Defining Chivalry

Modern discussions about whether “chivalry is dead” often revolve around whether men should open doors for women. Yet such discussion demonstrates just how little is known and understood about the concept of chivalry today. 

To be sure, chivalry defied definition even in the centuries where it was the dominant ethos of educated classes in Western Europe. The biographer of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights of the late 12^th and early 13^th century, a man who was often held up as a perfect chivalrous knight, himself asked: “what is chivalry?” 
His answer:

So strong a thing,

and of such hardihood,

and so costly in learning,

that a wicked man or low

dare not undertake it.

In this entry, I’d like to review what we do know about chivalry and the extent to which it influenced medieval society.

Chivalry evolved out of the military and literary traditions of antiquity and emerged at the beginning of the High Middle Ages as a concept that rapidly came to dominate the ethos and identity of the nobility. Chivalry is inextricably tied to knighthood, a phenomenon distinct to Europe in the Middle Ages. There have been cavalrymen in many different ages and societies, but the cult of knighthood, including a special dubbing ceremony and a code of ethics, exists only in the Age of Chivalry -- roughly 1000 - 1450.

Chivalry was always an ideal. It defined the way a knight was supposed to behave. No one in the Middle Ages seriously expected every knight to live up that ideal, much less all of the time. Even the heroes of chivalric romances usually fell short of the ideal at least some of the time – and many only achieved their goal and glory when they overcame their baser instincts or their natural shortcomings to live, however briefly, like “perfect, gentle knights.”

In other words, chivalry was a code of behavior that young men were supposed to aspire to – not already have. The code was articulated and passed on to youths in the form of romances and poems lionizing the chivalrous deeds of fictional heroes. It was also recorded in the biographies of historical personages viewed as examples of chivalry, from William Marshal to Geoffrey de Charney and Edward, the Black Prince. Finally, there were a number of textbooks or handbooks that attempted to codify the essence of chivalry.

So what defined chivalry? First and foremost, a knight was supposed to uphold justice by protecting the weak, particularly widows, orphans, and the Church. He was also supposed to be upon a permanent quest for honor and glory, sometimes translated as “nobility.” The troubadours, meanwhile, had introduced for the first time the notion that “a man could become nobler through love.” Thus love for a lady became a central – if not the central – concept of chivalry, particularly in literature.

The chivalric notion of love was that it must be mutual, voluntary, and exclusive – on both sides. It could occur between husband and wife – and many of the romances such as Erec et Enide and Yvain, The Knight with the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival revolve in part or in whole around the love of a married couple. But the tradition of the troubadours did put love for another man’s wife on an equal footing with love for one’s own – provided the lady returned the sentiment. The most famous of all adulterous lovers in the age of chivalry were, of course, Lancelot and Guinevere, closely followed by Tristan and Iseult.

In more practical terms, one of the handbooks on chivalry written by the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull lists the virtues of a knight as nobility, loyalty, honor, righteousness, prowess (courage), love, courtesy, diligence, cleanliness, generosity, sobriety, and perseverance. Wolfram von Eschenbach in Parzifal, on the other hand, stresses a strong sense of right and wrong, compassion for the unfortunate, generosity, kindness, humility, mercy, courtesy (particularly to ladies), and cleanliness.

Geoffrey de Charney, the French hero from the Hundred Years’ War, also wrote a handbook on chivalry that is particularly valuable because he was a man with a powerful reputation as a chivalrous knight. (He was killed at the Battle of Poitiers defending the French battle standard, the oriflamme.) Charney puts the emphasis on love as a spur to great deeds and stresses that a knight must love “loyally” (with exclusive devotion to his one true love), but includes good manners, generosity, humility, fortitude, and courage among the qualities of chivalry as well. As a reflection of his career, Charney places greater value on fighting – stressing its hardships, deprivations, and risks – over frivolous tournaments.

William Marshal’s biographer, on the other hand, writing in the early 13th century, sees in tournaments a means of giving men a chance to demonstrate their “worth” – i.e., their courage, audacity, and skill at arms. These are the skills, combined with unwavering loyalty to his liege, that enable Marshal to rise from landless knight to regent of England. While Marshal (or at least his biographer) put the emphasis on courage, the themes of courtesy and discretion with respect to ladies, and generosity, are also present.

Readers interested in learning more about this fascinating concept can turn to:

Bibliography

Barber, Richard W. The Knight and Chivalry. The Boydell Press, 1970, 1974, 1995.

Duby, George. 1985. William Marshal: The Flower of Chivalry. Random House, 1985.

Hopkins, Andrea. Knights: The Complete Story of the Age of Chivalry, from Historical Fact to Tales of Romance and Poetry. Quarto Publishing, 1990.

and many other sources!

For readers tired of clichés and cartoons, award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader offers nuanced insight into historical events and figures based on sound research and an understanding of human nature. Her complex and engaging characters bring history back to life as a means to better understand ourselves.

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Women in the Middle Ages 4: Women and Love

Today I  conclude my mini-series on women in the Middle Ages with a look at cult of courtly love and the controversial topic of how it impacted the status of women.

The “Middle Ages” ought to be called either the “Feudal Ages” or the “Age of Chivalry” since the term “middle" (suggesting something interim or transitory) is an odd designation for more than a thousand years of history.  Feudalism, on the other hand, was a defining characteristic of the Middle Ages, and Chivalry was the secular ethos of that age. It was chivalry that gave birth to a radical transformation of man’s understanding of “love” and with it to a revolution in sexual relations.

To understand the latter, it is necessary to briefly reiterate the importance of Christian beliefs, and then to look more closely at chivalry itself. Christianity impacted the concept of love in two ways: 1) God is defined as Love with Christ as Love incarnate, and 2) it elevated women into souls, making them spiritual beings, equal to men in the eyes of God. Thus Christianity values love, including love for women, while making a clear distinction between love (which is divine) and lust (which is a mortal sin.) Love for the Virgin was an expression of the former, and extremely important in the history of the Medieval Church.  Yet chaste love for a living woman was also valued and cherished. Such feelings are well-illustrated by a letter from the 6^th Century poet and priest Venantius Fortunatus to the fifty-year-old Queen Radegund, then living as a nun in the convent of the Holy Cross at Poitiers. Fortunatus writes:

Honored mother, sweet sister

Whom I revere with a faithful and pious heart,

With heavely affection, without bodily touch,

It is not the flesh in me that loves

But rather the desire of the spirit… (Pernoud, p.35.)

Chivalry, on the other hand, introduced for the first time the notion that a man could become more worthy, more “noble,” through love for a lady. Love for a lady became a central – if not the central – concept of chivalry, particularly in literature. Other characteristics of chivalry, as defined in handbooks on chivalry such as that written by the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull, were nobility [of spirit not birth], loyalty, honor, righteousness, prowess (courage), courtesy, diligence, cleanliness, generosity, sobriety, and perseverance. Wolfram von Eschenbach in Parzifal stresses a strong sense of right and wrong, compassion for the unfortunate, generosity, kindness, humility, mercy, courtesy (particularly to ladies), and cleanliness. Simplified, chivalry entailed upholding justice by protecting the weak, particularly widows, orphans, and the Church. Yet regardless of the exact definition, the inspiration for knights striving to fulfill the ideal of chivalry was love for a lady.

Critically, the chivalric notion of love was that it must be mutual, voluntary, and exclusive – on both sides. It could occur between husband and wife – and many of the romances such as Erec et Enide or my favorite Yvain, Or the Knight with the Lion (both by Chrétien de Troyes) or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, revolve in part or in whole around the love of a married couple. The notion repeated so often nowadays that courtly love or the love of the troubadors was always about adulterous love is nonsense.  Nevertheless, the tradition of the troubadours did put love for another man’s wife on an equal footing with love for one’s own – provided the lady returned the sentiment. The most famous of all adulterous lovers in the age of chivalry were, of course, Lancelot and Guinevere, closely followed by Tristan and Iseult.

Likewise noteworthy in a feudal world was the fact that the lover and the beloved were supposed to be valued not for their social status or their wealth, but for their personal virtues.  A lady was to be loved and respected for her beauty, her graces, her kindness, and her wisdom regardless of her status, and a knight was to be loved for his manly virtues, not his lands or titles. 

Even more important, however, is the fact that regardless of which of the partners was the social superior, the lady always took on the role and status of “lord” to her lover. The term of address that a lover used in addressing his lady was “mi dons” ― literally “my lord.” The term denoted the knight’s subservience to his lady, his position as her “man” ― her vassal, her servant, her subject. In art, knights are shown kneeling before their lady and placing their hands in hers ― the gesture of a vassal taking the feudal oath to his lord. (I couldn't find an example of this exact gesture on the internet, but here are two images of knights keeling with folded hands before their ladies.

Last but not least, courtly or chivalric love was not a means to sexual conquest. For lovers who had the luck to be married, it certainly included physical love, and in many of the adulterous romances consummation was also achieved. Yet physical love was not the objective of courtly love. The objective of love was to become greater ― more courageous, more courteous, more generous, more noble, in short, more chivalrous than before. In this sense, courtly love reflected religious love because it was first and foremost love of the spirit and character rather than the body. 

All of these features set courtly or chivalric love apart from the erotic love of the ancients, the Arabs or the modern age.  Sadly, people still confuse “chivalry” with superficial gestures of courtesy (such as opening doors) and women in the name of “liberation” reject the concepts that first truly liberated them.

For more on this fascinating, complex and hotly debated subject, I recommend:

Barber, Richard W. The Knight and Chivalry. The Boydell Press, 1995.

Hopkins, Andrea. Knights: The Complete Story of the Age of Chivalry, from Historical Fact to Tales of Romance and Poetry. Quarto Publishing, 1990.

·                 Pernoud, Regine. Women in the Days of the Cathedrals. Ignatius, 1989.

For readers tired of clichés and cartoons, award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader offers nuanced insight to historical events and figures based on sound research and an understanding of human nature. Her complex and engaging characters bring history back to life as a means to better understand ourselves.
 

 Buy now!                                       Buy now!                                          Buy now!

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Writing Biographical Fiction: Saladin

I'd like to close this series on Writing Biographical Fiction with a look at one of the  most challenging characters I had to deal with: the heroic and famous Sultan Salah ad-Din, known in the west as Saladin.

When writing about Saladin in a novel one is always confronted by the fact that he has long been viewed as the epitome of Saracen “chivalry.” Indeed, in the last century it became common to suggest that, while the crusaders were treacherous barbarians, Saladin stood out as a paragon of virtue and honor, a shining light of decency and chivalry in an otherwise brutal age.  This is the view of Saladin that dictated the highly sympathetic portrayal in Ridley Scott's film “The Kingdom of Heaven.” It is the image that dominates the mind of most readers coming to a book about the crusades.

Yet, as Andrew Ehrenkreutz catalogues in his meticulously documented and detailed biography of Saladin published in 1972, Saladin frequently used deceit, hypocrisy, propaganda, bribery, extortion, murder and, ultimately aggressive war to establish an empire in the Near East.  Ehrenkreutz also notes that Saladin spent much more time and money fighting (and killing) fellow Muslims than he did fighting Christians; Saladin was responsible for the loss of many more Sunni Muslim lives than Christian ones.

A depiction of Saladin based on Ehrenkreutz would be too extreme -- and certainly too much to swallow for readers raised on the Kingdom-of-Heaven Saladin. That isn't what I wanted. However, it was important to me that I didn’t simply serve up the legend without any acknowledgement of historical reality.  Thus, in developing the Saladin of my novels, I sought to balance the two views of Saladin and focus on portraying him not as “good” or “bad” but rather as a highly effective political leader. I wanted a “worthy adversary,” for Balian and the crusader states, but not one who was a caricature of either virtue or villainy. I sought to create a man who was ambitious and ruthless in attaining and maintaining power, but also capable of generosity and magnanimity -- when it did not run contrary to his interests. Likewise, I sought to explain Saladin’s behavior by analyzing possible motives.

A particularly good example of this is the famous instance in which Saladin gave Balian d’Ibelin a safe-conduct to cross Saracen-held territory to enter Jerusalem and remove his wife and family after the Battle of Hattin but before the fall of Jerusalem. Not only was this a magnanimous gesture to a Christian lord and a foe, it was topped by Saladin sending some of his own personal body-guard to escort the Lady of Ibelin to safety after her husband broke his word, and — ceding to immense pressure from the Christian population in Jerusalem — agreed to take command of the defense of the Holy City. But the “chivalrous” character of these gestures is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Lady of Ibelin was also a Byzantine princess and a relation of the ruling Greek Emperor Isaac II Angelus, with whom Saladin had just concluded a treaty of alliance. It was still a generous gesture since Maria Comnena, Lady of Ibelin, was not a close relative of Isaac II, but Saladin’s decision was certainly salted with a pinch of self-interest.

Equally important to me in my portrayal of Saladin was his unbending hostility to Christianity and his commitment to jihad. This has nothing to do with whether Saladin was “good” or “bad” (I’m not trying to make him a medieval ISIS leader), but it is essential to understanding what options were available to the Christian leaders. It is, as Israeli governments can testify, impossible to make peace with people who do not recognize your right to exist. Too many histories and novels are written on the premise that the crusader states could have co-existed with their Muslim neighbors indefinitely. This is simply not logical. Jihadist Islam requires good Muslims to spread the religion ― including by the sword ― and recognizes the right of select other religions to live under Islamic rule only under humiliating and burdensome conditions.

Last but not least, the Saladin of my novels is a man of his age and culture, and I have drawn on Arab chronicles and Islamic writings to depict his probable attitudes toward, above all, women. Muslims in this period found the presence of women in public life (such as queens, castellans etc.) not only incomprehensible but disgusting. The very fact that women had names and faces known outside of the family circle was viewed as immoral and dishonorable. The fact that women had a voice in political affairs, could control wealth, influence politics, and even command men was even more offensive. The differing attitudes toward women was one of the most crucial differences between Christendom and Islam in the 12^th century. As a novelist with strong female characters, it would be nothing short of negligent not to highlight this fact.

Likewise, the dependence of 12^th century Syria and Egypt on slaves is fact that I had no wish to gloss over or ignore. Particularly in the third book of the series, the contemporary attitudes toward slavery is an important issue and plot-line. Although I use the historical figure Imad ad-Din most directly to address this theme, quoting directly from his own works, Saladin too is consciously used as a representative of the world from which he came. In this sense, Saladin in my novels is both a character and a symbol ― but then so is Balian.

Saladin plays a significant role in the second two books of the Jerusalem trilogy.

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