In Germany, as elsewhere, Chivalry had its material basis in Feudalism, and found its ideal field of activity in the Crusades. To the service of the earthly lord was added the service of the Lord of Heaven; the warrior became a Christian knight. When to the service of God and the service of his lord was added the service of his lady, we have the full range of the ideals of medieval Chivalry in life and art--the Gottesdienst, Herrendienst, and Frauendienst of the convenient German phrase.
France is admittedly the country where Chivalry was born. But what of the part played by Germany in its institution, or, rather, in the creation of the conditions which alone made possible its birth? If we go back to the beginnings of the Feudal System, as the necessary condition for the rise of Chivalry, we find ourselves in an age when France and Germany as separate entities did not exist, and when it is therefore impossible to speak of either as having taken the first step along this road.
The Feudal System, initiated under his predecessors, was definitely established by Charlemagne, in place of the older Germanic system, reflected, for instance, in the Nibelungenlied, under which the state was regarded as the property of the royal family, and the king was surrounded by a retinue of faithful warriors, bound to him by the common interests of service and reward.
It was Charlemagne, King of the Franks, a Germanic prince, to who was first granted that over lordship of the Holy City, which the Crusaders attempted to vindicate and turn into a positive reality. As Dr. Barker says 1 : "Charlemagne . . . was closely connected with Jerusalem: the patriarch sent him the keys of the city and a standard in 800; and........
