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| 52510 |
Is Chivalry dead?
Is chivalry dead? If it is, why? What ages show it and which ages don't? What do you think?
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Language pair: English; German
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| 52768 |
Chivalry(part I)
The concept of chivalry was born in Europe around the year 1000. Fighting on a horse was proved the most efficient way of winning a battle. Then, some specialists of the war riding horses appeared, the knights, those great figthers who owned arms and above all horses. Quickly, they constituted a group distinct from the people. At that time, the central power was completely disorganized, so weakly structured that everywhere lords set up, a social group that limited itself its power, its privileges. They overwhelmed with taxes those who worked in fields.
However, those who fought were exempted from taxes. Thus, this favour was reserved to people whose help had become too much worthy for lords to displease them. Those privileges as well as some moral duties towards both the king and victims of injustice distinguished knights from mere soldiers.
Knights benefited quickly from the situation. Taking also advantage of the the desagregation of the central power, they demanded new privileges to the king for whom they worked. From the 11th century, not only did they be ennobled and given wealth, but also they became regarded as aristocrats. Increasingly, whereas the respect of knights' values had grown in minds, knights created orders: their property and titles became hereditary.
During the 11th century, knights set up the basis of their lives and of its ideal. Their qualities were more and more appreciated, they even became representative of the greatest refinement. From now on, the true nobility had been embodied by knights. As it was so closer to the Church's ideals, Christian knights orders serving not the king anymore but the Christ emerged: The Templiers and the Teutonic knights. They were admired by kings and princes for their austere way of life and for their courage. Consequently, the ceremony to become a knight was placed under God's protection.
Knights constituted a powerful order of outstanding warriors. Nobles' sons, if not being clerics, became knights. They were chosen during a very solemne ceremony in the name of God, and the king gave them their arms. It corresponded to the moment young knigths became adults. Then, before going back to their fathers' lands, before inheriting, they travelled through the world during many years. It was during this crucial time of their lives that they could show the qualities which the king had turned them dignified to be in charge. They had many duties. Those knights did not wander without goal. They had to prove at any time their loyalty, their courage, their generosity and their courtoisy. First,their loyalty towards their lord who they could not betray after having sweared to defend his rights. Their courage, then, during battles: knights had to show publicly their bravery in tournaments. Nothing could stop a knight, even the cruellest fights. Nothing could frighten him.
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52510
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| 52769 |
Chivalry(part II)
What is more, he was always present for the needy. He was not interested by profit, nor by money. He did not have to pay heavy taxes contrary to the others. Some day he devoted to a fourth cause: a lady. She was always the daughter or the wife of a knight. It inspired the authors of the 12th century. Then courtoisy became the most beautiful chivalrous quality.
After such a diatribe, I must answer your question. Of course knights does not exist anymore, at least in accordance with this description. Why? There are different causes. First of all, the progress in the field of arms turned chilvalry into an obsolete order. From the 14th century, guns has become the finest means to fight. Nevertheless, the major reasons of such a disapprearing are the political changes of Europe during the 14th century and above all the 15th one. In fact, the feudal system collapsed because of kings endeavours to strengthen the central power. They decided to wipe out all those powerful lords that flouted royal authority. As a result, they deprived progressively knights from their privileges, sometimes persecuting them. Kings created a kind of national army entirely devoted to them, and consequently without privileges: it was the beginning of knigths' end as a social order. However, as regards knights' values, they underwent the 15th century's crisis. At that time, the Church was regularly criticize for its abuses, for its weath, for its orgies. Dissident groups appeared: it was the beginning of the Reform. It was the end of the holy character of knights. Then, with the Renaissance, fighting was not a moral duty anymore. It was a way to earn more money and to flourish like the thriving Republic of Venise. At those new times, knights were seen as rude people. The Renaissance was a cultural time not a time that praise fights. Knights ,whose education was only a military one, were excluded from the new refinement: being a patron of the arts welcoming artits such as De Vinci or Michel-Ange.
In fact this new periode was the beginnig of individualism: the theories of humanism placed the human being in the centre of the world, a trend that always strengthened during the next times. The knights and their great causes that transcended the individual had died.
Nonetheless, you can still imagine that a brave knights will come to devote to you, his lady...
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52510
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| 52956 |
Re:Chivalry(part II)
Interesting points. Yes, knights are gone, for the most part. Here is another question you might have fun with. Whey do people look out for themselves befor others? Would you tie this in with the death of chivalry or something else, like survival? For example, would you take a bullet for a stranger, or dive off a bridge, to save a dog? Would you give that extra change in your pocket to a homeless person, or keep it?
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52769
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| 53057 |
Re:Re:Chivalry(part II)
> For example, would you take a bullet
> for a stranger, or dive off a bridge,
> to save a dog?
People are not necessarily the sole
owners of their bodies and lives. For
example, a married person should think
about his (her) family before sacrificing
his life. Sometimes, depending on the
situation, the person might still
sacrifice or seriously endanger his life,
with a full confidence that his family
accepts the choice, however painful
it may be to all of them.
Puti
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52956
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| 53152 |
Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 1 of 4
Wow, I've been missing some really neat stuff. I remember Dwyn starting this thread and really wanting to reply, but being too busy to stop for it.
I never saw Arnaud's very intriguing answer before tracing Puti's response to try to figure out what on earth I had missed!
Arnaud, it is possible that you have missed a sense of the word Chivalry that es common in English. By analogy, we often refer to certain modern rules of courtesy—mostly courtesies that men traditionally extend to women, such as holding a chair as she sits or opening a door for her—as chivalry. Of course, this all dates back, as you say, to the traditional medieval orders of knighthood—a fact much more obvious in a language such as French, where a knight is called a chevalier.
But chivalry, as we understand it in modern American terms has become a very controvercial issue, and really can mean a wide variety of different things. From Dwyn's last message, I'm guessing that she may have meant it in a much broader sense than I usally think of—just the simple willingness to put somebody else's welfare ahead of my own. something that even in itself is also a very important and a very complex proposition, as Puti so wisely (as always!) points out.
This is a huge topic. There are so many directions we can go with this. I don't know. If anybody responds to anything further, maybe that will help me decide what direction (s) might be interesting for us all to explore.
I do have something interesting to add to Arnaud's very helpful history. He makes reference to the struggles for power between the Church and the various state powers, the tensions of the reformation, and the changing status fo the orders of knights during the medieval period. Recently I was reading Andreas Capellanus' "The Art of Courtly Love", which I understand is considered to be the seminal work on what Chivalry was all about –particularly the part where knights devoted themselves to a lady for whom they dedicated all of their deeds of heroism. (By the way, I have to disagree with what you said about knights dedicating themselves to wives and daughters. I've never heard that, and in fact Capellanus says that knights generally committed themselves to some lady they would never dream of marrying—and this is quite consistent with all I've ever read on the subject. Perhaps that was true at some place or time, but I don't think it was ever a dominant practice. The knight's lady was to be to him a queen on a pedestal for whom he would always strive to be worthy, knowing that he could never have her for his own. This was supposed to be a chaste love affair, one that was pursued passionately, but never consummated. The relationship between Lancelot and Guenevere was a perfect example of this at first, until—well, you all know how that turned out.)
See Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 2 of 4
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53057
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| 53153 |
Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 2 of 4
Anyway, I digress. I wanted to share what I got from reading Capellanus (or the introduction to my copy of Capelllanus, which was edited by John Jay Parry. He points out that the evolution of chivalry is heavily influenced by friction between the church and other social forces of the times. For example, when goddess worship was being condemned by the church, the practice became transformed into a practice of worshiping the Virgin Mary, which came to be conflated with a knightly practice of choosing a lady to act as an avatar of the Virgin Mary. So the knight's service to his lady was a religious observance in that sense.
Later, the concept of courtly love evolved out of this as a challenge of Church domination of social institutions, particularly marriage. Under church doctrine, marriage was a political affair (no pun intended), and it was a way of splicing and arranging families, of wielding political alliances, and of carefully molding the social structure of the world. Well, the church, as well as policitical interests. Courtly love became a challenge to all of this. This concept of marrying for love, all but unheard of during the early medeival period was an appalling and outragious affront to the poltical and spiritual structures of the times. What it brought out was a challenge between the supremacy of the community (The king must marry for political purposes, because his life belongs to the state, and the state depends on him to get an heir of noble blood who will be accepted by all as a rightful successor to the throne), and that of the individual (But mother, I don't WANT to marry her! She has buck teeth and a whiny voice, and I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life with her!)
This is quite a paradox, really, when we think of how chivalry has come to represent a singular form of selflessness and heroism. I wonder if that, there, might not be an interesting direction to pursue.
One other comment I want to make, and then I should be able to get myself to shut up. The big challenge with traditional modern American chivalry is that feminism kind of killed it. I want to be very careful how I express that, because I consider myself to be a devoted feminist (feminism being, as I love seeing it put in one of my favorite bumper stickers: "the radical notion that women are people.") On the other hand, there is something in chivalry that I deeply respect at the same time that it has at its foundation a host of presumptions that are insidiously sexist.
See Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 3 of 4
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53057
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| 53154 |
Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 3 of 4
Essentially, chivalry—and perhaps I should say traditional chivalry, which I would like to distinguish from a post-modern feminist chivarly—places women on pedestals, which might seem to be a profoundly respectful and loving thing to do, but turns out to marginalize women in a very sick, patronizing way. There's a ton of material that's been written on this, and if you're interested, you might look up Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's essay, "The Mad Woman in the Attic," which may be the most seminal and influential of them all.
But essentially, the complaint, which I think is perfectly valid, is by casting women as icons of purity and angelic goodness, we box you up into an image that is impossible to maintain. You will necessarily fail to live up to our expectations, and you "fall off" of your pedestals. The result of this is that we tend to heap upon such women (that is, all of you) as much hatred and disdain has we had previously been our praises and hymns. This process is what Freud describes as the madonna/whore complex, the idea that we (all of us, men and women alike) go around classifying women as either being saints or "sluts" (a word I'm willing to refer to, but would never apply to a humana being). We forget that there is this very small space in between the two extremes that contains only about—well, the entire human female population. Well, maybe Mother Theresa fit in one of the other two categories, but I tend to doubt even that. But even if she did, I'm certain she wasn't born that way.
See Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 4 of 4
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53057
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| 53155 |
Chivalry in a thousand years or less, part 4 of 4
So here's the thing. If I decide that traditional American chivalry is a good thing, and I want to always open doors for you ladies, hold your chairs for your, stand when you enter the room or come to the table, watch my language in front of you, defend you against anyone who tries to take advantage of you in any way, etc, etc, etc, what are the consequences of my deciding to live that way? What are the messages I send to other men, to women, even to myself, about women, about men, and about me? Can I behave this way without putting women on a pedestal? Why would I choose to behave so differently around women than I do around other men? Is there a way I can be chivalrous in some fashion that respects and honors both men and women in meaningful, practical ways that is empowering to women, to men, and to me?
So I open doors for everybody. I hold chairs for nobody. I kiss my girlfriend's hand, but nobody else's, as a rule, simply because I don't want to get punched out for doing it to a guy who has no sense of humor. I let people know that I care and am available to be supportive and helpful in need, and trust them to let me know when that need arises. Otherwise, I will not insult or patronize them by assuming that couldn't handle their problems without me, much less make such a presumption based on somebody's gender. Oh, and I don't mind offering to help someone on with their coat, but this decision has nothing at all to do with what they may or may not have between their legs.
Wow! What a huge topic!
Thanks, Dwyn! (And Arnaud and Puti, of course!)
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Language pair: English; All
This is a reply to message # 53057
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| 53173 |
Re:Re:Chivalry(part II)
Why do people look out for themselves before others? Well, I will try to answer this question backing my talk with Rousseau's theories.
First, imagine that once human beings did not live in societies with other men and women, but they lived alone. That time is called the Nature State because it is the state where human beings lived naturally. They did not have desires, only needs. Why? Because their mind was very limited: they could only think at present time, and they could not figure out what was the past or what will be the future. And you must be aware that our desires come from our ability to think that a better thing will happen in the future. Besides, Nature supplied men with all the stuff they need to live on, consequently, with limited and satisfied needs, human beings were very happy. Rousseau adds that, in that state, it is normal that a man looks out for him before others because it constitutes what he calls the love of oneself which must not be mixed with self-respect. The love of oneself is the ability of ensuring anyone to stay alive, a kind of instinct of survival shared by all the animals. Thus, the natural man would fight for foodstuff with another man if he met him by chance, a possibility that Rousseau does not discard, and if his survival depended on that foodstuff. However, if he were beaten, he would leave without resentment and without the spirit of revenge because it is natural for him. In this fight, there was not intention to damage the adversary; the purpose of the battle was not harming the other, but ensuring survival thanks to foodstuff.
On the other hand, Rousseau says that the Nature State is an hypothesis that might not have existed. He contends that in the Civilian State, that is to say in society, the human being looks for himself before others, but not in the same way as before. Now, the love of oneself has turned into self-respect( that is to say oneself to the detriment of others which differs from the love of oneself which is oneself before the others but not necessarily to their detriment), now men has become independent from Nature. However, they have become the slave of others. Hence, their happiness depends on them and that is why they cannot find anymore happiness. Men are not headed by needs anymore but by desires since their minds have evolved, as a result they can figure out what are past and future. Men's representations have increased, and therefore they can realize that they are different from Nature, which they could not before, and that they are both alike the others and different from them.
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52956
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| 53175 |
Re:Re:Chivalry(part II)2
On the other hand, Rousseau says that the Nature State is an hypothesis that might not have existed. He contends that in the Civilian State, that is to say in society, the human being looks for himself before others, but not in the same way as before. Now, the love of oneself has turned into self-respect( that is to say oneself to the detriment of others which differs from the love of oneself which is oneself before the others but not necessarily to their detriment), now men has become independent from Nature. However, they have become the slave of others. Hence, their happiness depends on them and that is why they cannot find anymore happiness. Men are not headed by needs anymore but by desires since their minds have evolved, as a result they can figure out what are past and future. Men's representations have increased, and therefore they can realize that they are different from Nature, which they could not before, and that they are both alike the others and different from them.
From the Nature State to the Civilian one, the human being has left his own person to learn living with the others. Nevertheless, this learning of the others is tragic since it means making one's happiness depends on the others. Rousseau studies social behaviour and claims that in society men need the others' look to feel their unicity, that is to say their identities. From that point, it can be easy to understand that men prefer looking out for themselves before others since it is the way to reach their identities, which means that they are regarded by the others, which means that self-respect leads everybody...
This is only a point of view which need to be qualified. I wonder if this is clear since I have skipped some elements and transitions...
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Language pair: French; English
This is a reply to message # 52956
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