Kaeuper argues that our current understanding of chivalry as a code of proper masculine behavior, particularly in relation to women, has little to do with real knights in the Middle Ages. Our king would protect you,’” Kaeuper says. “In a way it’s like mafia tactics: ‘You think the king of France can protect you? He can’t. That style of warfare was still endemic during the Hundred Years’ War of the 14th and 15th centuries, when England and France fought each other, laying waste to the countryside. Kaeuper says few medieval texts describing chivalry warned against burning or looting towns or raping common women. “Ordinary women, shepherdesses, are just rather like for sport.” “There’s a lot of courtesy-you want to be able to speak well to ladies, defend ladies,” Wollock says. Yet even when knights did follow a code of chivalry as they understood it, these ideas about honor and good behavior focused mostly on concern for the noble class that knights were part of, often at the expense of the poor. That led some of them to question the slaughter of Muslims during the crusades. On the flip side, Wollock says, chivalric culture encouraged knights to develop their own sense of morality rather than simply relying on church authorities. The capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. “The pope said, ‘Don’t do that.’ But what’s he going to do, excommunicate the whole crusade army?” Kaeuper says. Instead, the holy knights ended up sacking the great Christian city of Constantinople. Kaeuper points to the example of the Fourth Crusade, called by Pope Innocent III in 1202 to seize Jerusalem from its Muslim rulers. Richard Kaeuper, a historian at the university of Rochester and author of several books on medieval chivalry, argues that, while knights generally considered themselves honorable and pious, they didn’t necessarily follow religious leaders’ rules. Of course, it’s hard to know how much of an impression these stories-generally written not by knights themselves but by clergymen or poets-made on young warriors. READ MORE: How Chivalry Died-Again and Again “The greatest knights are inspired by the love of some lady out there and want to impress her and win her love by doing great deeds.” “To be a great knight, you ought to have consideration of civilians, for women,” Wollock says. Knights were presented as pious, generous and merciful. Particularly in romantic literature of the time-some of it written expressly for young noblemen who were being trained for knighthood. Still, Wollock argues that chivalry did go well beyond the simple need for a disciplined military. The Chivalrous Knight Appears in Romantic Fiction “You’ve got to find some way to get them to get along.”Ī maiden leads a knight in a suit of armor to a castle. “You’ve got all these people who are very prone to violence, heavily armed,” says Kelly Gibson, a medieval historian at the University of Dallas and editor of Vengeance in Medieval Europe. The most common values found in rules that commanders created for knights revolved around the practical needs of a military force: bravery in battle and loyalty to one’s lord and companions. There was never a firm consensus on what it meant to be a good knight. “What develops as you get into the late 11th, 12th century is a sense that knights have to have a professional code if they’re going to be respected and respectable.” “In the early Middle Ages, church councils were praying to be delivered from knights,” Wollock says. These warriors were commanded by warlords and rewarded with land, or with license to plunder the villages where they did battle, looting, raping and burning as they went. READ MORE: Weapons of the Middle Ages Knights Were Heavily Armed and Prone to Violence “He’s a hired thug,” says Jennifer Goodman Wollock, a professor of medieval studies at Texas A&M University who has written two books about chivalry. In the middle of the 11th century, the knight was not a particularly honorable figure. The word chivalry itself comes from the Medieval Latin caballarius, meaning horseman. The development of chivalry went hand-in-hand with the rise of knights-heavily armored, mounted warriors from elite backgrounds-starting around the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. While these rules sometimes dictated generous treatment of the less-fortunate and less-powerful, they were focused mainly on protecting the interests of elites. But during the Middle Ages, the code was established for much grittier reasons.Īt a time of routine military violence with massive civilian casualties, chivalry was an effort to set ground rules for knightly behavior. In the 21st century, the word chivalry evokes a kind of old-fashioned male respect for women.
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