feudalism was very remarkable. For the first time in the history of
western Europe there appears, in however rough a form, a systematized
obligation to serve in arms, regulated on a territorial basis. That army
organization in the modern sense--organization for tactics and
command--did not develop in any degree commensurate with the development
of military administration, was due to the peculiar characteristics of
the feudal system, and the virtues and weaknesses of medieval armies
were its natural outcome. Personal bravery, the primary virtue of the
soldier, could not be wanting in the members of a military class, the
_metier_ of which was war and manly exercises. Pride of caste, ambition
and knightly emulation, all helped to raise to a high standard the
individual efficiency of the feudal cavalier. But the gravest faults of
the system, considered as an army organization, were directly due to
this personal element. Indiscipline, impatience of superior control, and
dangerous knight-errantry, together with the absence of any chain of
command, prevented the feudal cavalry from achieving results at all
proportionate to the effort expended and the potentialities of a force
with so many soldierly qualities. If such defects were habitually found
in the best elements of the army--the feudal tenants and subtenants who
formed the heavy cavalry arm--little could be expected of the despised
and ill-armed foot-soldiery of the levy. The swift raids of the Danes
and others (see above) had created a precedent which in French and
German wars was almost invariably followed. The feudal levy rarely
appeared at all on the battlefield, and when it was thus employed it was
ridden down by the hostile knights, and even by those of its own party,
without offering more than the feeblest resistance. Above all, one
disadvantage, common to all classes of feudal soldiers, made an army so
composed quite untrustworthy. The service which a king was able to exact
from his feudatories was so slight (varying from one month to three in
the year) that no military operation which was at all likely to be
prolonged could be undertaken with any hope of success.