![]() Of course, it is virtually impossible to enunciate the motivations of an individual in a particular situation and thereby demonstrate an action was the direct result of the ideas and values presented in specific texts. Firstly, in order to assess the influence of chivalry, and more specifically chivalric texts, upon there audience, is to measure the behavior of the knights and men-at-arms against the theoretical prescriptions espoused in Froissart’s Chroniques. There are, however, methodological and historiographical problems inherent in discussing chivalry. I suggest that compassionate treatment of defeated high-status enemies is a defining characteristic of chivalry.’ Finally, Craig Taylor has elected to use the term ‘chivalry’ as a ‘proper noun, to refer to the people who formed the knightly or aristocratic class, rather than to chivalric culture in its broadest sense or to the ideals, norms, or ethos of knighthood.’ John Gillingham has defined chivalry ‘as a code in which a key element was the attempt to limit the brutality of conflict by treating prisoners, at any rate when they were men of ’gentle’ birth, in a relatively humane fashion. This has given rise to a final way in which the term ‘chivalry’ is defined and used: as an eternal ideal of elegant and civilized masculinity, reflecting a modern, nostalgic fantasy of a world of medieval knights who treated war as a noble game. Chivalry in the latter sense is often associated primarily with courtly romances, which offered a very heroic and idealized vision of knightly values and behavior. ![]() More recently, Richard Kaeuper has advanced a more circumscribed definition of chivalry, as the values, ethos, and ideals of knighthood, either practiced by the knights themselves or as described by the writers of the age. In his seminal 1984 study, Maurice Keen defined chivalry as an ‘ethos’ that constituted the norms, values, practices, and rituals of medieval aristocratic society from the High Middle Ages onwards. As such, the study of noble conduct, as gleaned through the confrontation of theoretical prescriptions with actual aristocratic practice, is still of central importance to medieval history. While most historians admit that difficulties in establishing a universal definition of chivalry, precisely because their exact influence upon the practical conduct of affairs is notoriously difficult to assess, as it could mean different things to different individuals at different times, it is nevertheless clear that for a very long time aristocrats in Europe were motivating ideals. Chivalric culture simultaneously celebrated and revered qualities such as honor, prowess, loyalty, courage, and mercy alongside more ‘civilizing’ values associated with life at court. Yet chivalry was also a complex ideology filled with intrinsic tensions and contradictions, inherent in some of the very ideals of chivalry, not merely in the lamentable inability of fallible men to attain them. Medieval knights and men-at-arms were first and foremost practitioners of violence, whose mentality and worldview was underpinned by chivalric ideals, especially the primacy of honor and prowess. But this is not an accurate vision of medieval chivalry, rather it represents the romantic mythology of chivalry and what it aspired to be. Chivalry is an evocative word, conjuring up enchanting images of gentlemen in shining armor mounted on white horses fighting bravely to rescue the damsels in distress, protectors of the poor and downtrodden, servants to their virtuous kings, and guardians of the Christian faith.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |