t the benefits of this institution, to refine the temper
of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith, justice, and
humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often observed. The asperity
of national prejudice was softened; and the community of religion and
arms spread a similar color and generous emulation over the face of
Christendom. Abroad in enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial
exercise, the warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and
impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic games of
classic antiquity. [57] Instead of the naked spectacles which corrupted
the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the stadium the virgins
and matrons, the pompous decoration of the lists was crowned with the
presence of chaste and high-born beauty, from whose hands the conqueror
received the prize of his dexterity and courage. The skill and strength
that were exerted in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful
relation to the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were
invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the East and West,
presented a lively image of the business of the field. The single
combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass, or castle, were
rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest, both in real and mimic
war, was decided by the superior management of the horse and lance. The
lance was the proper and peculiar weapon of the knight: his horse was
of a large and heavy breed; but this charger, till he was roused by the
approaching danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode
a pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his greaves
and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I may remark,
that, at the period of the crusades, the armor was less ponderous than
in later times; and that, instead of a massy cuirass, his breast was
defended by a hauberk or coat of mail. When their long lances were fixed
in the rest, the warriors furiously spurred their horses against the
foe; and the light cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand
against the direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was
attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal birth and
similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men at arms, and four,
or five, or six soldiers were computed as the furniture of a complete
lance. In the expeditions to the neighboring kingdoms or the Holy Land,
the du