Chivalry

The term chivalry covers a variety of ideas and values connected with knights, who played a central role in the crusade movement. Originally, the Latin word militia referred to an army as a whole, and milites to all of its members, cavalry and foot soldiers alike. The ideas of chivalry and nobility remained distinct throughout the Middle Ages, even if the military and social prestige of knighthood, supported by its depictions in literature, tended to emphasize its aristocratic aspects and its increasing exclusion of non-aristocrats.

Origins of Knighthood

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, various texts imply the existence of a class of knights whose social background was close to that of the peasantry. They were distinguished solely by their profession of arms. If they were unable to exercise this profession, whether through age, sickness, or loss of their equipment, they ceased to be milites and reverted to the status of peasants. In Germany, there existed a type of unfree ministerial knights (Lat. ministeriales), who were nevertheless close to the aristocracy in their functions. In France during the twelfth century, there is evidence of a few serfs who became knights. The exercise of arms made them free, but their free status was entirely conditional on their profession and did not extend to their heirs.

Up to the thirteenth century, then, knighthood was not generally associated with nobility, freedom, the exercise of a public office, or wealth. Knights did not constitute a social class and had no legal status; being a knight was not a particular state or order. Rather, they were a body of elite warriors who formed the main instruments of princes in warfare.

It was originally possible for almost any man to become a knight, through the ritual known as dubbing (Fr. adoube-ment). However, knighthood came to be increasingly closed to those of nonnoble origin through ever more precise juridical limitations. By the mid-thirteenth century it was no longer possible to become a knight unless one was born to it or was made so by royal decree. In contrast to the previous age, knights now became an elite body of noble warriors. After 1300 this tendency gathered momentum. Knighthood became an honor, which not all nobles might attain. The word knight in its various forms (Fr. chevalier, MHG ritter, MDu ridder, etc.) designated a grade of the nobility, without losing its existing range of meanings relating to its military functions: its cultural and ideological aspects became superimposed on its functional significance. This development was reinforced by the foundation of new secular orders of chivalry, which encouraged the perception that previous forms of knighthood were in decline and had been superseded.

Knightly Combat and Equipment

Knighthood during the time of the crusades did have social, ethical, and cultural dimensions, but these had not yet obscured its primary function: that of elite cavalry. Its development was closely connected with a society that was founded upon the possession of castles; the milites, who defended castles, became knights as a result of the adoption of a new form of combat that involved the use of the “couched” lance and came to characterize knighthood.

The Duke of Anhalt in a tournament, from the Codex Manesse, fourteenth century. (Archivo Iconografico, S. A./Corbis)

Invented around the year 1060 and employed by the first crusaders, it became widespread by the beginning of the twelfth century and was soon universal throughout the West. It differed radically from older methods based on forms of combat used by foot soldiers where the lance was used in the manner of a javelin (i. e., for throwing) or a spear (for stabbing). In the new form of combat, which was ideally suited for short cavalry charges, the knight’s arm was used only to position the lance in the direction of the enemy. The shaft of the lance was now couched, that is, wedged under the knight’s armpit and held in a fixed horizontal position. The efficacy of this fighting technique derived from the impact of the blow and thus depended ultimately on the speed of the horseman, who was positioned more securely on his horse through the use of a much deeper form of saddle than before. The birth of chivalry was greatly assisted by this new technique, and from this time, knighthood began to develop its own code of ethics and ideology.

In order to meet the new penetrative force of the couched lance, the defensive armor used by knights had to undergo development. Up to the mid-eleventh century, the coat of mail, made of interlinked iron rings, protected the warrior down to mid-thigh. From about 1060 to 1150 the hauberk came into general use: also made of mail, it was longer than the coat of mail and was split at the sides to make mounting the horse easier, while the two overhanging “tails” protected the thighs; it was supple and relatively light, generally of the order of 12-15 kilograms (c. 261/2-33 lbs.). It was completed by the addition of mail chausses, sleeves, and gauntlets. A mail coif or hood, worn under the helmet, protected the head and neck. Around 1150, knights began to wear a surcoat over the hauberk; this item of clothing usually displayed the knight’s heraldic bearings, thus assisting recognition in battle and reinforcing the superiority complex of the knights by distinguishing them from other soldiers. During the thirteenth century, the hauberk was reinforced by rigid plate armor in those places where the knight was most exposed (chest, arms, back); this was plate armor, a step toward the use of the suit of armor. The fifteenth century saw the development of the complete suit of armor made of rigid but articulated components, which offered maximum protection at the cost of considerably increased weight.

The role of knights in medieval warfare is in need of reevaluation. Medieval chroniclers frequently originated from knightly families and, like the writers of romances, wanted to please their aristocratic patrons. Thus they tended to emphasize the role of cavalry charges, which were decisive in battles. Yet battles were a relatively rare occurrence. Military operations usually consisted of raids or sieges of fortresses, in which knights played only a minimal role. However, the absence of knights could mean the immediate defeat of the other troops, because the knights’ armaments gave them both military superiority and prestige.

The actual number of knights involved in warfare, generally overestimated by medieval chroniclers, has been much debated by historians. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there was a probable ratio of one knight to every seven to twelve foot soldiers. Knights, therefore, made up a very small elite in medieval armies, but this in no way lessened their status. The class of soldiers known as sergeants, and more rarely the squires, also fought on horseback. The rest of the Western armies was made up of infantry. The hierarchy was reflected in pay: around 1200, a mounted sergeant was paid twice as much as a foot soldier, and a knight received four times as much.

Chivalric Ideology

Knights were professional warriors, most of whom depended for their livelihood on the use of arms. This profession required physical and moral strength, discipline and cohesion, and also sufficient leisure time to permit training in combat and horsemanship. All this reinforced solidarity among knights, but it also gave rise to a sporting aspect to knightly combat: the knight did not so much seek to kill his adversary as to defeat him in order to win weapons, armor, horses, or ransom money. This type of combat differed noticeably from nonknightly forms of warfare, such as those waged by Christian foot soldiers, Celts, heathens, or Muslims in Iberia and the East. The knightly moral code was born of economic necessity and gradually incorporated moral, social, and religious dimensions. Thus specific methods of combat, a new concept of war, and a certain ideology served to set knights clearly apart from all other fighters. The size of the ransom, which became prevalent in the twelfth century, was usually in proportion to the status of the captive, rising to considerable sums for personages of high rank: 150,000 silver marks for Richard the Lionheart, captured during his journey back from the Holy Land; 200,000 livres for King Louis IX of France, taken by the Muslims of Egypt. Ransoms for less important knights rarely amounted to more than a few livres; sometimes their captors were content to take their equipment, as they knew that loss of this in itself could ruin a knight. Foot soldiers, who had no market value, were excluded for a long time from these unwritten agreements and could be killed without shame. The custom of ransom thus contributed to the ethical precept that the life of a defeated knight should be spared.

The moral code of chivalry also developed as a result of tournaments, which were popular from the twelfth century onward. Tournaments had four main characteristics: (1) they were utilitarian, in that they helped knights train for combat; (2) they had a ludic aspect, in that they were a game, but also a sport, for professionals who hoped to win wealth and glory in them; (3) they had a socioeconomic dimension, in that poorer knights might hope to gain the patronage of a prince or the favor of a rich heiress; and (4) they also had a festive character, making them a hugely popular public spectacle. These four elements glorified and defined the values of chivalry, helped by the literature of courtly love and Arthurian romances.

Vernacular literature, which praised the idea of adventure and the virtues of valor, largesse, and courtesy, contributed to the development of the ideal of the “perfect knight,” who was better than a cleric: a cultural model to be imitated. This ideal was not supplanted until some centuries later by that of the “gentleman.” We see here the power of the chivalric ideal forged in the twelfth century. Chivalry became a way of life, a moral code, a social and moral model, and soon, a myth.

The church could not remain indifferent to such a powerful social phenomenon. In fact, a number of chivalric ideals—both cultural and military—conflicted with the ideals of the church. Chivalry idealized splendor, glory, and carnal love (even adulterous love), which were all glamorized by romances. The church feared knights, but needed them to defend it from warriors in the service of feudal lords who coveted the church’s wealth. It excommunicated such warriors, but praised those who fought on the side of the church, such as advocates of monasteries or defenders or soldiers of the church. In the eleventh century the church invented liturgical blessings that sanctified the investiture of such persons. These were used subsequently in rituals for the dubbing of “ordinary” knights (late twelfth to thirteenth centuries), as the church attempted to infuse chivalry with its own values. It went about this by means of liturgy (such as the rites used to create knights) and literature, including the Christianization of existing literary themes, such as the legend of the Grail, and the creation of didactic writings such as treatises on chivalry.

Chivalry and the Crusades

Crusading and chivalry were profoundly linked: the crusade was, in effect, both a pilgrimage and a holy war. The latter idea gained a wider currency in the West during the eleventh century. This sanctification of war, which regarded some knights as better than others, was demonstrated in battles fought on behalf of the pope in Italy. It was also apparent in diverse military operations carried out in the western Mediterranean region, either at the instigation of the pope or with his blessing, such as the Norman conquest of Sicily, the Reconquista (reconquest) of Iberia from the Muslims, and the Mahdia campaign of 1087 mounted by Pisans and Genoese against the Zirid emirate in North Africa.

The crusades were in this tradition, but also developed certain characteristics that tended toward a kind of assimilation or reclamation of chivalry by the church: (1) The element of pilgrimage, which was either absent or unimportant during former “chivalric” operations, was of primary importance in Pope Urban II’s call to crusade, which stressed the importance of the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, turning the expedition into a pilgrimage with all the implications of spiritual privilege that this entailed. (2) Such an armed pilgrimage was prescribed for knights (and for them alone, according to Urban II’s original concept) for the remission of sins. In this way, an armed expedition with the express intention of killing its adversaries, and which even at the beginning of the century would have required its members to do penance, instead became a means of penance itself. (3) Muslims were seen as pagans; this made it easier to regard warriors who died at their hands as martyrs, identifying them with the earliest Christian victims of pagan persecution. (4) The idea of reconquering the country of Christ, despoiled by Muslims, was substituted for the idea of Christian reconquest “for St. Peter,” which had previously formed part of the concept of holy war. The pope decided, over the heads of kings and princes, to assemble his own army of Western knights in order to reestablish the patrimony of Christ. This call to feudal and chivalric values indicates clearly that the knights of the crusade no longer served temporal princes, but the supreme sovereign. (5) The crusaders (Lat. crucesignati) were therefore milites Christi: Christ’s vassals, his knights, his soldiers. The semantic development of this expression is enlightening: in the earliest centuries of the church it was simply a term for Christians, but from the fifth century on, it designated clergy and monks fighting evil through prayer. From 1075, it was used for warriors fighting for St. Peter. After 1095, it nearly always meant a crusader.

Thus the concept of a new military force was born: this was a force not in the service of the world (Lat. militia mundi) but in the service of Christ (Lat. militia Christi). This “new chivalry,” with different ideals, was opposed to “ordinary chivalry.” This contrast was underlined by the chronicler Guibert of Nogent: God was now offering knights a fitting means of salvation that did not require them to abandon their way of life or to don the monk’s habit: the holy war. According to the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, Urban II emphasized the irreducible opposition of these two forms of service by exhorting the warriors to “change chivalry.” [Fulcher of Chartres, “Historia

Hierosolymitana,” in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens occidentaux (Paris: Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1844-1895), 3:324]. The traditional chival-ric code did not lead to the crusades; rather, the crusader was enjoined to break with chivalry, its customs, and its material and worldly aspirations, putting himself in God’s service in the “new chivalry” of Christ. Urban II clearly denounced war among Christians as a sinful activity endangering the soul, but in compensation he praised the fight for the liberation of Jerusalem, led by this new knighthood of crusaders, as being meritorious and holy. This amounted to an ideological support of knightly crusaders, but in no way of chivalry as a whole, the customs of which were, indeed, condemned by Urban II, as they were to be by Bernard of Clairvaux.

The First Crusade (1096-1099) was, at least initially, a military success. However, it also marked a relative failure of the papacy. The pope did appear as the initiator of a Christian movement against the infidels, but in the eyes of knights, the crusade remained purely a pious and deserving action, not a moral necessity inherent to their function. Participation in a crusade, like a pilgrimage, did not become a duty or a moral obligation of chivalry in the same way that pilgrimage to Mecca, and even jihad (holy war), were integral to Islam. Chivalry retained its lay dimension, its ideals, and its values, which were certainly influenced by the church but were sometimes very far from the virtues that it propounded. The creation of military religious orders is an indication of this relative failure; from now on, the milites Christi were the Templars. It also marked the beginning of a veritable doctrinal revolution within the church with regard to war. The existence of an order of monks called to take up the sword and to shed blood was by its very nature a true doctrinal monstrosity. Its acceptance at the Council of Troyes (1129) marks therefore the definitive integration of the idea of the holy war in the doctrine of the Latin Church. It also illustrates the failure of the church to assemble under its banner a knighthood from among the laity. Despite the influence of the church, the chivalric ideal remained essentially secular and tended to become increasingly worldly and even profane, an indication of the ideological split between crusades and chivalry.

-Jean Flori

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