Chivalry


Chivalry, or the chivalric language, is an informal and varying code of conduct that developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It is associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood, with knights being members of various chivalric orders, and with knights' and gentlemen's behaviours which were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries. It arose in the Carolingian Empire from the idealisation of the cavalryman—involving military bravery, individual training, and service to others—especially in Francia, among horse soldiers in Charlemagne's cavalry. Over time, the meaning of chivalry 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, was a moral system which combined a warrior ethos, knightly piety, and courtly manners, all combining to establish a notion of honour and nobility.

Terminology and definitions

The term "chivalry" derives from the Old French 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. The French word chevalier 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, the collective term chevalerie originally denoted the body of heavy cavalry upon formation in the field. In English, the term appears from 1292.
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" or "a group of mounted knights" to the ideal of the Christian warrior ethos propagated in the romance genre, which was becoming popular during the 12th century, and the ideal of courtly love propagated in the contemporary Minnesang and related genres.
The ideas of chivalry are summarized in three medieval works: the anonymous poem Ordene de chevalerie, which tells the story of how Hugh II of Tiberias was captured and released upon his agreement to show Saladin the ritual of Christian knighthood; the Libre del ordre de cavayleria, written by Ramon Llull, from Mallorca, whose subject is knighthood; and the [|Livre de Chevalerie] of Geoffroi de Charny, 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, evolving after the end of the crusades partly from an idealization of the historical knights fighting in the Holy Land and from ideals of courtly love.

Ten Commandments of Chivalry

Pioneering French literary historian Léon Gautier compiled what he called the medieval Ten Commandments of chivalry in his book La Chevalerie :
  1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions.
  2. Thou shalt defend the Church.
  3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.
  4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.
  5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.
  6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.
  7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
  8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word.
  9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone.
  10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
In fact, there is no such medieval list. Gautier's effort was a series of moral bullet points he abstracted from his broad reading of 12th and 13th century romances.

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 chivalrously, the imitation of which period would much improve the present.
However, 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. From Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi:

We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system. 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 writers. Its essential character is devotion to woman and to honour.

Sismondi alludes to the fictitious Arthurian romances 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.... 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

Europe before 1170: Courtliness and the noble ''habitus''

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 and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, even though a precedent exists for the concept as far back as the works of Aristotle. Crouch in 2019 argued that the habitus on which "the superstructure of chivalry" was built and the preudomme was a part, were recognised by contemporaries as components of courtoisie which was defined as superior conduct appropriate to the aristocratic hall. He saw it as being taught within the confines of the hall by its senior figures to youths confided to the lord and his household for their social upbringing. Crouch suggested courtliness had existed long before 1100 and preceded the codified medieval noble conduct we call chivalry, which he sees as beginning between 1170 and 1220.
The pre-chivalric noble habitus as discovered by Mills and Gautier and elaborated by Stephen Jaeger and David Crouch are as follows:
  1. Loyalty: It is a practical utility in a warrior nobility. Richard Kaeuper associates loyalty with prowess. The importance of reputation for loyalty in noble conduct is demonstrated in.
  2. 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.
  3. Hardiness: Historians and social anthropologists documented that in the early stages of 'proto-chivalry,' physical resilience and prowess in warfare were almost prerequisites for chivalry-associated knighthood. For warriors, regardless of origin, displaying exceptional physical prowess on the battlefield often led to attaining noble-knightly status or immediate nobilitation. To deliver a powerful blow in Arthurian literature almost always certifies the warrior's nobility. This view was supported by formal chivalric authorities and commentators: the anonymous author of La vraye noblesse states that a person of 'low degree' with martial bearing should be elevated to nobility by the prince or civic authority, "even though he be not rich or of noble lineage". Scholastic analyst Richard Kaeuper summarizes the matter: "A knight's nobility or worth is proved by his hearty strokes in battle". The virtue of hardiness, aligned with forbearance and loyalty, was a key military virtue of the preudomme. According to Philip de Navarra, a mature nobleman should possess hardiness as part of his moral virtues. Geoffrey de Charny also underscored the importance of hardiness as a masculine virtue tied to religious sentiments of contemptus mundi.
  4. Largesse or Liberality: generosity was part of a noble quantity. According to Alan of Lille, 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."
  5. The Davidic ethic: encompasses the noble qualities of preudomme derived by clerics from Biblical tradition. This concept aligns with the classical Aristotelian notion of the "magnanimous personality" and the early Germanic and Norse tradition of the war-band leader as a heroic figure. The Christian-Davidic guardian-protector role of warrior-leadership emerged from the Frankish church to legitimize authority based on ethical commitment to safeguarding the vulnerable, ensuring justice for widows and orphans, and firmly opposing cruelty and injustice by those in power. This opposition extended to sub-princely magistrates and even monarchs who violated ethical principles of lex primordialis or lex naturae. At the heart of the Davidic ethic lies the idea of the strong demonstrating benevolence towards the weak.
  6. Honour: honour was achieved by living up to the ideal of the preudomme and pursuing the qualities and behaviour listed above. Maurice Keen 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 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.