Knights And Chivalry: Life In The Middle Ages

By the time of the Crusades in Medieval Europe, Knights were nothing out of the ordinary. A knight's training began at around four or five. It involved them learning how to ride a pony. Around the age of eight, the young trainee would be sent to be a page for a lord or a relative with influence. At this point, they would refine their swordsmanship, improve their horse skills, and would be taught more about their religion. At the age of 14, pages were eligible to become a squire, where they continued their sword fighting skills. They would accompany a knight into a battle, care for him, care for his horses, and would simply hope to be chosen to

Literature of the Middle Ages can not be discussed without acknowledging the undeniable importance of chivalry. Chivalry in relation to the middle ages is defined as “the code of conduct adhered to by Medieval knights with gallant knightly values including honor, bravery, courteousness and honesty.” This key characteristic is essential in defining an ideal knight as well as his expectations. A knight must live by a chivalric code in which he becomes indebted to the people, his fellow knights, and most importantly, his lord. No other knight displayed more of a devotion to upholding the code then Lanval of Marie de France’s lai “Lanval.” Lanval demonstrates his chivalric nature in essential every action from maintaining comitatus amongst the

Whats a good medieval romance without chivalry? The combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak. “The world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is governed by well-defined codes of behavior. ... The ideals of Christian morality and knightly chivalry are brought together in Gawain's symbolic shield. The pentangle represents the five virtues of knights: friendship, generosity, chastity, courtesy, and piety.”

In the Medieval Period, knights dedicated their lives to following the code of chivalry. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a number of characters performed chivalrous acts to achieve the status of an ideal knight. Their characteristics of respect for women and courtesy for all, helpfulness to the weak, honor, and skill in battle made the characters King Arthur, King Pellinore, and Sir Gryfflette examples of a what knights strove to be like in Medieval society. Because of the examples ofchivalry, Le Morte d’Arthur showed what a knight desired to be, so he could improve theworld in which he lived.

A knight’s characteristics are usually described by using power and authority but, in actuality, the knight is just a servant to a higher authority. An

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, the author encapsulates chivalrous characteristics in his telling of a battle for love. In its fundamental form, chivalry idealizes a knight’s conduct, both on and off the battlefield (Gregory-Abbott). Chaucer employs this “heroic code [of] bravery, loyalty, and service to one's lord” to illustrate the idillic knight throughout the narrative (Rossignol). Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, exhibits the ideals of chivalry in the form of two knights, desperately in love with the same woman, and a wise Duke who embodies the voice of reason. Each knight upholds honor through compassion, troths, and heroism on the battlefield, despite their afflictions with each other.

A common belief is that a big part in the code of chivalry is courtly love. This is false. The documentary says the code of chivalry bound the aristocratic fighting class and protected the aristocracy families. This doesn’t have and didn’t have much to do with romance. Courtly love is more of the term to use for the code the knights followed in regards to romance. Chivalry was mostly a knights’ duties, roles, and behaviors he was to follow in order to remain honorable. It relates to the knights’ relationship with one another. Courtly love focused on how a knight treated his women. In The Knight’s Tale these two codes are at war with one another.

“The Knights Tale” is the first tale in Geoffrey Chaucers “The Canterbury Tales”. The story introduces various typical aspects of the knighthood such as chivalry, ethical dilemmas, and courtly love. Knights all have this characteristic which they call the code that they portray through out the tale. In Geoffrey Chaucers “The Knights Tale” is an effort on the knight’s part to preserve a virtuous code.

In??Sir Gawain and The Green Knight?,?the author portrays the nature and code of chivalry as well as the humanistic features of the knights. Knights were but an extension of the king. They were not allowed to do inappropriate things as they were considered the representatives of Arthur. They were meant to treat women appropriately. Chivalry was their main feature.

The chivalric code involved the training and passing of skills to the knights for them to acquire a particular behavior in their service for the kings and queens who they worked under especially in the medieval era.1 The skills that knights were to acquire involved bravery, honesty, generosity and unquestioning service to their Lords. Keen affirms that the code was strict and involved activities aimed at ensuring

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. Under a better name, it is warrior chivalry. This is thought to be the most achieved duty of chivalry. A knight is not always portrayed as lady killer, but more popularly as a noble warrior. Were knights really as noble as they seemed? The logical of a human really doesn’t allow that to happen. Why would someone want to risk their own life for lives of others? The human mind doesn’t function like that. Knights still fight however, but this is based purely on the fact that there is no way around it. If a knight chose not to fight, treason was the only price. Knights did not have a willing attitude. To appeal to the human mind, why would one desire to throw his body out to a sure death? A man in his sane mind would not do so. This is clearly reflected in the medieval narrative Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The example begins with the knights of the round table all meeting in their hall during evening festivities. A mysterious green knight enters the hall and possesses a challenge. The challenge is that one knight of Arthur’s gets a unresponsive attack at the neck of this giant green knight with his own axe. The only loophole is that in one year and a day

In medieval Europe it was a dangerous and fearless time, as being a knight you weren’t the most outstanding class in the feudal system but you got well looked after.

The stories show that marriage and love is not regarded highly, Equitan steamrolls through his knight’s trust by taking his wife and scheming to kill him. Love is presented as the desire for someone because of their looks. In the tale of Bisclavret, his wife’s love and marriage is secondary to is thinking that it is weird that her husband turns into a wolf. She does not really love him or care for their marriage. She then uses a knight of her husband’s to scheme to kill him by taking his clothes. This shows how easy it was in that time for people to find others who desire them and are willing to turn on the people their king.

At this point in history the men who fought the wars were lead by their leaders with a code of chivalry. Chivalry can be explained as “the Anglo-Saxon code on steroids.” (McGee) Which is, explained further, a moral system for a good way to conduct fighting. The knights in Arthurian time went even further with that code to say that it was a way to conduct oneself not only in battle, but at all times. Knights, by being chivalrous, were kind to all people, fought well and true, kept faith and believed in the Christian God, and fought for their kings. Chivalry can be found across the Arthurian texts, The Song of Roland is one of the texts that has multiple examples of chivalry.

To start, the two royal knights were acting like children fighting over the same girl. At one point, Palamon claims that he “loved her first, and told you [Arcite] of my woe” (1146). This reaction of the ‘I saw it first’ variety is one that is expected from children who are fighting over something, rather than that of two stately knights. Using honorable methods means that both knights should have worked to settle their quarrel in a civil manner, rather than resorting to childish behavior. In addition, both are caught by Theseus arguing over Emily, something that Theseus believes is punishable by death. As a knight, it is expected that you follow the law, so being caught committing a crime is known to be very bad. Although Theseus did not sentence them to death, he does tell them they need to “bring a hundred knights, / Armed for the lists, prepared to fight, / Ready to lay claim to her in battle.” (1851-1853). Therefore, their non-chivalric behavior led them to duel each other over a woman. Andreas Capellanus defined the eighteenth rule of love as “Good character is the one real requirement for worthiness of love.” By engaging in criminal behavior, they violated this important rule and thus upended the values of chivalric love.