Subject: knyȝt knight

Culture: late Plantagenet English

Setting: Hundred Years War, France mid 14th-early 15thc

Event Photos

* Kaeuper 1999 p135-136

"Only after reading scores of works of chivalric literature can we fully appreciate the utterly tireless, almost obsessional emphasis placed on personal prowess as the key chivalric trait. Not simply one quality among others in a list of virtues, prowess often stands as a one-word definition of chivalry in these texts.

"This identification appears regularly in chansons de geste. Folchers rides out into battle 'seeking great chivalry' in Girart de Roussillon. He achieves it, putting his lance through the heart of 'the valliant Count Routrour'. Characters in the Chanson de Roland link chivalry with deeds of prowess, as, for instance, does Ganelon (a great knight, even if a traitor) when speaking with Marsilion. If the pagan leader can kill Roland, he assures him, 'then you will have done a noble feat of arms [literally a noble act of chivalry, gente chevalerie]'. William, in Chanson de Guillaume, observes Rainouart smash a Saracen's head into four fragments: 'You should be a knight', he shouts approvingly."

* Kaeuper 1999 p150

"We will find ample evidence for investigating the politics of violence; the fierce physical competitiveness so characteristic of what anthropologists have called honour cultures could scarcely be better illustrated than by extensive reading in chivalric literature. As a code of honour, chivalry had as much investment in knightly autonomy and heroic violence as in any forms of restraint, either internal or external."

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Field Notes