CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

193

their table conversation and familiarity. Theywere in society on a kind of footing with them.They also voted for the election of the grandmaster . 1 Yet did they form an inferior class, andhardly rose higher, and were satisfied with it.They had sworn to it. It was with their eyes open.This also was an invention of Gerard’s, and builton a profound knowledge of mankind, and a farfiner matter than people think. To make a classstrictly embodied and tied down to the rule by vows,as much as the knights themselves (so just as muchobliged by honour, conscience and probity), yet ofacknowledged inferiority; and taking an active partin the legislature and loftiest duties of the profession,and even in the voting for the chief of theirsuperiors, was a grand idea; and in Gerard wasoriginal; but has been imitated. No base servicebut military service, the very leading aim of thewhole. Therefore the class of the servants-at-armswere always just as much to be depended on as theknights, and they were never discontented . 2 Theaggregated (devotional, or honorary, or females)without exactly forming a part of the order, wereclosely linked to it from the beginning by Gerardhimself . 3

1 P. A. Paoli: 331. 2 Id. : 330. 3 Id.: 333, 336,340,

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