Chivalry, the cult of knighthood

A medieval town that has dwindled into a village. In the centre fragments of a hilltop Roman fort, the encircling walls later used to protect a Saxon church. Inside the church I was shown a whip – an elderly sacristan explained the whip would be cracked three times in the church porch between readings.

Recumbent effigies lined the south wall, including this 14th century figure of a knight. There seems to be a circlet of gold around the helmet, which indicates he had a noble rank. The armour is plain and workmanlike.

Sparse information about who he was, but reading Froissart or Chastellain or le Marche gives you an idea of what his life would have been like.

We think of modern times as being obsessed with youth, but the later middle ages was a time when most people were genuinely young. If you lived to 50 you would be considered ancient. It was a world where most adults were in their twenties, thirties and forties.

It was also a time when most people were fit and healthy. Generally if you fell ill or became disabled you would not survive long. Also diets were healthier, and people were more active.

However, the fourteenth century was a period of plague. Not just the Black Death (which killed a third of the population) but recurrent plagues and famines. This created a general mood of melancholy, but also a society that anticipated a golden age about to begin.

The pessimism created by a century of plague and famine caused a retreat into a fantasy world centred on chivalry, the cult of knighthood.

All classes participated in chivalric culture. Obviously the knights were the key players, but everyone else (all classes) would know how the cult functioned, would attend tournaments as spectators, and would have opinions on who lived up to the chivalric standard. Knowledge about this ideal society was disseminated through popular stories about heroic chivalric figures (legendary ones such as Parsifal, historic ones such as Roland, collaborative enterprises such as the first crusade etc).

Maurice Keen has done a lot of research about the chivalric lifestyle but much more still needs to be done. The cult of knighthood incorporated a veneration of physical strength and fitness, a manic attitude towards the collection of “honours”, an extreme sexual obsession that masqueraded as courtly love, a codified system of conduct and behaviour, a complex idea of “protection” and a legitimized indulgence of violence.

All the ingredients of modern society were created in this time.