sity,
the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards the foe
seems to have arrived at its highest point. Though avarice may have been
the primary motive of ransoming prisoners instead of putting them to
death, their permission to return home on the word of honour in order to
procure the stipulated sum--an indulgence never refused--could only be
founded on experienced confidence in the principles of chivalry.[774]

[Sidenote: Courtesy.]

[Sidenote: Liberality.]

A knight was unfit to remain a member of the order if he violated his
faith; he was ill acquainted with its duties if he proved wanting in
courtesy. This word expressed the most highly refined good breeding,
founded less upon a knowledge of ceremonious politeness, though this was
not to be omitted, than on the spontaneous modesty, self-denial, and
respect for others, which ought to spring from his heart. Besides the
grace which this beautiful virtue threw over the habits of social life,
it softened down the natural roughness of war, and gradually introduced
that indulgent treatment of prisoners which was almost unknown to
antiquity. Instances of this kind are continual in the later period of
the middle ages. An Italian writer blames the soldier who wounded
Eccelin, the famous tyrant of Padua, after he was taken. "He deserved,"
says he, "no praise, but rather the greatest infamy for his baseness;
since it is as vile an act to wound a prisoner, whether noble or
otherwise, as to strike a dead body."[775] Considering the crimes of
Eccelin, this sentiment is a remarkable proof of generosity. The
behaviour of Edward III. to Eustace de Ribaumont, after the capture of
Calais, and that, still more exquisitely beautiful, of the Black Prince
to his royal prisoner at Poitiers, are such eminent instances of
chivalrous virtue, that I omit to repeat them only because they are so
well known. Those great princes too might be imagined to have soared far
above the ordinary track of mankind. But in truth, the knights who
surrounded them and imitated their excellences, were only inferior in
opportunities of displaying the same virtue. After the battle of
Poitiers, "the English and Gascon knights," says Froissart, "having
entertained their prisoners, went home each of them with the knights or
squires he had taken, whom he then questioned upon their honour what
ransom they could pay without inconvenience, and easily gave them
credit; and it was common for men to say