5 - The Vocabulary of Chivalric Description in Late Fourteenth-Century Biography

Summary

Edward the Black Prince was portrayed with much emphasis by his biographer, Chandos Herald, as an ideal knight and an example of chivalry. But chivalry is an amorphous concept and difficult to define. The Oxford English Dictionary gives chivalrous thus: ‘characterized by pure and noble gallantry, honour, courtesy, and disinterested devotion to the cause of weak or oppressed’. What follows are reflections on some of the words and methods the Herald employs to express this quality in the context of three contemporary biographies: John Barbour’s The Bruce, Jean Cuvelier’s Chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin and Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alexandrie, the biography of Pierre I de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. We shall scrutinize the Herald’s vocabulary, consider words and methods used in the two other French biographies, try to determine if he makes a distinction between descriptive terms as applied to different persons and groups with special attention to members of the Free Companies, and briefly compare our findings to elements in The Bruce.

Careful scrutiny of the Herald’s poem shows that the following adjectives recur very regularly: vaillant, fier, hardi, fort, redouté, corageus; there are also noble, curtois, gentil, franc, gent, bon, fin, preu, honurable, parfait, entier. We note that they divide roughly into two categories: the first apply mainly to physical courage, the second to more moral and ethical values. In number of words, there are more to describe the latter, but the physical ones are used more often. Most frequently used of all is noble, which the Herald runs to death, especially to describe the prince himself, and especially in the stock line: lui noble Prince de pris, but it is also used for other men: for Edward III (107, 109), for his baronie (118), his knights (123, 126); for reputations: Dont nobles estoit li renons (2369); a campaign: un noble voiage d’Espaigne (1640); and for events: Moult par fu noble le sojour (695) and equipment: Mout par fu noble lour atours (742), lui arrois (2029); and even for a region: noble pais d’Aquitaine (1923) and a letter: nobles letres (2915). Coer often combines with the adjectives: coer hardi et fort, fier et agu, loyal et fin, preu et loial. Less frequent but still well used are combinations with faitz: hardi en ses faitz.