of mankind. If
these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are,
however, more connected with elevation of character than the
systematical prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary
and independent spirit of chivalry, dwelling, as it were, upon a rock,
and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal
dignity, without any calculation of their consequences, is not unlike
what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or the North American
Indians.[762] These nations, so widely remote from each other, seem to
partake of that moral energy, which, among European nations far remote
from both of them, was excited by the spirit of chivalry. But the most
beautiful picture that was ever portrayed of this character is the
Achilles of Homer, the representative of chivalry in its most general
form, with all its sincerity and unyielding rectitude, all its
courtesies and munificence. Calmly indifferent to the cause in which he
is engaged, and contemplating with a serious and unshaken look the
premature death that awaits him, his heart only beats for glory and
friendship. To this sublime character, bating that imaginary completion
by which the creations of the poet, like those of the sculptor,
transcend all single works of nature, there were probably many parallels
in the ages of chivalry; especially before a set education and the
refinements of society had altered a little the natural unadulterated
warrior of a ruder period. One illustrious example from this earlier age
is the Cid Ruy Diaz, whose history has fortunately been preserved much
at length in several chronicles of ancient date and in one valuable
poem; and though I will not say that the Spanish hero is altogether a
counterpart of Achilles in gracefulness and urbanity, yet was he
inferior to none that ever lived in frankness, honour, and
magnanimity.[763]

[Sidenote: Its connexion with feudal service.]

[Sidenote: This connexion broken.]

In the first state of chivalry, it was closely connected with the
military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies, the
Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were landholders who
followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land
was termed in England a knight's fee, or in Normandy feudum loricae, fief
de haubert, from the coat of mail which it entitled and required the
tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry.
To serve