![]() Never lie, and always uphold your word.Perform your feudal duties absolutely within the law of God.Be faithful and serve the church in absolute faith.They are a fabrication, an attempt to justify chivalry in the face of the history of the crusades. These are the military virtues of chivalry as they were believed to be during the crusades. These were the main principals most stories of chivalry focused on, when it first appeared in poetry. This is sometimes described separately from chivalry as a whole, as "the chivalric romance". A genre of fantasy literature which was not given a name until centuries after people stopped writing it. An unwritten social code of conduct for the warrior nobility of the European middle ages. The myth of chivalry is an idealization of their values, not not an accurate representation of their deeds.ġ. It is important to note that reconquistadors and crusaders were real people, military men, and that their objectives were usually primarily material. As a result, the traditions and iconography of chivalry remained in place. With the end of "Chivalric" orders to uphold a code of conduct, and no remaining purpose for that code, chivalry became anachronistic, leading to the story of Don Quixote being penned.Ī similar series of events happened to the Chivalric orders of the crusades, but chivalry had existed in literary form for much longer in the northern countries, and had become a part of their culture. The knightly orders of the time were seen as threatening to the new central authority, and so were disbanded. Once the Reconquista was over, there was no enemy remaining. ![]() The Spanish epic, El Cid, is a work of historic fiction about the hero Cid, set during the Reconquista. This is where the code of waging war on the "infidel" came from the infidels were Muslims. This chivalry spread from Spain and became the literary chivalry we are more familiar with. Near the end of the second century of this conflict, around the beginning of the crusades, the concept of knightly orders and a knightly code appeared. ![]() Bertran de Born said: "For myself I prefer to hold a little piece of land in honor, than to hold a great empire with dishonor".Ĭhivalry is a literary concept that mostly originated in Spain during the Reconquista, an event where Christians pushed Muslims out of the Iberian peninsula. The loss of honor is a humiliation to a man's standing and is worse than death. Honor was what was achieved by living up to the ideal of the preudomme and pursuing the qualities and behavior listed above. The core of Davidic ethic is benevolence of the strong toward the weak. Originally it was a set of expectations of good rulership articulated by the Frankish church, which involved rightful authority based on protection for the weak and helpless (in particular the Church), respect for widows and orphans, and opposition to the cruel and unjust. This is the strongest quality of the preudomme created by clerics from Biblical tradition. 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." Geoffrey de Charny also stressed on the masculine respectability of hardiness in the light of religious feeling of the contemptus mundi. According to Philip de Navarra, a mature nobleman should have acquired hardiness as part of his moral virtues. The quality of hadriness aligns itself with forbearance and loyalty in being one of the military virtues of the preudomme. 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. A 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 importance of reputation for loyalty in noble conduct is demonstrated in William Marshal's biography. Richard Kaeuper associates loyalty with prowess. This is a practical utility in a warrior nobility. Some of these ideals originated centuries before knights even came into existence. These were the unwritten code of conduct upon which the myth of chivalry was supposedly founded. Here is what can be discerned with certainty: Therefore just as divine exaltation blooms from obedient servitude, chivalry itself may have begun out of necessary humility. It emerged as the total conflating of many abstract, unnamed, vaguely related concepts, over the course of several hundred years, starting in the dark ages. The origins of chivalry as a concept are obscure. Most extend beyond the battlefield or noble court, expressing expectations of behavior at home as well. Most versions emphasize courage, honor, and service.
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