The Many Lives of Chivalry: Ideals, Practice, and Power in the Medieval World
By: Lucas Miller
Few medieval concepts have enjoyed such an enduring afterlife as chivalry. From Victorian poetry to modern fantasy films, chivalry is often reduced to a code of gentlemanly behavior—honor, bravery, courtesy, and devotion to women. Yet in the Middle Ages, chivalry (chevalerie) was not a static moral checklist. It was a flexible social ideology, one that evolved across centuries and was shaped by warfare, religion, gender, class, and political power.
This article argues that medieval chivalry functioned less as a universal moral system and more as a negotiated cultural ideal—one that attempted to reconcile violence with virtue, aristocratic privilege with Christian morality, and social hierarchy with claims of ethical legitimacy. By examining knightly training, literary constructions, religious reform efforts, and lived contradictions, we can better understand chivalry not as medieval hypocrisy, but as a serious attempt to discipline a violent elite.
The word chivalry derives from the Old French chevalerie, meaning “horse soldiery.” At its most basic level, chivalry was originally a military status, not a moral one. In the early Middle Ages (c. 800–1050), mounted warriors formed the backbone of European warfare. Horses, armor, and weapons were expensive, tying military power directly to landownership and aristocracy.
Early medieval sources make clear that prowess in battle was the defining quality of a knight. The Song of Roland (c. 1100), one of the earliest chansons de geste, glorifies martial loyalty and violent heroism above all else:
“A knight should bear great blows and deal them,
And endure heat and cold for his lord.”
— Song of Roland
Here, courage and loyalty to one’s lord—not mercy or courtesy—form the ethical core of knighthood.
By the 10th and 11th centuries, uncontrolled knightly violence had become a social crisis. Private warfare, feuds, and raids devastated peasant communities. In response, the medieval Church attempted to reform knightly behavior, not by abolishing violence, but by redirecting it.
Church councils across France promoted the Peace of God (protecting clergy, peasants, and church property) and the Truce of God (limiting days when fighting was permitted). These reforms laid the foundation for a Christianized chivalric ethic.
A council at Narbonne (1054) declared:
“Let no one seize ox or cow or sheep or goat or ass from peasants or the poor…
Whoever does so shall be anathema.”
— Council of Narbonne
Though often ignored, these decrees signaled a crucial shift: knights were now morally accountable.
The Crusades dramatically reshaped chivalric ideology. The knight became not merely a warrior, but a soldier of Christ. Pope Urban II’s call at the Council of Clermont (1095) fused aristocratic violence with salvation:
“Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels…
Let them receive the remission of sins.”
— Fulcher of Chartres
Chivalry now promised not just honor, but eternal reward. Orders like the Templars and Hospitallers embodied this fusion of monastic discipline and knightly warfare.
Bernard of Clairvaux praised the Templars in In Praise of the New Knighthood:
“They fight without fear and die without concern…
The knight of Christ may strike with confidence.”
This marked a turning point: killing, once morally suspect, could now be framed as righteous.
While the Church reshaped chivalry through theology, courtly literature refined it through storytelling. From the 12th century onward, romances presented an idealized vision of knighthood—one emphasizing courtesy, restraint, loyalty, and love.
Chrétien de Troyes’ Arthurian romances (c. 1170–1190) established many chivalric tropes familiar today. Knights such as Lancelot and Yvain are judged not only by combat prowess, but by moral self-control.
In Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, failure to keep a promise to one’s lady leads to disgrace:
“He who breaks faith loses honor.”
— Chrétien de Troyes
This literature framed chivalry as internal discipline, not merely public action.
Courtly love is often misunderstood as medieval feminism. In reality, it functioned within strict hierarchies. Noblewomen gained symbolic authority as arbiters of honor, but rarely real political power.
Andreas Capellanus’ The Art of Courtly Love (c. 1185) codified these norms:
“Love cannot exist between husband and wife.”
Though often ironic or satirical, such texts elevated emotional refinement as a chivalric virtue, reinforcing elite identity while excluding peasants and lower-status women. Training a Knight: Education and Socialization
Chivalry was learned, not innate. Boys of noble birth entered aristocratic households as pages, later becoming squires. Training emphasized riding, weapons, manners, and obedience.
The Livre de Chevalerie by Geoffroi de Charny (c. 1350) offers a rare window into knightly self-perception:
“He who wishes to be a good knight must love honor more than life.”
Charny stresses endurance, loyalty, and humility—yet notably avoids courtly love, emphasizing military professionalism over romance.
Despite lofty ideals, medieval warfare remained brutal. Chivalry was applied selectively, largely among the nobility. Captured knights were ransomed; peasants were slaughtered.
Jean Froissart’s Chronicles vividly illustrate this contradiction during the Hundred Years’ War:
“They spared none… women, children, nor old men.”
— Froissart
Chivalry did not eliminate violence; it regulated who deserved mercy.
By the 14th and 15th centuries, chivalry faced criticism. Infantry tactics, gunpowder, and professional armies undermined the knight’s military dominance. Writers like Christine de Pizan sought to reform, not abandon, chivalric ideals.
In The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry (1410), she argued:
“True chivalry consists in justice and the defense of the weak.”
Her work reframed chivalry as ethical responsibility, not just aristocratic privilege.
Chivalry was never a fixed code. It was a conversation across centuries—between violence and virtue, power and restraint. Its contradictions reveal medieval society grappling with the ethics of inequality and war.
Modern invocations of chivalry often strip away this complexity. Yet understanding medieval chivalry on its own terms allows us to see it not as naïve idealism, but as a serious attempt to civilize power.
For historians—and for Medieval Morsels—chivalry reminds us that ideals matter not because they are always fulfilled, but because they shape how societies judge themselves.
Maurice Keen, Chivalry
Richard Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe
Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society
Jean Flori, Chivalry: A History