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The Chivarlric Code of Le Morte d'Arthur
Throughout the tales of King Arthur, stories of brave knights and noble lords
captivated the society of the European Middle Ages. These stories gave a criterion for
people to base there values and way of life on. During the 1400's knighthood was coming
to an end. Sir Thomas Malory wanted to recapture the lose of chivalry with his tale "Le
Morte d'Arthur". He wished to inspire people to return to the basic ideals of the chivalric
code. Le Morte d'Arthur presents the importance of possessing the characteristics of
honor, loyalty, and courage.
The most important aspect of the chivalric code is honor. Without honor a man is
believed to be less of a person during the Middle Ages. If you were to loose your honor,
then somehow you, or someone else, must go to any lengths to regain that honor. In Le
Morte d'Arthur, a knight is injured mortally and dies. When the squire of the knight
presents himself before King Arthur he tells Arthur, "he had been attacked by King
Pellinore at the well, and then begged that he should be buried, and that one of Arthur's
knights should avenge his death."(Malory, p.99) The squire knows that the deceased
knight's honor must be returned. A young squire named Gryfflette begs Arthur to make
him a knight so he can avenge the fallen knights honor. Gryfflette's plea to be a knight
goes to show how important it is that a man's honor be intact no matter what the cost may
be.
In being a chivalric, along with possessing honor, you must also have large of
amounts of courage and bravery. Arthur knows Gryfflette is not ready to become a
knight, yet he still allows him to become one because he knows how important it is to
return honor to his dead comrade. Gryfflette leaves in search of King Pellinore and
displays great courage by going and facing a much more seasoned knight such as he. "Sir
Gryfflette struck the shield a ringing blow, and it fell to the ground."(p. 99) Gryfflette
insults King Pellinore by pulling such a brave act as to knock the King's shield from a tree.
Gryfflette is aware of how experienced King Pellinore is, yet he is still very confident in his
words. Sir Gryfflette is very sure of himself and repeats why he is there by confidently
saying, "I come from the court of King Arthur, and still I mean to joust with you.
required to not only restore his honor, but to re-store the honor of all of
• The comedic affect of the scene where Arthur and his men are kept away from the castle by farm animal warfare is a parody to when King Uther Pendragon attacked the Duke of Cornwall’s castle and was kept off with fire, soldiers and other one would expect in combat.
accept his terms. He mocks Arthur, who is silent, and before the king can accept,
In Medieval Times knights are the protectors. The knights fight for, and obey the king. And for that reason Knight’s are in high rankings in the class system, compared to the peasants and merchants. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, people are going on the pilgrimage to Canterbury for Salvation. The knight is Chaucer’s ideal of a night should be. The knight is a highly principled killer who travels the world and fights for what he believes in with unequivocal bravery and valor.
amount of respect that have for the codes of chivalry and honor, which is often rewarded in the
that the green knight would cut off his head and he would die. So he tried to cheat his way out of it.
Don Quixote, if nothing else, must be praised for his valiant efforts to follow the laws of the great knights. After encountering a man beating a half naked youth, he informs him that “it is a caitiff’s deed to attack one who cannot defend himself.
In the Medieval Period, knights dedicated their lives to following the code of chivalry. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a number of characters performed chivalrous acts to achieve the status of an ideal knight. Their characteristics of respect for women and courtesy for all, helpfulness to the weak, honor, and skill in battle made the characters King Arthur, King Pellinore, and Sir Gryfflette examples of a what knights strove to be like in Medieval society. Because of the examples ofchivalry, Le Morte d’Arthur showed what a knight desired to be, so he could improve theworld in which he lived.
Each different aspect of the code of chivalry held a separate role in society. Whether it be religious or barbaric, chivalry tended to hold a moral guideline among those who followed it. This moral guideline held them true to their duties to man, God, and women (Sex, Society, and Medieval Women). All of which are reflected in the three themes of Chivalry: Warrior chivalry, religious chivalry, and courtly love chivalry (Sex, Society, and Medieval Women). These three hold their individual roles, all stimulating a different part of the mind and creating a code held by all areas of life in those who hold it. The underlying question posed in this intense pledge is whether those who took the oath lived it out accordingly. To live out Chivalry is to go against the logic of the human mind. That is a hard task. Canterbury Tales provides one example of a man fighting against the odds. The kenight portrayed in the story can be compared to that of the quarterback of a football team. That knight truly took the leadership of his role and lived out all of its responsibilities. On the other hand, in midst of the popularity, a large majority of knights truly embraced only certain aspects of the pledge of Chivalry. They used their title and their pledge to court women and gain an upper hand on everyone else around them. The corrupt behavior of these knights is why the general consensus of a knight’s success in following the pledge of Chivalry is failure. The mind of a man still finds its origin in the Social Darwinism concept of a man’s mind. This idea plays the leading role in the failure of knights in the medieval period to live out their oath of Chivalry in every aspect of this oath.
When Maurice Keen set out to write a book on the components and development of chivalry, he did not know it would be “the last word on a seductive subject,” as stated by one Washington Post reviewer. Instead, Keen was merely satisfying a curiosity that derived from a childhood fascination of stories filled with “knights in shining armour.” This juvenile captivation was then transformed into a serious scholarly interest by Keen’s teachers, the product of which is a work based upon literary, artifactual, and academic evidence. Keen’s Chivalry strives to prove that chivalry existed not as a fantastical distraction, as erroneously portrayed by romances, but instead as an integral and functional feature of medieval politics, religion, and society. The thirteen chapters use an exposition format to quietly champion Keen’s opinion of chivalry as being an element of an essentially secular code of “honour” derived from military practices.
A mysterious knight shows up at the king’s castle and calls himself the Green Knight. The Green Knight then challenges one to play a game which he challenges the king to strike him with his axe if he will take a return hit in a year and a day. Sir Gawain steps forward to accept the challenge for his uncle King Arthur when nobody else in the castle would. He took the King’s role in the game to protect him from the Green Knight. He must learn to accept his responsibility as a knight, in accepting his fate.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an anonymous fourteenth-century poet in Northern dialect, combines two plots: "the beheading contest, in which two parties agree to an exchange of the blows with a sword or ax, and the temptation, an attempted seduction of the hero by a lady" (Norton p.200). The Green Knight, depicted as a green giant with supernatural powers, disrespectfully rides into King Arthur's court and challenges the king to a Christmas game -- a beheading contest. Sir Gawain, a young, brave and loyal knight of the Round Table, acting according to the chivalric code, takes over the challenge his lord has accepted. The contest states that Sir Gawain is to chop off the Green Knight's head, and in one year and a day, the antagonist is to do the same to the hero. The whole poem is constructed in a way that leads the reader through the challenges that Sir Gawain faces -- the tests for honesty, courtesy, truthfulness. Throughout, we see his inner strength to resist the temptations.
Arthur is tricked to sleep with his step sister and she later gave birth to a son named Mordred, who is later known as the worst villain of all times. When Mordred is born Arthur is strucken and becomes very ill. He tells his knights that they need to find the holy grail because drinking from that is the only thing that will heal him. Arthur knows that it's going to be a hard tasks and after a year the grail is still nowhere to be found. Sir Gawain one of Arthur's best knights that sits at the round table, rides for what seems like forever when coming upon Mordred. Who Gawain doesn’t know is Arthur’s son, Mordred talks him into following him through the woods where there are other Knight’s corpse hanging from trees. Gawain later come to Mordred’s mom and she uses spells to try and kill him. While Gawain is hanging slowly dying he see God and is given the holy grail. This is one of my favorite scenes because they search for a year to find something that was thought to be gone. Gawain shows his worth as a knight and doesn't give up on finding the holy grail to save his king.
Chivalry, in its most all-encompassing definition, can be described as “a form of behavior knights and nobles would have liked to imaged they followed, both based on and reflected in the epics and romances, a form of behavior which took armed and mounted combat as one of its key elements.” This definition opens many doors as to a true depiction of chivalry; however it is efficient at enabling discussion of chivalry from almost every medieval source. It is jus...
In the Song of Roland, ideal characteristics of a knight are identified mainly with having skill as a horseman and fighting on the battlefield. The idea of an armored knight is closely descended from the equites class of Rome. Knights were closely tied to the various fiefdoms and to the church. A knight was expected to have courage, honor, selflessness, respect, honesty, and many other characteristics of how a perfect knight was seen such as Roland, Oliver, and Thierry in the Song of Roland. Many knights were of course not perfect but in the Song of Roland Roland, Oliver, and Thierry are perfect knights because they have a strong devotion, and are respectful.