Literature of the Chivalric Knights
Author: Jon Sealy
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By Philip Daileade, Ph.D., The College of William and Mary
Most people have an image of the medieval chivalric knight: the hero with impeccable grace and courtesy, saving damsels in distress while jousting for sport. The chivalric code guiding the conduct of knights was embodied in a wide range of literary sources. Investigate the genre of chivalric literature, from “courtesy books” to romances.
A Wealth of Advice in the Courtesy Books
Even before the emergence of the genre of the chivalric romance, medieval clerics had attempted to use literature to reshape the medieval nobility. One of the most interesting precursors to the literature of chivalry was something known as the “courtesy book.” Courtesy books emerged in the first half of the 12th century. Their authors were clerics, and they were generally written for, and often dedicated to, high-ranking members of the medieval nobility. A courtesy book contained a list of advice for members of the nobility, especially advice concerning table manners and personal behavior, that the nobility was expected to adopt. Courtesy books advised medieval nobles, for example, not to stick such huge chunks of bread into their mouths that the crumbs went flying everywhere whenever they ate. The books cautioned not to speak while eating, so that the food fell out of their mouths. Nobility was encouraged to refrain from: complaining about food that was served to them; sticking fingers in the mustard; wiping their mouths with the tablecloth if there was one at hand; and blowing their noses into the tablecloth.
Most of this advice contained in the medieval courtesy books seems sound enough, but some of it seems rather peculiar today. For instance, the nobles were instructed that, if perchance while at a dinner party, they had itches on their faces, they should by no means scratch them using their hands. Rather, they should take a piece of bread, scratch the itch with the bread, and then eat the bread, to be polite.
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Now, if you were at a dinner party today, and witnessed such
behavior, you were probably head for the door as quickly as possible. You would
be well advised to do so, but there’s a logic to this advice. In the Middle
Ages, there were no individual dishes out of which people ate. Rather, there
was one large, communal dish into which everyone dipped bread, and then ate
whatever one could sop up. It was considered to be very bad manners to scratch
yourself, and then stick your hand into what was, after all, everyone else’s
dinner. It was much better to do the right thing; scratch it, and then eat the
bread yourself, so that no one else had to suffer as you were about to suffer
for having to eat that piece of bread.
Courtesy books were somewhat superficial in their attempt to reshape the nobility, and they were, more or less, a failure. They were a failure for a number of reasons. They failed for the same reasons that the Peace and Truce of God movement failed. They were nattering. They were simply lists of things that knights and nobles should not do anymore. No one likes to be lectured at in that manner, at least. They were written in Latin, and this was a problem. The nobility, certainly in the first half of the 12th century, did not know Latin, and for the most part, it did not know how to read any language whatsoever. Thus, the courtesy books were inaccessible to nobles, and even if they had been able to get at their contents, they would not have liked what they found there.
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Life Lessons in the Chivalric Romance
The chivalric romance was vastly superior to the courtesy book because of the manner of presentation. It consisted not of a list of things that you shouldn’t be doing, but contained thrilling adventures of chivalric heroes. It consisted of engaging stories that could draw the listener, rather than the reader, in, because unlike the courtesy book, which was intended to be read, the chivalric romance was intended to be performed orally. The medieval nobles did not read Lancelot in the way that we would read the romance of Lancelot today. Their composition was also in the vernacular languages, not Latin, which is to say, old French, for the most part, a language that was accessible at least verbally to the medieval nobility. Because they were great stories, and because the nobles could understand them, they were going to listen to the chivalric romances.
The first romances appeared around 1150, and the genre spread like wildfire between 1150 and 1200. Romances were being written left and right. They were being written in an increasingly greater geographical area. Perhaps the most famous author of chivalric romances during this pioneering period was a French author by the name of Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien was a court chaplain. He was attached to court of the Count and Countess of Champagne in France. Chrétien de Troyes wrote some of the most famous of the medieval chivalric romances. These included Erec and Enide, Yvain, which is also called The Knight with the Lion, and, most famously, Lancelot, which is also called The Knight of the Cart. In these romances, Chrétien crafted some of the most memorable chivalric heroes, and he explored the relationship between the knight’s love of marshal prowess and his love of fighting, and his relationship with love of a lady, as well—the ways in which these two might interfere with one another, and ways in which they might reinforce one another.
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Delve into Chrétien’s Romances
Some of Chrétien’s romances are relatively straightforward. It’s
hard to miss the point. Erec and Enide,
as well as Yvain would both qualify
as relatively straightforward romances. In Erec
and Enide, a young knight named Erec is so in love with his young wife that
he cannot tear himself away from his marital bed. Thus, he forgoes marshal
prowess entirely. He is too otherwise occupied to go out and fight as a knight
should.
However, by neglecting his prowess, he loses his reputation. He puts in danger the love of his wife for him, and the rest of the romance consists of the adventures he must go through in order to regain his prowess, which equals the love of his wife, thus achieving the right balance in his life between his love of fighting and the love of the woman to whom he is supposed to dedicate himself.
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Yvain, too, wrestles
with the issue of how to find just the right balance between fighting and
loving. It approaches it from a rather different angle, however. Whereas Erec
neglects prowess for his wife, Yvain does the opposite. After marriage, he goes
off and partakes of tournaments, and he is so wrapped up in jousting and fighting
with others that he forgets to return home on time, and his wife dumps him. He
goes mad, becomes a lunatic, a savage animal. Having lost the love of his wife,
the rest of the romance is dedicated to his attempts to recapture the love of
his wife, behaving as a chivalric knight should. Both Erec and Enide and Yvain
deal with courtly love in the context of marriage; these are two married
chivalric heroes. They both end happily.
The most famous romance that Chrétien de Troyes wrote, though, is much more ambiguous and complex, so that even today, people argue over what it was that Chrétien de Troyes was trying to say: Lancelot. Lancelot is so complex because his love does not occur within the context of marriage. He is in love with the wife of King Arthur. He is in love with Guenevere. He is therefore in an adulterous relationship. He does not love Guenevere from afar, certainly not when he can help it. Theirs is, in fact, a consummated love, and a rather heated love affair.
Lancelot’s behavior is very odd during the course of the story. His devotion to Guenevere knows no bounds. He discovers a strand of hair, a single strand of hair on a comb. He is so overcome by love that he jabs himself in the eye repeatedly with it so that he can see it up close. Scholars wonder whether Chrétien was not mocking courtly love in this poem, mocking it because, in this instance, it was adulterous love that was not taking place in the context of marriage, and because that was consummated adulterous love; or whether Chrétien was quite serious in depicting Lancelot as the ultimate chivalric hero, someone who would go to any lengths, even though the love of his life was the wife of his lord. Perhaps it was because of this complexity that Lancelot remains a figure in popular culture today, whereas Erec and Enide, and Yvain, to be honest, are forgotten by all but medieval scholars.
Common Questions About Chivalry in Literature
Chivalry began as a written code of conduct in romantic literature by scribes that translated into the reality of knights’ actual manner of being.
Courtly love was a type of game of social practices involving the seduction and beginnings of love developed during the Middle Ages, which chivalrous knights and ladies participated in and was considered right and proper.
Chivalry was intended for men to take action, and so a man standing in front of a gang attempting to rob or hurt his wife would be an example of chivalry in any time.
When a man holds a door open for a woman or puts his coat over her when she is cold, these are examples of a type of chivalry. Modern society has less use for chivalry than medieval society due to the lack of violence and social distortion.