Great article, Lush, particularly since I am an avid gamer in search of a decent game (I can't stand most of the current crop -- including Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft -- vapid and unrealistic, really).
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Originally Posted by davem
That's a v e r y romantic conception of knighthood - most of them used 'chivalry' as an insurance policy - they treated other nobles with respect, particularly on the battlefield, because they knew it would save their necks if they got captured. The poor bloody infantry & the peasantry tended to be treated like something the knight had trodden in - if the knight was in a good mood - if he wasn't he'd just slaughter them for daring to get within sword reach. Mind you, this whole chivalric ideal is something Tolkien himself tended to indulge in - for all his idealisation of the past & condemnation of the present his heroes display a very 'twentieth century' morality in terms of treatment of the 'lower orders' - particularly on the field. His heroes aren't medieval warriors at all - or perhaps one should say they are what knights should have been, but almost never were - Henry V's treatment of the refugees of Rouen is the reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Rouen |
Agreed, Davem. Another example is that paragon of chivalry, Edward III, who created the Order of the Garter along the lines of Arthur's Round Table. It seems Edward took the idea of 'courtly love' a bit too far and allegedly raped the Countess of Salisbury. The Earl of Salisbury, a longtime friend of the king, expressed his shame and anger at court, and promptly went into exile rather than spend another minute in Edward's chivalric England. Froissart, that illustrious chronicler of all things chivalric, suppressed the story of Edward's indiscretion, but the tale was taken up by Jean le Bel of Hainault. Whether true or a bit of propaganda by French sympathizers, it is certainly a telling indictment of that society as a whole. Rather like the French seigneur who upon his death bequeathed a dowry for all the virgins he deflowered.