Research Paper Final

VANGUARD UNIVERSITY
KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOR OR THUGS WITH A SWORD: THE SHATTERING OF
THE MEDIEVAL MYTH
PAPER SUBMITTED TO
DR. JOHN WILSON
HISTORY OF ENGLAND
APRIL 16, 2015
WRITTEN BY:
ISAAC SWANSON

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Clad in armor, holding a glistening sword, and fighting for both the moon of his life (fair
maiden) and his honorable lord, the knight of yester-year has been, and still continues to be,
looked upon with great reverence, respect, and adulation. The image society hastens to have of
knights verges toward hero worshiping as fair maidens held hostage by their evil mothers fling
their rope-length hair to the courageous knight down below who will rescue them from the cruel
grip of parenthood gone bad. Justice often seems to pervade the ethos of the knight as well in his
zealous desire to protect the weak and poor from the merciless and cruel. In the field of combat,
the knight is seen as a gentleman towards his foes and often spares them out of sympathy for the
merciful Father above. Yet, when time calls for great and heroic actions, the true knight will lace
up his boots, call upon his squire for his shield, and march off into battle with the breastplate of
Christian faith and brave the dangers ahead of him with unflinching courage behind the
confidence of the Triune God ensuring victory. Further accentuating out the ethos of the knight,
the true warrior of God might also display his prominence in the field of the tournaments and
match his strength against other knights so as to win the heart of a fair maiden and, possibly,
have a place with King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
This depiction of the knight, of course, is the one so often perpetuated by the likes of
centuries of tales, stories, and society at large. Even prominent political philosophers and
statesman such as Edmund Burke, father of conservatism and author of Reflections on the
Revolution of France, seems to hold this lofty ideal of the knight when he states, upon reflection
of a lost chivalric age, that “never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and
sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept

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alive, even in servitude itself, the spirt of an exalted freedom.”1 The picture here fits the popular
euphemism of ‘the knight in shining armor.’ Yet, as grand tales so often do, they tend to
exaggerate the facts of reality to a point in which the real truth of the matter is left out. The
question being put here is this: were knights really as cracked up as they have been made to be?
Were they truly the chivalric knights that are so often celebrated and venerated today, or did they
have a seedy underside to them that has yet to be exhumed? Pageantry, glitter, and decoration
aside, it is critical to sift through the mountain of tales, myths, and stories about a particular
subject and get to the heart of the matter. Otherwise, it may very well end up like the humorous
game of ‘telephone’ in which a story loses its original bearing as told by the first person in the
line. With respect to knights, it is always important to remember “a knight was, fundamentally, a
mounted warrior who fought in the service of his liege lord.”2
As already stated in the introduction, this paper will deal with the question of whether or
not the knight of yester-year was truly the knight in shining armor or just a thug with a sword. In
dealing with this question of immense scope, the paper will be categorized per the following
sections. Section one will deal with the ideal and myth of the knight so as to get a bearing on
what the knight of the medieval ages constantly strove to achieve. This will be divided in three
sub-sections: the precursor to the knight, the church’s influence on the knight, and how
propaganda through literature and bards spread the ideal of knighthood. Section two will hash
out the way this ideal actually played out in the subsections of warfare and its relationship with
the common folk, tournaments and glory, and the correspondence of knights with respect to
women. Finally, section three (the conclusion) will end the paper in its entirety by relating the
1Edmund Burke, Reflectionson the Revolution of France, trans.Connor Cruise O’ Brien (London: Penguin Books,
2004), 170.
2 Alan Baker, The Knight (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2003), 1.

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ideal of knighthood to the modern day age and explore how it has transplanted itself into the
mainstream with popular images and entertainment of the day. Simply put, the thesis of this
paper, as has been developed over copious amounts of research, ultimately states that the ideal of
knighthood was merely this, only an ideal; the reality of how knighthood played out was quite
adverse in the way a knight conducted himself in his day-to-day life. Furthermore, the model of
knighthood and chivalry were merely values of what one ought to strive to be. Often, this
unrealistic standard would manifest itself into ruthless forms of barbarism and violence as
knights practically threw their hands up in the air and gave up on the lofty values that were
preached. Succinctly put, Sir Arthur Bryant, prominent English Historian, contended that the
romantic ideal of chivalry and knighthood were things of fairy tales when he noted that “in an
age when for the great mass of men life was harsh and bleak and, even for the favored few,
perilous and uncertain, princes and great lords who could afford such costly pageantry loved to
reenact in costly habiliments the legends of an imaginary past.”3
The Origin of the Knight
In tracing the origin, ideals, and evolution of the knight, it is important to understand that
with each interpretation of what the knight ought to be, it added an extra layer to the continually
growing romanticized warrior of ancient lore. The methods of interpretation, broadly put, were
through the mechanisms of, one, the church, and two, literature and song. With each distinct
group crafting their own ideals onto the image of the knight, the meaning, purpose, and
definition changed with increasing veracity as the centuries continued to breeze by. In this way,
the knight may very well be seen as a tool for each accompanying generation in their striving to
achieve a particular set of goals. Though the meaning of the knight continually changed, it is
3 Arthur Bryant, The Age of Chivalry (New York: Double Day & Company, 1964), 239.

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also critical to note that the core essence of what the knight did still remained, namely, that of
war and battle. As Robert Jones, military historian and specialist in medieval history, notes: “the
differing strands fused together, building on each other to create a mode of behavior that was at
the same time practical and violent and idealistic and spiritual.”4
The Knight Approaches
Just as any epic must have an origin, so too does the birth of the fabled knight. Although
often associated with the Islamic warrior and the ideal of Jihad, the war against unbelievers who
do not believe in Allah, interestingly enough, most historical scholars would point back to
Germanic and Roman roots as being the rough pre-cursor to the well-known knight of fabled
myth. In tracing the beginnings of the knight, the key aspect of character being looked for here
is in the term, loyalty. Even if a knight’s loyalty changed throughout the centuries, their loyalty
towards the lord who gave them their livelihood remained. Finding this common trait of loyalty
in both the Germanic and Roman cultures, Norman F. Cantor, professor of history at New York
University, contends:
The comitatus, or gefolge, the Germanic war band as described by Tacitus and in Beowulf, was
based on the loyalty of warriors to their chieftain in return for the latter’s protection and
generosity; it was the embryo of medieval feudalism. The perpetuation of this kind of loyalty in
the fifth and sixth centuries was made easier by the existence of a similar institution in the later
Roman Empire, the patrocinium (clientage). In the disturbed conditions of the late empire, certain
aristocrats gathered around them young men of fighting age whomthey rewarded and protected in
return for their loyalty and service. The vassals of the sixth and seventh centuries were simply the
perpetuation of the German gefolge and the Latin patrocinium.5
Thus, the sighting of the knight can be spotted relatively early in history when one makes note of
the fact that clients showed loyalty to their patrons in the Roman world and warriors showed
loyalty to their chieftains in return for some type of protection; naturally, this loyalty theme
would transfer over to the medieval knight. Having planted its future romantic ideals on the
4 Robert Jones, Knight:The Warrior and World of Chivalry (Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2011), 160.
5 Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization ofthe Middle Ages (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993), 197.

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basis of loyalty with respect to patrons and chieftains, this same theme would carry over and
spread throughout Europe reaching, most notably, the “bastard” King William of Normandy who
would bring with him both feudalism and the continuing evolution of the image of the knight.
Widely regarded for his introduction of feudalism and rigid hierarchy of order that would
persist in England after 1066 with respect to the classes of kings, lords, knights, and commoners,
King William also brought with him the very nascent idea of chivalry. Though chivalry, at this
point in time for England, was only associated with that of the warrior ethos, it can no doubt be
ascertained that it provided even more top-soil upon which the flower of the romanticized knight
would grow. Historian and specialist in chronicling battles like Waterloo and Trafalgar, David
Howarth, states that “they [the Normans] were imbued with chivalry, which had swept across
northern Europe from an obscure beginning somewhere in Germany, but had not crossed the sea
to England.” Adding further that chivalry would later change as the centuries came and went;
Howarth reminds his reader that chivalry “was nothing more than a cult of horsemanship and
war”6 at the time of the conquest. Even the word for which chivalry was rooted in, chevalier, a
French word, “simply indicated a warrior who fought on horseback.”7 Much like a ripe apple on
a tree waiting to be plucked by the opportunistic shaper of history, the fledgling idea of
knighthood and chivalry stood ready for interpretation even at the beginning of the Norman
Conquest. Seeking to add nuance via a careful form of subtlety, these Norman conquerors,
although mainly associated with the warrior class and those who rode horses, were made more
complicated with the simple implication of chevalier which “connoted a superiority of class,
since only a man of means could afford a horse.”8 The implication being here that the primordial
6 David Howarth, 1066:The Year of the Conquest (New York: The Viking Press, 1977), 62.
7 Joseph and Frances Gies, Life in a Medieval Castle (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1974), 170.
8 Ibid.

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origins of the knight were starting to become associated with the aristocracy rather than just the
glorified warriors who fought for the valor of their lord.
Further continuing this trend of connectivity, the Normans also added a layer of
complexion with the advent of the system of feudalism and fiefdom, the giving of land to a
vassal who is loyal to said Lord. In England’s new and vibrant environment, what was needed
for these groups of knights and lords loyal to King William was a system of some sort that would
pay the knights in return for their service and loyalty so as to keep them in some semblance of
order. Already having been used with great success in Normandy up to this point, King William
simply transplanted the concept of feudalism upon England thus adding another layer upon the
evolution of the knight, namely, land. Brought about by a contract with the lord for loyalty, the
pledging of knights, and general goodwill, the lord then became a vassal of the land which was
inherited by him through his king. Using this same concept of the passing on of land, the lords,
so as to keep the knights under them happy, “invested the vassal with his fief. The vassal owed
his lord respect, obedience, and service; in return, the lord owed his vassal protection, justice and
maintenance.”9 Although already a key concept with the early roots of chivalry and knighthood,
as discussed in the Roman and German roots with respect to loyalty, feudalism and fiefdom gave
this building block a much more legalized air upon which loyalty was literally written down in
paper, codified, and respected.
Worthy of note to include in this section might be the possible justification of the
knight’s violence as it will be discussed later in the paper through the invention of feudalism and
fiefdom. Being that the whole system of land relied on the bond between both lord and knight,
9 David and Clayton Roberts, A History of England,Volume I, Third Edition:Prehistory to 1714 (New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1991), 75.

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what happens if either one failed his duty with respect to the services they were supposed to
provide? Describing this particular conundrum, Norman F. Candor notes, once more, that:
when the vassal failed to fulfil his vow of loyalty to the lord, he was subject, after trial in the
lord’s court, to forfeiture of his fief. If the lord acted improperly toward the vassal, the latter had
the right of diffidatio, the dissolution of the feudal bond, usually inaugurated by the breaking of
the symbolic stalk of grain or knife that represented the transfer of the fief. The former eventuality
usually, and the latter always, meant war, but war was in any case a fact of everyday life in feudal
society.10
Considering the critical necessity of land for any person to live reasonably well in the middle
ages, the loss of land would certainly spell doom for the one who had the misfortune of losing it.
With the loss of land came the removal of the peasants working the land, food, shelter, raw
materials, and the general safety of life that was not so easily replaced. If anything, Norman
Cantor provides an interesting cover for the knights and their often brutish and violent nature
under the shield of the critical component of land. The implication of this point being that the
knights merely conducted themselves in their often violent manner simply out of the need to
maintain their own lives and safety. Clever justifications for violent rationale aside, the knight’s
conduct still falls woefully short of the ideal crafted for them.
Early on in England, groups of unruly gangs, comprising even the sons of knights, would
roam the country sacking, stealing, and plundering the villagers for monetary gain. With
feudalism and fiefdom now in place, the hooligans running about the countryside could now be
properly trained through mentorship. In order to solve this particular problem, and to ensure the
order of the knight would continue to thrive, knights took it upon themselves to rear these
destitute lots by initiating them into the role of a squire. Although this system is more so found
in the later inventions of the knight and chivalry beyond that of the initial Normans, it would
help in providing a measure of security to knighthood as a whole. It also serves as a good ending

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point for this section if truth be told. Noting the training of these unruly youths, Paul Lacroix,
author of Medieval Warrior, states that:
in order to enforce the submission of high-spirited youths to these menial offices, the ‘Order of
Chivalry,’ in its dissertation ‘How to Acquire Knighthood,’ lays down: ‘it is fitting that the son of
a knight, while he is an esquire, should know how to take care of a horse, and it is fitting that he
serve (at table) first, and be subject before he himself is a lord (or knight) for otherwise he will
never know the nobleness of his knighthood when he comes himself to be a knight. For this
reason should every knight put his son into the service of another knight so that he may learn to
carve at table and to serve thereat, and to arm and robe a knight in his youth. Thus, like a man
would learn to be a tailor or carpenter it is fitting that such a one should have a master who is a
tailor or a carpenter; so too it is fitting that every nobleman who loves the order of his knighthood
should have had first a master who was a knight.11
The system of squires, therefore, was critical not only in its desire to train the unruly souls of the
young men in the land, but, it also served as a right of initiation into a quickly growing club
where only the elite of society existed. As the role of the knight continued to gain more
reputation per its rank, so too did the ideals and myths continue to grow with the inclusion of the
Church.
If God is for us, who can be against?
Although there was a system of feudalism established with William the Conqueror in
1066 that provided a measure of order and stability, there still existed a problem, the knights
themselves. At their core, knights were simply warriors who were bred, trained, and groomed on
all aspects of killing, murder, and destruction. Obviously, there existed a major issue for the
Church in regards to controlling these knights’ often uncontrollable passions for all things red.
The issue only seemed to be exacerbated during times of peace in which knights would often
roam the neighboring cities and villages looking for someone to sharpen their swords against.
Fortunately, for the whole of the Church, there existed the, oft common theme in History, of
using religion as justification for killing. According to Robert Jones, “fortunately, whilst the
New Testament was predominately pacifist, there were passages in which the soldier was
11 Paul Lacroix and Walter Clifford Meller, The Medieval Warrior (New York: BCL Press, 2002), 38.

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accepted rather than condemned, and the Old Testament held the image of God as the Lord of
Hosts, a bringer of military victory to the faithful.”12 Thus, in finding the perfect escape exit
from a world of stress, the Church managed to use the Bible and its God inspired word as
justification for acts of killing. Surprisingly, the intellectual foundation for this came from one
St. Augustine who is famous, among other things, for his ‘just war theory.’ As stated by St.
Augustine himself in his City of God,
the same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when
God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual
for a limited time. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible
for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ to wage war at
God’s bidding, or for the representatives of the State’s authority to put criminals to death
according to law or the rule of rational justice.13
Simply put, as St. Augustine himself has framed it, there is exception to the holy commandment
of ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ if God Himself has given the command behind the swinging sword. At
no fault, however, should St. Augustine be held for the killings that would ensue due to the
forced interpretation of the text needed to be called upon during dire Church times. Yet, it
cannot be refuted that St. Augustine’s ‘just war theory’, in which war is enacted only as a last
measure and under the authority of God, provided the clear ‘out’ the medieval church needed at
the time to send these knights elsewhere. All one needed to do at this point was to find a
common enemy by which the knights could battle against. In a stroke of pure genius, the Church
sent the knights off into the Middle East to reclaim the Holy lands once walked upon by Christ
himself. This would later be known as the Holy Crusades.
Yet, how exactly did the character of the knight evolve with the partnership of the
Church? Tuchman, Pulitzer Prize winner of the Guns of August and other acclaimed works,
sums it up beautifully when she says a new “code evolved that put the knight’s sword arm in the
12 Robert Jones, Knight:The Warrior and World of Chivalry (Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2011), 151.
13 Saint Augustine, City of God Books1-7. trans.by Demetrius Zema (New York: Catholic University of America
Press, 1950), 53.

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service, theoretically, of justice, right, piety, the Church, the widow, the orphan, and the
oppressed.”14 No longer were knights merely just bloodthirsty warriors! Through the Church’s
clever ploy, knights were now imbued with a Christian ethos and value system that promoted
peace, grace, love, charity, and goodwill towards the common man all the while overlooking the
fact that the two groups (Christianity and knights) were odd bedfellows, to say the least. Apart
from the added nuance the Church now gave the knight, it also proved to be quite advantageous
for the Church as a whole to pursue the just war theory. If the Holy Crusades proved successful,
the Church could reclaim the holy lands they always strove to take back while the knight’s
hacked away, content, with both their penance being mercifully covered and their blood rage
being sated with each kill. If ever there was a win-win situation in History, this would
adequately fit it! Ultimately, the Church had a major role in developing the “perfect knight, a
devout Christian who served his prince, put down crime, and aided the weak and helpless.”15
Convinced that God was truly on their side, the knights themselves came to look upon their order
as noble, just, and rightly ordained by the Father Himself. Because of the Church’s desperate
interpretation and employment of St. Augustine’s ‘just war theory’, ultimately, “knights came to
see themselves as a formal part of a social order ordained by God-as an order in themselves
whose function of fighting was a just and necessary end in itself.”16
Propaganda, through ink quill, paper, and song
In further evolution of the knight and his continuing romanticized image, the other
element that played a critical factor in the overall development had to deal with the bards who
would sing of the great deeds performed by knights of old and the scribes who set out to add
splendor and pomp to mythical warriors and kings like Arthur and his Knights of the Round
14 Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), 62.
15 David and Clayton Roberts, A History of England (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1991), 127.
16 Constance Brittain Bouchard, Knights:In History and Legend (New York: Firefly Books, 2009), 19.

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Table. Further tales, songs, and history like The Song of Roland, Chansons de Geste, A.J.
Holden’s The History of William Marshall, and Jean Froissart’s the Chronicle of England,
France, and Spain, would only serve to perpetuate the idealized image of the knight and add
even more ideals to the already, ever expanding, chivalric code. In ode to a French knight named
Eustache Deschamps, and as sung by a bard, the ideal and chivalric code of the knight expanded
with each note that was strummed on the singer’s lute:
he should have a humble heart, should work always, and follow deeds of chivalry; Loyal in war
and a great traveler He should frequent Tournaments and joust for his lady love. He must keep
honor with all So that he cannot be held to blame Nor cowardice be found in his doings. And
above all he should uphold the weak. Thus, should a knight rule himself. He should love his
rightful lord and above all guard his domain, have generosity, be a faithful judge, so seek the
company of valiant knights, harkening to their words and learning from them.17
New in this expanded edition of the ideal knight are the acts of glory to be had in the
tournaments and the first mention of winning the heart of the ‘fair maiden,’ presumably locked
away in a tower. Yet another shiny new ideal is that of being honorable to all so that the knight
may not be assumed to have cowardice in his heart. The churchly ideals of generosity and
protecting the weak seem to be in place as well. Even the tried and true warrior element behind
the whole ethos of the chivalric code remains intact. Much like scaffolding, each layer is added
on top of each other providing for even more codes, ideals, and values a knight should try and
live by. One can only imagine himself as a knight trying to emulate all of these codes. They
might rightfully think, “which codes and laws hold priority over the other?” On this, the code of
chivalry seems rather quiet.
Even though the ‘fair maiden’ seems to be coming relatively late to the game, one cannot
argue against its powerful staying power with regard to how the modern mind thinks of the
knight and chivalry. It may surprise even the most ardent of romantics to learn that the concept
17 Paul Lacroix and Walter Clifford Meller, The Medieval Warrior (New York: BCL Press, 2002), 52.

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of the locked away beauty actually originated in Islamic Spain at the hands of, none other, than
female poets! Keying in on this idea of thwarted, but eternally faithful lovers, “French and
Italian authors picked up this theme and, before long, troubadours throughout Europe were
singing of noble men who proclaimed themselves vassals of a lady fair, enraptured with a love
that was ardent, and yet unconsummated.”18 Apart from the criticalness of both the female poets
creating this romantic image and the troubadours spreading it across the various inns, a new ideal
would be added to the already impressive chivalric code in knights constantly chasing the hearts
of the fair maidens who seemed blessed by the Goddess Aphrodite herself.
Decoration, flair, décor, and extravagance, as each century passed by during the Middle
Ages, were constantly adding onto the meaning of what the knight was originally supposed to be,
a warrior mounted on a horse. In society’s portrait of what knights, and reflectively, people,
should be, the rudimentary basics of the warrior were worked upon by the crafters of their age
who shaped the knight into a romantic image that was rarely ever achieved. Thus, with respect
to the evolving ideals of knights, the standard ideals of blues, reds, and green, became a blend of
colors akin to magenta, violet, and turquoise. Interestingly enough, for all of this change, the one
ideal that always seemed to remain intact centered around the knight being a warrior who was
loyal to his lord, courageous in battle, and well trained in the art of war. Richard Barber, noted
British Medieval Historian, makes note of “the themes and heroes which held rough fighters
spellbound were close to their own enthusiasms and their way of life. Warfare is central to all of
them: the hero is a good fighter in battle, and as in warfare loyalty to the leader is paramount.”19
Perhaps this central theme of loyalty, bravery, and prowess in battle is no better described than in
the spell-binding poems of the Song of Roland. In an ode praising the virtue of the warrior ethos
18 Denise Dersin, What Life Was Like in the Age of Chivalry (Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1997), 67.
19 Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry (New York: Bodydell Press, 2000), 54.

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of the knight, the historically unknown author of the Song of Roland makes it a point to
encourage these traits and values so as to retain the essence of what a knight is at his core;
naturally, military values:
When Rollant sees that now must be combat,
More fierce he's found than lion or leopard;
The Franks he calls, and Oliver commands:
‘Now say no more, my friends, nor thou, comrade.
That Emperour, who left us Franks on guard,
A thousand score stout men he set apart,
And well he knows, not one will prove coward.
Man, for his lord, should suffer with good heart,
Of bitter cold and great heat bear the smart,
His blood let drain, and all his flesh be scarred.
Strike with thy lance, and I with Durendal,
With my good sword that was the King's reward.
So, if I die, who has it afterward
Noble vassal's he well may say it was.’20
It becomes critically important to consider how the knights viewed themselves at their core as it
will play out, rather negatively, in how the role of chivalry and the romantic ideal actually
worked itself out in the reality of day-to-day life. Though knights may have liked the new image
that was given to them by the romantic writers and church, in truth, they “venerated the past, and
still looked back, not forward, to an ideal.”21 Naturally, this ideal was rooted in the identity of
the warrior and played out as such in every aspect of the knight’s life.
The Reality of the Knight
If England, then, was not the world of damsels in distress, knights in shining armor, evil
dragons lurking about waiting to be killed by chivalric heroes, and mythical kings like Arthur,
what was the reality of the situation? In witty fashion and biting prose, Lacey Baldwin Smith,
Professor Emeritus of History at Northwestern University, paints up the scene of the time in
spell-binding charm by imagining society settling its issues in a football stadium. Complete with
20 The Song of Roland. Champaign, Ill: Project Gutenberg, 2000. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost
(accessed April 15, 2015).LXXXVIII
21 A.R. Myers, England in the Late Middle Ages (1307-1536) (London:Penguin Books, 1952), xiii.

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all the violence and intensity a football game brings with it, medieval society seemed to be an
exact replica with every sack, tackle, and bruised up body. For Smith, all one needs to do is to
“equate the owners with the great barons, and the players with the boiler-plated knights clanking
about the countryside doing pretty much as they pleased, and you have a fairly realistic picture of
feudal society.”22 In this light, knights were nothing more than the neighborhood bullies who ran
their respective school yards with a measure of fear and brute strength. These weren’t the
knights of shining past imbued with a chivalric ethos, rather, it may have been more appropriate
to term them as the ancient thugs of their time. Yet another author goes so far as to relate the
‘heroic knights and lords’ to a cohort of ancient gangs run by a system not quite unlike the mafia.
Quoting Robert Lacey, British Historian, and Danny Danziger, award winning journalist for the
Sunday-Times (London), “the greatest lords were the greatest thugs, for the English aristocracy,
like the military elite of every European country in the year 100, was a cadre that had been
trained to kill.”23 Going further, Lacey describes the medieval lord and knight’s clan as a way to
offer its members a sense of “cohesion, protection, and a sense of belonging to its ‘family.”24 In
the real world where these thugs existed, one has to cast away their romantic ideals of fanciful
imaginings and place themselves in a world where truth is often stranger than fiction.
War and the Poor Souls Caught in the Cross-Fire
Being that the knight’s whole identity rested upon that of the warrior ethos, it would seem
only natural that the home for a knight resided on the blood-stained battlefield complete with all
the ghastly amenities which came with it. Warfare, for the knights and most of medieval society,
was just as natural as breathing. Rather than avoiding it, the knights of yester-year practically
22Lacey Baldwin Smith, English History made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable (Chicago: Academy Chicago
Publishers, 2007), 23.
23 Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger, The Year 1000:What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millenium (New
York: Back Bay Books, 1999), 152.
24 Ibid, 150.

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paid homage to Ares and allowed war to become a natural part of life. Noting just how natural
war was for the knights, Richard Barber states that “the knight regarded war as the normal state
of mankind, partly through dim memories of days when this had been true, and his service of
society had been essential, and partly because war was so strongly in his financial interest.”25
Further expounding upon this point, Barber quotes a remarkable primary source in the French
Poet, Honore Bonet and his Tree of Battles, speaking of war as “not an evil thing, but good and
virtuous; for war, by its very nature, seeks nothing other than to set wrong right, and turn
dissention to peace, in accordance with Scripture. And if in war many evil things are done, they
never come from the nature of war, but from false usage.”26
Aside from enacting war as justified through reason and making wrong into right, knights
also waged bloody battle so as to reap a bountiful monetary reward. Although it may have been
natural for knights to do battle, the trouble with war was that it was often a very expensive
endeavor. So as to protect himself on the field of battle, the knight needed the best material
available. He needed quality chainmail, shields, swords, helmets, and boots to properly prepare
himself for the enemies he would face. On top of this, came the much needed quantity of food.
In order to combat this, the battlefield of war functioned as a place where knights could both find
their glory and reap the booties of war either by ransoming a quality prisoner or pillaging and
looting nearby villages and towns. Commenting on this fact, Robert Jones states “despite these
preparations, soldiers would seek to augment their rations and their pay. Such ravaging and
plundering was of course wholly inappropriate in one’s own lands or in lands one made claims
on.”27 Eventually, the ideals for glory, honor, and battle valor would ultimately succumb to that
of only financial gain. Noting this evolution, Austin Lane Poole, of St. John’s College at
25 Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry (New York: Bodydell Press, 2000), 202.
26 Ibid.
27 Robert Jones,Knight:The Warrior and World of Chivalry (Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2011), 113.

16
Oxford, notes “the army was becoming professionalized, and those knights who still took part in
campaigns or in garrison duties, did so for pay.”28
Though the pundit may contend that the knight was held in check by his chivalric code,
the argument against this was that this chivalric code only existed for the ‘in’ group, most
notably, the knights, lords, and kings. This code, however, did not exist for the common people
often caught in the crossfire amidst the sword waving and charging horses. Although it may be
true to a degree that the knights tended to be much more sympathetic to other knights on the field
when captured, this dim ray of hope was thrown out the door when dealing with mere peasants.
Extrapolating this point further, Norman F. Cantor, states that “the great lords looked down upon
the simple country gentleman with arrogant disdain. They were contemptuous, as always, of the
peasantry and profligate with the blood of common folk as they pursued their endless raids and
wars.”29 The common folk, for all intents and purposes, were regarded as simple minded
cockroaches who toiled the land with their lowly hands. Looking at them in this way, it becomes
apparent that the peasants were dehumanized to mere bugs who were annoying in the fact they
got in the way of a sword swing. Although the knights took great pleasure in war, “the people
who suffered were the peasants who happened to get in the way.”30 Of only one sample size of
the various atrocities that befell the common folk of medieval times, Joseph and Frances Gies
tell, through use of the primary source of Roger of Wendover and his chronicle Flowers of
History, a ghastly occurrence taking place under the famous knight, William Marshall:
The whole city was plundered to the last farthing, and then they proceeded to rob all the churches
throughout the city, breaking open all the chests and cupboards with hatchets and hammers, and
seizing gold and silver, cloth of all colors, women’s ornaments, gold rings, goblets, and precious
stones. When at last they had carried off all kinds of merchandise so that nothing remained
untouched in any corner of the houses, they all returned to their own lords rich men. When the
28 Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta:1087-1216 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 27.
30 David Howarth, 1066:The Year of the Conquest (New York: The Viking Press, 1977), 63.

17
peace of King Henry had been proclaimed throughout the city by all, they feasted and drank and
made merry.31
Horrible already, the part missing in between the lines are the peasants who were bulldozed over
by the knights to get at the what little riches the villagers had rightfully owned all of their lives.
Thus, when it came to war and the common people, anyone with the misfortune of not being
blessed by the code of chivalry were mere flies meant to be swatted at in pursuit of glory, riches,
and plunder.
The Chase for Glory and the Wonderment of the Tournament
Apart from the battles where the knights could test their mettle, there was also the realm
of the tournament whereupon knights could joust and battle with other fellow knights for the
entertainment of the high lords and ladies. Often, the image associated with the realm of the
tournament might resemble something like the Medieval Times in Buena Park, California: the
knight, complete with flowing locks of hair, a trusty steed, and the banner of his lord, fights in
individualized, and highly civilized, bouts of grandiose as participants joust on horseback, fight
each other with blunt swords, and seek to win the approval of lords, and fair ladies, across the
countryside. If one were feeling particularly creative, perhaps even the exciting mystery knight
might prevail against his enemies and, in a surprising turn of events, reveal that he is actually the
Prince of some illustrious King. Although very exciting and surely romantic, it will perhaps
surprise none at this point to learn that the tournaments were anything but the propagandized
myths they came to be, at least, in its early days. Austin Lane Poole, quoting Walter Map,
medieval writer and author of De Nugis Curialium, states, that in reality, tournaments were, “‘a
sport which they call a tournament, but the better name would be torment.’”32
31 Joseph and Frances Gies, Life in a Medieval Castle (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1974), 175.
32 Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta:1087-1216 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 24.

18
In its early days, tournaments served as an outlet for the knight’s often brutish and
warrior-like nature. Used as a tool to further develop the knight’s skill and technique for battle,
tournaments were often regarded as mini-wars upon which knights would fight, with little
regard, for each other’s lives. In this vacuum of staged warfare,
chivalry did not apply, and no one even attempted to avoid killing an opponent. Indeed, some
knights practiced the very sly ‘count of Flanders technique, whereby they would wait until late in
the day when most knights were fatigued from combat, and then attack them, scoring easy
victories over their worn-out fellows and claiming their possessions.33
Not only did the code of chivalry not apply in the early advent of the tournament, knights often
acted like outright cowards in their desire to get rewards by attacking their opponents who were
fatigued from previous battles. Honor was given a backseat in place of greed and wealth for the
knight of the early tournament. After all, with what does honor pay aside from worthless
reputation? Postulating this theme further, Richard Barber seems to agree with the lack of
chivalry involved in the early tournaments by contending that these battles were more of the ilk
of a drunken bar-room fight where rules were thrown out the window. For truly, “only the
rudimentary formal elements in a tournament distinguished it from a mere brawl; and the tone in
which the Church thundered against them in the early days implies that mere brawls were often
the result.”34 In combination with the lack of chivalry, rules, and the thundering disapproval of
even the Church, these tournaments appeared to be yet another venue whereupon knights of all
sorts could battle against each other in pursuit of vain glory, rewards, and riches of great
proportion. With no formal rules regulating the early tournaments, the early Church would even
deem all knights who participated in it unworthy of being given a proper Christian burial. Even
with the Church’s spiritual warning, the knight of this era seemed not to care as they gave first
priority to the world and its materialism over the soul and the spiritual kingdom.
33 Alan Baker, The Knight (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc.), 22.
34Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry (New York: Bodydell Press,2000), 162.

19
As the years would go by, the evolution of the tournament became more than just a venue
for war and brutality and started to resemble something akin to how modern society pictures it.
Out of brutality and violence birthed the laughter and cheers of the spectators, the social event.
At its final point, the tournament transformed into that of a social gathering of nobles all across
the land. However, this romantic view of the knight and the tournament did not come without a
twist. Around the time the modern day tournament was beginning to develop, knights were
becoming more and more irrelevant as each day passed. With the advent of the longbow, gun-
powder, foot soldiers and their pikes, and the coming of the mercenary knight, the old knights of
yore were becoming more antique with time. So as to hold onto their status and reputation,
nobles, knights, and lords put on grand spectacles in which knights competed against each other
in a more civilized manner so as to show the strength of the nobility and aristocracy in the social
hierarchy of the late medieval period. By about 1600, “the knight had vanished from the
battlefield, whilst his social role was indistinguishable from many of the middling sort who had
not the same distinction.”35 The splendor of the tournaments then, for the nobles, was merely an
attempt to hold on to whatever power and former glory the aristocracy once held when the
knights were at the peak of their popularity. Regardless of this vain attempt to hold onto the
power the nobles and knights once enjoyed, the sight must have been truly magnificent to see
what with
brilliantly dressed spectators in the stands, flags and ribbons fluttering, the music of trumpets, the
parade of combatants making their draped horses prance and champ on golden bridles, the glitter
of harness and shields, the throwing of ladies’ scarves and sleeves to their favorites, the bow of the
heralds to the presiding prince who proclaimed the rules, the cry of poursuivants announcing their
champions, the tournament was the peak of nobility’s pride and delight in its own valor and
beauty.36
35Robert Jones, Knight:The Warrior and World of Chivalry (Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2011), 212.

20
The Fair Maiden who danced on the Shore…
Often the memory that permeates the mind of the medieval romantic is that of the woman
of the middle ages and her portrayal as the ‘fair lady’. Even now, men can be heard moaning
and groaning at the request of their own fair ladies to “act chivalrously.” Upon this request, men
often proceed to lay out their coat over a puddle so the lady might walk over it without getting
wet. Yet, was the chivalric attitude of gentleness and kindness to a woman so often longed for in
today’s society, rooted in a medieval tradition that actually lived it out? Sadly, this appears to
have not been the case.
As it tends to be so often with women in History, they are often under-valued, mistreated,
and capped at the level of potential they really have. The same theme was prevalent with respect
to women even under the pretense of the romantic chivalric code that originated from the female
Islamic poets who were, most likely, hoping to get their men to act in a more respectable manner
towards them. At the very beginning, women were at a lower status than the men who walked
amongst them. According to Clayton and David Roberts, professors of the Ohio State University
and Dartmouth College respectively, women were fighting an uphill battle at the outset.
Describing the life of a medieval woman, Clayton and David Robert state that “as a minor, a
woman was in the guardianship of her father, who could arrange her marriage, often at the age of
7 or 8.” Furthermore, “the new canon law introduced into England at this time sanctioned the
wife’s subjection to her husband-it specifically allowed wife beating, for example.”37 Even if
childhood marriages were a normalcy of the medieval period, one cannot argue against the image
of a full grown male adult having permission to beat his 7 or 8 year old child wife simply
because of some exaggerated annoyance. The most critical of pundits can readily admit this
measure was perhaps a bit too extreme with respect to the canon law of England at the time.
37 David and Clayton Roberts, A History of England (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1991), 79.

21
Apart from the societal constructions placed around women to hamper their options, there
also existed the priority of war over the woman and the common woman being the equivalent of
dirt to the ‘gallant knight.’ Knights, for all their chivalric ideals and codes, held war to a higher
esteem than the women in their lives. With respect to the code of chivalry, “it only tangentially
considered women, and then only when they were noble. Courtliness might idealize love, but in
war knights saw women as, at best, an irrelevancy. The reality for peasant and merchant women
was often much worse.”38 Thus, when the sound of war called and Ares rallied his men to the
battlefield, women were, subsequently, placed on the backburner as irrelevant to the mission at
hand and left to reside in the castles where they, in the knight’s mind, belonged. It is with
remarkable curiosity that one has to wonder, what would these knights have thought of Joan of
Arc or the strong and industrious Rosie the Riveter of the 1940’s? Critical to note here was that
the knights only viewed their noble ladies as irrelevant when war called, how they viewed the
peasant women in the villages they attacked often equated to playthings to torment and brutalize.
All of this aside, the image best associated with respect to the knight and the lady, is the
intense romantic love they both shared. The knight was forever destined to try and win the heart
of his lady in hopes of winning her favor and approval while the lady expected civility and
kindness from the knight who sought to catch the apple of his eye. Yet, the ironic twist to all of
this is that the romantic love encouraged here could only exist outside the realms of marriage. In
essence, the chivalric code and ideal of the knight with respect to love was to cheat, and cheat
grandly! “As formulated by chivalry, romance was pictured as extra-marital because love was
considered irrelevant to marriage, was indeed discouraged in order not to get in the way of
dynastic arrangements.”39 Humorously, one can imagine the modern wife telling her husband to

22
act “more chivalrously” to which the husband, obeying the technicality of the command, runs off
and cheats on the wife out of a need for romance that never existed in the marriage. Cheek and
tongue aside, the knight, in this instance, can hide behind a shield of cover because of how noble
society was set up at the time. Marriages were, strictly speaking, only made for dynastic
arrangements, and or, political power plays so as to make one dynasty more agreeable with
another. More often than not, love was not a factor in marriages at all. Naturally, this romance
would have to take place outside of the marriage upon which knights would abuse this and rape,
torment, and brutalize women in villages who happened to catch their fancy at the moment.
Of, perhaps, the most atrocious of scenes in relation to women and knights is the
dastardly rape of the countess of Salisbury as recorded by primary medieval historian’s
documents of Froissart and Jean le Bel. Researched in Barbara Tuchman’s fantastic insight into
the medieval century, A Distant Mirror, this horrid depiction of Edward III and the countess of
Salisbury stands for contention as, perhaps, the most gruesome and damning rapes in the
medieval era. As the story goes, the king of England at the time, Edward III, was inflamed with
desire for the countess of Salisbury. The problem, however, was that the countess was already
wed to the Earl of Salisbury. So as to solve this conundrum, Edward III sent the Earl away to
Brittany, upon royal order, whereupon
the King revisited the countess and, on being again rejected, he villainously raped her, ‘stopping
her mouth with such force that she could cry only two or three cries. . . and left her lying in a
swoon bleeding from the nose and mouth and other parts.’ Edward returned to London greatly
disturbed at what he had done, and the good lady ‘had no more joy or happiness again, so heavy
was her heart.’ Upon her husband’s return she would not lie with himand, being asked why, she
told him what had happened, ‘sitting on the bed next to him crying.’ The Earl, reflecting on the
great friendship and honor between him and the King, now so dishonored, told his wife he could
live in England no more. He went to court and before his peers divested himself of his lands in
such a manner that his wife should have her dowry for life, and then went before the King, saying
to his face, ‘you have villainously dishonored me and thrown me in the dung,’ and afterward left
the country, to the sorrow and wonder of the nobility, and the ‘King was blamed by all.40’”
40 Ibid, 69.

23
Painful to read, and even more horrific to imagine, one has to remind himself that this was done
by the action of a King! Keeping in mind that Kings were susceptible to this kind of foul play,
the temptation knights, lords, and all manner of nobility under the King experienced when it
came to situations such as these may have been even more intense. One cannot help but ponder
what the knights of the King thought when they went about villages and towns with the flame of
love and desire in their hearts. Regardless, the ideal of chivalry, it would appear, provided only a
paper shield to the desire of Edward III’s heart that day.
The Knight of the Future
Though the knight may have existed centuries before, his ideals, his chivalric ethos, and
his overall aura, continues to exist within society today. Ironically enough, these attributes live
on in modern time’s own day and age with entertainment and propaganda unique to the 21st and
20th century. With respect to entertainment, all one needs to look towards for a parallel of
medieval knights is the million dollar franchise entertainment machine of Star Wars. Replete
with glowing light sabers and ideals all too similar to the medieval knights of yore, the Jedi
Knight of Star Wars “fight for good against evil, have a wide array of special battle techniques
and weapons, and emphasize codes of honor that resemble the medieval European ideals of
chivalry or the Japanese code of bushido.”41 One of these codes the Jedi draw upon in their own
Jedi Code is the ideal of seeking to improve themselves through training and knowledge. In just
this aspect alone, the Jedi Knights seem to be much like their medieval counterparts in their
zealous drive to better themselves with their respective sword swinging skills (whether laser or
metal). Drawing further comparison between the Star Wars lore and the medieval knight, the
likeness is even more uncanny when one realizes that both the Jedi and the medieval knight train
their younglings in the same manner. Usually, a Jedi Knight trains a padawan whereupon he

24
becomes an apprentice, then a Jedi Knight, and finally, a Jedi Master. The same concept is
applied for the medieval knight of antiquity in the rearing of the squire. Traditionally, the
medieval knights teaches his squire the ways of the knight (sword fighting, shield holding, etc)
and the chivalric code (how to act around the nobility, how to treat noble ladies, etc). Other
popular images of society can also be sketched up as well: the universe of Batman and the fight
for justice with the caped crusader using a variety of futuristic gadgets, weapon, and armor to
achieve victory over his many enemies. Even the TV science fiction hit, Babylon 5, and its
Ranger warriors who stood up against the evil Shadows, may also be applied here in its motto:
‘”we walk in the dark places no other will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass.
We live for the One, we die for the One.’”42
While, admittedly, the ideal of the knight and its various codes may have never been
realistically achieved and looked more like thugs clad with armor roaming around the
countryside bullying everyone who got in their way, it is the ideal of the knight that remains so
entrenched in the modern day mind. Truthfully speaking, the code of the knight is not a bad
thing to try and attain. Acting respectfully towards fair ladies, showing courage on the
battlefield, showing loyalty to one’s lord, being humble, and steeping oneself in the Christian
ethos are all worthy, if not, virtuous goals to try and attain. Thus, it comes with no surprise to
learn that the romantic ideal of the knight continues to carry on with its various incarnations in
Star Wars, Batman, Babylon 5, and a host of other mediums. While medieval times built the
model of the chivalric knight up through use of quill, literature, and bards, modern time
continues to carry on chivalry by way of mediums like movies, television shows, and other
sources of entertainment.
42 Ibid, 271.

25
As it was told in medieval times by various bards across the land, King Arthur, when he
died, was said to have been taken away by an Elfin Queen of some sort in a far off land. When
the time was ripe, King Arthur would return to the mortal world, Knights of the Round Table and
all, to rule upon the Earth once more as he did so many centuries ago. Thus, in Warton’s ode,
the bard tells the story to King Henry in this way:
Yet in vain a paynim foe
Armed with fate, the mighty blow;
For when he fell, the Elfin queen,
All in secret and unseen,
O’er the fainting hero threw
Her mantle of ambrosial blue,
And bade her spirits bear him far,
In Merlin’s agate-axeled car,
To her green isle’s enameled steep,
Far in the navel of the deep.
O’er his wounds she sprinkled dew
From flowers that in Arabia grew.
There he reigns a mighty King,
Thence to Britain shall return,
If right prophetic rolls I learn,
Borne on victory’s spreading plume,
His ancient sceptre to resume,
His knightly table to restore,
And brave the tournaments of yore.43
It is with this fantastic poem told straight from Bulfinch’s Mythology, that one might surmise
King Arthur and the romantic knights of old still rule society today with the various mediums
that romanticize the era. Yet, as the old saying goes, it might be prudent to practice what the
chivalric codes, ideals, and its sayings preach, rather than mirror what its brutish adherents
actually did.
43Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2013), 293.

26
Works Cited
Augustine, Saint. City of God, Books 1-7. Translated by Demetrius Zema. New York: Catholic
University of America Press, 1950.
Baker, Alan. The Knight. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2003.
Barber, Richard. The Knight and Chivalry. New York: Bodydell Press, 2000.
Bouchard, Brittain Constance. Knights: In History and Legend. New York: Firefly Books, 2009.
Bryant, Arthur. The Age of Chivalry. New York: Double Day & Company, 1964.
Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch’s Mythology. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2013.
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Translated by Connor Cruise O’ Brien.
London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Cantor F., Norman. The Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993.
Dersin, Denise. What Life Was Like in the Age of Chivalry. Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1997.
Gies, Joseph and Frances. Life in a Medieval Castle. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1974.
Howarth, David. 1066: The Year of the Conquest. New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
Jones, Robert. Knight: The Warrior and World of Chivalry. Great Britain: Osprey Publishing,
2011.
Lacey, Robert, and Danny Danziger. The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First
Millenium. New York: Back Bay Books, 1999.
Lacroix, Paul, and Walter Clifford Meller. The Medieval Warrior. New York: BCL Press, 2002.
Myers, A.R. England in the Late Middle Ages (1307-1536). London: Penguin Books, 1952.
Poole, Austin Lane. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta: 1087-1216. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1951.
Poole, Austin Lane. Medieval England: Volume I. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.
Roberts, Clayton and David. A History of England, Volume I, Third Edition: Prehistory to 1714.
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1991.
Smith, Baldwin Lacey. English History made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable. Chicago:
Academy Chicago Publishers, 2007.

27
Tuchman, W., Barbara. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. New York: Ballantine
Books, 1978.
The Song of Roland. Champaign, Ill: Project Gutenberg, 2000. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost),
EBSCOhost (accessed April 15, 2015).

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