minds and imaginations of men nobler instincts and more exalted
" aspirations. A brighter ideal of morality hovers, as it
were, above that
./.ivi
Cyclofitiiia, "Chivalry.' 1