| Liberality Knightly society was a gift-giving society. A lord was expected to give gifts to his followers. These were not only gifts in our sense, but gifts in the sense of honors shown, privileges granted, and wartime plunder shared. Vassals gave gifts to their lords, upon the occasion of visits, upon marriages and knighting ceremonies, at tournaments, and so on. There were also symbolic gifts that recognized and reiterated the lord-vassal relationship: a piece of earth and two horses every year, or some such. Gifts were exchanged to seal alliances and friendships. Gifts were exchanged among friends. Gifts were sent to accompany embassies and messengers. And all were scaled to suit the honor and nobility of the recipient. Most knights had no use for a man who lived within his means, for that implied a miserly accounting. The nobility liked to imagine that they were above such matters and that a preoccupation with such mean concerns was characteristic of merchants and townsmen. Since gifts were a recognition of friendship and nobility, how could a true knight quibble over cost? No, knights admired the man who had bankrupted himself with giving, for that was the true spirit of liberality. As the historian Sidney Painter said, "Long after prowess and loyalty had lost their peculiar applicability to men of high birth, a complete disregard of caution in the use of money was considered the mark of a nobleman." The biographer of William Marshal (13th century) put it this way: "gentillesse is reared in the house of largesse." |