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Development and Modern Industrial Policy
in Practice
Development and
Modern Industrial
Policy in Practice
Issues and Country Experiences

Edited by

Jesus Felipe
Advisor in the Office of the Chief Economist, Economic
Research and Regional Cooperation Department, Asian
Development Bank, Manila, Philippines

CO-PUBLICATION OF THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK AND

EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Asian Development Bank 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or
photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
The Lypiatts William Pratt House
15 Lansdown Road 9 Dewey Court
Cheltenham Northampton
Glos GL50 2JA Massachusetts 01060
UK USA

The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), its Board of Governors
or the governments they represent.

ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and
accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use.

By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area,

or by using the term “country” in this document, ADB does not intend to make any
judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.

ADB encourages printing or copying information exclusively for personal and

noncommercial use with proper acknowledgment of ADB. Users are restricted from
reselling, redistributing, or creating derivative works for commercial purposes without
the express, written consent of ADB.

Asian Development Bank

6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City
1550 Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel +63 2 632 4444
Fax +63 2 636 2444
www.adb.org

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954961

This book is available electronically in the

Social and Political Science subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781784715540

ISBN 978 1 78471 553 3 (cased)

ISBN 978 1 78471 554 0 (eBook)

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK Ltd)
01
Contents
List of contributors vii
Foreword by Ha-­Joon Chang ix
Preface xi
List of abbreviations xiv

1 Modern industrial policy 1

Jesus Felipe
2 Issues in modern industrial policy (I): sector selection, who,
how, and sector promotion 24
Jesus Felipe and Changyong Rhee
3 Issues in modern industrial policy (II): human capital and
innovation, and monitoring and evaluation 51
Jesus Felipe and Changyong Rhee
4 Capability building and industrial diversification 70
Keun Lee
5 Industrial policy design and implementation challenges 94
Mushtaq H. Khan
6 Catching up: structural transformation and diversification 127
Justin Yifu Lin and Yan Wang
7 Economic diversification: implications for Kazakhstan 160
Jesus Felipe and Cesar A. Hidalgo
8 Industrial diversification in the People’s Republic of China 197
Justin Yifu Lin, Cheryl Xiaoning Long and Xiaobo Zhang
9 Do as I say, or as I do? US innovation and industrial policy
since the 1980s 219
Matthew R. Keller and Fred Block
10 The Republic of Korea’s financial support for small and
medium-sized enterprises and venture businesses 247
Jung-­moh Chang

­v
vi Development and modern industrial policy in practice

11 Industrial policy: the Australian experience 279

William Francis Mitchell
12 Diversification and industrial policies in Malaysia 320
Tham Siew Yean
13 Industrial policy in the European Union 346
Kristine Farla, Francesca Guadagno and Bart Verspagen

Index 397
Contributors
Fred Block is Research Professor, Department of Sociology, University of
California, Davis (the United States).
Jung-­moh Chang is Research Fellow, Korea Capital Market Institute,
Seoul (the Republic of Korea).
Kristine Farla is an Affiliated Researcher at the United Nations University,
Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and
Technology, Maastricht University (the Netherlands).
Jesus Felipe is Advisor, Economic Research and Regional Cooperation
Department, Asian Development Bank, Manila (Philippines).
Francesca Guadagno is PhD Fellow at the United Nations University,
Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation
and Technology, and School of Business and Economics, Maastricht
University (the Netherlands).
Cesar A. Hidalgo is Assistant Professor, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) Media Lab and Engineering Systems Division; and
Head, Macro Connections at the MIT Media Lab (the United States).
Matthew R. Keller is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology,
Southern Methodist University, Dallas (the United States).
Mushtaq H. Khan is Professor, Department of Economics, School
of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (the United
Kingdom).
Keun Lee is Professor, Department of Economics, Seoul National
University; and Director, Center for Economic Catch-­up, Seoul (the
Republic of Korea).
Justin Yifu Lin is Professor and Honorary Dean, National School of
Development, Peking University (the People’s Republic of China).
Cheryl Xiaoning Long is Professor, Department of Economics, Xiamen
University (the People’s Republic of China) and Colgate University, New
York (the United States).

­vii
viii Development and modern industrial policy in practice

William Francis Mitchell is Chair in Economics and Director of the Centre

of Full Employment and Equity, Charles Darwin University (Australia).
Changyong Rhee is Director, Asia and Pacific Department, International
Monetary Fund, Washington, DC (the United States).
Tham Siew Yean is Deputy Director and Professor, Institute of Malaysian
and International Studies, National University of Malaysia, Kuala
Lumpur (Malaysia).
Bart Verspagen is Director, United Nations University, Maastricht
Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology,
Maastricht University (the Netherlands).
Yan Wang is Senior Visiting Fellow, National School of Development,
Peking University (the People’s Republic of China); and Visiting Professor,
School of Business, George Washington University (the United States).
Xiaobo Zhang is Distinguished Professor of Economics, National School
of Development, Peking University (the People’s Republic of China); and
Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute,
Washington, DC (the United States).
Foreword
I am delighted to see this volume on modern industrial policy. The
13 chapters that it contains provide a cogent account of the how of indus-
trial policy. This is done by addressing key issues in industrial policy and
by discussing a wide variety of current country experiences.
Modern industrial policy tries to go beyond the old industrial policy
debates around the role of government in the economy, in particu-
lar on the thorny question of whether governments should choose
between sectors (that is, pick winners). Instead, today there is widespread
­acknowledgement that governments should and can select sectors. By now
we have sufficient evidence that not all activities in the economy have the
same consequences for development (for example, traditional agriculture
versus modern manufacturing and services). We also know that develop-
ment tends to be a slow and path-­dependent process and, therefore, that
the government has the natural desire and the ability to expedite it, espe-
cially if its industrial policy is based on collaboration between the private
and the public sectors. The question today is how to select sectors and
nurture them appropriately. In this regard, I welcome the insights that the
Product Space and the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework
can provide, both extensively discussed in this volume.
The present volume is built around five key questions that all industrial
policymakers ask constantly: who selects the sectors? What is the ration-
ale for sector selection? What are the main tools used to promote sectors?
How can industrial policies support innovation and human capital devel-
opment? How should industrial policies be monitored and evaluated?
The conclusions of the analysis are very clear. First, development is
ultimately about the transformation of the structure of the economy, both
in terms of the diversification of the production and export baskets and
the increase in the levels of sophistication and uniqueness of individual
products. Second, progress along these two dimensions of transformation
is not automatic, in the sense that if a country simply follows its (static)
comparative advantage and ‘leaves it to the market,’ it will not get very
far. Third, developing countries suffer from serious coordination and
information failures and lack organizational capabilities. Fourth, and as
a consequence of the previous three points, developing countries need to
implement industrial policies that allow them, if not to leapfrog to the

­ix
x Development and modern industrial policy in practice

most complex products along the spectrum, at least to jump into sectors
that offer significant chances of development, that is, to diversify and to
upgrade the economy. Fifth, developed countries used industrial policies
in the past and continue to do so today, although under different names,
as the volume shows in a wide variety of contexts.
For the reasons discussed in this volume, the twenty-­first century is not
going to be easy for most developing countries. Therefore, governments
need to weigh their options carefully. They need to understand that,
without a sound industrial policy, their countries’ economic development
will be very slow and that many of them may be condemned to remain in
limbo for a long time.
This volume will serve as a very useful guide to both industrial policy-
makers and development practitioners all around the developing world.

Ha-­Joon Chang
University of Cambridge
Preface
Policy advice is central to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) partner-
ship with its developing member countries. Demand for policy advice
increases with income per capita. The governments of countries that
achieve middle-­income status, and of those that are close to high-­income,
often approach ADB for advice on a wide range of issues. In recent years,
we have engaged policymakers from many countries in discussions about
how to achieve inclusive growth, how to avoid the middle income trap,
how to participate actively in the global knowledge economy or how to
diversify and upgrade the economic structure and modernize industrial
policy programs. Governments are also keen to learn from the experiences
of other countries. Providing answers to these questions in the form of
policy advice, in particular as countries seek to implement policies and
develop institutions that facilitate the structural transformation of their
economies, requires research.
This interaction with our member countries is especially relevant today,
as the development landscape of the twenty-­first century will be different
from that in which a number of countries thrived during the second half
of the twentieth century. Obvious examples of this are the opportunities
and challenges posed by the full incorporation of India and the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) to the world economy, the emergence of new
labor-­saving technologies, the push for low-­carbon growth paths in the
face of climate change, the fact that developed countries will not be keen
to run current account deficits and facilitate developing countries’ export-­
led growth or the fact that the World Trade Organization places severe
restrictions on developing countries’ space to conduct industrial policies.
These ongoing changes make it increasingly important for policy makers
from developing countries to understand their options.
In 2011, the Government of Kazakhstan requested policy advice from
the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on how to further diversify the
economy and modernize its industrial policy. The government was keen
to learn from the experience with diversification and industrialization
policies of both developed and developing economies, including Australia,
the PRC, the European Union, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and
the United States, with a focus on insights on the probable outcomes of
Kazakhstan’s own efforts at diversification and industrialization.

­xi
xii Development and modern industrial policy in practice

To shed light on these issues, the ADB commissioned a series of studies

on specific issues in industrial policy and country experiences, under a
technical assistance project of the Economics and Research Department.1
Our work was intellectually supported by the Government of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is an emerging economy with a clear strategy to become a
modern industrial and service economy in the coming decades. I am espe-
cially grateful to H.E. Kairat Kelimbetov (Deputy Prime Minister of the
Republic of Kazakhstan), Erbolat Dossaev (Minister of Economy and
Budget Planning of the Republic of Kazakhstan), Madina Abylkassymova
(Vice-­Minister of Economy and Budget Planning of the Republic of
Kazakhstan) and the staff of the Economic Research Institute in Astana,
for their interest and collaboration in this project.2
While the project led to a detailed ‘Report to the Government of
Kazakhstan,’ we decided to extend it and write a book on modern indus-
trial policy for a wider audience, as we realized that many of the issues that
appeared during our discussions on Kazakhstan are also relevant for other
countries with which we have had similar discussions about development
and planning.3 The result is this book.
I am deeply grateful to Changyong Rhee, ADB’s Chief Economist at
the time the project was conceptualized and during its initial stages, for his
enthusiasm and belief in the importance of this work. Our many discus-
sions on the subject led to a common understanding about key develop-
ment ideas that became the basis of this book. One was that developing
countries will not reach high-­income status without applying elements of
modern industrial policy. This is reflected in our two coauthored chapters.
A second agreement was that structural transformation, in particular
achieving a certain level of industrialization, is fundamental for achiev-
ing high-­income status. Some of these ideas were presented in the special
chapter ‘Asia’s economic transformation: where to, how and how fast?’
of ADB’s Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2013. I am also grateful
to the colleagues and friends who agreed to collaborate in this project
and to provide their views and experiences on different aspects of indus-
trial policy. I am indebted to my assistant, Maan Magadia, who did an
excellent job helping me organize the material and coordinating with all
authors. Alastair McIndoe provided editorial assistance.

1 Background studies were commissioned by the ADB in 2012 under ‘Technical

Assistance 8153: Policies for Industrial and Service Diversification in Asia in the 21st
Century’. The authors met in Seoul to discuss the contents of this book in September 2012.
2 These were their positions in the government at the time the project was conceived.
3 Felipe, J. and C. Rhee (2013), ‘Report to the Government of Kazakhstan: policies for

industrial and service diversification in Asia in the 21st century’, Asian Development Bank,
Manila.
 Preface ­xiii

I hope this book becomes a reference in discussions and policy analyses.

Taken together, the 13 chapters provide a coherent, comprehensive and
in-­depth assessment of key issues in modern industrial policy, in particular
how to undertake industrial policy in the twenty-­first century. They also
provide country studies that discuss experiences from which other coun-
tries can learn what to and, perhaps more important, what not to do.
Finally, the views and opinions expressed in this book are those of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of ADB, its Board of
Governors or the countries they represent.

Jesus Felipe
Advisor, Economic Research and
Regional Cooperation Department
Asian Development Bank
Abbreviations
ADB Asian Development Bank
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BeST Beijing–Seoul–Tokyo consensus
CGF credit guarantee foundation
CIC China Industry Code
CIP Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme
DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (US)
EIB European Investment Bank
ERA European Research Area
EU European Union
FDI foreign direct investment
GDP gross domestic product
GIF Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework
IAC Industries Assistance Commission (Australia)
ICT information and communication technology
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMP Industrial Master Plan (Malaysia)
IPR intellectual property rights
KfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (German Development
Bank)
KODIT Korea Credit Guarantee Fund
KONEX Korea New Exchange
KOSDAQ Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations
KOSTAT Statistics Korea
KOTEC Korea Technology Finance Corporation
M&A mergers and acquisitions
MAP Multiannual Program for Enterprises and Entrepreneurship
NBN national broadband network
NSE New Structural Economics
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development
POSCO Pohang Steel Corporation
PRC People’s Republic of China
PSE producer support estimate
RCA revealed comparative advantage
R&D research and development

­xiv
 Abbreviations ­xv

SBC Small and Medium Business Corporation (Republic of

Korea)
SBIR Small Business Innovation Research (United States)
SMBA Small and Medium Business Administration (Republic of
Korea)
SMEs small-­and medium-­sized enterprises
TRIPS trade-­related intellectual property rights
UK United Kingdom
US United States
WTO World Trade Organization

Notes: In this publication, ‘$’ refers to US dollars. The Asian Development

Bank recognizes China as the People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong
as Hong Kong, China; and Korea and South Korea as the Republic of
Korea. The book has been edited to conform to this usage.
1. Modern industrial policy
Jesus Felipe

1.1 MODERN INDUSTRIAL POLICY AND THE

RATIONALE OF THIS BOOK

The development landscape of the twenty-­first century will be significantly

different from that of the second half of the twentieth century, when a
small group of economies (mostly in Asia) made significant progress
and some achieved high-­income status. The emergence of India and the
People’s Republic of China (PRC), the development of many new labor-­
saving technologies, the fact that developed countries will not be keen
on running deficits that facilitate export-­led growth and that the World
Trade Organization places severe restrictions on developing countries to
conduct industrial policies (widely used earlier) mean that reproducing
what this small group of economies did will be next to impossible in the
coming decades. For these reasons, policymakers in developing countries
need to understand that the key to achieving high-­income status will be to
induce rapid structural change by moving from traditional primary prod-
ucts to nontraditional industrial products, and to find niches in industrial
products, consumer products with high-­income elasticities of demand,
and modern services.
Evidence, however, indicates that development is a path-­dependent
process. This means that it is easier for a country to develop new compara-
tive advantage in some product if it already has comparative advantage
in similar products. This makes development a slow process that requires
stepping stones. Consequently, leapfrogging, that is, the development
of comparative advantage in sophisticated and complex products (for
example, advanced machinery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals) without
having previously developed comparative advantage in similar products,
is rejected by the empirical evidence (Mehta and Felipe 2014).1 A frequent
question in policy circles is whether it is possible to reduce or eliminate

1 See Felipe et al. (2012) for an analysis of country and product complexity using a large

data set covering 124 countries and 5107 products. See also Felipe et al. (2014a, 2014b).

­1
2 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

path dependence. This is because sophisticated products and services are

usually associated with high wages.
The central argument of the chapters in this book is that achieving this
will be possible only if countries engage in industrial policy; more precisely,
‘modern industrial policy.’ It needs to be stated at the outset that our focus
is not on the theory of industrial policy and its merits or lack of them, but
on the practice of modern industrial policy. This book came about after
years of discussions with governments and policymakers across develop-
ing Asia, who are searching for answers to critical questions on how to
achieve rapid industrialization; transform, restructure and diversify their
economies; move up the value ladder; determine what industries should be
nurtured and who should decide this. The aim of all these countries is to
eventually achieve high-­income status; and to get there, they are trying to
do the right things. Not surprisingly, these countries are looking closely
at the experiences of the region’s economic success stories, especially the
PRC, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, for guidance and lessons.
Even though it is clear that these experiences cannot be repeated because
of the very different economic and political contexts, there is nevertheless
huge interest among the region’s developing economies about how these
countries organized themselves to make the jump that they have within a
generation.2
One answer to all these questions could be along the lines of ‘govern-
ments ought to stay out of the economy and let the market decide’ and
to recognize that government failures are large in developing countries
(indeed they are!), but we concluded that this was not a satisfactory
answer. For better or worse, all governments get involved in the economy
for one reason or another. Although we believe that the market is the best
mechanism to allocate resources efficiently, it is also clear that quite often
this does not happen for reasons that are now well established—market

2 For example, the Republic of Korea’s well-­known collaboration between the

chaebols and the state after the 1961 military coup resulted from corrupt firms being
exempted from criminal prosecution and confiscation of assets on the condition that their
­management worked with the new government (Jomo and Tan 1999: 86–7). The merit
of the Republic of Korea’s managers was that they used this situation for the benefit of
the country. Singapore has no natural resources, and at the time of the breakup with
Malaysia in 1965, unemployment was 14% and population was only 2 million, which was
very small to support any industry on its own. The government concluded that, given
these conditions, it had to be bold and devise a unique approach to industrialization and
job creation, the key to economic development. However, unlike Japan and the Republic
of Korea, Singapore’s bureaucrats did not focus on nurturing domestic firms run by local
entrepreneurs. This meant that when the government wanted to enter a new area, it had
to do it directly. This political context certainly cannot be repeated, but in these two cases,
the state was not captured by particular interest groups or classes—and this is an impor-
tant lesson valid today.
 Modern industrial policy ­3

failures. Hence, we believe there are sound reasons for a government to

facilitate the transformation of the economy and contribute to its diver-
sification and upgrading, as neither are natural processes. Diversification
can happen quite easily within a narrow range of products; that is, across
products that require similar technologies and capabilities (for example,
from simple textiles into slightly more sophisticated textiles or from gar-
ments into shoes). However, diversification into distant product lines—the
development of new generations of industries with a greater potential for
innovation and productivity, such as from garments into ­automobiles—
requires mastering specific capabilities across many areas, as well as
having well-­developed supporting institutions. History teaches that this
process is policy induced. Clearly, it is virtually impossible to list a set of
universally valid policies on how to diversify; indeed, the only generally
valid recommendation is to avoid policy incoherence. In this context, this
book discusses key market failures that developing countries face and how
to solve them, which is the essence of modern industrial policy.
Today, we understand that economic development is essentially about
three key issues, which jointly provide the rationale for modern indus-
trial policy. First, it is a process of accumulating productive capabilities
(Box 1.1). This acknowledges that development is about more than simply
increasing income, which could happen as a result of a resource bonanza.
Capabilities are all inputs that go into the production process; more
specifically, they refer to the ability to produce by using and developing
new technologies and organizations. But since some of these inputs are
tradable (for example, machinery) everyone has access to them. What
truly differentiates countries is their use of non-­tradable capabilities (for
example, a law).
Second, the accumulation of capabilities leads to structural transforma-
tion, that is, the rise of new industries to replace traditional ones and the
diversification of the productive structure and its upgrading. The idea of
structural transformation encompasses the concepts of diversification and
upgrading of an economy’s productive structure, and acknowledges that
not all activities have the same consequences for development (Syrquin
2008). High-­technology manufacturing is clearly better than traditional
farming to enable countries to upgrade their productive capabilities.
However, high-­technology manufacturing does not develop naturally in
backward economies. Unless governments promote such activities and
help the private sector, the market will pull a backward economy toward
the same type of activities that it was doing previously (for example,
agricultural products or simple textiles), which are often based on its
­comparative advantage of natural resources or cheap labor.
Third, in market economies, private firms are the agents of economic
4 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

BOX 1.1 PRODUCTIVE CAPABILITIES: WHAT ARE THEY

AND WHY DO THEY MATTER?

The products and services that a firm produces are a reflection of the set of capa-
bilities that it possesses. Capabilities encompass all the tacit knowledge necessary
to produce a good or deliver a service. Specifically, these are: (1) human abilities;
(2) technology to ensure sustained growth (that is, knowledge on raw materials,
machines and equipment, engineers and skilled workers, management and
markets); and (3) firm-­level know-­how, as well as working and organizational prac-
tices held collectively by the group of individuals comprising a firm. This know-­how
also encompasses the communication, organization and coordination abilities that
provide the capacity to form, manage and operate activities involving large
numbers of people. These practices are particularly important for developing coun-
tries because they are often in short supply. The important point is that they are
more relevant for competitiveness than low wages or tertiary education. Capabilities
take the form of groups of citizens well organized into collective entities with high
productivity, as seen in companies such as Boeing, Volkswagen and Rolex.
So what role do capabilities play? The competitiveness of a productive sector
ultimately depends on the ability of firms to accumulate technological capabilities
in a changing environment. In the case of high-­technology industries such as aero-
space, long-­run competitiveness depends on the capacity of the sector’s innovation
systems to provide cost-­cutting and productivity-­increasing innovations, and prod-
ucts with technological features superior to those of competitors. Although firms
learn how to respond to demand (and hence how to produce), their capabilities
coevolve with those of the scientific and technological frontier, as well as with the
institutions that regulate access to and adoption of knowledge. The aim of any
competitive industry is to continue increasing its innovative performance. This
requires constantly upgrading production and innovation systems, which in turn
requires new combinations of resources and new institutions. The experience of
developing countries is that this is a very costly, uncertain and risky process, which
can fail.
Understanding the transformation of companies such as Nokia (from a paper
mill into a technological leader), or 3M (from mining a mineral deposit for grinding-­
wheel abrasives to manufacturing sandpaper products, the first waterproof sand-
paper, Scotch masking tape, the thermo-­fax copy process, Post-­it notes and Scotch
Brite cleaning products) or, more recently, innovative Chinese and Indian compa-
nies (e.g. Focused Photonics, Haier Group, Huawei, and Tata) requires acknowl-
edging the central role played by the accumulation of capabilities in development.

Source: Author.

transformation, but their actions need to be inserted in a framework of

public action. In today’s world, economic development requires a mix of
market forces and public sector support. Although in a market economy
the role of firms, and what moves them, is relatively straightforward
(profits and returns), what moves the public sector is less clear since it is
not subject to the same type of incentives that move private firms.
 Modern industrial policy ­5

Although industrial policy is still a taboo word in many circles, the

reality is that virtually all national economic programs include elements
of it through different forms of government intervention.3, 4 The difference
across countries is that some are still engaged in old-­style industrial policy
while others have evolved into the practice that we refer to as modern
industrial policy. Old-­style industrial policy is about picking specific
sectors of the economy (known as ‘vertical’ industrial policy) for politi-
cal reasons—thus preserving the status quo and preventing institutional
change (see Bardhan 2001; Rajan 2009)—and about promoting these
sectors through different strategies. The most criticized of these has been
the use of subsidies not linked to performance measures. Unfortunately,
this type of industrial policy has often led to rent-­seeking behavior that
undermines the initial good intentions and, sooner or later, to losers that
need to be bailed out, with the corresponding fiscal implications.5 This is
not what modern industrial policy is about.

1.2 WHAT IS MODERN INDUSTRIAL POLICY?

Consistent with the view of development just explained, modern indus-

trial policy concerns anticipating change and facilitating it by removing
obstacles and correcting market failures (Syrquin 2008). In practice,
modern industrial policy comprises restructuring policies that facilitate
the transfer of resources to the more dynamic activities of an economy,
be they agriculture, industry or services. These are both ‘horizontal’ and
‘vertical’ policies. The former refers to the provision of inputs that can be
used by a broad range of firms across different sectors. Typical examples
are transport infrastructure, well-­educated engineers, or health and safety

3 The Inter-­American Development Bank uses the less sensitive term ‘productive

­development policies.’ See Velasco (2014).

4 Governments intervene in the economy in four ways: (1) as regulators setting tariffs

and providing fiscal incentives and subsidies; (2) as financiers influencing credit markets
and the allocation of public and financial resources to different projects; (3) as producers
through, for example, state enterprises; and (4) as consumers through, for example, public
procurement.
5 Although see Jomo and Tan (1999: 14–15) for a discussion of when rent-­seeking activi-

ties are probably harmful and when they are not. To understand this, it is important to dif-
ferentiate between rent-­seeking activities and state-­created rents. The danger of rent-­seeking
transaction costs (for example, payments to keep subsidies) lies in the possibility of the state
augmenting and encouraging the existence of inefficient producers who may end up having
monopoly rights. This may have serious consequences for long-­term efficiency. But the mere
existence of state-­created rents, which are only a transfer of wealth and may not involve
wastage, does not mean that resources will be spent on rent seeking. In fact, these rents could
stimulate entrepreneurship.
6 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

inspection systems. Vertical policies favor a particular sector (for example,

training electronic engineers). Very often, however, publicly provided
inputs (for example, a road) are sector or product specific; that is, vertical.
Examples of these inputs are a remote road that fosters eco-­tourism—it
does not help carry merchandise to a port—or a laboratory certifying the
quality of meat, which is different from a laboratory certifying the quality
of vegetables. Such examples show there is a small difference between
­horizontal and vertical policies.
Consequently, modern industrial policy also entails sector selection
(training a particular type of engineer or building a particular road, for
example). However, the strategies used to select sectors have a clear
rationale and the tools to promote them are stage-­development dependent
and linked to performance measures; that is, they are allocated according
to the principle of reciprocity and given in exchange for concrete perform-
ance standards. Modern industrial policy also has a clear objective: to
address the typical market failures that many firms face in the discovery of
new activities in which they may thrive and that may ultimately lead to an
economy’s transformation.6 To solve these problems, modern industrial
policy uses both horizontal and vertical tools. Finally, to succeed, modern
industrial policy has to be conducted in a highly competitive environment
(Aghion et al. 2012).
Firms from developing countries face a multiplicity of market failures.
Two that are typical are information and coordination externalities. The
first derives from the difference between the social and private values
that entrepreneurs face when they try a new venture. For example, if the
introduction of a product in a new market fails, the company will have to
bear the full cost, but if it succeeds, it will share the discovery with other
producers. Coordination externalities refer to the fact that new indus-
tries require capital that private entrepreneurs may not have. Moreover,

6 For Rodrik (2007), the essential elements of an industrial architecture are the fol-

lowing: political leadership must be at the top; there must be coordination and deliberation
councils; and countries must have transparency and accountability mechanisms. He also
lists ten design principles for industrial policy: (1) incentives should be provided only to new
activities; (2) there should be clear benchmarks/criteria for success and failure; (3) there must
be a built-­in sunset clause; (4) public support must target activities not sectors; (5) activities
that are subsidized must have clear potential for ­providing spillovers and demonstration
effects; (6) the authority for carrying out industrial policies must be vested in agencies with
demonstrated competence; (7) implementing agencies must be monitored closely by a prin-
cipal with a clear stake in the outcomes and who has political authority at the highest level;
(8) the agencies carrying out promotion must maintain channels of communication with the
private sector; (9) optimally, mistakes that result in ‘picking losers’ will occur; and (10) pro-
motion activities need to have the capacity to renew themselves, so that the cycle of discovery
becomes ongoing.
 Modern industrial policy ­7

new industries require coordinated investments in many related indus-

tries that individual entrepreneurs cannot organize by themselves. These
­investments generate demonstration effects and technological spillovers
that raise the social return above the private return. This is the role of
modern industrial policy. Solving these problems and providing adequate
public services may not be easy (and not all cases will be ­successful), but
they are a necessary condition for a healthy modern market economy and
to engineer the structural transformation process that many developing
countries need to accomplish.
Information and coordination failures make discovery a costly and
difficult process. The discovery of new activities and the identification
and removal of market failures requires strategic collaboration between
private and public sectors. As a consequence, modern industrial policy is
not just about picking promising sectors, but about jointly uncovering the
obstacles to restructuring an economy and the types of interventions that
can remove obstacles (Hausmann and Rodrik 2006; Rodrik 2007).
Another significant problem that many firms in developing countries
face is a lack of organizational capabilities, and this could be more
important than the market failures described above. To understand what
these refer to, one simply has to visit two firms making the same product
or delivering the same service in a developed country and a developing
country. Significant differences in the organization of the work flow and
the workshop are quickly apparent. Very often these differences are not
related to different capital–labor ratios but to work practices.7 Sutton
(2000, 2005) argues that becoming a rich country is about being able to
earn higher real wages, and that some economic activities are more lucra-
tive than others. Countries that specialize in such activities enjoy a higher
level of real wages. But, unlike the traditional neoclassical model in which
higher real wages are the result of an increasing capital–labor ratio, Sutton
argues that the primary driver of growth is the gradual buildup of firms’
organizational capabilities.8 This is also reminiscent of Kremer’s (1993)

7 For example, an oil change, a simple service that in a developed country can be done

in 30–60 minutes, can take hours in many developing countries because of how the shop floor
is organized, and different work practices. Banking is another example. In developing coun-
tries, one often sees staff performing by hand operations that are automated in a developed
country. A third example is traffic management skills. Apart from worse infrastructure than
in advanced economies, traffic in many parts of the developing world is often simply poorly
managed.
8 Sutton (2000, 2005) argues that capabilities manifest themselves as a quality–­

productivity combination. A given capability is embodied in the tacit knowledge of the

individuals who comprise a firm’s workforce. Quality–productivity combinations are not
a continuum from zero; rather, there is a window with a ‘minimum threshold’ below which
firms would be excluded from the market. In a globalized world, tradable capabilities can be
8 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

O-­ring theory, whereby production is a series of tasks that can be per-

formed at different levels of skill, where the latter refers to the probability
of ­successfully completing a task. For the final product or service to be
successfully made or delivered, every single task must be completed cor-
rectly. For example, a car is a car if and only if all systems and components
work. This implies that the value of each worker’s effort depends on the
quality of the efforts of all workers.
There is also another class of problems that countries face as they
become richer and have solved some of the problems mentioned above.
These are referred to as network failures. In a wide array of technological
and industrial arenas, advances are achieved not entirely through competi-
tive transactions, but also through mutual learning processes fostered by
well-­managed collaboration between specialists in complementary fields,
as well as between designers, producers and end-­users. These failures can
be addressed through policies aimed at helping dispersed network partners
acquire a degree of certainty about the trustworthiness and competence of
one another.
Seen in this light, industrial policy need not be controversial. Here, indus-
trial policy is much less about the efficacy of government ­intervention—in
particular about the incorrect allocation of funds to the wrong sectors
or the capture of subsidies by private interests—than about collabora-
tion and the design of mechanisms to avoid these problems (for example,
through transparency and accountability, sunset clauses and time-­bound
assistance). Consequently, both vertical and horizontal measures can
be used simultaneously. Public–private collaboration is the essence of
modern market economies and a key differentiating factor between econo-
mies that function well and those that do not.

1.3 A SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENTS

The chapters in this book are divided into industrial policy issues
(Chapters 2–6), economic diversification (Chapters 7–8) and country
experiences (Chapters 9–13). The chapters were conceived and developed
around five underlying questions on industrial policy: (1) who selects the
sectors to promote? (2) What is the rationale for sector selection? (3) What
are the main tools used to promote sectors? (4) How can industrial poli-
cies support innovation and human capital development? (5) How should

imported. Therefore, differences across countries must be due to capabilities that are non-­
tradable inputs.
 Modern industrial policy ­9

industrial policies be monitored and evaluated? The chapters in this book

examine the latest thinking on these issues as well as country experiences
on industrial policy in Australia, the PRC, the European Union (EU),
the Republic of Korea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Philippines and the
United States (US). The developed countries in this list do indeed conduct
industrial policy, albeit somewhat stealthily by using various names and
euphemisms as the term itself continues to be regarded negatively in many
influential circles.9 That notwithstanding, developed countries spend
heavily to stimulate their economies; for example, for advancing new
­technologies or clusters.
This book fills a vacuum in the literature on industrial policy. Ultimately,
as noted earlier, policymakers want to know what industrial policies have
been most successful and how they should move forward in designing and
implementing their own country-­specific versions of them. Although all
the authors are ‘supporters’ of industrial policy, they are so to different
extents and with significant nuances. That said, all of us think in terms
of modern industrial policy and, in this sense, the chapters in this book
offer a balanced defense of industrial policy and complement the excel-
lent collection of studies in Cimoli et al. (2009) and Szirmai et al. (2013).10
Our aim is not to evaluate the merits of industrial policy (in terms of the
possible benefits by addressing market failures) in relation to the costs
of government failure, which we acknowledge are present in developing
countries. Instead, we discuss key issues in modern industrial policy and
how these are being dealt with in a variety of developing and developed
countries. Clearly, there is no basic formula for effective modern industrial
policy that fits all country contexts, but this book does seek to draw find-
ings and arguments from country experiences and, from these, offer do’s
and don’ts to help guide policymakers on how to address market failures
and avoid rent seeking.
The following is a summary of these findings and arguments:

1. Development is about the structural transformation of the economy.

This idea has three key dimensions: diversify the economy, increase
product/service sophistication and transfer of resources (both labor
and capital) toward the more productive activities of the economy.
These lead to higher wages. The key question for developing

9 See Chang (2002) for an account of industrial policy in developed countries at the time

they were developing.

10 We also recommend Jomo and Tan (1999), who provide in-­depth analyses of the

industrial policies of Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taipei,China, as well as useful policy
lessons.
10 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

c­ ountries today is the speed at which this process happens. Historical

experience shows that, with a few exceptions, it has been very slow
and path dependent. Structural transformation is slow and not a
natural process because it is rife with market failures and because
developing countries often lack organizational capabilities. The
rationale for industrial policy is the desire to expedite this process
through government intervention.
2. Modern governments, in coordination with the private sector, can
play an important role in addressing the coordination and infor-
mation externalities, as well as the lack of capabilities, inherent in
attempts to diversify. This coordination is a key pillar of modern
industrial policy.
3. The experiences highlighted in this book suggest that industrial
policy should be stage-­of-­development dependent. Countries at an
early stage of development produce goods that are already produced
elsewhere, thus selecting sectors is less risky because well-­known
patterns of technological development can be emulated. Here,
industrial policy is not about expanding technology frontiers to
create new industries, but about the public sector playing a leading
role in identifying development bottlenecks and addressing coor-
dination failures. Finance is also an important factor. Financial
institutions that specialize in intermediating risks associated with
large-­scale projects generally do not exist in less developed econo-
mies, and so their governments need to mobilize domestic and
external financial resources. The nature of industrial policy changes
as economies mature. Production technologies become more sophis-
ticated and the promotion of new industries moves into uncharted
territory. Industrial policy then has to confront high-­return, high-­
risk trade-­offs that are too much for the public sector to take on
alone. Furthermore, as economies mature, the balance of expertise
gradually shifts from the public to the private sector. Therefore, it is
natural that decisions about developing new products or sectors—
picking winners—is increasingly left to private firms.
4. Political economy is an important factor. Industrial policy is unfair
by nature as some areas of society benefit more than others. This
inherent unfairness becomes less widely accepted as a society becomes
more democratic. Furthermore, as an economy develops, foreign
competitors will not be as forgiving of government subsidy support
to certain sectors. Therefore, the role of government’s conducting
industrial policy tends to be more indirect in advanced economies.
5. A common misconception is that governments in advanced econo-
mies no longer pursue industrial policies. The reality is that many
 Modern industrial policy ­11

advanced economies do rely on ‘indirect industrial policy’ by select-

ing and supporting industries through private financial markets.
Here, governments broadly define favored industries and announce
incentives for private financing. The role of private financial insti-
tutions is to find candidates to support. Governments then adjust
the level of incentives to assume a minority or majority share of
the guarantee depending on the risk. Good examples include the
Multiannual Program for Enterprises and Entrepreneurship under
the EU’s Lisbon Strategy; various credit guarantee programs of
the European Investment Fund; and the small-­ and medium-­sized
enterprises on-­lending programs of Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau
(KfW), Germany’s national development bank. Indirect industrial
policy works only in a competitive environment. In the US, the
government undertakes a significant amount of industrial policy to
address network failures.
6. The benefits of indirect industrial policy are numerous. Risks can
be shared between the public and private sectors, and governments
can leverage the private sector’s deeper knowledge in selecting
potential winners. Moreover, it is an effective way of minimizing the
moral hazard problem. One of the practical problems of traditional
industrial policy is that governments have difficulties withdrawing
assistance to firms once extended. But with indirect industrial policy,
private financial institutions—not the government—interact directly
with firms, and can, if necessary, withdraw their support without
causing political backlash or giving the impression that the ‘govern-
ment is taking away the umbrella when it rains.’
7. The selection of industrial policy tools is also stage-­of-­development
dependent. These can be classified into one of eight categories: fiscal
incentives, investment attraction programs, training policies, infra-
structure support, trade measures, public procurement, financial
mechanisms and industrial restructuring schemes. The key issue is
not whether these tools are horizontal or vertical. Both are used,
depending on the case. Rather, it is whether their use is consist-
ent with the principles of modern industrial policy. Governments
in advanced economies rely increasingly on financial tools as their
economies mature, while the public sector’s role in industrial policy
becomes less and less visible.
8. Risk management tools are important in modern industrial policy.
Although there are potentially significant social returns from pursu-
ing industrial policy, the fiscal cost of credit program failures are
absorbed by the government and, ultimately, taxpayers. A stop-­loss
mechanism is necessary to ensure that ineffective or wasteful credit
12 Development and modern industrial policy in practice

programs are not continually funded year after year. The US Federal
Credit Reform Act 1990 is a good example of such a mechanism.
Industrial restructuring tools also need to be developed to minimize
the ex-­post impact of program failures.
9. Human capital development and innovation are essential compo-
nents of industrial policies. Low-­ and middle-­income economies
need to develop high-­quality basic and vocational education to gain
competitiveness in existing industries or to move into new ones.
Societies need workers who can be trained to assimilate technologies.
As countries become richer, they should develop high-­quality terti-
ary education, though this obviously does not mean that everybody
needs a degree. Still, the reality is that societies generate relatively
few jobs that require advanced degrees, which means that the private
sector must also supply education, training, and research and devel-
opment (R&D). Initiating R&D consortiums with the private sector
in targeted industries can be an effective government strategy to
accelerate R&D expenditure.
10. Foreign direct investment is an important element of the industrial
diversification process. However, if not properly designed, pref-
erential treatment and R&D incentives for foreign multinational
corporations can increase their profitability without resulting in
technology transfer to domestic firms. Sometimes, buying technol-
ogy and paying royalties may be more effective in developing the
domestic technology base.
11. A strong monitoring and evaluation mechanism is essential for suc-
cessful industrial policies, and there are several general rules for
effective mechanisms, including establishing clear objectives, devel-
oping simple check-­up systems and ensuring coordination among
relevant agents. However, governments should not launch new ini-
tiatives if programs with similar policy objectives remain unfinished
or unevaluated.
12. As economies mature, industrial policies become more complex. It
is virtually impossible to trace all spillover effects across industries
and come up with a comprehensive macroeconomic evaluation of
a modern industrial policy package. Therefore, industrial policies
in advanced economies are typically reviewed and monitored on a
program-­by-­program basis rather than evaluated as an overall indus-
trial policy package. Evaluation programs must be decentralized and
have multiple layers of oversight. An appropriate legal framework is
also needed to make monitoring and evaluation mechanisms effec-
tive and transparent.
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The English did not profit by the lady’s eloquence, for our forefathers
never had a more gallant or more difficult adversary to deal with than
Bertrand. Living, his name was a terror to them; and dying, he had
the sympathy of those who had been his foes. Charles V. made him
Constable of France, and appointed him a grave at the foot of his
own royal tomb. De Guesclin would never have been half the man
he was but for the good sense of his wife Tiphania.
There are many instances in romance which would seem to imply,
that so strained was the sentiment which bound knights to respect
ladies, it compelled them not to depart therefrom even in extreme
cases, involving lightness of conduct and infidelity. The great
northern chiefs, who were a sort of very rough knights in their way,
were, however, completely under the distaff. Their wives could
divorce themselves at will. Thus, in Erysbiggia Saga we read of
Borck, an Icelandic chief, who, bringing home a guest whom his wife
not only refused to welcome, but attempted to stab, administered
such correction to his spouse in return, that the lady called in
witnesses and divorced herself on the spot. Thereupon the
household goods were divided among them, and the affair was
rapidly and cheaply managed without the intervention of an
Ecclesiastical Court. More modern chivalry would not have tolerated
the idea of correcting even a faithless, much less a merely angry
spouse. Indeed, the amatory principle was quite as strong as the
religious one; and in illustration thereof, it has been remarked that
the knight must have been more than ordinarily devout who had God
on his right hand (the place of honor), and his lady on his left.
To ride at the ring was then the pleasantest pastime for knights; and
ladies looked on and applauded the success, or laughed at the
failures. The riding, without attempting to carry off the ring, is still
common enough at our fairs, for children; but in France and
Germany, it is seriously practised in both its simple and double
forms, by persons of all ages, who glide round to the grinding of an
organ, and look as grave as if they were on desperate business.
It is an undoubted matter of fact, that although a knight was bound to
be tender in his gallantry, there were some to be found whose
wooing was of the very roughest; and there were others who, if not
rough, were rascally.
The old Rue des Lombards, in Paris, was at one time occupied
exclusively by the “professed pourpoint-makers,” as a modern tailor
might say. They carried on a flourishing trade, especially in times
when men, like Bassompierre, thought nothing of paying, or
promising to pay, fourteen thousand crowns for a pourpoint. When I
say the street was thus occupied exclusively, I must notice an
exception. There were a few other residents in it, the Jew money-
lenders or usurers; and when I hear the old French proverb cited
“patient as a Lombard,” I do not know whether it originally applied to
the tailors or the money-lenders, both of whom were extensively
cheated by their knightly customers. Here is an illustration of it,
showing that all Jessicas have not been as lucky as Shylock’s
daughter, and that some Jews have been more cruelly treated than
Shylock’s daughter’s father—whom I have always considered as one
of the most ill-used of men.
In the Rue des Lombards there dwelt a wealthy Jew, who put his
money out at interest, and kept his daughter under lock and key at
home. But the paternal Jew did not close his shutters, and the
Lombard street Jessica, sitting all day at the window, attracted the
homage of many passers-by. These were chiefly knights who came
that way to be measured for pourpoints; and no knight was more
attracted by the black eyes of the young lady in question, than the
Chevalier Giles de Pontoise. That name indeed is one of a
celebrated hero of a burlesque tragedy, but the original knight was
“my Beverley.”
Giles wore the showiest pourpoint in the world; for which he had
obtained long credit. It struck him that he would call upon the Jew to
borrow a few hundred pistoles, and take the opportunity to also
borrow the daughter. He felt sure of succeeding in both exploits; for,
as he remarked, if he could not pay the money he was about to
borrow, he could borrow it of his more prudent relatives, and so
acquit himself of his debt. With regard to the lady, he had serenaded
her, night after night, till she looked as ready to leap down to him as
the Juliets who played to Barry’s Romeo;—and he had sung “Ecco
ridente il sole,” or what was then equivalent to it, accompanied by his
guitar, and looking as ridiculous the while, without being half so
silvery-toned as Rubini in Almaviva, warbling his delicious nonsense
to Rosina. Our Jew, like old Bartolo, was destined to pay the
musician.
Giles succeeded in extracting the money required from the usurer,
and he had like success in inducing the daughter to trust to his
promises. He took the latter to Pontoise, deceived her by a mock-
marriage, and spent all that he had borrowed from the father, in
celebrating his pretended nuptials with the daughter. There never
was a more recreant knight than Giles de Pontoise.
However, bills will become due, if noble or simple put their names to
them, and the Jew claimed at once both his debt and his daughter.
He failed in obtaining his money, but the lady he carried off by
violence, she herself exhibiting considerable reluctance to leave the
Château de Pontoise for the paternal dungeon in the Rue des
Lombards.
This step brought Giles to a course of reflection. It was not of that
quality which his confessor would have recommended, but rather of
a satanic aspect. “In the usurer’s house,” thought Giles, “live the
tailor to whom I am indebted for my pourpoint, the Jew who holds my
promise to pay, and the pretty daughter of whom I have been so
unjustly deprived. I will set fire to the house. If I burn tailor, money-
lender, and the proofs of my liabilities, I shall have done a good
night’s work, if I therewith can carry off little Jessica.”
Thereupon, Giles went down to the Rue des Lombards, and with
such aid as was then easily purchasable, he soon wrapped the
Jew’s dwelling in flames. Shylock looked to his papers and money-
bags. The knight groped through the smoke and carried off the
daughter. The Jew still held the promissory note of the Knight of
Pontoise, whose incendiary act, however, had destroyed half of one
side of the Rue des Lombards. Therewith had perished reams of
bonds which made slaves of chevaliers to Jew money-lenders. “Sic
vos non vobis,” thought Giles, “but at all events, if he has my bill, I
have possession of Jessica.”
The Jew held as much to his daughter as to his ducats. He
persecuted the pretended husband with a pertinacity which
eventually overcame Giles de Pontoise. A compromise was effected.
The knight owed the usurer three thousand golden crowns, and had
stolen from him his only daughter. Giles agreed to surrender his
“lady,” on condition that the money-lender should sign an acquittance
of the debt. This done, the Jew and daughter walked homeward,
neither of them well satisfied with the result of their dealings with a
knight.
The burnt-out Lombarder turned round at the threshold of the
knight’s door, with a withering sneer, like Edmund Kean’s in Shylock
when he was told to make haste and go home, and begin to be a
Christian. “It is little but sorrow I get by you, at all events,” said the
Jew to the Chevalier.
“Do you make so light of your grandson?” asked Giles. And with this
Parthian dart he shut his door in the face of the trio who were his
victims.
This knight was a victimizer; but below we have an illustration of
knights victimized through too daring affection.
The great Karloman may be said to have been one of those crowned
knights who really had very little of the spirit of chivalry in him, with
respect to ladies. He married, successfully, two wives, but to neither
did he allow the title of Empress. It is, however, not with his two
wives, but his two daughters and their chevaliers par amours, with
whom we have now to do.
In the Rue de la Harpe, in Paris, may be seen the remains, rather
than the ruins, of the old building erected by the Emperor Julian, and
which was long known by the name of the “old palace.” It served as
a palace about a thousand years and half a century ago, when one
night there drew up before it a couple of knights, admirably mounted,
and rather roughly escorted by a mob, who held up their lanterns to
examine the riders, and handled their pikes as if they were more
ready to massacre the knights than to marshal them.
All the civility they received on this February night was of a highly
equivocal nature. They were admitted, indeed, into the first and
largest court of the palace, but the old seneschal locked and barred
the gate behind them. An officer too approached to bid them
welcome, but he had hardly acquitted himself of his civil mission
when he peremptorily demanded of them the surrender of their
swords.
“We are the King’s own messengers,” said one of the knights, rather
puzzled at the reception vouchsafed to them;—“and we have,
moreover, a despatch to deliver, written in our gracious master’s own
hand,” remarked the second knight.
“Vive Louis le Debonnaire!” exclaimed the seneschal; “how fares it
with our sovereign?”
“As well as can be,” was the reply, “with a monarch who has been
engaged six whole weeks at Aix, in burying his father and
predecessor, Charlemagne. Here is his missive.” This missive was
from Louis the Frolicsome, or Louis the Good-Natured, or Louis of
Fair Aspect. He was morose, wittily disposed, and ill-featured;—but
then the poet-laureate had given him his fine name; and the king
wore it as if it had been fairly won. He had clipped, shaved, and
frocked, all his natural brothers, and then shut them up in
monasteries. He had no more respect for treaties than he had for
Mohammed, and by personal example he taught perjury and
rebellion to those whom he cruelly punished when they imitated their
exalted instructor. The seneschal perused the letter addressed to
him by his royal correspondent, and immediately requested the two
knights to enter the palace itself.
They were ushered into a lofty-arched apartment on the ground floor,
which ordinarily served as an ante-room for the guards on duty; it
was for the moment, however, empty. They who have visited the old
Palais de Thermes, as it is called, have, doubtlessly, remarked and
admired this solid relic of the past.
After entering, the seneschal once more lifted the despatch to the
flambeau, read it through, looked at the seal, then at the knights,
coughed uneasily, and began to wear an air of dislike for some duty
imposed upon him. He repeated, as if he were learning by rote, the
names Raoul de Lys and Robert de Quercy. “Those are our names,”
observed the first; “we have ridden hither by the king’s orders to
announce his coming; and having done so, let us have fire and food,
lest we be famished and frozen before he arrives.”
“Hem!” muttered the seneschal, “I am extremely sorry; but, according
to this letter, you are my prisoners, and till to-morrow you must
remain in this apartment;” and, seeing them about to remonstrate, he
added, “You will be quite at liberty here, except, of course, that you
can’t get out; you will have separate quarters to-morrow.”
It was in vain that they inquired the reason for their detention, the
nature of the charge alleged against them, or what they had further
to expect. The seneschal dryly referred them to the monarch. He
himself knew nothing more than his orders, and by them he was
instructed to keep the two friends in close confinement till the
sovereign’s arrival. “On second thoughts,” said the seneschal, “I
must separate you at once. There is the bell in the tower of St.
Jacques ringing midnight, and to-morrow will be upon us, before its
iron tongue has done wagging. I really must trouble one of you
gentlemen to follow me.” The voice was not so civil as the words,
and after much parleying and reluctance, the two friends parted.
Robert bade Raoul be of good cheer; and Raoul, who was left
behind, whispered that it would be hard, indeed, if harm was to come
to them under such a roof.
The roof, however, of this royal palace, looked very much like the
covering of a place in which very much harm might be very quietly
effected. But there were dwelling there two beings who might have
been taken for spirits of good, so winning, so natural, and so
loveable were the two spirits in question. They were no other than
the two daughters of Charlemagne, Gisla and Rotrude. The
romancers, who talk such an infinite deal of nonsense, say of them
that their sweet-scented beauty was protected by the prickles of
principle. The most rapid of analysers may see at once that this was
no great compliment to the ladies. It was meant, however, to be the
most refined flattery; and the will was accepted for the deed.
Now, the two knights loved the two ladies, and if they had not,
neither Father Daniel nor Sainte Foix could have alluded to their
amorous history; nor Father Pasquale, of the Convent of the
Arminians in Venice, have touched it up with some of the hues of
romance, nor Roger de Beauvoir have woven the two together, nor
unworthy ægomet have applied it to the illustration of daring lovers.
These two girls were marvellously high-spirited. They had been
wooed by emperors; but feeling no inclination to answer favorably to
the wooing, Charlemagne generously refused to put force upon their
affections, and bade them love only where their hearts directed
them. This “license” gave courage to numberless nobles of various
degrees, but Rotrude and Gisla said nay to all their regular
advances. The Princesses were, in fact, something like Miss
Languish, thought love worth nothing without a little excitement, and
would have considered elopement as the proper preceder of the
nuptial ceremony. Their mother, Hildegarda, was an unexceptional
woman, but, like good Queen Charlotte, who let her daughters read
Polly Honeycombe as well as Hannah More, she was a little
confused in the way she taught morals, and the young Princesses
fell in love, at the first opportunity, with gallant gentlemen of—as
compared with princesses—rather low degree. In this respect, there
is a parallel between the house of Karloman and some other houses
of more modern times.
Louis le Debonnaire had, as disagreeable brothers will have, an
impertinent curiosity respecting his sisters’ affairs. He was, here, the
head of his family, and deemed himself as divinely empowered to
dispose of the hearts of these ladies, as of the families and fortunes
of his people. He had learned the love-passages that had been
going on, and he had hinted that when he reached the old palace in
Paris, he would make it as calmly cold as a cloister, and that there
were disturbed hearts there, which should be speedily restored to a
lasting tranquillity. The young ladies did not trouble themselves to
read the riddle of a brother who was for ever affecting much mystery.
But they prepared to welcome his arrival, and seemed more than
ordinarily delighted when they knew that intelligence of his
approaching coming had been brought by the two knights then in the
castle.
Meanwhile, Raoul de Lys sat shivering on a stone bench in the great
guard-room. He subsequently addressed himself to a scanty portion
of skinny wild boar, very ill-cooked; drank, with intense disgust, part
of a flask of hydromel of the very worst quality; and then having
gazed on the miniature of Rotrude, which he took from beneath the
buff jerkin under his corslet, he apostrophized it till he grew sleepy,
upon which he blew out his lamp, and threw himself on an execrably
hard couch. He was surprised to find that he was not in the dark.
There was very good reason for the contrary.
As he blew out his lamp, a panel in the stone wall glided noiselessly
open, and Robert de Quercy appeared upon the threshold—one
hand holding a lamp, the other leading a lady. The lady was veiled;
and she and the knight hurriedly approached Raoul, who as hurriedly
rushed forward to meet them. He had laid his armor by; and they
who recollect Mr. Young in Hotspur, and how he looked in tight buff
suit, before he put his armor on, may have some idea of the rather
ridiculous guise in which Raoul appeared to the lady. But she was
used to such sights, and had not time to remark it even had she not
been so accustomed.
Raoul observing that Robert was accompanied only by Gisla, made
anxious inquiry for Rotrude. Gisla in a few words told him that her
sister would speedily be with them, that there was certain danger,
even death, threatening the two cavaliers, and probable peril
menacing—as Gisla remarked, with a blush—those who loved them.
The King, she added, had spoken angrily of coming to purify the
palace, as she had heard from Count Volrade, who appears to have
been a Polonius, as regards his office, with all the gossip, but none
of the good sense, of the old chamberlain in Denmark.
“Death to us!” exclaimed Robert. “Accursed be the prince who
transgresses the Gospel admonition, not to forget his own or his
father’s friends.” “We were the favored servants of Charlemagne,”
said Raoul. “We were of his closest intimacy,” exclaimed Robert.
“Never,” interrupted Raoul, “did he ascend his turret to watch the
stars, without summoning us, his nocturnal pages, as he called us, to
his side.” “He dare not commit such a crime; for the body of
Charlemagne is scarcely sealed down in its tomb; and Louis has not
a month’s hold of the sceptre.”
“He holds it firmly enough, however, to punish villany,” exclaimed
Louis himself, as he appeared in the doorway leading to a flight of
stone stairs by which Gisla had indicated the speedy appearance of
Rotrude.
And here I would beseech my readers to believe that if the word
“tableau!” ought to be written at this situation, and if it appears to
them to be too melo-dramatic to be natural, I am not in fault. I refer
them to all the histories and romances in which this episode in
knightly story is told, and in all they will find that Louis makes his
appearance exactly as I have described, and precisely like Signor
Tamburini in the great scene of Lucrezia Borgia.
Louis having given expression to his startling bit of recitative,
dragged forward Rotrude, whom he had held behind him, by the
wrist. The background was occupied by four guards, wearing hoods;
and I can not think of them without being reminded of those same
four old guards, with M. Desmousseaux at their head, who always
represented the Greek or Roman armies upon the stage of the
Théâtre Français, when Talma was the Nero or the Sylla, the
Orestes or the Capitolinus of the night.
With some allusion to Rotrude as a sacred dove, and to himself as a
bird-catcher, Louis handed his sister to a stone bench, and then
grew good-natured in his remarks. This sudden benevolence gave a
chill to the entire company. They turned as pale as any Russian
nobleman to whom Nicholas was extraordinarily civil.
“We know the winding passages of the palace of Thermes,” said
Louis, laughingly, “as well as our sisters; and I have not gone
through them to-night for the purpose of terrifying the sister whom I
encountered there, or the other sister whom I see here. I am a kind-
hearted brother, and am marvellously well-disposed. I need only
appeal to these four gentlemen of my guard, who will presently take
off their hoods, and serve as witnesses this night in a little ceremony
having reference to my dear Rotrude.”
“A ceremony! this night!” exclaimed the two princesses.
“Ay, by the nails of the cross! Two ceremonies. You shall both be
married forthwith. I will inaugurate my reign by a double wedding,
here in the old palace of Thermes. You, Gisla, shall espouse Robert,
Count de Quercy, and you, Rotrude, shall wed with Raoul, Baron de
Lys. You might have aimed higher, but they are gallant gentlemen,
friends of my deceased sire; and, by my sooth, the nuptials shall not
lack state and ceremony! Here are our wedding-gifts to the
bridegrooms.”
He pointed to two showy suits of armor, the pieces of which were
carried by the four guards. The knights were in a dream of delight.
They vowed eternal gratitude to the most noble of emperors and
unparalleled of brothers.
“We have no great faith in human gratitude,” said Louis, “and shall
not expect from you more than is due. And you, my sisters,” added
he, “retire for awhile; put on what you will; but do not tarry here at the
toilette of men-at-arms, like peasant-girls looking at the equipping of
two pikemen.”
The two princesses withdrew; and there would have been a smile
upon their lips, only that they suspected their brother. Hoping the
best, however, they kissed the tips of their rosy fingers to the knights,
and tripped away, like two pets of the ballet. They were true
daughters of their sire, who reckoned love-passages as even
superior to stricken fields. He was not an exemplary father, nor a
faithful husband. His entourage was not of the most respectable; and
in some of his journeys he was attended by the young wife of one of
his own cavaliers, clad in cavalier costume. It was a villanously
reprobate action, not the less so that Hermengarde was living. The
mention of it will disgust every monarch in Europe who reads my
volume; and I am sure that it will produce no such strong sensation
of reproof anywhere as in the bosom of an admirable personage
“over the water.”
The two princesses, then, had not so much trouble from the prickles
of principle as the romances told of them. But, considering the
example set them by their imperial father, they were really very
tolerable princesses, under the circumstances.
“Don your suits, gentlemen!” exclaimed the king.
The four guards advanced with the separate pieces of armor, at
which the two knights gazed curiously for a moment or two, as two
foxes might at a trap in which lay a much-desired felicity. They were
greatly delighted, yet half afraid. The monarch grew impatient, and
the knights addressed themselves at once to their adornment. They
put aside their own armor, and with the assistance of the four mute
gentlemen-at-arms they fitted on the brassards or arm-pieces, which
became them as though the first Milainer who ever dressed knight
had taken their measure. With some little trouble they were
accoutred, less as became bridegrooms than barons going to battle;
and this done, they took their seats, at a sign from the king, who
bade the four gentlemen come to an end with what remained of the
toilette.
The knights submitted, not without some misgiving, to the services of
the four mysterious valets! and, in a short time, the preparations
were complete, even to the helmet with the closed visor. This done,
the knights took their places, or were led rather to two high-backed
oaken chairs. As soon as they were seated there, the four too-
officious attendants applied their hands to the closed head-pieces;
and in a very brief space the heads of the cavaliers sunk gently upon
their breasts, as if they were in deep slumber or as deep meditation.
Two o’clock rang out from the belfry of St. Jacques, as the two brides
entered. The king pointed with a smile to the bridegrooms, and left
the apartment with his attendants. The ladies thought that the lovers
exhibited little ardor or anxiety to meet them; for they remained
motionless on their oaken chairs. The daughters of Charlemagne
advanced, half-timidly, half-playfully; and, at length, finding the
knights not disposed to address them, gently called to each by his
name. Raoul and Robert continued motionless and mute. They were
in fact dead. They had been strangled or suffocated in a peculiar sort
of armor, which had been sent to Charlemagne from Ravenna, in
return for a jewelled vase presented by that emperor to the ancient
city. “In 1560,” says Monsieur Roger de Beauvoir, himself quoting an
Italian manuscript, there were several researches made in this part
of the palace of Thermes, one result of which was the discovery of a
‘casque à soufflet,’ all the openings in which could be closed in an
instant by a simple pressure of the finger on a spring. At the same
instant the lower part of the neck-piece tightened round the throat,
and the patient was disposed of. “In this helmet,” adds the author,
“was found the head of a man, well preserved, with beard and teeth
admirable for their beauty.” I think, however, that in this matter M. de
Beauvoir proves a little too much.
Father Daniel, in his history notices the vengeance of Louis le
Debonnaire against two young nobles who were, reputedly, the
lovers of Gisla and Rotrude. The details of the act of vengeance
have been derived from an Italian source; and it is said that an Italian
monk, named Pagnola, had some prominent part in this dreary
drama, impelled thereto by a blow dealt to him at the hands of Raoul,
by way of punishment for some contemptuous phrases which the
monk had presumed to apply to the great Charlemagne.
Love and sword-blades seem to have been as closely connected as
“Trousseaux et Layettes,” which are always named together in the
shop-fronts of a Parisian “Lingere.” There was once an ample field
for the accommodation of both the sentiments of love and bravery in
the old Chaussée d’Antin, when it was merely a chaussée or
highway, and not the magnificent street it now is. It was, down even
to comparatively modern times, the resort of lovers of every degree,
from dukes and duchesses to common dragoons and dairymaids.
They were not always, however, under this strict classification.
But whatever classification or want of it there may have been, there
was a part of the road which was constantly the scene of bloody
encounters. This was at the narrow bridge of Arcans. Here if two
cavaliers met, each with a lady at his side, it was a matter of honor
not to give way. On the contrary, the latter was to be forced at the
point of the sword. While the champions were contending, the ladies
would scarcely affect to faint; they would stand aside, remain
unconcerned on their jennets or mules, till the two simpletons had
pinked one another; or lounge in their cumbrous coaches till the
lovers limped back to them.
It was on this bridge, of which no vestige now remains, not even in a
museum, that the Count de Fiesque one evening escorting Madame
de Lionne, encountered M. de Tallard, who was chaperoning Louison
d’Arquien. Each couple was in a carriage, and neither would make
way for the other to pass. Thereupon the two cavaliers leaped from
their coaches, drew their swords, planted their feet firmly on the
ground, and began slashing at each other like two madmen, to the
great delight of a large crowd who enjoyed nothing so much as the
sight of two noble gentlemen cutting one another’s throats.
The ladies, meanwhile, flourished their handkerchiefs from their
respective carriage-windows, for the encouragement of their
champions. Now and then each laughed aloud when her particular
friend had made a more than ordinary successful thrust; and each
was generous enough to applaud any especial dexterity, even when
her own lover thereby bloodily suffered. The two foolish fellows only
poked at each other with the more intensity. And when they had
sufficiently slit their pourpoints and slashed their sleeves, the ladies,
weary of waiting any longer for a more exciting denouement, rushed
between the combatants, like the Sabine ladies between the
contending hosts; each gentleman gallantly kissed the lady who did
not belong to him; and the whole four gayly supped together, as
though they had been the best friends in the world.
This incident fairly brings us to the questions of duelling and death,
as illustrated by chivalry.
 DUELLING, DEATH AND BURIAL.
“Le duel, ma mie, ne vaut pas un duo, de Lully.”
Crispin Mourant.

As an effect of chivalry, duelling deserves some passing notice. Its

modern practice was but an imitation of chivalric encounters,
wherein the issue of battle was left to the judgment of God.
Bassompierre dates the origin of duelling (in France) from the period
of Henri II. Previous to that king’s reign, the quarrels of gentlemen
were determined by the decree of the constable and marshals of
France. These only allowed knightly encounters in the lists, when
they could not of themselves decide upon the relative justice and
merits of the dispute.
“I esteem him no gentleman,” said Henri one day, “who has the lie
given him, and who does not chastise the giver.” It was a remark
lightly dropped, but it did not fall unheeded. The king in fact
encouraged those who resorted, of their own will, to a bloody
arbitrament of their dissensions; and duelling became so
“fashionable,” that even the penalty of death levelled against those
who practised it, was hardly effectual enough to check duellists. At
the close of the reign of Henri IV. and the commencement of that of
Louis XIII. the practice was in least activity; but after the latter period,
as the law was not rigorously applied, the foolish usage was again
revived; and sanguinary simpletons washed out their folly in blood.
But duelling has a more remote origin than that ascribed to it by
Bassompierre. Sabine, in his “Dictionary of Duelling,” a recently-
published American work, dates its rise from the challenge of the
Philistine accepted by David! However this may be, it is a strange
anomaly that an advocate for the savage and sinful habit of duelling
has appeared in that France which claims to be the leader of
civilization. Jules Janin has, among his numberless feuilletons
published three reasons authorizing men to appeal to single combat.
The above M. Janin divides the world into three parts—a world of
cravens; a world in which opinion is everything; and a world of
hypocrites and calumniators. He considers the man who has not the
heart to risk his life in a duel, as one lost in the world of cravens,
because the legion of cowards by whom he is surrounded will
assume courage at his expense.
Further, according to our gay neighbor’s reasoning, the man is lost in
this world, in which opinion is everything, who will not seek to obtain
a good opinion at the sword’s point.
Again, says M. Janin, the man is lost in this world of hypocrites and
calumniators who will not demand reparation, sword in hand, for the
calumnies and malicious reports to which he has been exposed. It
would be insulting to the common sense of my readers to affect to
point out to them the rottenness of reasons like these. They could
only convince such men as Buckingham and Alfieri, and others in
circumstances like theirs; Buckingham after killing Lord Shrewsbury
at Barnes, and pressing the head of Lady Shrewsbury on his bloody
shirt; and Alfieri, who, after a vile seduction, and very nearly a
terrible murder in defence of it, went home and slept more peacefully
than he had ever slept before: “dopo tanto e si stranie peripizie d’un
sol giorno, non ho dormito mai d’un sonno piu tenace e piu dolce.”
Alfieri would have agreed with M. Janin, that in duelling lay the
safeguard of all that remains to us of civilization. But how comes it
then that civilization is thus a wreck, since duelling has been so long
exercising a protective influence over it?
However few, though dazzling, were the virtues possessed by the
chivalrous heroes of ancient history, it must be conceded to them,
that they possessed that of valor, or a disregard of life, in an eminent
degree. The instances of cowardice are so rare that they prove the
general rule of courage; yet these men, with no guides but a
spurious divinity and a false philosophy, never dreamed of having
recourse to the duel, as a means of avenging a private wrong.
Marius, indeed, was once challenged, but it was by a semi-
barbarous Teutonic chief, whom the haughty Roman recommended,
if he were weary of his life to go and hang himself. Themistocles,
too, whose wisdom and courage the most successful of our modern
gladiators may admire and envy, when Eurybiades threatened to
give him a blow, exclaimed, “Strike, but hear me!” Themistocles, it
must be remembered, was a man of undaunted courage, while his
jealous provoker was notorious for little else but his extreme
cowardice.
But, in truth, there have been brave men in all countries, who have
discouraged this barbarous practice. A Turkish pacha reminded a
man who had challenged a fellow Spahi, that they had no right to
slay one another while there were foes to subdue. The Dauphin of
Viennois told the Count of Savoy, who had challenged him, that he
would send the count one of his fiercest bulls, and that if the count
were so minded, his lordship of Savoy might test his prowess against
an antagonist difficult to overcome. The great Frederick would not
tolerate the practice of duelling in his army; and he thoroughly
despised the arguments used for its justification. A greater man than
Frederick, Turenne, would never allow himself to be what was called
“concerned in an affair of honor.” Once, when the hero of Sintzheim
and the Rhine had half drawn his sword to punish a disgusting insult,
to which he had been subjected by a rash young officer, he thrust it
back into the sheath, with the words: “Young man, could I wipe your
blood from my conscience with as much ease as I can this filthy
proof of your folly from my face, I would take your life upon the spot.”
Even the chivalrous knights who thought duelling a worthy
occupation for men of valor, reduced opportunities for its practice to
a very small extent. Uniting with the church, they instituted the
Savior’s Truce, by which duels were prohibited from Wednesday to
the following Monday, because, it was said, those days had been
consecrated by our Savior’s Passion. This, in fact, left only Tuesday
as a clear day for settling quarrels by force of arms.
There probably never existed a mortal who was opposed by more
powerful or more malignant adversaries than St. Augustin was. His
great enemies the Donatists never, it is true, challenged him to any
more dangerous affray than a war of literary controversy. But it was
in answer to one of their missiles hurled against him, in the form of
an assertion, that the majority of authors was on their side, he aptly
told them that it was the sign of a cause destitute of truth when only
the erring authority of many men could be relied on.
The Norman knights or chiefs introduced the single combat among
us. It is said they were principally men who had disgraced
themselves in the face of the enemy, and who sought to wipe out the
disgrace in the blood of single individuals. It is worthy of remark too,
that when king and sovereign princes had forbidden duelling, under
the heaviest penalties, the popes absolved the monarchs from their
vows when the observance of them would have put in peril the lives
of offending nobles who had turned to Rome in their perplexity, and
who had gained there a reputation for piety, as Hector did, who was
esteemed so highly religious, for no other reason than that he had
covered with rich gifts the altar of the father of Olympus.
Supported by the appearance that impunity was to be purchased at
Rome, and encouraged by the example of fighting-cardinals
themselves, duelling and assassination stalked hand in hand abroad.
In France alone, in the brief space of eighteen years, four thousand
gentlemen were killed in rencontres, upon quarrels of the most trivial
nature. In the same space of time, not less than fourteen thousand
pardons for duelling were granted. In one province alone, of France,
in Limousin, one hundred and twenty gentlemen were slain in six
months—a greater number than had honorably fallen in the same
period, which was one of war, in defence of the sovereign, their
country, and their homes. The term rencontre was used in France to
elude the law. If gentlemen “met” by accident and fought, lawyers
pleaded that this was not a duel, which required preliminaries
between the two parties. How frequent the rencontres were, in spite
of the penalty of death, is thus illustrated by Victor Hugo, in his
Marion Delorme:—

“Toujours nombre de duels, le trois c’était d’Angennes

Contre d’Arquien, pour avoir porté du point de Gènes.
Lavarde avec Pons s’est rencontré le dix,
Pour avoir pris à Pons la femme de Sourdis.
Sourdis avec Dailly pour une du théâtre
De Mondorf. Le neuf, Nogent avec Lachâtre,
Pour avoir mal écrit trois vers de Colletet.
 Gorde avec Margaillan, pour l’heure qu’il était.
D’Himière avec Gondi, pour le pas à l’église.
Et puis tous les Brissac avec tous les Soubise,
A propos d’un pari d’un cheval contre un chien.
Enfin, Caussade avec Latournelle, pour rien.
Pour le plaisir, Caussade a tué Latournelle.

Jeremy Taylor denounced this practice with great earnestness, and

with due balancing of the claims of honor and of Christianity. “Yea;
but flesh and blood can not endure a blow or a disgrace. Grant that
too; but take this into the account: flesh and blood shall not inherit
the kingdom of God.”
What man could endure for honor’s sake, however, is shown in the
Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis, who, in the seventeenth century,
was asked to be second to a friend, when duels were punishable by
death to all parties concerned in them. The friend of De Pontis
pressed it on him, as a custom always practised among friends; and
his captain and lieutenant-colonel did not merely permit, but ordered
him to do what his friend desired.
Boldly as many knights met death, there were not a few who did their
best, and that very wisely, to avoid “the inevitable.”
Valorously as some chevaliers encountered deadly peril, the German
knights, especially took means to avoid the grisly adversary when
they could. For this purpose, they put on the Noth-hemd or shirt of
need. It was supposed to cover the wearer with invulnerability. The
making of the garment was a difficult and solemn matter. Several
maidens of known integrity assembled together on the eve of the
Nativity, and wove and sewed together this linen garment, in the
name of the devil! On the bosom of the shirt were worked two heads;
one was long-bearded and covered with the knightly helmet, the
other was savage of aspect, and crowned like the king of demons. A
cross was worked on either side. How this could save a warrior from
a mortal stroke, it would be difficult to say. If it was worn over the
armor, perhaps the helmeted effigy was supposed to protect the
warrior, and the demoniacal one to affright his adversary. But then,
this shirt similarly made and adorned, was woven by ladies when
about to become mothers of knights or of common men. What use it
could be in such case, I leave to the “commères” to settle. My own
vocation of “gossip” will not help me to the solution.
But if chivalry had its shirts of need in Germany, to save from death,
in England and France it had its “mercy-knives” to swiftly inflict it.
Why they were so called I do not know, for after all they were only
employed in order to kill knights in full armor, by plunging the knife
through the bars of the visor into the eye. After the battle of Pavia,
many of the French were killed with pickaxes by the peasantry,
hacking and hewing through the joints of the armor.
How anxious were the sires of those times to train their children how
best to destroy life! This was more especially the case among what
were called the “half-christened Irish” of Connaught. In this province,
the people left the right arms of their male infants unchristened. They
excepted that part coming under the divine influences of baptism, in
order that the children, when grown to the stature of fighting men,
might deal more merciless and deadly blows. There was some such
superstitious observance as this, I think, in ancient Germany. It can
not be said, in reference to the suppressing of this observance, as
was remarked by Stow after the city authorities had put down the
martial amusement of the London apprentices—contending against
one another of an evening with cudgels and bucklers, while a host of
admiring maids as well as men stood by to applaud or censure—that
the open pastime being suppressed, worse practice within doors
probably followed.
Stout fellows were some of the knights of the romantic period, if we
may believe half that is recorded of them. There is one, Branor le
Brun, who is famous for having been a living Quintain. The game so
called consists of riding at a heavy sack suspended on a balanced
beam, and getting out of its way, if possible, before the revolving
beam brought it round violently against the back of the assailant’s
head. When Palamedes challenged old Branor, the aged knight
rather scornfully put him aside as an unworthy yet valiant knight.
Branor, however, offered to sit in his saddle motionless, while
Palamedes rode at him, and got unhorsed by Branor’s mere inert
resistance. I forget how many knights Branor le Brun knocked over
their horses’ cruppers, after this quiet fashion.
It was not all courtesy in battle or in duel. Even Gyron, who was
called the “courteous,” was a very “rough customer” indeed, when he
had his hand on the throat of an antagonist. We hear of him jumping
with all his force upon a fallen and helpless foe, tearing his helmet
from its fastenings by main force, battering the knight’s face with it till
he was senseless, and then beating on his head with the pommel of
his sword, till the wretched fellow was dead. At this sort of
pommelling there was never knight so expert as the great Bayard.
The courtesy of the most savage in fight, was however undeniable
when a lady was in the case. Thus we hear of a damsel coming to a
fountain at which four knights were sitting, and one of them wishes to
take her. The other three object, observing that the damsel is without
a knight to protect her, and that she is, therefore, according to the
law of chivalry, exempt from being attacked. And again, if a knight
slew an adversary of equal degree, he did not retain his sword if the
latter was a gift from some lady. The damsel, in such case, could
claim it, and no knight worthy of the name would have thought of
refusing to comply with her very natural request. Even ladies were
not to be won, in certain cases, except by valor; as Arthur, that king
of knights, would not win, nor retain, Britain, by any other means.
The head of Bran the Blessed, it may be remembered, was hidden in
the White Hill, near London, where, as long as it remained, Britain
was invulnerable. Arthur, however removed it. He scorned to keep
the island by any other means than his own sword and courage; and
he was ready to fight any man in any quarrel.
Never did knight meet death more nobly than that Captain Douglas,
whose heroism is recorded by Sir William Temple, and who “stood
and burnt in one of our ships at Chatham, when his soldiers left him,
because it never should be said a Douglas quitted his post without
orders.” Except as an example of heroic endurance, this act,
however, was in some degree a mistake, for the state did not profit
by it. There was something more profitable in the act of Von Speyk,
in our own time. When hostilities were raging between Holland and
Belgium, in 1831, the young Dutch captain, just named, happened to