Chivalry in the Middle Ages
About this video
This video explains that chivalry began as a knight's code of conduct and grew into a model of behavior and morals for the upper classes in the 11th and 12th centuries. It shaped many areas of culture, from law and hunting to love and fashion, and knowing its rules helped aristocrats show and raise their social standing, while leaving others out.
You'll be able to
- explain what chivalry was and where it came from.
- give examples of how chivalry affected medieval culture.
- explain how chivalry could both include and exclude people socially.
Key words
- Chivalry
- A medieval code of honor for knights that grew into a model of behavior for the upper classes.
- Code of conduct
- A set of rules about how people should behave.
- Aristocrat
- A member of the highest social class, usually by birth.
- Social mobility
- Moving up or down in social standing.
Transcript
- [Voiceover] Think of chivalry, and you might imagine knights in shining armor and damsels in distress. Chivalry originated in ideals associated with a knight's code of conduct. Over time it came to more broadly represent a model for the behavior and moral principles of the upper classes.
- [Melanie] We can think of chivalry as a code of honor that really came to fruition in the 11th and 12th centuries, and many of the values that chivalry championed are things that we still value today. Loyalty, bravery, protection of the weak.
- [Voiceover] Chivalry wasn't just about gallant acts meant to impress a princess. It widely affected culture from love relationships to hunting, fashion to law. This illustrated E is contained within a medieval law book. You see two knights on horses facing one another.
They are about to settle a disagreement over a debt. Hunting was a chance to improve oneself physically and mentally, not unlike the goals of chivalry.
- [Melanie] It's typical in these stories that there is an aristocrat or a knight who is in love with a woman of a higher social standing that's already married. It was thought that the man's love for this higher standing woman would have had a civilizing affect on him.
Code of honor provided a means for aristocrats to kind of move up the social ladder. If they knew these rules, if they knew how to behave in a tournament or how to dress for a banquet, then that was a way of displaying one's social standing. But it's the nature of having rules like this that certain people are left out of that club.
Because we have such romantic notions of what chivalry is, we don't tend to think of the practical consequences of chivalry during this period.
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