![Meister der Manessischen Liederhandschrift 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Meister_der_Manessischen_Liederhandschrift_001.jpg)
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying
code of conduct
A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization.
Companies' codes of conduct
A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...
developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
institution of
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
hood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in
medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...
, particularly the literary cycles known as the
Matter of France
The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French '' chan ...
, relating to the legendary companions of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
and his
men-at-arms
A man-at-arms was a soldier of the High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of arms and served as a fully-armoured heavy cavalryman. A man-at-arms could be a knight, or other nobleman, a member of a knig ...
, the
paladins
The Paladins, also called the Twelve Peers, are twelve legendary knights, the foremost members of Charlemagne's royal court, court in the 8th century. They first appear in the medieval (12th century) ''chanson de geste'' cycle of the Matter of F ...
, and the
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the list of legendary kings of Britain, legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It ...
, informed by
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiograph ...
's ''
Historia Regum Britanniae
''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...
'', written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of
King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
and his
knights of the Round Table
The Knights of the Round Table ( cy, Marchogion y Ford Gron, kw, Marghekyon an Moos Krenn, br, Marc'hegien an Daol Grenn) are the knights of the fellowship of King Arthur in the literary cycle of the Matter of Britain. First appearing in lit ...
. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century.
The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries. It arose in the
Carolingian Empire
The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lom ...
from the idealisation of the
cavalryman
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in ...
—involving military bravery, individual training, and service to others—especially in
Francia
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks dur ...
, among
horse soldiers in
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
's cavalry.
The term "chivalry" derives from the
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
term ''chevalerie'', which can be translated as "
horse soldiery". Originally, the term referred only to horse-mounted men, from the French word for horse, ''cheval'', but later it became associated with knightly ideals.
Over time, its meaning in Europe has been refined to emphasize more general social and moral virtues. The code of chivalry, as it stood by the
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the Periodization, period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Eur ...
, was a moral system which combined a
warrior ethos
The Soldier's Creed is a standard by which all United States Army personnel are expected to live. All U.S. Army enlisted personnel are taught the Soldier's Creed during basic training, and recite the creed in public ceremonies at the conclusion o ...
,
knightly piety Knightly Piety refers to a specific strand of Christian belief espoused by knights during the Middle Ages. The term comes from ''Ritterfrömmigkeit'', coined by Adolf Waas in his book ''Geschichte der Kreuzzüge''. Many scholars debate the importanc ...
, and
courtly manners, all combining to establish a notion of
honour
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of socia ...
and
nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...
.
Terminology and definitions
![Leighton-God Speed!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Leighton-God_Speed%21.jpg)
In origin, the term ''chivalry'' means "horsemanship", formed in
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
, in the 11th century, from ' (horsemen, knights), itself from the
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
''caballarii'', the nominative plural form of the term '. The French word ' originally meant "a man of aristocratic standing, and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of heavy cavalryman and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he is". Therefore, during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, the plural ''chevalerie'' (transformed in English into the word "chivalry") originally denoted the body of heavy cavalry upon formation in the field. In English, the term appears from 1292 (note that ''
cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...
'' is from the Italian form of the same word).
The meaning of the term evolved over time into a broader sense, because in the Middle Ages the meaning of ''chevalier'' changed from the original concrete military meaning "status or fee associated with a military follower owning a
war horse
The first evidence of horses in warfare dates from Eurasia between 4000 and 3000 BC. A Sumerian illustration of warfare from 2500 BC depicts some type of equine pulling wagons. By 1600 BC, improved harness and chariot design ...
" or "a group of mounted knights" to the ideal of the Christian warrior ethos propagated in the
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
genre, which was becoming popular during the 12th century, and the ideal of
courtly love
Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing vari ...
propagated in the contemporary
Minnesang
(; "love song") was a tradition of lyric- and song-writing in Germany and Austria that flourished in the Middle High German period. This period of medieval German literature began in the 12th century and continued into the 14th. People who wr ...
and related genres.
The ideas of chivalry are summarized in three medieval works: the anonymous poem ''
Ordene de chevalerie
The ''Ordene de chevalerie'' (or ''Ordre de chevalerie'') is an anonymous Old French poem written around 1220. The story of the poem is a fiction based on historical persons and events in and around the Kingdom of Jerusalem before the Third Crusad ...
'', which tells the story of how
Hugh II of Tiberias
Hugh II of Saint Omer (ca. 1150–1204) was a Crusades, Crusader knight and titular ruler, titular Prince of Principality of Galilee, Galilee and Tiberias.
He was the eldest son of Walter of Saint Omer and Eschiva of Bures.Bernard Hamilton, ''The ...
was captured and released upon his agreement to show
Saladin
Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سهلاحهدین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
(1138–1193) the ritual of Christian
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
; the ''Libre del ordre de cavayleria'', written by
Ramon Llull
Ramon Llull (; c. 1232 – c. 1315/16) was a philosopher, theologian, poet, missionary, and Christian apologist from the Kingdom of Majorca.
He invented a philosophical system known as the ''Art'', conceived as a type of universal logic to pro ...
(1232–1315), from
Majorca
Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean.
The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...
, whose subject is knighthood; and the
Livre de Chevalerie of
Geoffroi de Charny
Geoffroi de Charny ({{circa, 1306 – 19 September 1356) was the third son of Jean de Charny, the lord of Charny (then a major Burgundian fortress), and Marguerite de Joinville, daughter of Jean de Joinville, the biographer and close friend of Fran ...
(1300–1356), which examines the qualities of knighthood, emphasizing ''prowess''. None of the authors of these three texts knew the other two texts, and the three combine to depict a general concept of chivalry which is not precisely in harmony with any of them. To different degrees and with different details, they speak of chivalry as a way of life in which the military, the nobility, and religion combine.
The "code of chivalry" is thus a product of the
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the Periodization, period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Eur ...
, evolving after the end of the
crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
partly from an idealization of the historical knights fighting in the Holy Land and from ideals of courtly love.
10 Commandments of Chivalry
Historian
Léon Gautier
Émile Théodore Léon Gautier (8 August 183225 August 1897) was a French literary historian.
He was born at Le Havre, France. He was educated at the École des Chartes, and became successively head of the archives of the ''département'' of H ...
compiled the medieval Ten Commandments of chivalry in 1891:
# Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions.
# Thou shalt defend the Church.
# Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.
# Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.
# Thou shalt not
recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
before thine enemy.
# Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.
# Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
# Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word.
# Thou shalt be generous, and give
largesse to everyone.
# Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
Literary chivalry and historical reality
Supporters of chivalry have assumed since the late medieval period that there was a time in the past when chivalry was a living institution, when men acted chivalrically, when chivalry was alive and not dead, the imitation of which period would much improve the present.
With the birth of modern historical and literary research, scholars have found that however far back in time "The Age of Chivalry" is searched for, it is always further in the past, even back to the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
. From
Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (also known as Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi) (; 9 May 1773 – 25 June 1842), whose real name was Simonde, was a Swiss historian and political economist, who is best known for his works on French and ...
:
We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
. The feudal system may be called the real life of the period of which we are treating, possessing its advantages and inconveniences, its virtues and its vices. Chivalry, on the contrary, is the ideal world, such as it existed in the imaginations of the romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
writers. Its essential character is devotion to woman and to honour.
Sismondi alludes to the fictitious
Arthurian romance
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Western ...
s about the imaginary
Court of King Arthur when taken as factual presentations of a historical age of chivalry. He continues:
The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical. It is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed. It is always represented as distant from us both in time and place, and whilst the contemporary historians give us a clear, detailed, and complete account of the vices of the court and the great, of the ferocity or corruption of the nobles, and of the servility of the people, we are astonished to find the poets, after a long lapse of time, adorning the very same ages with the most splendid fictions of grace, virtue, and loyalty. The romance writers of the twelfth century placed the age of chivalry in the time of Charlemagne. The period when these writers existed, is the time pointed out by Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to:
* Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407)
* Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450
* Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547
* Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...
. At the present day bout 1810
Bout can mean:
People
*Viktor Bout, suspected arms dealer
*Jan Everts Bout, early settler to New Netherland
*Marcel Bout
Musical instruments
* The outward-facing round parts of the body shape of violins, guitars, and other stringed instrumen ...
we imagine we can still see chivalry flourishing in the persons of Du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin ( br, Beltram Gwesklin; 1320 – 13 July 1380), nicknamed "The Eagle of Brittany" or "The Black Dog of Brocéliande", was a Breton knight and an important military commander on the French side during the Hundred Years' ...
and Bayard
Bayard may refer to:
People
* Bayard (given name)
*Bayard (surname)
*Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (1473–1524) French knight
Places
* Bayard, Delaware, an unincorporated community
*Bayard (Jacksonville), Florida, a neighborhood
*Bayard, ...
, under Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infan ...
and Francis I. But when we come to examine either the one period or the other, although we find in each some heroic spirits, we are forced to confess that it is necessary to antedate the age of chivalry, at least three or four centuries before any period of authentic history.[
]
History
Historian of chivalry
Richard W. Kaeuper
Richard William Kaeuper is an American medievalist historian. He was a student of, and mentored by, Joseph Strayer, the noted Princeton University, Princeton scholar. Kaeuper grew up in Richmond, Indiana.
Education
Kaeuper earned his PhD from Prin ...
saw chivalry as a central focus in the study of the European Middle Ages that was too often presented as a civilizing and stabilizing influence in the turbulent Middle Ages. On the contrary, Kaueper argues "that in the problem of public order the knights themselves played an ambivalent, problematic role and that the guides to their conduct that chivalry provided were in themselves complex and problematic." Many of the codes and ideals of chivalry were of course contradictory: when knights did live up to them, they did not lead to a more "ordered and peaceful society". The tripartite conception of medieval European society (those who pray, those who fight, and those who work) along with other linked subcategories of monarchy and aristocracy, worked in congruence with knighthood to reform the institution in an effort "to secure public order in a society just coming into its mature formation."
Kaeuper makes clear that knighthood and the worldview of "those who fight" was pre-Christian in many ways and outside the purview of the church, at least initially. The church saw it as a duty to reform and guide knights in a way that weathered the disorderly, martial, and chauvinistic elements of chivalry. Royalty was a similar story, with knighthood at many points clashing with the sovereignty of the king over the conduct of warfare and personal disputes between knights and other knights (and even between knights and aristocracy). While the worldview of "those who work" (the burgeoning merchant class and bourgeoisie) was still in incubation, Kaeuper states that the social and economic class that would end up defining modernity was fundamentally at odds with knights, and those with chivalrous valor saw the values of commerce as beneath them. Those who engaged in commerce and derived their value system from it could be confronted with violence by knights, if need be.
According to Welsh historian
David Crouch, many early writers on medieval chivalry cannot be trusted as accurate sources, because they sometimes have "polemical purpose which colours their prose".
As for
Kenelm Henry Digby
Kenelm Henry Digby (c. 1797 – 1880) was an Anglo-Irish writer, whose reputation rests chiefly on his earliest publication, ''The Broad-Stone of Honour, or Rules for the Gentlemen of England'' (1822), which contains an exhaustive survey of medi ...
and
Léon Gautier
Émile Théodore Léon Gautier (8 August 183225 August 1897) was a French literary historian.
He was born at Le Havre, France. He was educated at the École des Chartes, and became successively head of the archives of the ''département'' of H ...
, chivalry was a means to transform their corrupt and secular worlds.
Gautier also emphasized that chivalry originated from the Teutonic forests and was brought up into civilization by the
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Church.
Charles Mills used chivalry "to demonstrate that the Regency gentleman was the ethical heir of a great moral estate, and to provide an inventory of its treasure".
Mills also stated that chivalry was a social, not a military phenomenon, with its key features: generosity, fidelity, liberality, and courtesy.
Europe before 1170: the noble ''habitus''
According to Crouch, prior to codified chivalry there was the uncodified code of noble conduct that focused on the ''preudomme'', which can be translated as a wise, honest, and sensible man. This uncodified code – referred to as the noble ''habitus'' – is a term for the environment of behavioural and material expectations generated by all societies and classes. As a modern idea, it was pioneered by the French philosopher/sociologists
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...
and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...
, even though a precedent exists for the concept as far back as the works of Aristotle. Crouch argues that the ''habitus'' on which "the superstructure of chivalry" was built and the ''preudomme'' was a part, had existed long before 1100, while the codified medieval noble conduct only began between 1170 and 1220.
The pre-chivalric noble ''habitus'' as discovered by Mills and Gautier are as follows:
# Loyalty: It is a practical utility in a warrior nobility.
Richard Kaeuper
Richard William Kaeuper is an American medievalist historian. He was a student of, and mentored by, Joseph Strayer, the noted Princeton University, Princeton scholar. Kaeuper grew up in Richmond, Indiana.
Education
Kaeuper earned his PhD from Prin ...
associates loyalty with ''prowess''.
The importance of reputation for loyalty in noble conduct is demonstrated in William Marshal biography.
# Forbearance: knights' self-control towards other warriors and at the courts of their lords was a part of the early noble ''habitus'' as shown in the ''Conventum'' of
Hugh de Lusignan in the 1020s.
The nobility of mercy and forbearance was well established by the second half of the 12th century long before there was any code of chivalry.
# Hardihood: Historians and social anthropologists have documented the fact physical resilience and aptitude in warfare in the earliest formative period of "proto-chivalry," was, to contemporary warriors, almost essential of chivalry-defined knighthood (saving the implicit Christian-Davidic ethical framework) and for a warrior of any origin, even the lowliest, to demonstrate outstanding physicality-based prowess on the battlefield was seen as near certainty of noble-knightly status or grounds for immediate nobilitation. To deliver a powerful blow in Arthurian literature almost always certifies of the warrior's nobility. Formal chivalric authorities and commentators were hardly in dispute: the anonymous author of ''La vraye noblesse'', states if the prince or civic authority incarnate sees a man of "low degree" but of noble (i.e., martially imposing in the medieval context) bearing, he should promote him to nobility "even though he be not rich or of noble lineage": the "poor companion" who distinguishes themselves in worldly, incarnadine valor should be "publicly rewarded." As the erudite scholastic analyst modernly viewing these matters, Richard Kaeuper summarizes the matter: "A knight's nobility or worth is proved by his hearty strokes in battle" (''Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe'', p. 131). The quality of sheer hardihood aligns itself with forbearance and loyalty in being one of the military virtues of the ''preudomme''. According to Philip de Navarra, a mature nobleman should have acquired hardiness as part of his moral virtues. Geoffrey de Charny also stressed on the masculine respectability of hardiness in the light of religious feeling of the
contemptus mundi
''Contemptus mundi'', the "contempt of the world" and worldly concerns, is a theme in the intellectual life of both Classical Antiquity and of Christianity, both in its mystical vein and its ambivalence towards secular life, that figures largely i ...
.
# ''Largesse'' or Liberality: generosity was part of a noble quantity. According to
Alan of Lille
Alain de Lille (Alan of Lille) (Latin: ''Alanus ab Insulis''; 11281202/03) was a French theologian and poet. He was born in Lille, some time before 1128. His exact date of death remains unclear as well, with most research pointing toward it bei ...
, ''largesse'' was not just a simple matter of giving away what he had, but "Largitas in a man caused him to set no store on greed or gifts, and to have nothing but contempt for bribes."
# The Davidic ethic: It is the strongest qualities of ''preudomme'' derived by clerics from
Biblical tradition. The classical-Aristotelian concept of the "magnanimous personality" in the conceptual formulation of the notion here is not without relevance, additionally, nor likewise the early-Germanic and Norse tradition of the war-band leader as the heroic, anti-materialistic "enemy of gold". Formally, the Christian-Davidic guardian-protector role concept of warrior-leadership was extensively articulated initially by the
Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
church which involved legitimizing rightful authority, first and foremost, on the basis of any would-be warrior-headman being ethically committed to the protection of the weak and helpless (pointedly, the Church and affiliated organizations are here implied primarily if not exclusively), respect and provisioning of justice for widows and orphans, and a Christian idealism-inspired, no-nonsense, principle-based militant opposition to the encroachments of overweening cruel and unjust personages wielding power, whether in the form of unruly, "black knight" or "robber-baron"-like local sub-princely magistrates, or even in the context of conceiving the hypothetical overthrow of a monarch who had usurped and violated the ''lex primordialis'' or ''lex naturae'' of God in his domain by decreeing or permitting immoral customs or laws and thus self-dethroning themselves meta-ethically, inviting tyrannicidal treatment. The core of Davidic ethic is benevolence of the strong toward the weak. Although a somewhat later authority in this specific context, John of Salisbury imbibed this lineage of philosophico-clerical, chivalric justifications of power, and excellently describes the ideal enforcer of the Davidic ethic here: "The
arrior-rince accordingly is the minister of the common interest and the bond-servant of equity, and he bears the public person in the sense that he punishes the wrongs and injuries of all, and all crimes, with even-handed equity. His rod and staff also, administered with wise moderation, restore irregularities and false departures to the straight path of equity, so that deservedly may the Spirit congratulate the power of the prince with the words, 'Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.'
salm 23:4His shield, too, is strong, but it is a shield for the protection of the weak, and one which wards off powerfully the darts of the wicked from the innocent. Those who derive the greatest advantage from his performance of the duties of his office are those who can do least for themselves, and his power is chiefly exercised against those who desire to do harm. Therefore not without reason he bears a sword, wherewith he sheds blood blamelessly, without becoming thereby a man of blood, and frequently puts men to death without incurring the name or guilt of homicide."
# Honour:
honour
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of socia ...
was what was achieved by living up to the ideal of the ''preudomme'' and pursuing the qualities and behaviour listed above.
Maurice Keen
Maurice Hugh Keen (30 October 1933 – 11 September 2012) was a British historian specializing in the Middle Ages. His father had been the Oxford University head of finance ('Keeper of the University Chest') and a fellow of Balliol College, Ox ...
notes the most damning, irreversible mode of "demoting" one's honorific status, again humanly through contemporary eyes, consisted in displaying pusillanimous conduct on the battlefield. The loss of honour is a humiliation to a man's standing and is worse than death.
Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born (; 1140s – by 1215) was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of the 12th-13th century. He composed love songs (cansos) but was better known for his political songs (sirventes). He wa ...
said: "For myself I prefer to hold a little piece of land in ''onor'', than to hold a great empire with dishonor".
From the 12th century onward chivalry came to be understood as a moral, religious and social code of knightly conduct. The particulars of the code varied, but codes would emphasise the virtues of courage, honour, and service. Chivalry also came to refer to an idealisation of the life and manners of the knight at home in his castle and with his court. The code of chivalry, as it was known during the late Medieval age, developed between 1170 and 1220.
Themes of chivalric literature
When examining
medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...
, chivalry can be classified into three basic but overlapping areas:
#Duties to countrymen and fellow Christians: this contains virtues such as mercy, courage, valour, fairness, protection of the weak and the poor, and in the servant-hood of the knight to his lord. This also brings with it the idea of being willing to give one's life for another's; whether he would be giving his life for a poor man or his lord.
#Duties to God: this would contain being faithful to God, protecting the innocent, being faithful to the church, being the champion of good against evil, being generous and obeying God above the feudal lord.
#Duties to women: this is probably the most familiar aspect of chivalry. This would contain what is often called courtly love, the idea that the knight is to serve a lady, and after her all other ladies. Most especially in this category is a general gentleness and graciousness to all women.
Different weight given to different areas produced different strands of chivalry:
#warrior chivalry, in which a knight's chief duty is to his lord, as exemplified by Sir
Gawain
Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest ...
in ''
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of f ...
'' and ''
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
''The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle'' (''The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell'') is a 15th-century English poem, one of several versions of the "loathly lady" story popular during the Middle Ages. An earlier version of the story ...
'';
#religious chivalry, in which a knight's chief duty is to protect the innocent and serve God, as exemplified by Sir
Galahad
Sir Galahad (), sometimes referred to as Galeas () or Galath (), among other versions of his name, is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of S ...
or Sir
Percival
Percival (, also spelled Perceval, Parzival), alternatively called Peredur (), was one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. First mentioned by the French author Chrétien de Troyes in the tale ''Perceval, the Story of the G ...
in the
Grail legends;
#courtly love chivalry, in which a knight's chief duty is to his own lady, and after her, all ladies, as exemplified by Sir
Lancelot
Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), also written as Launcelot and other variants (such as early German ''Lanzelet'', early French ''Lanselos'', early Welsh ''Lanslod Lak'', Italian ''Lancillotto'', Spanish ''Lanzarote del Lago' ...
in his love for Queen
Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First ment ...
or Sir
Tristan
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
in his love for
Iseult
Iseult (), alternatively Isolde () and other spellings, is the name of several characters in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. The most prominent is Iseult of Ireland, the wife of Mark of Cornwall and the lover of Tristan. Her mother, the queen ...
.
Origins in military ethos
![Roman Museum 007](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Roman_Museum_007.jpg)
Chivalry was developed in the north of France around the mid-12th century but adopted its structure in a European context. New social status, new military techniques, and new literary topics adhered to a new character known as the
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
and his ethos called chivalry. A
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
in the chivalric codes includes taking an oath of loyalty to the overlord and perceiving the rules of warfare, which includes never striking a defenceless opponent in battle, and as far as resembling any perceived codified law, revolved around making the effort in combat wherever possible to take a fellow noble prisoner, for later
ransom
Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or the sum of money involved in such a practice.
When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''red ...
, rather than simply dispatching one another. The chivalric ideals are based on those of the early medieval warrior class, and martial exercise and military virtue remains an integral part of chivalry until the end of the medieval period,
as the reality on the battlefield changed with the development of
Early Modern warfare
Early modern warfare is the era of warfare following medieval warfare. It is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive, including artillery and firearms; for this ...
, and increasingly restricted it to the
tournament ground and
duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...
ling culture. The
joust
Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying to strike the opponent w ...
remained the primary example of knightly display of martial skill throughout the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
(the last Elizabethan
Accession Day tilt
The Accession Day tilts were a series of elaborate festivities held annually at the court of Elizabeth I of England to celebrate her Accession Day, 17 November, also known as Queen's Day. The tilts combined theatre, theatrical elements with j ...
was held in 1602).
The martial skills of the knight carried over to the practice of
the hunt, and hunting expertise became an important aspect of courtly life in the later medieval period (see
terms of venery
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people (" ...
). Related to chivalry was the practice of
heraldry
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
and its elaborate rules of displaying coats of arms as it emerged in the
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
.
Chivalry and Christianity
Christianity and church had a modifying influence on the classical concept of heroism and virtue, nowadays identified with the virtues of chivalry. The
Peace and Truce of God
The Peace and Truce of God ( lat, Pax et treuga Dei) was a movement in the Middle Ages led by the Catholic Church and one of the most influential mass peace movements in history. The goal of both the ''Pax Dei'' and the ''Treuga Dei'' was to limit ...
in the 10th century was one such example, with limits placed on knights to protect and honour the weaker members of society and also help the church maintain peace. At the same time the church became more tolerant of war in the defence of faith, espousing theories of the
just war
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is m ...
; and
liturgies
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
were introduced which blessed a knight's sword, and a bath of chivalric purification. In the story of the
Grail
The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure. The two small spacecraf ...
romances and ''Chevalier au Cygne'', it was the confidence of the Christian knighthood that its way of life was to please God, and chivalry was an order of God. Thus, chivalry as a Christian vocation was a result of marriage between
Teutonic heroic values with the militant tradition of
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
.
![Ghent Altarpiece E - Knights of Christ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Ghent_Altarpiece_E_-_Knights_of_Christ.jpg)
The first noted support for chivalric vocation, or the establishment of knightly class to ensure the sanctity and legitimacy of Christianity, was written in 930 by
Odo
Odo or ODO may refer to:
People
* Odo, a given name; includes a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Franklin Odo (born 1939), Japanese-American historian
* Seikichi Odo (1927–2002), Japanese karateka
* Yuya Odo (born 1990), J ...
, abbot of
Cluny
Cluny () is a commune in the eastern French department of Saône-et-Loire, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is northwest of Mâcon.
The town grew up around the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 9 ...
, in the ''Vita of St. Gerald of Aurillac'', which argued that the sanctity of Christ and Christian doctrine can be demonstrated through the legitimate unsheathing of the "sword against the enemy". In the 11th century the concept of a "knight of Christ" (''miles Christi'') gained currency in France, Spain and Italy.
[ These concepts of "religious chivalry" were further elaborated in the era of the ]Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
, with the Crusades themselves often being seen as a chivalrous enterprise.[ The ]military order Military order may refer to:
Orders
* Military order (religious society), confraternity of knights originally established as religious societies during the medieval Crusades for protection of Christianity and the Catholic Church
Military organi ...
s of the crusades which developed in this period came to be seen as the earliest flowering of chivalry, and some of their opponents like Saladin
Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سهلاحهدین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
were likewise depicted as chivalrous adversaries. It remains unclear to what extent the notable military figures of this period—such as Saladin, Godfrey of Bouillon
Godfrey of Bouillon (, , , ; 18 September 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a French nobleman and pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade. First ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, he avoided the title of king, preferring that of princ ...
, William Marshal
William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Norman French: ', French: '), was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman. He served five English kings— Henry II, his sons the "Young King" ...
or Bertrand du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin ( br, Beltram Gwesklin; 1320 – 13 July 1380), nicknamed "The Eagle of Brittany" or "The Black Dog of Brocéliande", was a Breton knight and an important military commander on the French side during the Hundred Years' W ...
—actually did set new standards of knightly behaviour, or to what extent they merely behaved according to existing models of conduct which came in retrospect to be interpreted along the lines of the "chivalry" ideal of the Late Middle Ages.[ Nevertheless, chivalry and crusades were not the same thing. While the crusading ideology had largely influenced the ethic of chivalry during its formative times, chivalry itself was related to a whole range of martial activities and aristocratic values which had no necessary linkage with crusading.
The ]Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
was venerated by multiple chivalric orders, including the Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...
, who honored her as their patroness. The medieval development of chivalry, with the concept of the honour of a lady and the ensuing knightly devotion to it, not only derived from the thinking about Mary, but also contributed to it. Although women were at times viewed as the source of evil, it was Mary who as mediator to God was a source of refuge for man. The development of medieval Mariology
Mariology is the theological study of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mariology seeks to relate doctrine or dogma about Mary to other doctrines of the faith, such as those concerning Jesus and notions about redemption, intercession and grace. Chri ...
and the changing attitudes towards women paralleled each other and can best be understood in a common context.
Influence of the Moors and Romans
The works of Roman poets like Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
bore some similarities to the typical depiction of romance in chivalric literature during the Middle Ages. In Ovid's works, lovers "became sleepless, grew pale, and lost their appetite," while Cicero's works celebrated the "ennobling power of love". Some scholars also point to the romantic poetry of Arabs and Persians as antecedents to the depiction of courtly love in medieval European literature. In the works of the Cordoban author Ibn Hazm
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm ( ar, أبو محمد علي بن احمد بن سعيد بن حزم; also sometimes known as al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī; 7 November 994 – 15 August 1064Ibn Hazm. ' (Preface). Tr ...
, for example, "lovers develop passions for slave boys as well as girls, interchangeably, and the slave is recognized as now the master of his beloved." Ibn Hazm's ''The Ring of the Dove
''The Ring of the Dove'' or ''Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah'' ( ar, طوق الحمامة)Hitti, p. 58 is a treatise on love written in the year 1022 by Ibn Hazm. Normally a writer of theology and law, Ibn Hazm produced his only work of literature with ' ...
'' is a noteworthy depiction of a lover's extreme submissiveness.
Medieval courtly literature glorifies the valour, tactics, and ideals of both Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
and ancient Romans. For example, the ancient hand-book of warfare written by Vegetius
Publius (or Flavius) Vegetius Renatus, known as Vegetius (), was a writer of the Later Roman Empire (late 4th century). Nothing is known of his life or station beyond what is contained in his two surviving works: ''Epitoma rei militaris'' (also re ...
called ''De re militari
''De re militari'' (Latin "Concerning Military Matters"), also ''Epitoma rei militaris'', is a treatise by the Late Latin writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus about Roman warfare and military principles as a presentation of the methods and pr ...
'' was translated into French in the 13th century as ''L'Art de chevalerie'' by Jean de Meun
Jean de Meun (or de Meung, ) () was a French author best known for his continuation of the '' Roman de la Rose''.
Life
He was born Jean Clopinel or Jean Chopinel at Meung-sur-Loire. Tradition asserts that he studied at the University of Paris. He ...
. Later writers also drew from Vegetius, such as Honoré Bonet, who wrote the 14th century ''L'Arbes des batailles'', which discussed the morals and laws of war. In the 15th century Christine de Pizan
Christine de Pizan or Pisan (), born Cristina da Pizzano (September 1364 – c. 1430), was an Italian poet and court writer for King Charles VI of France and several French dukes.
Christine de Pizan served as a court writer in medieval France ...
combined themes from Vegetius, Bonet, and Frontinus in ''Livre des faits d'armes et de chevalerie''.
Late Middle Ages
In the 14th century Jean Froissart
Jean Froissart ( Old and Middle French: '' Jehan'', – ) (also John Froissart) was a French-speaking medieval author and court historian from the Low Countries who wrote several works, including ''Chronicles'' and ''Meliador'', a long Arthuria ...
wrote his ''Chronicles'' which captured much of the Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French Crown, ...
, including the Battle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France between a French army commanded by King PhilipVI and an English army led by King EdwardIII. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France du ...
and later the Battle of Poitiers
The Battle of Poitiers was fought on 19September 1356 between a French army commanded by King JohnII and an Anglo- Gascon force under Edward, the Black Prince, during the Hundred Years' War. It took place in western France, south of Poi ...
both of which saw the defeat of the French nobility by armies made up largely of common men using longbows
A longbow (known as warbow in its time, in contrast to a hunting bow) is a type of tall bow that makes a fairly long draw possible. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow and are circular or D-shaped in cross ...
. The chivalric tactic employed by the French armoured nobility, namely bravely charging the opposition in the face of a hail of arrows, failed repeatedly. Froissart noted the subsequent attacks by common English and Welsh archers upon the fallen French knights.
His Chronicles also captured a series of uprisings by common people against the nobility, such as the Jacquerie
The Jacquerie () was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt was centred in the valley of the Oise north of Paris and was suppressed after a few week ...
and The Peasant's Revolt and the rise of the common man to leadership ranks within armies. Many of these men were promoted during the Hundred Years' War but were later left in France when the English nobles returned home, and became mercenaries in the Free Companies, for example John Hawkwood
Sir John Hawkwood ( 1323 – 17 March 1394) was an English soldier who served as a mercenary leader or '' condottiero'' in Italy. As his name was difficult to pronounce for non-English-speaking contemporaries, there are many variations of it in ...
, the mercenary leader of The White Company
''The White Company'' is a historical adventure by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, set during the Hundred Years' War. The story is set in England, France and Spain, in the years 1366 and 1367, against the background of the campaign of Edward ...
. The rise of effective, paid soldiery replaced noble soldiery during this period, leading to a new class of military leader without any adherence to the chivalric code.
Chivalry underwent a revival and elaboration of chivalric ceremonial and rules of etiquette
Etiquette () is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a ...
in the 14th century that was examined by Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga (; 7 December 1872 – 1 February 1945) was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.
Life
Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two y ...
, in '' The Waning of the Middle Ages'', in which he dedicates a full chapter to "The idea of chivalry". In contrasting the literary standards of chivalry with the actual warfare of the age, the historian finds the imitation of an ideal past illusory; in an aristocratic culture such as Burgundy and France at the close of the Middle Ages, "to be representative of true culture means to produce by conduct, by customs, by manners, by costume, by deportment, the illusion of a heroic being, full of dignity and honour, of wisdom, and, at all events, of courtesy. ...The dream of past perfection ennobles life and its forms, fills them with beauty and fashions them anew as forms of art".
In the later Middle Ages, wealthy merchants strove to adopt chivalric attitudes. The sons of the bourgeoisie were educated at aristocratic courts, where they were trained in the manners of the knightly class.[ This was a democratisation of chivalry, leading to a new genre called the ]courtesy book A courtesy book (also book of manners) was a didactic manual of knowledge for courtiers to handle matters of etiquette, socially acceptable behaviour, and personal morals, with an especial emphasis upon life in a royal court; the genre of courtesy l ...
, which were guides to the behaviour of "gentlemen". Thus, the post-medieval gentlemanly code of the value of a man's honour, respect for women, and a concern for those less fortunate, is directly derived from earlier ideals of chivalry and historical forces which created it.[
Japan was the only country that banned the use of ]firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
s completely to maintain ideals of chivalry and acceptable form of combat. In 1543 Japan established a government monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
on firearms. The Japanese government destroyed firearms and enforced a preference for traditional Japanese weapons.
The end of chivalry
Chivalry was dynamic and it transformed and adjusted in response to local situations and this is what probably led to its demise. There were many chivalric groups in England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
as imagined by Sir Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Ar ...
when he wrote ''Le Morte d'Arthur
' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Rou ...
'' in the late 15th century; perhaps each group created each chivalric ideology. And Malory's perspective reflects the condition of 15th-century chivalry. When Le Morte d'Arthur was printed, William Caxton
William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed boo ...
urged knights to read the romance with an expectation that reading about chivalry could unite a community of knights already divided by the Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...
.
During the early Tudor rule in England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, some knights still fought according to the ethos. Fewer knights were engaged in active warfare because battlefields during this century were generally the area of professional infantrymen, with less opportunity for knights to show chivalry. It was the beginning of the demise of the knight. The rank of knight never faded, but it was Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
who ended the tradition that any knight could create another and made it exclusively the preserve of the monarch. Christopher Wilkins contends that Sir Edward Woodville, who rode from battle to battle across Europe and died in 1488 in Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, was the last knight errant who witnessed the fall of the Age of Chivalry and the rise of modern European warfare. When the Middle Ages were over, the code of chivalry was gone.
Modern manifestations and revivals
Chivalry! – why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection – the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant – Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.—
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
, ''
Ivanhoe
''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting st ...
'' (1820)
The chivalric ideal persisted into the early modern and modern period. The custom of foundation of chivalric order
An order of chivalry, order of knighthood, chivalric order, or equestrian order is an order of knights, typically founded during or inspired by the original Catholic military orders of the Crusades ( 1099–1291) and paired with medieval concep ...
s by Europe's monarchs and high nobility peaked in the late medieval period, but it persisted during the Renaissance and well into the Baroque and early modern period, with e.g. the Tuscan Order of Saint Stephen
The Order of Saint Stephen (Official: Sacro Militare Ordine di Santo Stefano Papa e Martire, "Holy Military Order of St. Stephen Pope and Martyr") is a Roman Catholic Tuscan dynastic military order founded in 1561. The order was created by C ...
(1561), the French Order of Saint Louis
The Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis (french: Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis) is a dynastic order of chivalry founded 5 April 1693 by King Louis XIV, named after Saint Louis (King Louis IX of France). It was intended as a rewar ...
(1693) or the Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
Order of St. Patrick
The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick is a dormant British order of chivalry associated with Ireland. The Order was created in 1783 by George III of the United Kingdom, King George III at the request of the then Lord Lieutenant of Irelan ...
(1783), and numerous dynastic orders of knighthood
A dynastic order, monarchical order, or house order is an order under royal patronage. Such an order is bestowed by, as a legitimate , a sovereign or the head of a once-sovereign ruling family. These are often considered part of the cultural p ...
remain active in countries that retain a tradition of monarchy.
At the same time, with the change of courtly ideas during the Baroque period
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
, the ideals of chivalry began to be seen as dated, or "medieval". ''Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...
'', published in 1605–15, burlesqued the medieval chivalric novel or ''romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
'' by ridiculing the stubborn adherence to the chivalric code in the face of the then-modern world as anachronistic, giving rise to the term Quixotism
Quixotism ( or ; adj. quixotic) is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality ...
. Conversely, elements of Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
sought to revive such "medieval" ideals or aesthetics in the late 18th and early 19th century.
The behavioural code of military officers down to the Napoleonic era
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative ...
, the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
(especially as idealised in the "Lost Cause
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First ...
" movement), and to some extent even to World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, was still strongly modelled on the historical ideals, resulting in a pronounced duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...
ling culture, which in some parts of Europe also held sway over the civilian life of the upper classes. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire
In the late eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Old Regime) faced numerous enemies. In response to these threats, the empire initiated a period of internal reform which came to be known as the Tanzimat, which succeeded in significant ...
, however, the military threat from the "infidel" disappeared. The European wars of religion
The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic Chu ...
spanned much of the early modern period and consisted of infighting between factions of various Christian denominations. This process of confessionalization
In Protestant Reformation history, confessionalization is the parallel processes of "confession-building" taking place in Europe between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). During this time prior to the Thirty Y ...
ultimately gave rise to a new military ethos based in nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
rather than "defending the faith against the infidel".
Social commentators of the Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
advocated for a revival of chivalry in order to remedy the ill effects of the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
's "Captains of Industry
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
" were to lead a "Chivalry of Labour", a beneficent form of governance that is hierarchical yet fraternal in nature, rather than materialistic. John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
's "Ideal Commonwealth" took chivalry as one of its basic characteristics.
In the American South in mid-19th century, John C. Breckinridge
John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever vice president of the United States. Serving ...
of Kentucky was hailed as the epitome of chivalry. He enjoyed a reputation for dignity and integrity, and especially his tall, graceful and handsome appearance, with piercing blue eyes and noble -looking expression, with cordial manner, pleasing voice and eloquent address that was highly appreciated by voters, soldiers, and women alike.
From the early modern period, the term ''gallantry'' (from ''galant
The galant style was an 18th-century movement in music, visual arts and literature. In Germany a closely related style was called the '' empfindsamer Stil'' (sensitive style). Another close relative is rococo style. The galant style was drawn in ...
'', the Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
ideal of refined elegance) rather than ''chivalry'' became used for the proper behaviour and acting of upper-class men towards upper-class women. In the 19th century, there were attempts to revive chivalry for the purposes of the gentleman
A gentleman (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man) is any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the ra ...
of that time. Kenelm Henry Digby
Kenelm Henry Digby (c. 1797 – 1880) was an Anglo-Irish writer, whose reputation rests chiefly on his earliest publication, ''The Broad-Stone of Honour, or Rules for the Gentlemen of England'' (1822), which contains an exhaustive survey of medi ...
wrote his ''The Broad-Stone of Honour
''The Broad Stone of Honour, or Rules for the Gentlemen of England'', is a book written by Kenelm Henry Digby and published first in 1822 by F. C. & J. Rivington of London. Then the work was subdivided into its constituent parts and published as ' ...
'' for this purpose, offering the definition: 'Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world'.
The pronouncedly masculine virtues of chivalry came under attack on the parts of the upper-class suffragettes
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
campaigning for gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
in the early 20th century, and with the decline of the military ideals of duelling culture and of European aristocracies in general following the catastrophe of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the ideals of chivalry became widely seen as outmoded by the mid-20th century. As a material reflection of this process, the dress sword lost its position as an indispensable part of a gentleman's wardrobe, a development described as an "archaeological terminus" by Ewart Oakeshott
Ronald Ewart Oakeshott (25 May 1916 – 30 September 2002) was a British illustrator, collector, and amateur historian who wrote prodigiously on medieval arms and armour. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Founder Member of the Ar ...
, as it concluded the long period during which the sword
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...
had been a visible attribute of the free man, beginning as early as three millennia ago with the Bronze Age sword
Bronze Age swords appeared from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, as a further development of the dagger. They were replaced by iron swords during the early part of the 1st millennium BC.
From an early time the ...
.
During the 20th century, the chivalrous ideal of protecting women came to be seen as a trope of melodrama ("damsel in distress
The damsel in distress is a recurring narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has either been kidnapped or placed in general peril. Kinship, love, or lust (or a combination of those) gives the male protagonist the motiv ...
"). The term ''chivalry'' retains a certain currency in sociology, in reference to the general tendency of men, and of society in general, to lend more attention offering protection from harm to women than to men, or in noting gender gaps in life expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
, health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
, etc., also expressed in media bias
Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of many events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening of ...
giving significantly more attention to female than to male victims.
Formed in 1907, the world's first Scout
Scout may refer to:
Youth movement
*Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement
**Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom
**Scouts BSA, sectio ...
camp, the Brownsea Island Scout camp
The Brownsea Island Scout camp was the site of a boys' camping event on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, southern England, organised by Lieutenant-General Baden-Powell to test his ideas for the book '' Scouting for Boys''. Boys from different ...
, began as a boys' camping event on Brownsea Island
Brownsea Island is the largest of the islands in Poole Harbour in the county of Dorset, England. The island is owned by the National Trust with the northern half managed by the Dorset Wildlife Trust. Much of the island is open to the public and ...
in Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley (ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...
, southern England, organised by British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell to test his ideas for the book ''Scouting for Boys
''Scouting for Boys: A handbook for instruction in good citizenship'' is a book on Boy Scout training, published in various editions since 1908. Early editions were written and illustrated by Robert Baden-Powell with later editions being extensi ...
''. Boy scouts from different social backgrounds in the UK participated from 1 to 8 August 1907 in activities around camping
Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more nat ...
, observation
Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The ...
, woodcraft
The term woodcraft — or woodlore — denotes bushcraft skills and experience in matters relating to living and thriving in the woods—such as hunting, fishing, and camping—whether on a short- or long-term basis. Traditionally, woodcraft per ...
, chivalry, lifesaving
Lifesaving is the act involving rescue, resuscitation and first aid. It often refers to water safety and aquatic rescue; however, it could include ice rescue, flood and river rescue, swimming pool rescue and other emergency medical services. ...
and patriotism
Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, language relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or histor ...
.
According to William Manchester
William Raymond Manchester (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the ...
, General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...
was a chivalric warrior who fought a war with the intention to conquer the enemy, completely eliminating their ability to strike back, then treated them with the understanding and kindness due their honour and courage. One prominent model of his chivalrous conduct was in World War II and his treatment of the Japanese at the end of the war. MacArthur's model provides a way to win a war with as few casualties as possible and how to get the respect of the former enemy after the occupation of their homeland. On May 12, 1962, MacArthur gave a famous speech in front of the cadets of United States Military Academy at West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
by referring to a great moral code, the code of conduct and chivalry, when emphasizing duty, honour, and country.
Criticism of chivalry
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
, in Part I of ''Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...
'' (1605), attacks chivalric literature as historically inaccurate and therefore harmful (see history of the novel), though
he was quite in agreement with many so-called chivalric principles and guides to behavior. He toyed with but never intended to write a chivalric romance that was historically truthful.
Peter Wright criticizes the tendency to produce singular descriptions of chivalry, claiming there are many variations or "chivalries". Among the different chivalries Wright includes "military chivalry" complete with its code of conduct and proper contexts, and woman-directed " romantic chivalry" complete with its code of conduct and proper contexts, among others.[Wright, P., Elam, P. ''Chivalry: A Gynocentric Tradition'', Academic Century Press (2019)]
See also
* ''The Book of the Courtier
''The Book of the Courtier'' ( it, Il Cortegiano ) by Baldassare Castiglione is a lengthy philosophical dialogue on the topic of what constitutes an ideal courtier or (in the third chapter) court lady, worthy to befriend and advise a Prince or pol ...
''
* Domnei
Domnei or donnoi is an Old Provençal term meaning the attitude of chivalrous devotion of a knight to his Lady, which was mainly a non-physical and non-marital relationship.
Principles
This type of relationship was highly ritualized and complex ...
* Habitus (sociology)
In sociology, habitus () is the way that people perceive and respond to the social world they inhabit, by way of their personal habits, skills, and dispositions. People with a common cultural background (social class, religion, and nationality, ...
* High Court of Chivalry
His Majesty's High Court of Chivalry is a civil law (i.e., non common law) court in English and Welsh law with jurisdiction over matters of heraldry. The court has been in existence since the fourteenth century; however, it rarely sits. The so ...
* Knight-errant
A knight-errant (or knight errant) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective '' errant'' (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric ...
* Military elite
Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
* Nine Noble Virtues
The Nine Noble Virtues, NNV, or 9NV are two sets of moral and situational ethical guidelines within certain groupings of Heathens, typically those with folkish views such as Odinists and members of the Ásatrú Folk Assembly. One set was codifi ...
* Nine Worthies
The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary men of distinction who personify the ideals of chivalry established in the Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly ...
* Noblesse oblige
''Noblesse oblige'' (; ; literally “nobility obliges”) is a French expression from a time when French (more specifically, Anglo-Norman) was the language of the English nobility, and retains in English the meaning that nobility extends beyo ...
* Pas d'Armes
__NOTOC__
The () or passage of arms was a type of chivalric hastilude that evolved in the late 14th century and remained popular through the 15th century. It involved a knight or group of knights (' or "holders") who would stake out a traveled s ...
* Seven virtues
* Spanish chivalry
During the Middle Ages, Medieval Europe was engaged in constant warfare. European warfare during the Middle Ages was marked by a transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics, and the role of cavalry and a ...
* Virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standard ...
* Warrior code
A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste.
History
Warriors seem to have been pr ...
* Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the neopagan religion of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is ''An ye harm none, do what ye will'' which was taken from a longe ...
* Women and children first
''Women and Children First'' is the third studio album by American Rock music, rock band Van Halen, released on March 26, 1980, on Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Ted Templeman and engineered by Donn Landee, it was the first Van Halen album no ...
Cross-cultural comparisons
* Ayyaran
* Futuwwa
Futuwwa (Arabic: فتوة, "young-manliness" or "chivalry") was a conception of moral behavior around which myriad institutions of Medieval confraternity developed. With characteristics similar to chivalry and virtue, these communal associations of ...
* Bushido
is a moral code concerning samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle. There are multiple bushido types which evolved significantly through history. Contemporary forms of bushido are still used in the social and economic organization of Japan. ...
* Chinese knight-errant
''Youxia'' () was a type of ancient Chinese warrior folk hero celebrated in classical Chinese poetry and fictional literature. It literally means "wandering vigilante", but is commonly translated as "knight-errant" or less commonly as "cavalier", ...
* Emi Omo Eso Emi Omo Eso is the name ascribed to the moral code of the Eso Ikoyi warrior caste of the Yorubas of West Africa. Its literal translation is ''I am the child of an Eso''.
History
Following the establishment of the cavalry division of the imperial ar ...
* Eso Ikoyi {{Short description, Aristrocratic attribute in Yoruba culture
Eso Ikoyi (also appearing as Esho Ikoyi) is an aristocratic attribute amongst the Yoruba people which denotes an eminent warrior. It has been used as everything from a chieftaincy title ...
* Furusiyya
' (; also transliterated as ) is the historical Arabic term for equestrian martial exercise. ''Furūsiyya'' “Knighthood” is a martial tradition dating back to Pre-Islamic Arabia
Its main branches concerned horsemanship (including aspects ...
* Junzi
A junzi ( or "Son of the Monarch") is a Chinese philosophical term often translated as "gentleman," "superior person",Sometimes "exemplary person". Paul R. Goldin translates it "noble man" in an attempt to capture both its early political and la ...
* Maharlika
The ''Maharlika'' (meaning freeman or freedman) were the feudal warrior class in ancient Tagalog society in Luzon, the Philippines. They belonged to the lower nobility class similar to the ''Timawa'' of the Visayan people. In modern Filipino, h ...
* Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali or Pakhtunwali ( ps, پښتونولي) is the traditional lifestyle and is best described as a code of honor of the Pashtun people, by which they live. Scholars widely have interpreted it as being "the way of the Afghans" or "the code ...
* Samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
* Timawa
The ''Timawa'' were the feudal warrior class of the ancient Visayan societies of the Philippines. They were regarded as higher than the ''uripon'' (commoners, serfs, and slaves) but below the ''Tumao'' (royal nobility) in the Visayan social hie ...
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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*
*
*
*
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*
Further reading
* Alexander, Michael. (2007) ''Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England'', Yale University Press. Alexander rejects the idea that medievalism, a pervasive cultural movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was confined to the Victorian period and argues against the suspicion that it was by its nature escapist.
*
* Barber, Richard (1980). "The Reign of Chivalry".
* Bouchard, Constance Brittain (1998). ''Strong of Body, Brave and Noble: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France''. Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...
, 1998.
* Charny, Geoffroi de, died 1356 (2005). ''A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry'' (The Middle Ages Series). Translated by Elspeth Kennedy. Edited and with a historical introduction by Richard W. Kaeuper
Richard William Kaeuper is an American medievalist historian. He was a student of, and mentored by, Joseph Strayer, the noted Princeton University, Princeton scholar. Kaeuper grew up in Richmond, Indiana.
Education
Kaeuper earned his PhD from Prin ...
. University of Pennsylvania Press. Celebrated treatise on knighthood by Geoffroi de Charny
Geoffroi de Charny ({{circa, 1306 – 19 September 1356) was the third son of Jean de Charny, the lord of Charny (then a major Burgundian fortress), and Marguerite de Joinville, daughter of Jean de Joinville, the biographer and close friend of Fran ...
(1304?-56), considered by his contemporaries the quintessential knight of his age. He was killed during the Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
at the Battle of Poitiers
The Battle of Poitiers was fought on 19September 1356 between a French army commanded by King JohnII and an Anglo- Gascon force under Edward, the Black Prince, during the Hundred Years' War. It took place in western France, south of Poi ...
.
* Crouch, David (2019). ''The Chivalric Turn: Conduct and Hegemony in Europe before 1300''. Oxford University Press
* Girouard, Mark (1981). ''The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman''. Yale University Press.
* Jones, Robert W. and Peter Coss, eds. ''A Companion to Chivalry'' (Boydell Press, 2019). 400 pp.
online review
* Kaeuper, Richard W. (1999). ''Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe''. Oxford University Press, 1999.
* Kaeuper, Richard W. (2009). ''Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry''. The Middle Ages Series. University of Pennsylvania Press. Foremost scholar of chivalry argues that knights proclaimed the validity of their bloody profession by selectively appropriating religious ideals.
* Keen, Maurice (1984). ''Chivalry''. Yale University Press. / (2005 reprint).
* Saul, Nigel (2011). ''Chivalry in Medieval England''. Harvard University Press. Explores chivalry's role in English history from the Norman Conquest to Henry VII's victory at Bosworth in the War of the Roses.
External links
Wright, Peter. ''"Bastardized Chivalry: From Concern for Weakness to Sexual Exploitation."'' New Male Studies, ISSN 1839-7816 ~ Vol 7 Issue 2, pp. 43–59, (2018)
Laura Ashe (University of Oxford), Miri Rubin (University of London), and Matthew Strickland (University of Glasgow), interviewed by Melvin Bragg, "Chivalry", ''In Our Time'', BBC Radio 4 (February 13, 2014)
Includes bibliography for further reading. Downloadable podcast available.
* Charles Moeller (1908). "Chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christianity, Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours we ...
". In ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
"Chivalry"
''Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
'', full-article, newest edition.
"Chivalry during the Reign of Edward III"
from Shadow Realms.
*
*
''The Art of Chivalry : European arms and armor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art : an exhibition''
Issued in connection with a 1982 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
*
{{Authority control