our, whether of mail or plate, bearing his heraldic coat, by
his gilded spurs, his horse barded with iron, or clothed in housing of
gold; at home, by richer silks and more costly furs than were permitted
to squires, and by the appropriated colour of scarlet. He was addressed
by titles of more respect.[785] Many civil offices, by rule or usage,
were confined to his order. But perhaps its chief privilege was to form
one distinct class of nobility extending itself throughout great part of
Europe, and almost independent, as to its rights and dignities, of any
particular sovereign. Whoever had been legitimately dubbed a knight in
one country became, as it were, a citizen of universal chivalry, and
might assume most of its privileges in any other. Nor did he require the
act of a sovereign to be thus distinguished. It was a fundamental
principle that any knight might confer the order; responsible only in
his own reputation if he used lightly so high a prerogative. But as all
the distinctions of rank might have been confounded, if this right had
been without limit, it was an equally fundamental rule, that it could
only be exercised in favour of gentlemen.[786]

The privileges annexed to chivalry were of peculiar advantage to the
vavassors, or inferior gentry, as they tended to counterbalance the
influence which territorial wealth threw into the scale of their feudal
suzerains. Knighthood brought these two classes nearly to a level; and
it is owing perhaps in no small degree to this institution that the
lower nobility saved themselves, notwithstanding their poverty, from
being confounded with the common people.

[Sidenote: Connexion of chivalry with military service.]

[Sidenote: Knights-bannerets and bachelors.]

Lastly, the customs of chivalry were maintained by their connexion with
military service. After armies, which we may call comparatively regular,
had superseded in a great degree the feudal militia, princes were
anxious to bid high for the service of knights, the best-equipped and
bravest warriors of the time, on whose prowess the fate of battles was
for a long period justly supposed to depend. War brought into relief the
generous virtues of chivalry, and gave lustre to its distinctive
privileges. The rank was sought with enthusiastic emulation through
heroic achievements, to which, rather than to mere wealth and station,
it was considered to belong. In the wars of France and England, by far
the most splendid period