Chapter 39 - Chivalry

Summary

In the Middle Ages, ‘chivalry’ was a collective noun referring to mounted and fully armed knights and squires. But in modern English, we use the term for the wider martial and courtly culture of those people, and in particular for the ideals of knighthood which are now associated principally with a romantic vision of elegant and civilised masculinity. Yet these assumptions about knightly ideals are based upon a partial reading of the surviving medieval sources, downplaying the overriding importance of more martial qualities like prowess, courage and the competition for honour, and more importantly constant debate about the norms of medieval aristocratic masculinity