The word “chivalry” evokes a
powerful emotional response from both historians and the public. The most common image is that of the medieval
knight on horseback in mail armor, colorful surcoat, bearing a shield blazoned
with heraldic symbols, and wielding a heavy lance couched against his side
while charging the enemy. This image of martial
prowess frequently accompanies vague notions of a code of honor or romantic
inclinations, which require the knight to defend the honor of ladies, to be
honest and generous, and to act with “honor”. Historians have equally muddled conceptions of
chivalry and its role in European history from the Eleventh centuries on,
arguing over when it became a widespread conception, when it fell into disuse,
and the relative importance of chivalry’s martial, religious, and courtly
overtones. When and how chivalry
declined is a contentious issue – at stake is whether its lofty ideals were
abandoned almost immediately, or persist to the present day.
Chivalry is difficult to define. The common working definition contains three
elements that inform each other: the military expertise of medieval heavy cavalry,
the social group dedicated to military service as heavy cavalry, and the codes
of conduct and courtly behavior associated with this social group.[i] Jeremy duQuesnay Adams contends that American
and British historians focus on the first and third definitions of chivalry,
but that French historians place higher emphasis on the first and second
definitions of chivalry, dropping the third meaning from serious
consideration.
Three classic works illustrate the change in the
historiography of chivalry after 1884.
Leon Gautier insisted that chivalry was an ideal of Christian military
service rather than an institution.[ii] The chivalric ideal resulted from the
combination of the ancient Germanic coming of age ceremony described by Tacitus
and the moral value assigned by the Medieval Church, an argument echoed by
Richard Barber over a century later.[iii] This chivalric ideal developed into an eighth
sacrament of the Medieval Church with its own virtues and unique set of
commandments, resulting in a brotherhood of equals among all knights.[iv]
During the Interwar period, French and English historians
reinterpreted chivalry as the medieval system of knighthood and associated
codes of conduct rather than an ideal of Christian military service, and
extended its duration to include the fifteenth century.[v] Relying on literary sources, Johan Huizinga
contended that by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, chivalry decayed as
both an institution and ideal. Despite
warrior classes’ universal need for a masculine ideal of perfection that
embraces combat, honor, and romantic love, chivalry was merely a screen to
justify violence and selfishness. As the
ideal faltered over time, the screening pageantry became more excessive and
ridiculous.[vi]
Raymond Lincoln Kilgore expands this theme, arguing that
French literature clearly shows increasingly ludicrous displays of chivalric
fancy. Kilgore finds the seeds of
chivalric decay almost to the origin of the ideal itself, which grew from a
merely military and feudal cult of honor to become the “noble” code of
gentlemanly behavior. The Church’s use
of chivalry as a form of religious ordination made the ideal even more
difficult to achieve.[vii] The chivalric ideal quickly faltered, with
material gain replacing religion as a motivating factor in the knightly ethos,
as illustrated by the sack of Byzantium during the Fourth Crusade.
Huizinga and Kilgore argue that by the fourteenth century,
chivalry was little more than an excessive system of courtly etiquette, which
included contests involving grandiose displays of politeness, vows, and formal
challenges. Relying on displays such as
Edward III’s challenge to Philippe de Valois for the crown of France, Kilgore
argues that empty vows and challenges are the prime indicator of the decadence
of late medieval chivalry. The purpose
of the elaborate charade was to allow participants to avoid the reality of war,
political intrigues, and the corruption of the Medieval Church.[viii] Malcolm Vale agrees with these earlier
interpretations, contending that while chivalry did have a role in creating the
laws of war and international law, its primary value was as a collective dream
with a strong ethical component continuing as late as the fifteenth century.[ix]
The work of Georges Duby provides a prominent example of
postwar French development in the social history of chivalry. Relying on social science methodology with
etymology as a primary analytical tool, Duby traces changes in the words miles and nobilis, used to describe both warriors and members of the French
nobility, from the tenth through thirteenth centuries. The first use of miles to indicate knighthood appears in 971 A.D. By 1032 A.D. miles is becoming a substitute for vassus and fidelis,
indicating that the mounted warriors indicated by miles are becoming the loyal vassals of French lords.[x] When Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at
the end of the eleventh century, the highest nobles describe themselves as miles, using the word to describe entire
family groups, retaining the word nobilis
to describe aristocratic non-combatants.
Duby argues that the use of a common title and adoption of common social
values by high and low nobility indicates a flattening of social differences.[xi]
The development of the knightly class of feudal society
dominated the postwar discussion of chivalry among French historians, creating
two competing understandings of the development of the chivalric class. The Germanists, who argue that the class
evolved from Merovingian and Roman sources of nobility, and the Romanists, who
argue that chivalry was the creation of new men whose primary qualification was
ability for combat. These schools find a
common interpretive framework in Duby’s depiction of the chivalric social class
as a combination of older nobility and warriors emerging from the lower levels
of society.[xii]
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, historians
challenged Huizinga’s and Kilgore’s theses of chivalry’s decay and
decadence. In 1974, John Barnie
contended that modern historians who found its values incomprehensible, and
were familiar with clerical and romantic texts rather than the mentalite of its
practitioners misunderstood chivalry.[xiii] Rejecting Huizinga and Kilgore’s assertions
that the discrepancy between the battlefield behavior of knights and the codes
found in treatises is evidence of decline and decay of the chivalric ideal,
Barnie argues that their argument is based on the misplaced assumption that
actual military behavior had to precisely align with Church doctrine and
fictional descriptions.[xiv] Despite the difficulty in living up to the
extremes of the chivalric ideal, each generation has its exemplars of chivalry
who accomplished just that – Godfrey of Bouillon, St. Louis, and Henry of
Gosmont, Duke of Lancaster. This last
example shows that even in the fourteenth century, the upper reaches of the
English nobility took the traditional codes of chivalry seriously, as Henry of
Gosmont fought to defend the faith as a Crusader in Lithuania, Cyprus, and
Rhodes. Young knights scrambled to serve
under Henry due to his reputation as a dedicated Crusading figure rather than
his success during the Hundred Years War.[xv]
Rather than focusing on romantic literature, Barnie believes
that fourteenth century tracts on war provide a better idea of the eclectic chivalry
practiced in the field. Their
discussions of rules of just war, points of honor, and strategy are not
evidence of a decline in chivalry, but an example of the pragmatic use of
chivalric ideals.[xvi] When evaluated through the lens of honor
provided by this evidence, excesses such as the Black Prince hosting the
captured King John of France after the Battle of Poitiers and serving him at a
banquet due to his higher rank, become part of the ideal of chivalry rather
than a symptom of decadence or decay.[xvii]
Social historian Maurice Keen moved away from analyzing
words and literary usage to focus on the pragmatic reasons for the three
accepted aspects of chivalry, arguing that the military and social aspects of
chivalry needed each other.[xviii] The key question in Keen’s interpretation is
whether chivalry was ever more than just the social forms that its detractors
claim. He contends that even during the
Middle Ages, people used the word chivalry with multiple meanings and nuances. In different settings, chivalry referred to:
a body of cavalry, orders of knighthood, a social class, or the ideal code of
behavior for all three.[xix]
Keen examines three medieval works on knighthood, including
the anonymous Orderne de chevalerie
of the first half of the thirteenth century, Ramon Lull’s Libre de ordre de cavarleria of the fourteenth century, and
Geoffroi de Charny’s mid-fourteenth century Livre
de chevalerie to track changes in the ethos of chivalry. All three works rely heavily on the Christian
symbolism of knighthood, but espouse an expanding array of chivalric
virtues. Where the Orderne touts the premier importance of loyalty and virtue, Lull
adds avoiding pride and idleness to the virtues, and the duties of defending
the Church, training sons to knighthood, and pursuing criminals. Charny provides the most comprehensive vision
of chivalry, equating the order of chivalry with religious vocation.[xx]
Beyond reviewing the changing ideals demonstrated by these
manuals, Keen examines the technology of warfare to find social reasons for the
development of chivalry. He finds this
in the Chanson de Roland and the
Bayeaux Tapestry. The Chanson de Roland, dated between
1100-1300 A.D. depicts the earliest known cavalry charge using couched lances,
while the Bayeaux Tapestry, a rendering of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D.,
illustrates four methods of using spears while mounted.[xxi] The new method of using the lance drove the
development of chivalry in France and elsewhere. This fighting method, pioneered by the
Normans was not widespread until after 1140 A.D.[xxii]
Using the heavy couched lance rather than the lighter spear
radically altered the equipment cavalrymen required for fighting and
surviving. Heavy mail hauberks, helms,
improved saddles, additional horses, and retainers to care for it were
expensive. In France, knights and petty
nobility needed the access to the wealth of the greater nobility, who needed
the knights to serve as elite troops and officers because of the constant
warfare among themselves. The
seigneurial courts where the knights gathered with the greater nobility were
the sources of the chivalric ideals of courtly and battlefield behavior found
in treatises on knighthood. The diaspora
of French knights to England, Italy, Spain, and the Holy Land during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries rapidly spread these ideals throughout Europe.[xxiii]
Having provided a concrete explanation for the secular
development and later religious cooption of chivalry, Keen addresses the
Huizinga school’s assertion that by fourteenth century it had fallen into decay
and decline. War dominated European life
in this era in the same way it had in the tenth and eleventh centuries,
ensuring that society focused on martial themes. Determining whether the chivalric practices
of European nobility were decadent requires more than an examination of
apparent excess in literary sources, but also analysis of the risks taken on by
this social class.[xxiv]
Although battles between armies were rare during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when they occurred the losing side suffered
extraordinary casualties. At Poitiers
(1356), Courtrai (1302), and Halidon Hill (1333) approximately 40% of the
losing force died in combat. The casualties
were almost exclusively men from the chivalric order – knights and squires.[xxv] Beyond risk in the field, chivalric ideals
played important social and political roles.
Men at arms equipped themselves at high cost – a single warhorse costing
the equivalent of half a years’ wages – and provided their own training. Nobles also used their chivalric lifestyles
to attract and retain their own followers who accompanied them on campaign in
the service of their lords.[xxvi] Even the drive for individual distinction
served a social purpose in this milieu – the chance of enhanced social status
encouraged young men of the chivalric order to pursue martial skills that
society needed them to possess.
These truths lead Keen to argue that Huizinga, Kilgore, and
Vale are wrong in their assertion that chivalry was declining and decadent
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[xxvii] Relying on romantic literature, Jennifer R.
Goodman extends Keen’s argument into the Age of Discovery, arguing that rather
than disappearing during the fifteenth century, chivalric ideals drove European
exploration into the seventeenth century.[xxviii] She finds a deep connection between the
Medieval chivalric ideal in the literature surrounding Marco Polo, Henry the
Navigator, and Cortes. Evidence for
chivalry as a contributing factor to exploration include Henry the Navigator’s
planned Crusade to North Africa and Bartolome de las Casas’ suggestion for a
chivalric order to reform the behavior of conquistadors.[xxix]
Goodman asserts that Huizinga and other detractors of late
Medieval and Renaissance chivalry do so in order to preserve the Renaissance as
a distinct period from the Middle Ages, drawing on Petrarch’s designation of
the Renaissance period as a rebirth of culture.
Huizinga needed chivalry to decline in order to support his greater
thesis – that the Middle Ages are on the wane before the dawning of the
Renaissance. To achieve this, Goodman
argues, required Huizinga to ignore the primary evidence that tournaments and
other chivalric activities continue into the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.[xxx]
Chivalry is an important concept beyond the confines of
France, England, and Spain. The German
incarnation of the chivalric ideal differed significantly from the rest of
Europe. During the tenth and eleventh
centuries, the Holy Roman Empire needed servants as administrators, leading to
the development of unfree “serf-knights” based on the castellan. These imperial servants labored under many of
the same restrictions as French and English serfs, not having the right to
change their allegiance or dispose of their lands. Providing both administrative and military
service, the serf-knights gained power and prestige based on their ties to
their feudal lords. Because they were
unable to switch allegiances, German serf-knights were more trusted than their
French counterparts, and acted as a source of stability for their lords. German knighthood did not gain social
awareness of itself until the twelfth century.[xxxi]
Moorish Spain also developed a unique chivalry, which
flourished during the eleventh century.
In contrast to the French model, Moorish knights did not develop a
distinctive outward style, having no heraldry or tournaments. Moorish chivalry included ideals of military
prowess and honor, and developed its own distinctive doctrines of chivalric
love based on Islam. The teachings of
Mohammed and the fundamental opposition of sexes inherent in Islam provide the
basis of both Muslim polygamy and chivalric love. Like Christian chivalric codes, Muslim codes
emphasized charity, generosity, and fearlessness.[xxxii]
Finally, chivalry was not a uniquely European or
Mediterranean conception. China’s
knight-errant, or yu-hsia, was not an
exact analogue to the Christian or Muslim chivalric knight, but it remains a
useful analytical tool for examining the similarities and difference between Eastern
and Western cultures. Appearing during
the period of the Warring States between 403-221 B.C., the knights-errant took
justice into their own hands, generally in an altruistic fashion, as a reaction
to the chaos of the period.[xxxiii]
Unlike the European knight, the Chinese knight-errant had no
ties to established religion. Instead,
they stood in opposition to the dominant Confucian ideal by extending their
concepts of duty and honor to cover both family and strangers. Rather than fulfilling only the strict
requirements of “yi”, the knights-errant extended it to mean doing more than
strictly necessary to fulfill the bounds of honor. Where Confucians valued moderation and
solidarity, the yu-hsia, leaned
toward extremism and freedom.[xxxiv]
There is significant debate over the social class of the
Chinese knights-errant. One view holds
that they did not constitute a class, but were only independent men who acted
chivalrously, while others argue that they were unemployed artisans that became
soldiers, or that they represent a segment of Chinese society located between
the nobility and serfs. Regardless of
social status, the yu-hsia had neither lands to support them, nor feudal
obligations to superiors.
The historical and cultural debate over the meaning and
reality of chivalry continues. Recent
works examine the relationship between chivalry and development of military
professionalism, the role of chivalry in American popular culture, and the
influence of chivalry on the American Civil War. Twenty-first century military science fiction
continues to draw on the imagery and language of chivalry, with the main
character of John Ringo’s The Last
Centurion claiming that he and his fellow soldiers conceive of themselves
as “paladins” during their military service.
Clearly, the influence of the chivalric ideal continues to echo in the
modern world.
[i] Adams,
Jeremy duQuesnay “Modern Views of Chivalry, 1884-1984,” The Study of Chivalry: Resources and Practices, eds. Howell
Chickering and Thomas Seiler (New York: Simon and Schuster 1988), 41-89.
[ii] Adams,
46.
[iii]
Barber, Richard. The Knight and Chivalry,
revised edition (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1995), 4.
[iv] Adams,
47.
[v] Adams,
50.
[vi] Ibid,
52.
[vii]
Kilgore, Raymond Lincoln. The Decline of
Chivalry as Shown in French Literature of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1937), 4.
[viii]
Kilgore, 9-11.
[ix] Vale,
Malcolm. War and Chivalry: Warfare and
Aristocratic Culture in England, France, and Burgundy at the nd of the Middle
Ages (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981), 8-10.
[x] Duby,
Georges. The Chivalrous Society
trans. Cynthia Poston. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 158.
[xi] Ibid,
161.
[xii] Adams,
56. Duby, 167.
[xiii]
Barnie, John. War in Medieval English
Society: Social Values in the Hundred Years War, 1337-1399 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1974), 56.
[xiv] Ibid,
57-58.
[xv] Ibid,
59.
[xvi] Ibid,
67.
[xvii] Ibid,
79-82.
[xviii]
Adams, 71.
[xix] Keen,
Maurice. Chivalry (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984), 2.
[xx] Ibid,
6-12.
[xxi] Ibid,
26-28.
[xxii]
Barber, 6-7.
[xxiii]
Ibid, 28.
[xxiv] Ibid,
219.
[xxv] Ibid,
222.
[xxvi] Keen,
224-226.
[xxvii]
Ibid, 237.
[xxviii]
Goodman, Jennifer R. Chivalry and
Exploration, 1298-1630 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998), 4-5.
[xxix]
Goodman, 22.
[xxx] Ibid,
18-20.
[xxxi] Keen,
34-37.
[xxxii]
Burckhardt, Titus. Moorish Culture in
Spain, trans. Alisa Jaffa (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), 93-94, 108.
[xxxiii]
Lin, James J. Y. The Chinese
Knight-Errant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 1.
[xxxiv]
Ibid, 8.
