The Battle of Hattin

July 4 marks not only U.S. Independence Day but also the anniversary of 

the Battle of Hattin, fought in 1187.

 The Battle of Hattin

The devastating defeat of the combined Christian army at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187, was one of the most significant disasters in medieval military history.  Christian casualties at the battle were so enormous, that the defense of the rest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem became impossible, and so the defeat at Hattin led directly to the loss of the entire kingdom including Jerusalem itself. The loss of the Holy City, led to the Third Crusade, and so to the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I “Barbarossa”, and extended absence from his domains of Richard I “the Lionheart.” Both circumstances had a profound impact on the balance of power in Western Europe. Meanwhile the role of the critical of Pisan and Genoese fleets in supplying the only city left in Christian hands, Tyre, and in supporting Richard I’s land army resulted in trading privileges that led to the establishment of powerful trading centers in the Levant. These in turn fostered the exchange of goods and ideas that led historian Claude Reignier Condor to write at the end of the 19^th Century that: “…the result of the Crusades was the Renaissance.” (The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099 to 1291 AD, The Committee of Palestine Exploration Fund, 1897, p. 163.)

The importance of Hattin to contemporaries was not just the magnitude of the defeat, but the unexpectedness of it.  In retrospect, the victory seems inevitable. Muslim states had always surrounded the crusader kingdom (as they hem in Israel today) and the Muslim rulers could always been able to call on much larger military forces than their Christian opponents.  In the early years of Latin presence in the Holy Land, the divisions among the Muslim leaders, most especially the rivalry and hatred between Shiite Caliphate of Cairo and the Sunni Caliphate of Damascus, had played into Christian hands.  However, once Saladin had managed to unite Syria and Egypt under a single, charismatic leader the balance of power clearly tipped to the Muslims.

This ignores the fact that Christian armies under Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Richard I of England defeated Saladin on the battlefield more than once.  Saladin was a powerful, charismatic and clever commander, who knew how to deploy his forces effectively and use terrain to his advantage — but he was not invincible. Indeed, he was dealt a defeat every bit as devastating as Hattin in November 1177 at the Battle of Montgisard. His invading army was annihilated, and he himself had to flee on the back of a pack-camel. In July 1182, the Christian army under Baldwin IV stopped another full-scale invasion by Saladin, forcing him to withdraw across the Jordan with comparatively few Christian losses. In June the following year, 1183, the Christian army confronted yet another invasion on an even larger force and again forced Saladin to withdraw — this time without even engaging in an all-out battle.

Despite these apparent successes, it was clear to the King of Jerusalem that Saladin was getting stronger with each new invasion attempt.  Saladin had increased his own power base from Cairo and Damascus to Aleppo, Homs and Mosul, while the Christians had no new infusions of blood, territory or income. In consequence, in 1184 Baldwin IV sent a frantic plea to the West, begging for a new crusade and offering the Western leader — whoever he might be — the keys to the kingdom. The lack of response reflected Western complacency about the threat to Jerusalem and implicit confidence in the ability of Baldwin and his barons to continue to defeat Saladin’s attempts to push the Christian kingdom into the sea.

It was because of Baldwin’s earlier successes against Saladin, that the news of Hattin and the loss of Jerusalem shocked the West, allegedly causing the immediate death of Pope Urban III. How was it possible that a young and vigorous king, Guy I, could lead the same army to defeat that a youth suffering from leprosy (and only commanding his armies from a liter) had led to victory again and again?  

Rarely in human history has a defeat been so wholly attributable to poor generalship on the losing side as at Hattin. To be sure, Saladin set a trap for the Christian armies. The bait was the citizens and garrison of Tiberius under the command of the Countess of Tripoli, who were besieged in the citadel after the fall of the city on July 2.  The Christian army was mustered at Sephorie, only some 15 miles to the west. The pleas for help from the Countess and Tiberius naturally evoked a response from the Christian army, most notably her four grown sons.  But the Count of Tripoli himself warned that it was a trap and opposed the decision to go to the aid of Tiberius. Tripoli’s reasoning convinced the majority of his peers and the council of war composed of the leading barons agreed to stay where they were and force Saladin to come to them. However, the Grand Master of the Temple went separately and secretly to King Guy after the council dispersed and convinced him to order the advance for the following day. In short, although warned, King Guy took the bait.

To relieve Tiberius, the Christian army had to cross territory that was at this time of year devoid of fodder for the horses and where water sources were widely dispersed. With Saladin’s forces already occupying the springs at Cafarsset, on the southern route from Sephorie to Tiberias, the Christian had no choice but to follow the northern track, which led via the springs of Turan. Intense heat and harassment by the enemy slowed the Christian march to a crawl, and by noon on July 3, the Christian army had advanced only six miles to the springs of Turan.  With nine miles more to go, it was clear the army could not reach Tiberius before nightfall and prudence alone should have dictated a halt at Turan, where men and horse could rest and drink. Instead, King Guy against all reason ordered the advance to continue. Immediately, Saladin sent his troops to occupy Turan, thereby not-only blocking the Christian retreat but harassing the Christian rear-guard and further slowing the rate of advance.

A depiction of the Christian army advancing toward Hattin carrying the “True Cross”

from the film “The Kingdom of Heaven”

When darkness fell on July 3, the Christian army was still six miles short of its objective and forced to camp in an open field completely surrounded by enemy forces.  The Christians had been marching and fighting for hours without water in the intense heat of a Palestinian summer. Men and horses were exhausted and further demoralized by the sound of Saracen drums surrounding them and the countless campfires advertising the enemy’s strength. 

By morning, those fires were brush-fires intentionally set ablaze to windward of the Christian army in a maneuver that dried their already parched throats further while half-blinding them with smoke. Out of the smoke came volleys of arrows, and again “some of the Christian lords” urged King Guy to charge Saladin’s position at once, in an attempt to win the battle by killing the Sultan.  King Guy instead chose to try to march the entire army toward the springs of Hattin, still some three miles away and cut off by one wing of Saladin’s army.

While the Christian cavalry tried to drive off the Saracen cavalry in a series of charges and counter-charges, the infantry stumbled forward until, half-blinded by smoke, constantly attacked by the enemy and near dying of thirst, the morale of the Christian infantry broke.  As casualties mounted, some of the infantry retreated up the slopes of the “horns” of Hattin, two steep hills that flanked the plane on which the army had camped and now marched and refused to fight any more. 

Meanwhile, the Count of Tripoli with his knights and Lord Reginald of Sidon finally broke-through the surrounding enemy, charging east toward the Lake of Tiberius.  The Christian infantry that had not fled up the slopes tried to follow in the wake of the cavalry, but the Saracens under the command of one of Saladin’s nephews stepped aside to let the armored knights through and then closed ranks again, cutting off the Christian infantry that was cut down or taken captive.

By now it was later afternoon, and with the infantry either already slaughtered or refusing to come down from the hilltop, King Guy ordered his knights to retreat up the slope as well. By now, many of the knights were fighting on foot because their horses became vulnerable once the infantry cover was withdraw.  It was probably at this stage in the battle that the relic, believed to be a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified, was lost. The Bishop of Acre, who had been carrying it, was killed, and the effect on Christian morale of the loss of this most precious relic — believed to have brought victory in dozens of earlier battles was devastating.

The final stages of the Battle of Hattin as depicted in the film “The Kingdom of Heaven”

But still King Guy did not surrender.  What few knights were still mounted made one (or two) last desperate charge(s) to try to kill Saladin, who was mounted and clearly identifiable among his troops.  This charge was probably lead by Balian d’Ibelin. While the charge came close enough to Saladin for him to have to shout encouragement to his men, like Tripoli before him, once Ibelin was through the enemy, he had no chance of fighting his way back up-hill through the ever thickening ranks of the enemy closing in on their prey. Within minutes, King Guy’s last position was over-run and he along with most of his barons were taken prisoner.

Of the roughly 20,000 Christian soldiers who had set out from Sephorie, only an estimated 3,000 infantry managed somehow to escape into the surrounding countryside and eventually take refuge in the castles and walled towns then still in Christian hands. Of the 1,200 knights and barons that mustered for the battle, only four barons, Tripoli, Sidon, Edessa and Ibelin, escaped capture along with maybe 100 - 200 knights. The remainder including the King of Jerusalem, the Masters of the Temple and Hospital, the Constable Aimery de Lusignan, the Lords of Oultrajourdain, Toron, Gibelet, and others — effectively the entire nobility of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. While the majority of these lords and knights were held for ransom, the 230 Templars and Hospitallers that survived the battle were executed at Saladin’s orders.

Medieval painting of prisoners being led away (here by a Christian king)

As a result of these losses, both killed and captured, the kingdom was effectively denuded of defenders. King Guy had issued the equivalent of the “levee en masse” of the Napoleonic era, the arriere ban, and every able-bodied fighting man had mustered at Sephorie. Left behind in the castles, towns and cities were women, children, the old and the ill. There were no garrisons capable of offering an effective resistance. Worse, even if there had been, there was no point to resistance since there was no army capable of coming to the relief of a city under siege. Thus when Saladin’s army appeared before the walls of one fortress or city after another, the citizens had the choice of surrender in exchange for their lives and such valuables as they could carry or hopeless resistance. Since the rules of contemporary warfare dictated that resistance justified massacre, rape and enslavement, it is hardly surprising that the Christian cities and castles capitulated one after another, starting with Nazareth, and the Acre on July 8, followed by Haifa, Caesarea, Arsuf, Jaffa, Ramla, Ibelin, Darum, Sidon, Beirut, Gibelet, Nablus, Beirut and Ascalon.

By mid-September only isolated castles and two cities defied Saladin: Tyre which was particularly defensible and to which he barons of Tripoli and Sidon and the garrisons of the surrendered cities withdrew, and Jerusalem itself.  But the siege of Jerusalem is material for another post….

Excerpt from "St. Louis' Knight: The King and All His Knights are Captured!

The Kingdom of Cyprus                    

April, Anno Domini 1250

  

“The French King and all his knights have been captured by the Saracens,” the herald intoned. His deep voice, more commonly used to proclaim the ancestry and deeds of knights at tournaments, was muted with both respect and shock. His bright livery was shrouded in a dark cloak as if he were in mourning for a lost cause, and his boots and hose were splattered with mud, betraying his haste to bring the news to the Dowager Queen of Cyprus.

His words provoked an eruption of shocked and frightened exclamations from the little audience. The Dowager Queen was on her deathbed, and had been for months. She lived in almost complete seclusion, served only by a household of Cypriot servants and four ladies, three of whom were almost as old as she was herself.

One of these ladies began crossing herself repeatedly and reciting the Rosary in a tone of almost hysterical desperation. Another clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at the herald as if she expected Saracens to come storming through the door behind him. A third protested, “But that can’t be! King Louis had the greatest army anyone had ever seen! He had scores of barons and nearly three thousand knights. They can’t all have been captured! Not all those brave knights! And the King’s brothers! And what of the French Queen and the ladies of the court?”

“When the messenger left Egypt, the French Queen and her ladies were still in Damietta with the handful of knights and men-at-arms left there for their protection, but I doubt that is still the case. With the King captive and his army destroyed, the Sultan of Egypt will undoubtedly try to recapture Damietta. The knights with Queen Marguerite are urging her to remove herself to safety immediately. If she chooses Cyprus over Acre, she could be here any moment.” The herald glanced toward the large double-light window that looked south, towards Egypt, as if expecting to see the sails of a Genoese round ship straining to bring the French Queen to safety. But the window offered only a view of the walled garden of this isolated manor.

The Dowager Queen clicked her tongue and drew the herald’s attention back to the interior of the room. “What did you expect?” the old woman asked rhetorically. “All these foreign kings and princes think crusading is a lark! They think we hang onto only the fragments of the Holy Land because we, the nobility of Outremer, have become weak, cowardly, and luxury-loving. They all come out here thinking that they, so splendid and so brave, will chase the Saracens back into the desert. Ha!”

The herald did not contradict her. There was some truth to what the old Queen said. Although King Louis himself had seemed a sober and far from lighthearted crusader, his younger brothers and many of his knights had been as arrogant and ignorant as the Queen suggested. Besides, the Queen was a woman who knew more about politics in the Holy Land than almost anyone else alive. Alice of Champagne had been widowed when her son, King Henry I, was only eight months old and had acted as his regent until he came of age ― by which time she had weathered a civil war on Cyprus and a crusade led by the Holy Roman Emperor. As if that hadn’t been enough, as the granddaughter of the Queen of Jerusalem, she had been Regent of Jerusalem for the under-aged King Conrad IV as well. While it was fair to say that Alice of Champagne’s politics had not been crowned by particular success, no one could deny that she understood the complexity of surviving in Christian Palestine.

“So,” the old woman scoffed, “the Sultan of Egypt has humiliated the most powerful monarch in Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor must be dancing for joy to see the Pope’s favorite humiliated like this.”

“Madame! How can you think in such terms when a Christian monarch and all his knights and nobles are at the mercy of the godless Saracens?” one of Alice’s ladies admonished her ― inducing her praying colleague to raise her voice even more shrilly to the Mother of God.

The old Queen silenced both ladies. “Enough of your howling, Catherine! You have the brain of a hen, Eschiva! Godless or not, the Sultan loves gold. He’ll let them all go when enough ransom has been paid, and if France is beggared, then the Holy Roman Empire will be stronger.” The Dowager Queen had always sided with the Holy Roman Empire against the barons of the Holy Land, and now she smiled to herself. Then she cleared her throat and announced, “Thank you, Sir Herald. Blanche, give the herald ten livres for his trouble! Eleanor, see him to the kitchens and tell the cook to give him a hearty meal. I weary.”

The interview was over. The Queen signaled for assistance to rise, and two of her ladies sprang to help her from her armed chair, while the third retrieved her mistress’ purse and doled out the promised reward. The herald found himself following the fourth of the Queen’s ladies, Eleanor de Najac, down the spiral stairs from the Queen’s tower chamber toward the kitchen on the ground floor.

Eleanor was the only one of the Queen’s women who was less than sixty years of age. The herald guessed she was no more than twenty or twenty-one. All the herald knew about her was that she was a ward of the Comte de Poitiers, the French King’s younger brother, and had had the misfortune to shipwreck on the coast of Cyprus or her way to join the Comtesse de Poitiers’ household.

The storm that struck in March of the previous year had been one of the worst in living memory, and it had scattered half the French King’s fleet then assembling for the voyage to Egypt. In the confusion following the gale, hardly anyone took note of a small French vessel that went ashore on the west coast with the loss of all hands ― especially since the only corpses found were those of common sailors and tonsured men, presumably clerics bound for the Holy Land.

Weeks later, however, a second ship from France brought letters making reference to the passage of the heiress of Najac aboard a previous vessel. The Comte de Poitiers, who was by then in Egypt with his brother, asked the King of Cyprus to find out what had happened to his ward.

A search for her corpse was instituted along the coast, and to the wonder and amazement of those sent to find her body, Eleanor was found alive ― albeit severely injured ― in a fishing village. Since Eleanor spoke no Greek and the fishermen spoke neither Latin nor French, Eleanor’s rescuers had not realized she was a high-born lady and heiress; they had not thought to notify the authorities.

The herald was familiar with the cramped, stinking cottages of the local fishermen. He was certain that for a French noblewoman the weeks in the Cypriot fishing village had been a hell ― especially since one of her legs had been crushed in the wreck and she was in pain and feverish.

Even now, more than a year after the wreck, she walked with a limp as she led him across the inner courtyard to the kitchen tract. The experience had also left its mark on her face and soul, the herald surmised, for her face was too guarded and sober for a gentle maiden still in the bloom of youth.

Furthermore, although the herald knew professionally that the sires of Najac were ancient and wealthy lords, Eleanor neither looked nor acted like a haughty heiress. The simplicity of her dress, a soft linen gown with a pale-blue surcoat, would not have been out of place on the wife of a country squire or town merchant. Her auburn hair was neatly braided down her back and her head covered with a flat, modestly embroidered hat, held in place by simple white veils. The effect was neat and attractive ― but not suited to an heiress. The Cypriot court was filled with young women who adorned themselves much more lavishly and brightly, although they claimed hardly more than a thimbleful of noble blood rather than a barony! They compared to Eleanor of Najac like butterflies to a moth.

Not that Eleanor was plain. The herald considered her with the eyes of a connoisseur of women as Eleanor gestured for him to sit at a table in the passageway before the kitchen. She was pretty in a soft, understated way, he decided. She had wide-set hazel eyes, dark straight eyebrows, and an elegant long nose in an oval face. Her skin was flawless and very pale. Her only bad features were her nearly colorless, narrow lips ― but even this defect would have been forgotten, if only she smiled.

 “Wait here, Sir Herald, while I inform the cook of your needs,” she told him simply, before lurching down the stone steps leading to the kitchen.

Waiting for her, the herald wished he had some means to make her smile. If only he had brought good news instead of word of this catastrophe! It was only too natural that Eleanor was deeply troubled under the circumstances. Her guardian was in grave danger, a prisoner of the Saracens, and even if the Sultan was unlikely to harm a prince of France, she must worry that the ransom he imposed would impoverish her, since the income from her inheritance flowed into the Count’s coffers as long as she was unwed.

 While the herald was still lost in these thoughts, Eleanor returned with a bronze aquarelle in the form of a lion and a linen towel.

“My Lady, it is unseemly that you wait on me. Send for a servant, and sit with me instead,” the herald urged, indicating the bench on the other side of the table from him.

She seemed flustered by his remark, hastily putting the aquarelle down and stepping back as if she had done something wrong.

He smiled to reassure her and gestured to the bench opposite him again, urging, “Sit with me a moment, My Lady. Perhaps I can be of service with some information? My travels take me all over the island.” The herald had long since learned to use his natural access to information to satisfy the interest of others in gossip.

Eleanor nodded, but not with eager curiosity as he had expected. Instead she sat very stiffly on the bench opposite, and there was so much tension in her that the herald felt compelled to reassure her. “You must not distress yourself too much. I’m sure the Comte de Poitiers is in no great danger.” In the herald’s experience, maidens of Eleanor’s age were rarely interested in the fate of their fathers or guardians. It was far more likely that Eleanor was worried about some young knight who had courted her or otherwise caught her fancy. But no modest maiden would confess such an interest to a strange man, so the herald knew he had to pretend to talk about her guardian.

Eleanor drew a deep breath, “Would you ― would you mind telling me more of what has happened in Egypt? I have been very isolated here,” she hastened to excuse herself.

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"The Disinherited" - Excerpt 2

On October 1, I released "The Disinherited," a novella set in the Languedoc during the Albigensian crusades. It is one of my ten Tales of Chivalry, and part of the sub-series "Tales from the Languedoc." It is, however, a stand-alone novel that can be read without reference to the other books in the series, although some characters overlap.

Here is a second excerpt:

The monk reemerged at the head of the stairs, accompanied by a bent old man leaning on the arm of a gaunt Templar. The Templar was wearing a loose, white, Templar habit belted with a red cord at the waist, rather than armor and surcoat, but there could be no mistaking the soldier beneath the soft robes. Although he paced his normally long strides to the shuffling of the invalid, his sharp eyes, which had so often squinted against the sun that they seemed permanently puckered, rushed ahead to the transept in anticipation.

  Their eyes met, and Gerard felt his heart leap. His blood flooded his veins with warmth. The flush that flooded his brother’s face suggested that he, too, was not unmoved by this first meeting in sixteen years.

  Sixteen years, Gerard counted backwards, wondering if he had aged in that time as much as Everard had. But he must have, considering all that he had gone through. Absently he ran his hand through his hair, remembering that it too was streaked with gray, just as his brother’s once coal-black beard was now softened to salt-and-pepper.

  He stood staring at his brother as he brought their father carefully down the steep stairs, but he did not see him. Instead he was remembering the young man of sixteen years ago. Then, Everard had been lean but not gaunt, tanned but not leathery as now. He had worn the armor, surcoat, and mantle of the Temple that day, his long-fingered hand resting on the simple black belt that held the standard-issue Templar longsword. And they had fought bitterly.

Gerard could still remember vividly the insults and recriminations they had flung at one another that day―insults that had festered and ached like dirty wounds long, long after other, more recent wounds had healed and been forgotten. By contrast, all his own words seemed to have glanced off Everard’s unshakable faith and self-assurance like harmless, childish blows. That was the worst of it, that Everard had been right. Why did he blame him for being right? What weight did those hot, truthful words have against twenty years of sharing the same bed, the same board, the same companions, adventures, and memories?
Everard had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Gerard could read his own thoughts in his brother’s eyes. Two more strides and they could embrace again. But they had forgotten the old man.

The old man drew up abruptly, and the iron grip on his younger son’s arm made the Templar halt with him. Everard had to break eye contact with his brother and look questioningly at his father.

  Father Theobald was bent nearly in two from years of hunching over his books. He no longer needed to shave his tonsure, because he had gone bald except for a fringe of thin, wispy white hair that fell about his ears and on the back of his neck. He had the promi­nent, beak-like nose that Everard had inherited, and thin, bloodless lips. His skin was flecked with brown age marks and sagged in great sacks from his chin and on his throat. But the eyes that squinted up at Gerard were sharp and black―like Everard’s.

Though he trembled with the effort, he raised his hand and pointed a finger at Gerard. “You are my scourge and my damnation! You, with your Godlessness, wantonness, and violence! For a lifetime you have been the instrument of God’s wrath―punishing me for the sin in which you were sired! In the Name of His Great Mercy, can you not cease?” The agony and the anger were so inter­twined, it was impossible to separate them. Together they gave the old man’s voice both strength and pathos. His cry flew up to the vaulted ceiling overhead and cascaded back upon them with lingering reverberations.

  Gerard stared at the bent old man, sensing his brother’s embarrassment in his averted face. He had been told this was his father, and the resemblance to Everard confirmed it, but what did his father know of him? He had last seen him when he was just a few days old, a whimpering infant on a borrowed breast. He had never been there when as a boy Gerard had been lost, lonely, or confused. He had not watched him grow to manhood, had not taught him his letters or his catechism―much less taught him to ride and hunt and fight or presented him with the spurs of knighthood. His father had not once―in all his forty-three years―even sent him a letter inquiring after his health and well-being. Gerard knew that his lifestyle invited criticism, but what right did this stranger have to voice it? “What do you know of me?” he demanded, in a tone of voice that sounded both haughty and scornful.

  “You think I do not know of your misdeeds?” the old man retorted in an outraged croak. “There has not been a single year in which I was not tormented by news of your misdeeds. First it was my own brother who reported to me faithfully all your impudence and transgres­sions. After that I had my network of informers―my fellow Cistercians, Dominic Guzman, as long as he lived, and papal emissaries. You were my scourge, and I was determined to use it regularly for the benefit of my soul. But there has to be an end. I am dying.” His voice, which had started strong and accusatory, ended as a whimper.

  Gerard answered with a shrug that made his brother wince. “You never tried to guide my life before; what right have you to intervene now?”

 

 

 

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The Ideal of Chivalry

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.

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. 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.”

Chivalry was a code of behavior that young men were supposed to aspire to – not to already have. The code was articulated and passed on to youths in the form of romances and poems lionizing the chivalric 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 more noble 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 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 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, albeit only within the band of society that was “noble.” By definition, the heroes of chivalry are knights, and their ladies are just that: ladies. Stories about peasants, priests, and merchants are simply not part of the genre, any more than lusting after a serving “wench” qualifies as “love” in the chivalric tradition. But within the chivalric class, a lady was  supposed to be loved and respected for her beauty and her graces regardless of her status, and a knight was supposed to be loved for his chivalric virtues, not his lands or titles.

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 own 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.

On the other hand, the biographer of William Marshal, 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. For Marshal these are the skills, combined with unwavering loyalty to his liege, that enable him 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.

It is lamentable that nowadays the discussion of "chivalry" is so often confined to whether a man should open a door for a woman and similar nonsense! Chivalry wasn't about a set of anachronistic manners, it was a fundamental code of conduct that put the strong in the service of the weak -- a concept that ennobled both.

For more about chivalry, I recommend especially the following sources:

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

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

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