Chivalry was indeed a distinction not to be enjoyed without many and severe labours. The first thing after receiving knighthood was generally a long journey[60] into foreign countries, both for the purpose of jousting with other knights, and for instruction in every sort of chivalrous knowledge. There the young knight studied carefully the demeanour of every celebrated champion he met, and strove to glean the excellencies of each. Thus he learned courtesy and grace, and thus he heard all the famous exploits of the day which, borne from court to court by these chivalrous travellers, spread the fame of great deeds from one end of the world to the other.[61] It cannot be doubted that this practice of wandering armed through Europe gave great scope to licentiousness in those who were naturally ill-disposed; and many a cruelty and many a crime was assuredly committed by that very order instituted to put down vice and to protect innocence. To guard against this the laws of Chivalry were most severe;[62] and as great power was intrusted to the knight, great was the shame and dishonour if he abused it. The oath taken in the first place was as strictly opposed to every vice, as any human promise could be, and the first principle of chivalrous honour was never to violate an engagement. I must here still repeat the remark, that it was the spirit which constituted the Chivalry, and as that spirit waned, Chivalry died away. One of the most curious institutions of Chivalry was that which required a knight, on his return from any expedition,[63] to give a full and minute account to the heralds, or officers of arms, of all his adventures during his absence, without reserve or concealment; telling as well his reverses and discomfitures, as his honours and success. To do this he was bound by oath; and the detail thus given was registered by the herald, who by such relations learned to know and estimate the worth and prowess of each individual knight. It served also to excite other adventurers to great deeds in imitation of those who acquired fame and honour; and it afforded matter of consolation to the unfortunate, who in those registers must ever have met with mishaps to equal or surpass their own.