Arthur's answer
Eric Christiansen
Chivalry Maurice Keen
(Yale University Press 12.95) urke thought that the age of chivalry came to an end in 1789, or thereabouts. Others, that it was killed by cannon, the Renaissance or Don Quixote. Others again, that there never was such an age, because chivalry never guided the actions of more than a few men and women at rather infrequent moments in their lives, and for rather limited purposes. As a label, it is not quite as gummy as 'Feudalism' or 'the Baroque' or other decrepit scrawls on the jam-jars of history.
Nevertheless it existed, and it still exists. If Burke had believed that chivalry itself died in 1789, there would have been little point in his appeal to the gentlemen of England for a crusade against the calculators. Since then, chivalry has at- tracted a wider and wider public, both European and American; it has no more gone with the wind than Gone with the Wind. Restrictions of birth and rank that once impeded its growth have been cast aside. There are chivalrous Australians. A thousand years from now, in outer space, when robot enters the lists against jelly- man, we devoutly believe that there will be a Code. And at the present day, in a spot which has sometimes been regarded as im- pervious to all that sort of thing, there are signs that the spirit of Camelot lives — even in Balliol College.
Maurice Keen loves chivalry, and he has
written a good fat book about it, copicals and fascinating. He explains tourname j nts; ousts, solemn vows, feasts, orders ocl knighthood, heraldry, nobility, honour and , the laws of war with the authority tha` comes from a lifetime in imaginary chal,0" mall, and with the scholarship that doesn He considers the problems of what it was a in aid of, and what it amounted to in prac- tice. He even asks whether it was a Gpad Thing.
He ann sees it as a set of morals and m ., ers
ideas, deas, some of primaeval anticlutt,/' which came together in the 12th cent when the upper classes of Western Furl: began to identify themselves with cavall, 't was a plane where lord and man could rileed on equal terms. It was secular in origin, an , never merged entirely with ecclesiastical morality. There was a law, a literature, a learning and a piety of chivalry, but they often repelled lawyers, clerks and Prtestsu i.
d the present. de Yet for over 400 years chivalry provis thousands of leading laymen with an'a to some searching questions: how to o
live,
how to die, what to wear, what to tea what to talk about, how to corn-
c!,
adultery, and how to distinguish Us frolve comm Them. The three great topics, called di , Matters of Britain, France, and Rome, set ed as history. They dealt with an impossible past, but they reflected and influence
I anl Even after reading Mr Keen's book, . not quite certain why this happened or wila.` exactly was meant to happen. The Man' ideas of chivalry appear so often to belong amPle, a high price was set on 'ancestral religious fanaticism, inspired the vast ma- chivalry, would have agreed with it. knightly prowess'. The fanatics far out- . 'Thsumption that birthright in &gni- duty to be ready to draw the sword in order righted by the Black Prince, or Walter de _ MatinY or Bertrand du Guesclin, some woUld saY that this made them less and not ilitscire like their knightly contemporaries, ::e.rte jeognmooaaindyd.eeds of Malory's errant heroes But what of hundreds of non- barons, knights and esquires and own oppressions, from rape, arson , rld murder to pig-stealing and public iamdness,Ifillithe criminal records of the 14th and 15th centuries? It is good to learn that nearly all of them would have been willing le fight for the unfortunate, in theory. If nlY there had been more time to spare fromtheir own heavy programmes of rape ailci pillagel ,It. may be that the aim of many gentle ,71)Itants was to be good Christian knights, thanks to chivalry. But I don't think that Chivalry can really be portrayed as a main :Tier of the virtues from antiquity to ,_°cIero times. There were so many anmeddiaeval moralists who thought it wasn't, heh s° many mediaeval men of action who Raved as if they had never heard of it. go0Yri the way, Mr Keen concludes with ,a c h-- .Srory from Peter of Duisburg s re roniele of Prussia. Some demons defeat to a hermit that after a great th eat of the crusaders by the pagans, 'all sae s°1115 of the slain were now their booty, 8:e for three, since all but these alone had salicle forward to their deaths not for the fy' e of holy zeal, but in the hope of magni- ing their name in knighthood', the im- Most of us would agree in finding the wars of the Teutonic knights very slightly; Policy is cited in this book. Reckless daring, pro- somed or exchanged. But at the time, there cligai were many who argued that war ought to be generosity, self-sacrifice for much less, or much more, savage than the conirades-in-arms, yes; war against oppres- code of chivalry allowed. Its merits were ,sit3n, Ti?. The omission is regrettable, not self-evident to those who saw its heroes eecause it could easily have been avoided. It doing just as well out of warfare as weuld have been interesting to discover the brigands, and burning as many villages as author's views on how far the Barons of religious fanatics. „Magna Carta or Simon de Montfort took Perhaps they are more obvious today, 'ID antis out of chivalry, and how far from when war and power seem inconsistent with self-interest. As it is, the defence of the any sort of decency. Chivalry did make ,Iveak seems to be like the good news that some powerful and warlike people behave uoesn't get into the papers. with rudimentary restraint on some occa- evidence during the Middle Ages, pursued
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