HOW DID THE CHIVALRIC TRADITION DEVELOP?
The chivalric tradition is primary a Western tradition. It originated in Western Europe and is linked to the
Western Church. The word comes from Old French. In the time of Charlemagne, a chivalry was the
payment due to a mounted soldier. In French cheval means horse.
So these warriors were fighting on horseback. It stated the importance of owning a horse for a warrior.
In addition, there is the armor, a sword, a shield; essential equipment of any knight.
At the beginning, being a knight (a mounted warrior) was not necessarily associated with nobility and
noble practices. Around the year 1000 AD, on the contrary, knights were not so esteemed. They were
seen as violent. This was the age when you could still rise up in society by your merits in battle and not
by her birth right.
As warriors began receiving lands from their sovereign, they also began climbing up the social ladder
and receiving nobility titles. In the early Middle Ages it was easier to elevate oneself socially, but already
by the High Middle Ages (1100 - 1300) it became much more difficult. A lot of warriors had become
knights and thus nobles. And to be a noble meant having a noble origin.
BECOMING A KNIGHT
You had to be of noble birth. To become a knight, one had to go through several stages during one’s
lifetime.
Page: A child of noble birth firstly became a page. This was around the age of seven and lasted around
the age of 14. A child would usually be sent away from his family to train as a page. He would serve a
monarch or another noble. He would learn to ride a horse and some basic weapon skills. He would also
clean and serve at the noble’s table and do other menial chores.
Squire: The next step was to become a squire. He was supposed to carry and polish the knight’s armor.
Besides this, he was also given lessons in dancing, literature and courtesy towards ladies. A squire
learned to fight by using a real sword. They followed their knights into battle and carried weapons and
supplies for them.
RITUALS AND OBLIGATIONS
Knighthood: twenty one was usually the age, when a squire could become a knight. One would
become a knight through a ceremony, called an accolade. A noble or even a monarch would dub the
new knight by touching both his shoulders with the tip of a sword. The night before it was a custom for
the knight to take a ritual bath and spend some time in prayer. They swore on oath to their sovereign.
Now it was the knight’s duty to follow his sovereign into battle. Some knights would receive land due to
their prowess in battle. Some might even get to own a castle.
During peace time knights would take part in tournaments. The events in the tournament were called
hastiludes. The three most important competitions were:
1. The melee was a duel for a large group of knights who had to fight each other until only one would
stand out victorious.
2. The tupinaire was an one on one duel where clean hits to parts of the body would score points
3. The joust was the act of two knights engaging one another on horseback. The opponents would hold a
distance from each other and then they would charge one against the other. Each used a lance. One
would win if one could knock his opponent off his horse.
CODE OF CHIVALRY
There was no concrete chivalric code. First of all, one must understand that knights were
warriors who went off to war and did those things which had to do with war: KILL THEIR OPPONENTS.
But in other situations, knights would do even worse things. For example, loot villages, destroy property,
even hurt and kill unarmed people.
So the Western Church had to come up with something to restrain the knights’ inclinations towards
violence. The Church tries to take the warrior ethos out and redirect it: towards higher concepts. So the
Church emits decrees to curb this violence of the knighthood. One such decree is The Peace of God
made in 989 at the Council of Charroux. Under no circumstances could knights attack unarmed people.
The Truce of God from 1027 was also helpful. This document stated that knights were not allowed to
fight on certain days or times of the year.
In a more general sense the chivalric code can be broken down into 3 aspects:
1. Warrior Chivalry had already been discussed upon previously. It meant that knight should
prove loyalty towards his lord and demonstrate prowess in battle.
2. Religious chivalry. Knights were also expected to be good Christians and defend the Church. This
religious element played a large part in the Crusades. During the Crusades, monastic-military orders
developed in the Holy Land. These were warrior monks, whose essential role was of defending pilgrims
in the Holy Land. They were the Knights’ Templers, the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights.
3. Courtly Love described a Platonic love between a knight and a lady, who was usually
unavailable, because she was already married or was of a higher social class. As was the case of
Lancelot’s love towards queen Guinevere, king Arthur’s wife. Though, in the ideal courtly love
relationship no affair would take place. It was courtly from a knight to have a lady whom he could have
his eye on. It would ‘civilize’ him.
