Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II Knighthood Origin of knighthood in Gaul and Germany—Celtic element unimportant—Institutions of Teutonic nations—Military democracy tending to aristocracy—Ceremonies of early knighthood—Cavalry—Equality of knighthood—Influence of the Crusades— Different development in England, France, Germany, etc.—Feudalism and chivalry more French than English — English in the Crusades — Richard I — England brought into the European system—Apprenticeship in arms—Knighthood as an incident of land-tenure and a reward for service—Knighthood conferred at the age of twenty-one—Decline of knighthood—Brotherhood in arms—Renunciation of brotherhood— Ideals of chivalry—Nelson — Don Quixote — St. Francis — Conception of chivalric virtue—Reality of knighthood—Its dignity—Sir Tristan. The words Chivalry and Knighthood are strictly speaking identical, since Chevalier and Knight1 are synonyms; but in common usage 'chivalry' denotes the whole group of ideas and customs which prevailed among the noble and gentle caste: 'knighthood' the estate itself: an estate within which all who were admitted to it were equal, whatever differences of descent or rank might exist among them. The origin of knighthood is to be nought in the primeval customs of the Gallic and Germanic tribes which overspread the whole of Western Europe, beginning from a period 1 The A.S. word cniht (boy, youth) was used before the Conquest to mean a dependant holding land from one of the great vassals by knight service (militia), whether dubbed knight or not. Similarly serviens (serjeant or esquire) is a military dependant not of knightly estate. Oman, Hist: of the Art of War, p. 369. antecedent to all historical records, and only to be traced by archaeological and linguistic evidence. Although the early instit...