The Importance Of Chivalry In Morte D Arthur

“A man’s body is given to him to be trained and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes and the subduing of the Earth . . . This was a part of a wider revival of the ideal of chivalry.” (Richards) During the middle ages, a knight was expected to possess not only the skills and incredible strength to face combat, but was also expected to temper his aggressive side with a code of chivalry. There is no such thing as the authentic code of chivalry, it is more like a moral system which went way beyond the rules of combat to introduce the concept of appropriate conduct. The qualities most often idealized were bravery, courtesy, honor and gallantry, especially toward women. Before this, the incredibly aggressive

The Knights of the Round Table are the primary individuals, alongside King Arthur that must uphold Chivalry. Arthur solidifies the importance of chivalry within the fellowship by presenting a strong representation of nobility himself. In fact, the word most commonly used to describe Arthur is noble. “But ever King Arthur rode throughout the battle of Sir Mordred many times and did full nobly, as a noble king should do, and at all times he fainted never.” (Arthur, 187) Arthur is the leader of a fellowship that vow their lives to the protection of this code of ethics. Arthur does something very significant though that the majority of other texts at the time do not do. Morte d’Arthur recognizes the importance of the women in the presentation and recognition of the chivalric code. Chivalry is something that is presented in a very masculine way throughout the entirety of the text. However, one of the most important aspects of chivalry is the treatment of women, and therefore, a value is placed on women that in most societies prior did not exist. “The Morte d’Arthur focuses on the masculine activity of chivalry—fighting, questing, and ruling— while simultaneously revealing the chivalric enterprise as impossible without the presence of the feminine.” (Armstrong) One of the most fundamental themes of this text is the presentation

Then, over time, these individuals began to become held to very different standards of behavior. Though it wasn’t until the tales of King Arthur that the Chivalric Code was officially referred to, this separation of expectations existed even hundreds of years before, within texts like Beowulf and The Aeneid. Though there was never any sort of official code of conduct, warriors knew that they had to be setting the example for others simply because they were in positions of such high power. In these societies, it was most often the case that the strongest man was the one that ended up the most powerful, so if these men began behaving according to a code with rather decent ethics, than an outcome could be expected that was rather pleasant as