Chivalry and Courtly Love

Chivalry, the code of conduct governing the behavior of knights, had three elements to it.  A knight was supposed to fight in the service of his feudal overlord; he was supposed to defend the Church; and he was supposed to honor and cherish all ladies.  These elements were, of course, more literary than real—in reality, chivalry was a practical code governing the conduct of warriors under conditions of war.

In battle, fair play was important—when King John was captured by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356, he gave his word (parole) that he would not attempt to escape; when some of John’s servants actually sprang him, John returned to London to continue his honorable captivity.  It was, moreover, generally considered unfair (at least in books) to fight an unhorsed opponent from horseback—all efforts were made to ensure that a fight was fair.

Religious chivalry involved the defense of the Church, and the honor of its sacraments.  A good knight went to daily mass.  The most chivalrous expression of religious devotion was the Crusades.  These were undertaken when the Moslems in Jerusalem started attacking Christian pilgrims and denying them access to the Holy City.  The First Crusade successfully captured Jerusalem in a bloody battle on July 15, 1099 (no bloodier than battles between Christian armies, despite modern attempts to claim so); but the Christians proved unable to hang onto such a far-flung territory, and it was lost to the Moslem leader Saladin in 1187, never to be regained in spite of further crusades.

Courtly chivalry involved courteous behavior and honor shown towards women, especially one’s beloved.  This veneration of women would perhaps have been impossible in such misogynistic times if veneration for the Virgin Mary were not such a central element in medieval Christianity.  Whatever the reason, with the rise of Christianity, there was a corresponding rise in male appreciation for women.

Associated with this was the concept known to modern scholars as courtly love.  This was a new approach to erotic attraction, originating in the twelfth century with the French poets known as the troubadours.  They sang of perfect love, which, in order to be perfect, must be adulterous.  This was for two reasons.  First, in a love relationship, women must be in charge.  Since this was the reverse of the marriage situation, courtly love was necessarily adulterous.  Second, most marriages at the time were arranged for political reasons, and so love could not be expected to flourish within marriage.  Obviously, courtly love conflicted with the Church’s ideals on marriage; it therefore developed in part as a parody of religion.  The knight would typically treat his lady as an object of devotion on a level with a religious relic, genuflecting before her, thinking of her constantly, and placing himself in all sorts of danger for her sake.  The focus of courtly love was on the emotions inspired by love, not on the physical act; consummation was, to a certain extent, undesired, since the conflicted feelings leading up to it were no longer present.  In spite of this, however, the two most famous courtly pairs from literature were Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Isolde, and both couples were far from celibate!