My understanding is that chivalry saved Europe. Will someone correct me if I'm wrong? Here's the way I heard it...
The early Christians were pacifists, which is fine except Europe in the Dark Ages needed muscle to defend itself against Scandanavian, Mongolian and Islamic predators. The newly Christianized German barbarians came up with an idea that would simultaneously satisfy the pacifists and still allow Europe to re-arm, and that idea was built on the old German idea of knighthood.
The new idea was that the pacifists were right...yes, it is wrong to kill...but only if you do it to further your own ends. It's not wrong if you kill unsefishly, for someone else's sake and not your own. The new synthesis was called chivalry and the first knights of this type (there were other types) were widely respected for their high ideals. Without these knights Europe would surely have sucumbed to internal wars and outside predators.
So, have I got it right? I can't remember where I read this.
My understanding is that chivalry saved Europe. Will someone correct me if I'm wrong? Here's the way I heard it...
21 comments:
Wasn't chivalry really just 13th century French propaganda?
On the other hand, I just watched (yesterday as a matter of fact) this Discovery Japan special... or History Channel docu... about the Spear of Longinus, and it traces chilvary to St. Maurice, an African commander in the Theban Legion, only Christian legion in the Roman Empire at the time.
Called by the Emperor Maximian to put down a barbarian uprising, St. Maurice came across a massacred enemy group and discovered they were Christians. He later told the emperor he would continue to serve him, but that serving God would be his higher calling and refused to obey orders to attack or harrass Christians.
So the emperor had him killed and ordered the legion decimated.
St. Maurice's vow became the basis for the chivalric vows of the later medieval knights. St. Maurice became the patron saint of the Holy Roman Emperors.
Who I guess in preventing invasions from without Europe can be said to have preserved European civlization... even if it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
By that last line I mean, certainly the ideals were excellent. I'm all for chivalry, and the romantic version of it.
If only they'd been more fastidious about actually putting it into practice. We could certainly stand for some of that around these days.
There must be many theories about the origin of chivalry. I have heard that chivalry really didn't exist the way we know it during the dark ages, and was something embellished in later oral traditions.
And the last picture you have on this post..Do you know what the name of that painting is and who was the artist?
Joel: I'm glad you mentioned that documentary. I saw it too a while back and had completely forgotten it.
I could be wrong but my guess is that chivalry began in the Dark Ages and had its glory days in medeival times.
There's a famous book called "Waning of the Middle Ages" by Huzzinga (spelled wrong, no doubt) that describes what chivalric knights meant to the sentimental peasantry. That chapter alone is worth the price of the whole book.
I believe that chivalry really existed. The Crusades point to it. So much is written about the negative side of the Crusades that we ignore all the stories of idealism that are associated with it.
French propaganda may have a lot to do with our image of chivalry but the subject is no less interesting for that. There's a great line in the film "Excalibar" film where Merlin indicates that good things never last but are still useful as a beacon in history that will always inspire people to make new attempts to better the world.
Max: I had to look it up. The name of the picture is "The Quixote Knight and Death" by Theodor Baierl.
crazy paintings
The formal structural basis for chivalry has echoes going all the way back to the Roman empire, long before the various Islamic (ca. 750 ff), Scandanavian (ca. 900 ff) or Mongolian (ca. 1200 ff) invasions. In any event, the Mongolians didn't get further than Poland, so they were a fairly limited influence on what went on in Western Europe.
The military orders, like the Teutonic Knights or the Knights of St. John or the Templars, were created for different reasons. The Teutonic Knights, based as they were in the borderlands of pagans, had a broad brief for Christianization and defence. The Templars and St. John were heavily involved in the various crusades from the mid-11th century on.
The legal basis for chivalry evolved from the Roman Empire, via Charlemagne, and through to the continental states, which kept Roman law. Some of this came over via the Normans and influenced the English common law.
The whole "knighthood in flower" thing is, as others have said, later embellishments designed to put a nice starched dickey on an otherwise smelly and bloody system.
Yeah, SHIVAREE was a pretty good show, but I liked SHINDIG better.
...oh...
If chivalry is defined as 'a life dedicated to bravery, honor, protection of the weak and generous treatment of foes,' these are attributes in existence long before the Dark Ages.
Eric: Fascinating!!!!
I think it goes back to the Greeks somewhat, especially in Homers Iliad, suggested by some as possibly script doctored by a female relative of Homer as transcribed from the oral tradition, to have domestic notions involved - fighting for more than just to prove who is best at fighting. And even Helen of Troy, launching a thousand ships at the start of the overall legend, introduces the romantic component.
That sort of flowered again around the 1300s for several reasons, reapplied to tales of Arthur, etc. To me, the word Chivalry recalls the soft romantic side of its meaning much more than the miltaristic crusade side of things.
Man, I love these classic Eddie posts! Keep `em coming!
Jorge: Yes it is an older post dusted off and presented as new. I hate to do that, but I'm swamped with work and have no choice. Hopefully I'll have time to put up original material after Tuesday.
It is an interesting post, though...is it not? And some of the comments it garnered are fascinating.
I heard that the early, regional kings had gangs of armed thugs who terrorized the citizenry. It sounds like a natural situation. However, the situation grew worse until the church stepped in. The Christians developed a code of honor and service in order to reign in the unruly behavior. That code developed into chivalry.
Of course, with all ideals, people didn't always live up to them but chivalry was certainly a worthy goal.
Chivalry was romaticization by French troubadours. The real Arthurian era Celts were anything but chivalrous. They carried severed heads of fallen heroes on their belts and ate the flesh of fallen warriors to absorb their power. Pretty primitive by modern standards.
If you read Celtic folklore you get a sense of the way these people thought. It wasn't "knights in armor saving maidens from dragons".
One more thing, the modern conception of Arthurian myth goes back only as far as Sir Thomas Mallory in the mid 15th century. Mallory recorded the French romanticization of the myths from the century before him, not the contemporary folk tales from the era. Merlin exists in the original folk tales, but he is a crazy old man who runs around naked in the forest raping girls and living in a hole in the ground as an animal.
It would have been interesting if Boorman followed the original folk tales, wouldn't it?
The Early Christians were pacifists but Early Christianity ends with Emperor Constantine's conversion and the Council of Nicaea in the early 4th century. Constantine basically makes sure that Christianity allow for the legions to kill.
The reason why Britain was invaded and conquered by various Germanic tribes during the Dark Ages was due to Rome pulling out and leaving the British with no army.
Across the Chanel you have a similar situation except that the Franks who end up ruling France, Germany and Northern Italy, had been in the Roman Legions and so felt that it was up to them to rule when Roman rule Gaul starts collapsing.
Steve: Interesting. Boorman's
"Excalibur" grows in my estimation with every viewing. I wish there were more films like that.
Rolly: Fascinating!
No different than today
I wouldn't overlook the Byzantine Empire- it was the bulwark of Eastern Europe for a very long time. In those days the Byzantines relied on a class of farmer-soldiers organized into military "themes".
When the first wave of crusaders rolled through, a lot of them ended up creating principalities in Anatolia, to varying degrees of success. The history of Armenia during that period is worth looking into, since they picked up a lot of chivalric customs.
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