The History of Chivalry and the Crusades Author:Henry Stebbing 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 HI. THE INITIATORY CEREMONIES OF INIOHTHOOD—ITS SACKED CHARACTER. Having briefly considered the origin of Chivalry, and its relative importance in... more » the great work of modern civilization, we proceed to give some view of the several particulars of which the system was composed. These may be divided under two heads:—the ceremonies and the doctrines of Chivalry,—its outward shows, and its moral and practical application. The former of these will furnish materials for the present chapter. One of the principal and distinguishing circumstances of chivalry as an institution—that which ought in fact to be ranked next in importance to its union with religion—is the influence which it possessed as a system of education. This, it seems, was more certainly peculiar to it than any other of its characteristics. Feelings of religion belonged, as we have seen, to many of the most distinguished warriors of former ages; and something like the ceremonies of investiture prevailed from the earliest times. But chivalry alone provided a regular system of education for the future warrior, and, from the first dawn of youth,began to imbue his mind and feelings with the principles on which he was to act. Nor is the attention, which it formed a part of the institutions of chivalry to bestow on its young aspirants, to be confounded with that which nations have sometimes employed in the public education of their youth. The latter was in general a political and legislative ordinance, and was intended to form a whole people, not a certain number of individuals, in the practice of war, or warlike virtues. But chivalric education was of a private and domestic character; was used for the instruction of a select few; and was part of the rules of an order, not of a nation. We shall probably be near...« less