Just hearing the word "chivalry" conjures romantic visions of an era when women were saved through the honor and behavior of the chivalrous knight. We all have an image of the knight but in order to truly understand the lives of our medieval ancestors, we must have a greater understanding of the Age of Chivalry and the life of the knight in particular.

The knight is a mounted warrior in the service of his liege-lord. The knight was under the lord's protection, legaily and militarily. The relationship between the knight and his lord defined the knight's life. The lord had considerable control over the knight's life, career and his power included the final say in whom the knight could marry as well as the dispensation of his estate upon the knight's death. Technically, the lord owned the land upon which the knight raised his revenues and though the land might remain in the knight's possession for generations, it was the lord's right to revoke a knight's right to the land and bestow it upon someone else.

The word chivalry, roots itself in the Latin caballus and is derived from the French cheval. The Age of Chivalry is defined from three points of view: the military, the social and the religious.

Military

In the Middle Ages, chivalry was the heavy cavalry. The knight, or chevalier, was the professional soldier, the mercenary if you will; the precursor to cavalry. The knight was distinguished by: his weapons, his horse, his attendants and his flag.

His weapons: the bow and crossbow for offense and the lance and the sword for defense. In the Carlovingian Era, this included the brunia or hauberk and the coat of mail and from the fourteenth century, the plate of armour.

Actually, the knight properly was equipped with three horses: the battle horse, which was led by hand and used only for the onset, hence to "mount one's high horse". A second or palfrey or courser horse for the route and the pack horse for luggage.

Several attendants accompanied the knight: one to conduct the horses, another to carry the heavy weapons, particularly the shield or escutcheon; another to aid the knight in mounting or remounting and a fourth to guard the prisoner, most especially those prisoners held for ransom. These attendants were of low social rank and were not included in the armed retainers who also formed the escort of the knight. From the thirteenth century, the squires also went armed and mounted as they passed from one grade to another on their personal quest for knighthood.

The flags or banners were distinctive to knighthood and chivalry. They were attached to and carried on the lance. Within these banners were separate conditions: a flag pointed or forked was used by a single chevalier of bachelor as a personal ensign while the square banner was used as the ensign of a band and reserved to the baron or baronet in command of at least ten knights, called a constabulary. Each flag or banner held the arms of its owner to distinguish one from another in battle. These armorial bearings became hereditary and a part of heraldry.

Social

The knight's career was very costly and required a personal means. A knight had to defray his own expenses in an age when the sovereign had neither treasury nor a war budget. Each lord paramount, wishing to raise an army, divided his domain into military fiefs in which the tenant was held to military service at his own expense for a specified number of days (forty in France and England during the Norman period). These grants became hereditary developing a noble class for whom the knightly profession was the only career. Knighthood was not hereditary, though only the sons of a knight were qualified to apply. The sons were sent to the court of a noble where they were trained in the usage of weapons and horsea as well as courtesy. From the 13th century, once they had attained the rank of squire, they were allowed to take part in battles if they were of age, commonly twenty-one. They were admitted into the knighthood through a ceremony called "dubbing'. Every knight had the power to confer knighthood providing the conditions of birth, age and training were met. In some cases, the knight could create a knight of someone who was underage using his royal perogative.

Religious

It was the Church, which blessed the sword in the ceremonial conferring of the knighthood. Most especially, during the Crusades, the Church began to look upon the army with favor, for now they were devoted to a Christian purpose. However, even before the Crusades, the Church saw the value in an army, which was dedicated to the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans as well as churches. The vow of chivalry elevated the soldier, raising him almost to the level of the monk in medieval society. In a special ceremony, Pontificale Romanum, "Benedictio novi militis", the Church offered the knight a special blessing and this ritual grew into an elaborate ceremony. Prior to the blessing of the sword, which was laid upon an altar, the knight was involved in several preliminaries: confession, a vigil of fasting, a symbolical bath and the investiture of a white robe symbolizing the purity of soul which was necessary to enter upon such a noble career. While kneeling, the candidae pronounced the vow of chivalry, often renewing the baptismal vow. The godfather of the candidate then struck him lightly upon the neck with a sword (the dubbing) in the name of God and of St.George, the patron of chivalry.

The Four Main Periods of Chivalry

1. The Crusades which introduced the golden age of chivalry in which the crusader was the pattern of the perfect knight. The knight was protected by the Church, which granted him temporal and spiritual privileges such as the remission of all penances, dispensation from the jurisdiction of the secular courts and as a means of defraying the expenses, the knights were granted the tenth of all church revenues. The vow of the crusader was limited to a specified period. For distant expeditions into Asia, the average was two to three years.
2. The Military Orders followed the conquest of Jerusalem and the need for a standing army. This order adopted a fourth monastic vow, that of perpetual warfare against the infidels. It was here that chivalry reached its apogee. Among this class were such names as Godfrey of Bouillon, Tancred of Normandy, Richard Couer de Lion and Louis IX of France. The knightly vow bound warriors of every nation in a common cause, enrolling them in a brotherhood of manners, ideals and aims. The Brotherhood inferred manners, ideals and aims imposing upon its members fidelity to their lords and to their word, fair play on the battlefield and the observance of the maxims of honor and courtesy. A new literature was born, that of the epic and romantic movement which was born in Provence and Normandy and spread throughout Europe through troubadours and trouveres.
3. Secular Chivalry included that period following the Crusades in which the religious aspect of knighthood was no longer present. We see this chivalry in the long contest between England and France during the Hundred Years War. Bloody battles alternate with tournaments and pageants. Each contending nation had its heroes. England boasted of the "Black Prince", "Chandos" and "Talbot", while France embraced such names as "Du Guesclin", "Boucicaut" and "Dunois". Under the influences of the romances, love became the mainspring of chivalry and as a consequence, the knight now vowed to the service of some noble lady, who was often another man's wife.
4. Court chivalry was primarily a court service. The order of the Garter, founded in 1348 by Edward III of England (see Temple Service for more information), the Order of the Golden Fleece (Toison d'oi) of Philip of Burgundy and dating from about 1430, formed a brotherhood not of crusaders but of courtiers whose job was merely to contribute to the splendor of the sovereign in such events as jousts and tournaments. They made their vows in banquet halls, not on the cross but on some emblematic bird such as the "vow of the Swan" of 1306 which was instituted during the feast of the dubbing of the son of Edward I. It was before God and the swan that the old king swore with his knights to avenge on Scotland the murder of his lieutenant. More celebrated is the "vow of the Pheasant" made in 1454 at the court of Philip of Burgundy and included the rescue of Constantinople, which had fallen the past year to the Turks. However, by this time, chivalry had degenerated to a futile pastime and an empty promise.

Literature now reacted against the extravagances of chivalry as seen in the poetry of Chaucer and reached an apex in the work of Cervantes in "Don Quixote". The revivial of the infantry as an effective force on the battlefield during the fourteenth century began the decline of chivalry. At Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415, the French knighthood was decimated by the arrows of the English archers of Edward III and Henry V. The advent of gunpowder and the general use of firearms in battle led to the further disintegration and disappearance of chivalry.