, if history is to be trusted, is the ruffian on a horse; to whose
brutality of mind is superadded the brute power of his beast. A ruffian
on a horse--what is there that he will not ride over, and ride on,
careless and proud of his own shame? When the ancient chivalry of France
descended to that level, or rather delegated their functions to
mercenaries of that level--when the knightly hosts who fought before
Jerusalem allowed themselves to be superseded by the dragoons and
dragonnades of Louis XIV.--then the end of the French chivalry was at
hand, and came. But centuries before that shameful fall there had come
in with Christianity the new thought, that domination meant
responsibility; that responsibility demanded virtue. The words which
denoted rank, came to denote likewise high moral excellencies. The
nobilis, or man who was known, and therefore subject to public opinion,
was bound to behave nobly. The gentleman--gentile-man--who respected his
own gens, or family and pedigree, was bound to be gentle. The courtier,
who had picked up at court some touch of Roman civilisation from Roman
ecclesiastics, was bound to be courteous. He who held an "honour" or
"edel" of land was bound to be honourable; and he who held a "weorthig,"
or worthy, thereof, was bound himself to be worthy. In like wise, he who
had the right to ride a horse, was expected to be chivalrous in all
matters befitting the hereditary ruler, who owed a sacred debt to a long
line of forefathers, as well as to the state in which he dwelt; all
dignity, courtesy, purity, self-restraint, devotion--such as they were
understood in those rough days--centred themselves round the idea of the
rider as the attributes of the man whose supposed duty, as well as his
supposed right, was to govern his fellow-men, by example, as well as by
law and force;--attributes which gathered themselves up into that one
word--Chivalry: an idea, which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that
mankind should ever forget, till it has become the possession--as it is
the God-given right--of the poorest slave that ever trudged on foot; and
every collier-lad shall have become--as some of those Barnsley men proved
but the other day they had become already:

A very gentle perfect knight.

Very unfaithful was chivalry to its ideal--as all men are to all ideals.
But bear in mind, that if the horse was the symbol of the ruling caste,
it was not at first its only strength. Unless that caste