Why study "chivalry" in HH205?

Medieval chivalry has influenced modern, romantic conceptions of honor, especially military honor. Marine Corps recruiting commercial: 'Once there were men who knew the meaning of honor [visual: closeup of a knight and his sword]--there still are, the Marines! [knight's sword becomes Marine sword, closeup of a Marine]. The ideal of chivalry has attracted generations of young people to the military life. It underlies such movies as "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Top Gun," and even "Rambo."

Chivalry is an ethical system that emphasizes personal honor. As Maurice Keen wrote: "the most important legacy of chivalry to later times was its conception of honour ... Transaction of honour, a contemporary anthropologist has said, 'provide ... a nexus between the ideals of society and their reproduction in the actions of individuals--honour commits men to act as they should'... Chivalry's most profound influence lay in just this, in setting the seal of approbation on norms of conduct, recognised as noble when reproduced in individual act and style." (Chivalry 249) Chivalry helped fashion the idea of the 'gentleman,' in which concepts of coutliness/courtesy, skills in games and war, courage (especially in combat), loyalty to friends, personal honor (public approbation/esteem tied to the avoidance of anything shameful and commitment to doing the right thing, even if it meant risking life and limb), the idea of the 'constant quest to improve on achievement' (M. Keen 15), and individualism were tied together. Chivalry also shaped one aspect of romantic love: the idea that the male could win/be worthy of his 'lady love' by winning approbation through noble/honorable acts.
 

A. MEDIEVAL MEANINGS OF 'CHIVALRY', c. 1100-c.1500

1. The term 'chivalry' derives from the French word for knight, chevalier, an aristocratic warrior, presumably of noble-birth, equipped with heavy armor and warhorse. The warhorse is essential; the literal meaning of chevalier is horsemen. Medieval chivalry was a) martial, b) aristocratic, c) courtly. It also was French. Though the 'code of chivalry' prevailed throughout Western Europe in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, it was France that served as the center of chivalric culture.

2. The earliest usage of 'chivalry' (in eleventh- and early twelfth-century texts) was to denote the collective body of chevaliers. The "chivalry" of a prince was the troop of knights who served him. By extension, "chivalry" denoted the knighthood as a separate and specific order within the Christian community. In the latter sense "the chivalry" was synonymous with knighthood.

3. By the early twelfth century the term 'chivalry' also came to stand for the values, ethos, and manners appropriate to the knightly class. These mores derived from 1) feudal obligations, 2) demands made by life in princely courts, 3) the teachings of the Christian clergy. By the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century the ideal of the loyal, courageous, and effective warrior had been refashioned into the IDEAL OF THE KNIGHTLY COURTIER--MANNERS, ELOQUENCE, URBANITY, MUSICAL AND LINGUISTIC ABILITY, AND KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO SPEAK TO AND PLEASE LADIES became essential aspects of the chivalric knight (see Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan, c. 1210, and the works of Chretien de Troyes, e.g. Yvain, ca. 1180).

4. FULL-BLOWN MODEL OF CHIVALRIC VALUES, ETHICS, AND MORALS (fusion of feudal/martial, courtly, and Christian values): RAYMOND LULL (1235-1315), courtier, poet, theologian, mystic, and missionary, SUMMED UP the QUALITIES of the Chivalric Knight in his BOOK ON THE ORDER OF CHIVALRY (ca. 1270). The right reason to become a knight is to do right; the wrong reason is for advantage and rank. A proper chivalric knight MUST be 1. able-bodied; 2. of good lineage; 3. have sufficient wealth to support his rank; 4. wise (to judge his inferiors and supervise their labors; to advise his lord); 5. generous (holds open house within the limits of his means); 6. loyal; 7. courageous; 8. honorable. His ethical duties are 1. to defend the Christian faith, 2. to defend his lord, 3. to protect the weak (women, children); 4. to exercise constantly by hunting and jousting in tournaments; 5. to judge the people and supervise their work (the knight acts here as a royal agent and servant); 6. to pursue robbers and evil-doers. A chivalrous knight must avoid 1) pride, 2) lechery, 3) false oaths, 4) and especially treachery (=betraying one's lord, sleeping with his wife, or surrendering his castle).

5. LATE MEDIEVAL CHIVALRY. The basic aspects of thirteenth-century chivalry remained unchanged into the sixteenth century. The 'practice' of chivalry, however, became more and more elaborate. Tournaments evolved from war games into pageants, princes created chivalric orders with elaborate ceremonies, rituals, and show, noble lineage was emphasized through the science of heraldry, and the chivalric knight conformed to a model of behavior that, as one historian put it, was 'exhibitionist and extravagant--often to the point of vulgarity.' BUT the 15th and 16th centuries were still an age in which ritual was vital to expressing social obligations. The flamboyance and munificence of the displays, moreover, was an expression of the dignity of the noble estate; it reflected in economic terms a growing divide between a small noble elite of vast wealth and a much larger petty nobility that sought to make up for sagging seigneurial revenues through service in court (pensions, wages, livery, gifts). It also emphasized the gulf in values between those who fought and those who worked, even if the latter happened to be wealthier than the former.
 
 

BASIC CONCEPTS AND TERMS FOR MEDIEVAL CHIVALRY:

knight (heavy armored horse soldier serving a lord, a member of the medieval nobility; "those who fight for us"), feudalism (socio-political system in which a warrior ruling elite is bound together hierarchically through a web of personal bonds reinforced by tenurial ties), courtesy (behavior and manners appropriate to members of a court), reciprocity (ethos that obliges people to treat others as they themselves have been treated: benefit friends, injure enemies); honor (one's public status, reputation--also refers to one's lands and rights).

CHIVALRY combines the three essential aspects of the medieval knighthood: WAR, CHRISTIANITY, NOBILITY OF BLOOD
 

BASIC MEDIEVAL FRAMEWORK: hierarchy, custom/tradition, corporate rather than individualistic, Christianity, personal rather than abstract relations
 

B. POPULAR MODERN CONCEPTION OF CHIVALRY. To act as a 'gentleman,' exhibiting courtesy toward the 'fair sex' (Sir Walter Raleigh, etc.), honor, courage, loyalty, physical prowess (the Marine Corps commercials), fighting 'fair' (movies in which hero disarms opponent during a duel, only to hand him back his sword--parodied in Monty Python).

"The age of chivalry is gone: that of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded: and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever." Edmund Burke, on the execution of Marie Antoinette (Reflections on the French Revolution)

The modern popular idea of 'chivalry' derives from a Romantic image of the Middle Ages created in the late eighteenth century by novelists such as Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe). It reflected a disastisfaction with modernity, a repudiation of the Englightenment ideas of rationality, progress, and science, and the French revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. "Chivalry" was associated with a nostalgia for a passing or passed age of aristocratic sensibility.
 

HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF POPULAR CONCEPTION OF CHIVALRY:

The popular conception is broadly correct, BUT it misstates and misinterprets the purposes and meaning of chivalry. Chivalry was an ARISTOCRATIC ethos, a mode of behavior that distinguished the European nobility from their social inferiors. In the Middle Ages to be a "gentle man" was a matter of birth rather than behavior. Courtesy meant proper behavior at court; it included the ability to please and amuse ladies, but the operant word here is "ladies" (it's a class thing). Loyalty and faith were essential elements, but chivalric loyalty was feudal and Christian. "Fighting fairly" is a modern misconception of chivalry. Medieval warfare was characterized by pillaging and ravaging; it was directed against civilian populations. In this warfare certain rules were followed when knight fought knight--the main limitation was that quarter was expected and capture was to be followed by ransom. Once a captured knight had given his word (parole), he would be released on the promise that he would pay the agreed upon ransom. On the other hand, footsoldiers were killed as a matter of course, and ambush and maneuver were considered consistent with chivalry. Battles were avoided. The limitations on how one fought belonged to the sphere of the TOURNAMENT (military games modelled on battle in the 12th century; aristocratic, military pageantry by the 14th century) rather than to warfare.
 

C. HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR THE FORMATION OF THE FRENCH KNIGHTHOOD: THE THUGARCHY BECOMES A SELF-CONSCIOUS ARISTOCRACY.

1. By the year 1000 churchmen such as Bishop Adalbero of Laon had divided Christian society into three orders based upon function: those who pray (for us), those who fight (for us), and those who work (for us). The second of these "orders" (or "estates," as they were to be called in France in 1789) was the knighthood/nobility.

2. The knighthood as a social class/order (as opposed to a theoretical construction) came into being in France during the course of the eleventh century through the fusion of two groups: a) the great magnates who claimed descent from the Carolingian (i.e. Charlemagne's) nobility (termed nobiles) and who possessed enormous landed wealth; b) a petty nobility of warrior-retainers (milites), whose "freedom" (i.e., privileges and exemptions from tribute and labor services) derived from the military service they rendered to the magnates. By 1100 in much of France the great landowners as well as their military retainers adopted the title "miles" (knight) to denote their status. This reflected the notion that all those who fought, leaders as well as followers, formed a single group, economically heterogeneous, to be sure, but bound together by shared culture and values. The development of an elaborate dubbing ceremony as a ritual of initiation into knighthood reflects the definition of knighthood as an order in a Christian society.

3. The historical context for the fusion of these groups into the "knighthood" was the emergence of the heavily armored horse soldier as the dominant force in warfare ca. 1000. This was a byproduct of the adoption of the stirrup in the 8th century, which permitted horse soldiers to become effective shock troops, and of the reorganization of political society along local regional lines as a consequence of the collapse of central authority in the tenth century under the pressure of the Viking invasions. Power was based, ca. 1000 in France, upon the possession of a castle and the military resources to garrison it, to keep the local peasantry in line, and to defend one's 'lordship' (the territory controled by the castle) against other predators. The result was a sort of 'thugarchy' in which landed noblemen relied upon warrior retainers, often household men, to dominate and exploit the peasants. Thus the lord's knights would conduct cavalcades upon horseback through the villages 'to show the flag' to the peasants.

4. The horse as a symbol of nobility is understandable in light of the cost of specially bred warhorses (a warhorse in the 15th century cost a knight the equivalent of six-month wages in royal service) and of the training necessary to fight effectively on horseback.

5. By 1100 the 'thugarchy' had stabilized. Nobles tied themselves hierarchically to one another through the bonds of feudalism, which complemented and even superseded ties of kinship. The result was a political society of aristocratic, warrior landholders who formed a nobility of service. Every nobleman held land from a superior, whom he served in war. In theory noble society was stratified into various levels--king, dukes/earls/counts, viscounts, barons, landed knights, household knights--, but the reality was a fluid society in which one's status derived not only from birth and personal qualities but from the ability to maintain and increase familial wealth and resources.

6. The medieval knight, then, was above all else, a horseman, a soldier, a retainer (vassal), and a nobleman. Chivalry was the code of behavior of this class. In essence, it represents the ethos of a military, Christian aristocracy.

7. Chivalry helped distinguish the military, landed aristocracy from the wealthy burghers of the new towns/cities that were emerging in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Interestingly, in Italy, where the landed aristocracy moved into the cities and merged with the urban patriciate, French chivalric culture was adopted by the urban elite.

The knight's hostility to the merchant and to his commercial ethos is best represented by the baron-troubador Bertrand de Born (ca. 1185): "And it will be good to live [when the princes go to war], for one will take the property of usurers and there will no longer be a peaceful pack-horse on the roads, all the townsmen will tremble; the merchant will no longer be safe on the road to France."
 

D. THE FORMATION OF CHIVALRIC VALUES, ETHICS, MORALS

1. THE MARTIAL/ARISTOCRATIC ELEMENT: LOYALTY AND PROWESS. Chivalric values reflected the needs of a feudal society. The key values here was loyalty, specifically loyalty to one's lord, and martial skill. In the central ritual of feudalism, the ceremony of homage and fealty, a vassal (subordinate noble) swore on holy relics to be loyal to his lord. This pledge of loyalty often occurred within the context the acceptance of a fief, i.e. land or some other source of revenue held by a vassal from his lord in return for specified military service. An important point to be made here is that the lord-vassal relationship was governed by the ethos of reciprocity. One ought not to think of the bond as contractual; rather it established a social relationship of 'friendship,' of mutual aid and benefits.

Prowess (prudhomme) meant the ability to fight well on horseback, a critically important quality in this society of warrior retainers. The measure of a chivalrous knight was his ability to fight and his willingness to subordinate his own will and interests to those of his sworn lord.

The reason that loyalty was emphasized was that, in practice, the interests of a lord and his vassals often came into conflict. This was especially true among lords and their landed vassals. In a world that had no effective central authority to enforce contracts, trustworthiness was a key value. In the homage and fealty ceremony vassals pledged their loyalty upon holy relics in an attempt to reinforce the public promise through supernatural sanctions. Modern marriage, in which spouses pledge lifelong fidelity to one another in the presence of God, provides a good analogy here. Because marital fidelity is a matter of individual choice and is not enforced by the state through its laws and police, adultery is not uncommon in our society, though it may be looked upon with disapproval. Nor are marriages always for life, no matter what has been pledged during the marriage ceremony. Similarly, feudal loyalties were often ignored as nobles pursued their own familial interests, and, on occasion, the lordship bond itself was renounced. "Defiance" was a formal ceremony in which a vassal renounced his fidelity; it may be thought of as analogous to divorce.

2. THE COURTLY COMPONENT: COURTESY/COURTLINESS, MODERATION, AND LARGESSE. Chivalric values also reflect the needs of a courtly society. The 12th century witnessed the rebirth of court life. This new culture of the court meant that the knight had to know how to conduct himself in the drawing room as well as on the battlefield. A "gentle man," a man of noble birth, now came to mean a courtly man, one who knows how to behave politely as befits a courtier. The skills of the chivalrous knight: kill one's enemy and please the ladies.

THE QUALITIES OF COURTLINESS. Courtesy, or courtliness, was the behavior deemed proper for court life. The central ideal was "elegance/beauty of manners" (Gottfried of Strassburg, Tristan), the elements of which were SELF-RESTRAINT, CALCULATED UNDERPLAYING OF TALENTS (the point of which is to magnify these accomplishments by first concealing and then minimizing them, so that onlookers will respond with awe and admiration), CONSIDERATENESS, AFFABILITY, GENTLENESS OF SPIRIT/HUMILITY (mansuetudo: benevolent passivity to friends and foes alike, willingness to suffer abuse patiently, an affectation of humility associated with aristocratic deference (source was Cicero) ELOQUENCE, SKILL IN LANGUAGES AND MUSIC. (N.B. similarity to Castiglione's courtier; Renaissance did NOT invent the 'courtier'!)
 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT. By the twelfth century feudal society revolved around the courts of kings, counts, and other barons. These courts moved with the lord as he peregrinated through his various estates and castles (a necessity for 1) keeping order and control, and 2) for feeding a household that could number in the hundreds). A lord's court included his close kin (wife, children, brothers--those who slept in the chambers of the castle), other members of his household (bachelor knights, chaplains, domestic servants), and landed vassals whom he had summoned to escort or serve him. The status of a lord was reflected by the size and magnificence of his household. Tournaments in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were opportunities for lords to display their wealth and position. Their social standing was enhanced by their displays, their largesse, and by the success of their knights in the competition.

An important obligation of vassalage was attendance upon command in the lord's court (reflected in the King Arthur stories). Vassals were supposed to provide their lords with good advice and to help arbitrate disputes among the lords' vassals. Of equal importance to the lord was keeping tabs on those to whom he had given land and upon whose support he depended for his own security. In return for their good service in court, knights could expect gifts and rewards. The greater the lord, the greater his resources for patronage.

Landed vassals would come and go, but the heart of the lord's court, other than his blood relations, was his household (or bachelor) knights. These were often younger sons who inherited status but not property; they served in hopes of earning rewards (gifts, robes, horses, etc.) and, if very fortunate, fiefs. Great men, counts, dukes, and earls, often counted lesser landed knights among their household retainers.

In addition to the household knights one would also find young children in court. These were foster sons, the children of other noblemen sent to the lord's court to learn the art of being a knight. The ties of foster parentage created additional bonds that supplemented those of kinship and feudalism.
 

ORIGINS OF COURTLY VALUES. Courts were supposed to reflect the power and glory of a lord. Those who entered a noble's household came within the sphere of his protection. To injure one under a lord's protection was to insult that lord. The problem faced by lords was how to maintain peace and order within large households, filled with belligerent young men competing with one another for favor. One solution was to punish harshly those who broke the peace. Another was to foster a code of behavior that was conducive to the maintenance of peace. Courtliness was a set of behaviors that permitted constant competition among young knights while restraining them from killing each other. It moderated the ethos of revenge. It served to domesticate the knights while preserving their martial values.

THE ROMANO-GERMAN SOURCES OF COURTLINESS: CICERO REINTERPRETED: Though "courtesy" was associated strongly with French culture in the twelfth and thirteenth century, recent research (by Stephen Jaeger) has traced the origins of courtliness to German episcopal courts (i.e. the households of bishops) in the tenth and eleventh centuries. German bishops were imperial servants, who were trained for their offices through service as chaplains in the emperor's household. Jaeger summarized his views by saying: "courtliness is medieval Europe's memory of the Roman statesman, of his humanity and urbane skillfulness in guiding the state and in facing the trIals of public life. ... In its social history it first emerges attached to that institution which was and saw itself as the continuator of the Roman empire: the German imperial courts." The single greatest intellectual influence on the construction of the mores of courtliness was Cicero, especially his writings "On Duties" and "On Friendship."
 

LARGESSE. Largesse meant generosity to one's friends (lords, vassals, kinsmen, colleagues) and charity to the poor and the Church. Generosity was an essential quality of the chivalric knight. It was an ethical demand that arose from the ethos of reciprocity: friends were to be rewarded and aided, just as wrongs were to be avenged and enemies hurt. It was also an essential demand of courtly life. Lords imposed their will over their men and demonstrated their power and authority through the distribution of gifts and favors. Vassals, in turn, demonstrated their love of their lord and gratitude for his favors by serving him loyally and by magnifying his reputation through their deeds. The great household knight William Marshal (ca. 1180) was noted for his spontaneous generosity; he acquired wealth in order to distribute it to friends. Bertrand de Born, Marshal's contemporary, wrote poems in which he praised generosity above all other chivalric virtues except for prowess (but, then again, he was of a class that depended upon the patronage of counts and kings).
 

3. CHRISTIAN CHIVALRY. The Christian contribution to chivalry involved the redefinition of warfare and knighthood. The Peace and Truce of God movement of the tenth and eleventh centuries attempted to define peace as the natural condition of the Christian community. War was to be limited both in scope and duration (selective pacifism). The other side of the coin was Crusade, the sanctification of war against the enemies of God (Holy War/Crusade).

Like the twelfth-century kings, dukes, and counts, the Christian clergy were interested in domesticating the military nobility and moderating their violence. The "New Chivalry" (a term coined ca. 1128 by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian abbot and Church reformer) were to be the soldiers of Christ: the knight who fights for religion commits no evil but does good, for his people and himself. He dies a martyr and gains heaven; if he kills his opponent, he avenges Christ. Win/win. In the century after St. Bernard, this idea of Christian chivalry merged with courtly and martial ideals to produce the full-blown Christian chivalry of Raymond Lull (see above).
 

4. TOURNAMENTS

A. BACKGROUND. Although a staple of chivalric literature. All of the Arthurian romances depict heroes as champions at tourneys (e.g., YWAIN). Although their were probably similar sorts of war games in the 10th century, tournaments as such seem to have arisen toward the end of the 11th or beg. of 12th century as part of the developments that created the SECOND FEUDAL AGE. By 1125 tournamets were pop. in France (esp. northern France) and Germany, so much so that it provoked a papal denunc. by Innocent II in 1130. By 1200 popularity of tournaments had spread throughout western Europe, though France was still known as the home of the best and greatest tourneys (Engl chroniclers termed tourns "the Gallic battle"). William Marshal's career reflects the importance of tournaments for knights. The great lords, such as the Counts of Champagne and Flanders, gained reputation and prestige from their patronage of tourns., while the ordinary knights gained fame, glory, possibility of material gain (in the form of horses, trappings, armor, and ransom)--or loss--, and an arena in which to prove their worth to potential lords (for wh read 'employers'). TOURNAMENTS SERVED AS TRAINING GROUNDS FOR WAR, AS OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING BOOTY AND PRESTIGE, AS SOCIAL GATHERINGS OF THE ARISTOCRACY, AS ARENAS FOR THEATER, CEREMONY AND 'PLAY'. In essence, the tournament helped the nobility to define itself, and changed as the nobility's self image changed.
 
 

B. CHARACTER OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY TOURNAMENT
 

1. FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT. A tournament would be announced 2-3 weeks in advance and publ. by messengers who brought the news to noble courts in the area. The announcement would tell the day of the tourn. and its proposed site, often a wide area wh included villages, wh gave the knights the room to range over the countryside. TOURNAMENTS OFTEN LASTED FOR SEVERAL DAYS. The knights and their lords would gather several days before the event and set up tents (the more magnificent the better). On the eve of the tournament, time was set aside for young knights to show their skill w/o the competition of veterans.

2. MELEE RATHER THAN JOUST. The 12th-century tournament was fought as a MELEE rather than a JOUST (tilting competition between individual knights; note: the Maryland version of the joust is actually a type of QUINTAIN, tilting at a stationary object, which was part of the training of squires). Jousts did take place, but as informal preludes to the actual tournament, by young knights amusing themselves as they waited for the melee to begin. There were no 'lists' in the 12th century. Rather, the early tournament was fought over miles of countryside by

3. organized TEAMS, usually representing 'nationalities' (e.g., Angevins, Normans, and French), and each team was further divided into the retinues of individual lords, known as BANNERS or CONROIS, tactical units of ca. 24-50 knights. Weapons used were lance and sword (arrows and crossbows were frowned upon, which distinguished these mock battles from real combat), and the stakes for the individual knights were SPOILS OF WAR (THE WINNER TOOK THE LOSERS HORSE, ARMOR, AND COULD DEMAND RANSOM). The mimicry of war went so far that some lords would use not only knights but footsoldiers (e.g. Philip of Flanders, who was widely known as a brilliant tournament tactician).

4. BATTLEFIELD TACTICS were used and prized. Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders (1168-1191), favored the ambush. He would keep his forces out of combat, resting in the safety-zones, and then when the other teams had exhausted themselves, would launch a decisive attack. Philip also used FOOT-SOLDIERS ARMED WITH HOOKS to drag knights off their horses. Some of his contemporaries went so far as to bring crossbowmen, though this was a no-no. Any strategem was acceptable; and the only limit to numbers was the resources of the lord.

5. PLACES OF REFUGE. Safety-zones were roped off to allow knights to rest and repair armor.

6. RANSOMS. Prisoners were taken and held for ransom as in actual battles. BUT tournaments here differed from battles in two sign. respects 1) RANSOMS WERE BY CONVENTION LIMITED TO HORSES AND ARMOR, 2) ONCE A KNIGHT SURRENDERED, HE WAS RELEASED ON PAROLE (HIS WORD), RATHER THAN HELD IN CUSTODY.

7. AFTER THE DAY'S EVENTS participants met together to discuss the feats of arms and to settle payment of ransoms. Later knights would meet and drinks. Good opportunity to see old friends. Some ladies were spectators in the late 12th century, but were not as frequent viewers as they would become a century later. The tournament was still a male affair.

8. TOURNAMENTS OFTEN WERE USED TO SETTLE PERSONAL SCORES and old grudges could turn a tournament into a deadly affair. To give one example, a tourn held at Chalons in 1273 turned into a real battle when the Count of Chalons grabbed King EI around the neck, wh the king regarded as a breach of convention. In response, EI unleashed his footsoldiers and the tournament became deadly; their were heavy casualties on both sides--and among the spectators--in what was to be known as the 'little battle of Chalons' [Flores Historiorum, III, 30-1, cited by Keen, Chivalry, 86])

C. EVOLUTION OF THE TOURNAMENT: The history of the tournaments mimics the social history of the medieval aristocracy. The tournment of the twelfth century was largely a military affair, meant to give knights practice in fighting in units. Actual battlefield tactics, based on CONROIS of knights (cohesive, feudal tactical units) operating in conjuction with FOOT-SOLDIERS, were employed. Tournaments of the 12th and 13th centuries were dangerous and rough affairs--they were, in essence, war games meant to reflect actual conditions of battlefield combat and were distinguishable from actual warfare only by the presence of roped off 'refuges' where knights could take time out to rest or repair their equipment. Otherwise, they were no holds barred affairs. On occasion a tournament could even substitute for warfare. The counts of Burgundy and Nevers settled their differences at a tournament held on the frontier between their counties in 1172. By doing so, they prevented the ravaging of the countryside, wh, after all, was the most common form of warfare throughout the medieval period (as a generalization, the actual practice of warfare in the Middle Ages resembled Sherman's march to the sea far more than it did Gettysburg.)

The 13th century witnessed a gradual transformation in the tournament, as its pageantry began to become more elaborate, and as JOUSTING began to complement the MELEE. THE EXPENSE OF TOURNEYING ROSE AS THE TOURNAMENT BECAME 'THEATER', a public arena in which barons could show-off their prowess, their chivalric qualities, and their WEALTH. Feasts and pageantry (songs, dances, and formal processions) took up more and more time, and the presence of ladies became an accepted and necessary aspect of the games (knights by the middle of the thirteenth century would fight bearing the sleeves of ladies). This added the proceedings an erotic undercurrent, which might help explain the growing popularity of JOUSTING. Jousting, which emphasized individual martial skills, did not prepare a soldier as well for warfare as did the melee, but it did allow him to be the focus of attention as he demonstrated his prowess. In essence, the purpose of the tournament was changing. Though tournaments never completely lost their military value, they became increasingly stages for chivalric pageantry, demonstrations of chivalry and aristocracy. The tournament was the place in which a nobleman could distinguish himself from a burgher.

This process is perhaps best understood through a weird example, that of the Bavarian knight ULRICH VON LICHTENSTEIN who wrote a pseudo-autobiography in which he described his VENUSFAHRT (1227) and his ARTUSFAHRT (1240). For the former, he dressed up as "Frau Venus", in full armor with woman's clothing over it, and wearing a blong woman's wig. He travelled from Italy to Bohemia, offering a general to all to joust with him. To each knight who broke three lances with him he gave a gold ring, but if the challenger was defeated, he was to bow to the four corners of the earth in honor of Ulrich's lady. He tells us that he broke 300 lances in a month's jousting. The Artusfahrt saw him doing the same thing, but now disguised as King Arthur and accompanied by six companions. The Arthurian motif caught on in the early 13th century; the earliest example of a tourneying in Arthurian dress is a tournament held on Cyprus in 1223 described by Philip of Novara.

By the 14th century the tournament had become theater as well as war-games, and by the 15th century the tourn. had assumed a complex form with 3 distinct types of combat: the joust, the melee, and the hand-to-hand combat on foot. Jousts and hand-to-hand combat would either precede or follow the melee (known as a tournoi). Jousts 'of peace', an innovation of the thirteenth century, in which rebated lances were used, became more and more popular. The object of such a joust was NOT to dismount one's opponent but to splinter as many lances as possible. To protect the participants tournament armor, which emphasized safety over mobility, was employed, and, by the 16th century, the knight's saddle had become so high that it virtually imprisoned him. Lance rests even obviated the need to lower one's lance, and 'tilts' (barriers erected down the length of the lists, first introduced ca. 1420) prevented knights from accidently running into one another. This sort of joust remained popular into the 17th century, though the death of Henry II of France in a joust in 1559 killed the popularity of tournaments as training exercises for princes. Despite its pageantry and the artificiality of the jousts of peace, the joust (and esp. the late medieval tournois) still helped prepare the knight for warfare. It is often forgotten, that battle in the late 14th and, to an even greater extent, in the 15th century still emphasized heavy cavalry (see Malcom Vale, War and Chivalry).

The most 'chivalrous' as well as artifical form taken by the tournament was the PAS D'ARMES, in which an individual knight would make the beau geste of setting up a pavilion on a cross-roads and challenge all who passed by to joust with them (parodied by the Black Knight episode in Monty Python). An early form of the pas d'armes is described by Froissart. In March and April 1390 Marshal Boucicaut, the flower of French chivalry, and two of his companions, bored out of his mind by a truce with the English, took up residence for a month at St. Inglevert on the frontier betw Boulogne and the English held town of Calais. Three months before this they had sent out herald announcing their intention to meet all challengers on any day except Friday. The challenger could choose to fight with either pointed or abated lances. Each contest was to last 5 tilts. Boucicaut set up four magnificent tents, one reserved for the opponent, and placed on the branches of an oak tree a shield with the coat of arms of the three French knights, a horn to summon them from their tents, and a supply of blunted and pointed lances. All one had to do was blow the horn, pick up a lance, and point to the coat of arms of the opponent that one wished to fight. In the course of a month, the three knights jousted against a total of 120 English knights and 40 knights from other lands. Froissart says that the French knights wounded many challengers, though they themselves emerged unscathed (and with a unmatched reputation for prowess and chivalry).

The pas d'armes, like the tournament itself, became more and more elaborate, as ceremony and ritual came more and more to dominate it. The best example of this is the pas d'armes of the Flemish hero JACQUES DE LALAING, held between 1 November 1449 and 1 October 1450. Jacques was the beau ideal of the Burgundian knight. He came from an ancient noble family that had distinguished itself on the Crusade of St. Louis. He served Philip the Good of Burgundy in the conquest of Luxembourg, but it was as jouster that he made his reputation. He travelled far and wide in search of tournaments, jousting before the kings of Castille and of France (and even went to Scotland). In 1453 he was elected a knight of the Golden Fleece, and soon after distinguished himself in the Ghent war, where he was killed at the siege of Pouques when he was beheaded by a cannon ball (!) while he was inspecting a gun emplacement (N.B.).

In Nov 1448 Lalaing announced that he would set up a pavilion on the island of St Laurent on the Saone by Chalon, and would meet any noble challenger there. Lalaing had set up in front of his pavilion a model of a beautiful lady and a unicorn. Around the unicorn's neck hung three shields: a white one, indicating a desire to fight w/ axe; a violet one, for swords; and a black one, for 25 passes with the lance. On the first day of each month beginning on 1 Nov 1449, Lalaing's herald could be found in front of the pavilion waiting to enroll the names of challengers (and to inspect their pedigree to make sure that they could prove their nobility back at least four generations). All one had to do was touch a shield and present one's credentials. In the course of a year, Lalaing fought 22 challengers. He brought the pas d'armes to a conclusion by entertaining all of his challengers in a great feast, and distributing prizes to those whom he judged to fought best: a golden axe, sword, and lance.
 

E. ATTEMPTS TO MODERATE VIOLENCE:

Popes and kings were both made nervous by the popularity of tournaments. Kings saw such gatherings as political threats. The dukes and counts who hosted tournaments used them as opportunities to forge alliances and to solidify their hold over their own vassals. They also provided the perfect cover for launching conspiracies. The opponents of King John and of his son Henry III used tournies to assemble their forces and to plan their rebellions. Kings also resented having to compete with tournaments for their knights' service when they were planning war. But royal opposition proved completely ineffectual, in part because kings themselves were noblemen who, policy aside, enjoyed tournaments and found them, at times, very useful. By the 14th century English and French kings were staging tournaments in order to enhance their own royal prestige.

Still, even those kings and princes who approved of tournaments were disturbed by their unrestrained violence. Here they proved more successful. The curbing of the tournament's violence is parallelled by the successful imposition of the 'king's peace' throughout northern Europe. It is part of the trend of growing political order and stability in the 13th century.
 

a. In France, from mid 12th century on, we find

i. use of special tournament armor of padded leather and blunted (bated) weapons.

ii. JUDGES (diseurs) who awarded special prizes to those who most distinguished themselves (e.g. William Marshal's winning of a fish--a giant pike--at the tourn. at Pleurs near Epernay in 1177--see Painter, 39-40)

iii. Confined tournament fields

iv. Presence of noble ladies becomes a fixture at tournaments by the middle of the 13th century, as the affectations of courtly love literature more and more influence the language and ethos of chivalry.

v. The movement from melee to jousting reduces the dangers of the tournament, especially with the increasing popularity of jousts of peace.
 

b. ENGLISH KINGS IN 13TH CENTURY TRIED TO CURB EXCESSES OF TOURNAMENTS. RICHARD THE LIONHEART (who loved tournaments) tried to reduce the bloodshed by issuing rules and ordinances. RI licensed tournaments at 5 specified areas, all in open countryside, and charged a fee on all those participating--20 marks for an early, 10 for baron, 4 for landed and 2 for landless knights. RI formed a baronial board of control, wh required all those participating to pay fees in advance and to swear to keep the peace. EDWARD I at the end of the 13th century made the rules more stringent, limiting number of followers that baron could bring, ordering the use of only blunted ('bated') weapons, and insisting that grooms and footmen carry only defensive weapons.
 

II. ECCLESIASTICAL CONDEMNATION.

CHIVALRY CREATED TENSIONS IN SOCIETY BECAUSE OF ITS MIXED ORIGIN. THE RELIGIOUS AND MARTIAL ASPECTS OF CHIVALRY OFTEN DID NOT SIT WELL TOGETHER. This tension is best seen in the debate over the TOURNAMENT.
 

CHURCH'S CONDEMNATION OF TOURNS: Innocent II at Second Council of Clermont (1130) denounced 'those detestable markets and fair, vulgarly called tournaments, at wh knights are wont to assemble, in order to display their strength and rash boldness' and PROHIBITED CHRISTIAN BURIAL TO those who died in tourns. This injunction was repeated at other Church councils (in 1139, 1148, 1157, 1179, 1215, 1245, 1279, 1313) down to 1316, when Pope John XXII gave up the fight and bestowed his blessings on them.

Thirteenth cent. eccl. writers preached against tournaments. One reported that demons were heard and seen in the form of vultures and crows at tourn. of Neuss in 1241. The famous mid 13th cent. preacher Jacques de Vitry said that tourns enc. all seven deadly sins: pride, since partic. strive for empty glory; hate and anger; sloth, bec. failure in the leads to depression; avarice, since men seek to despoil one another and then recoup by exploiting helpless tenants; gluttony, bec. of feasts assoc. w/ tourns; vanity; lechery, since they are fought 'to please wanton women' whose tokens knights adopt.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

TEACHING TEXTS:

High Middle Ages (ca. 1050-1300)

Song of Roland (ca. 1100). Themes & issues: the struggle between Christians (=good) and Muslems/Pagans (=bad); Christian knighthood; loyalty and honor; nature of kingship. Brutal, violent, focused on war. (Penguin has a good translation.)

Raoul of Cambrai (ca. 1180). Themes & issues: loyalty to feudal lord versus loyalty to kin; honor; vengeance; nature of kingship; necessity of moderation as complement to martial prowess. About 70 pages long--brutal, violent, focused on war.

Chretien de Troyes, The Knight with the Lion (Yvain). Wonderfully readable late 12th-century romance about a knight's attempt to regain the lost love of his wife. Good on courtly manners, courtly love, the meaning of honor. In Arthurian Romances (Penguin).

Froissart, Chronicles. Fourteenth-century 'history' of the Hundred Years War emphasizing the 'good stories' (i.e., chivalric accomplishments). What is neat about this work is that Froissart may say that he wishes to honor the memory of those who did great deeds, but he also allows us to see how chivalry served to unify the European aristocracy and preserve their lives on the battlefield. The brutality of war keeps on showing its face, despite Froissart's best efforts.

Tirant lo Blanc. Late medieval chivalric romance that swallows whole earlier 'orders of chivalry.' Chivalry at its most flamboyant. This was the book that Don Quixote was reading when he went mad.

Sidney Painter, William Marshal. Modern biography of successful medieval knight who, in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth century, rose from being a household retainer to a great baron and, eventually, regent of England for a child king. Good and readable; based largely on an early 13th-century poem about Wm Marshal; colored by Painter's romantic preconceptions about chivalry and knighthood.

Sidney Painter, French Chivalry. A wonderfully easy read that examines the feudal, courtly, and Christian elements of 'chivalry.' Simple (perhaps a bit simplistic.)
 

Late Middle Ages (ca. 1300-1500)

Froissart, Chronicles. Chivalric stories about the Hundred Years War, written ca. 1390. If read carefully, reveals the brutality as well as the 'chivalry' of the period.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Short 14th-century English metrical romance. Good for courtly manners. Issue of integrity of Gawain in face of certain death.
 

REFERENCE BOOKS:

Barber, Richard. The Knight and Chivalry. Harper, 1982. Good, basic overview.

Crouch, David. William Marshal. Longmans, 1992. Excellent biography of a knight with an interesting rethinking of the question of feudalism. Cf. Painter, William Marshal.

Huizinga, J. The Waning of the Middle Ages. 1919. Influential thesis: late medieval chivalry was aesthetic and emotional ideal that had become completely divorced from reality by the 14th and 15th centuries.

Jaeger, Stephen. Origins of Courtliness. UPA, 1985. A book that has restructured all discussion on the origins of chivalry. Jaeger traces the ethos of courtliness back to 10th century German episcopal courts and emphasizes its Classical Roman roots.

Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. Yale, 1984. The standard scholarly work on the subject.

Vale, Malcolm. War and Chivalry. Georgia, 1981. Refutation of Huizinga thesis.