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Conception of Knighthood and Fifteenth-Century Chivalric Manuals

Conception of Knighthood and Fifteenth-Century Chivalric Manuals

By Tsuyoshi Mukai

Studies in English Language, Literature and Teaching: Essays in Honour of H. Tetsumura and Y. Soeda (1993)

Chauser_knight_from_prologue

Introduction: Chivalric writings like chronicles, romances and military handbooks, either in manuscript or in print, were popular and widely read in the latter half of the 15th century. This was exactly when ‘the age of chivalry was gone’ and nearly at the threshold of the Renaissance. To illustrate the chivalric decadence, a few passing references to the plight of the contemporary knights will suffice: Lydgate’s description of the knights who delight in merchandise; William Worcester’s criticism of the knights who forget their noble blood and who are engaged in singular civil practices by learning law and customs of land; and Christine de Pisan’s satirical words of her contemporary knights who have learnt nothing but pride, lechery and gay clothing at their service in King’s court. In this chivalric deterioration, these writings on knighthood were issued and received as a means of chivalric rehabilitation.

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What was presented in these manuals as an ideal image of knighthood was quite unlike the upcoming Renaissance conception. The knight in the new era must be not merely a fighter but also a thinker with foresight, and he should give precedence to a national advantage rather than to his natural lord’s. William Segar’s The Booke of Honor and Armes (1590) explicates the image of a nationalistic soldier-scholar as follows:

… the commendation due vnto learning is of no lesse desart,
tha[n], that which belongeth to Martiall merit. And indeed
very rarelie doth any man excell in Armes, that is vtterlie
ignorant in letters (Book 5, Chapter 25)

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and

… ye shall neuer fight against this mightie and excellent
Prince that bestoweth the order of Knighthood vpon you,
vnlesse ye shall be occasioned so to doo in the seruice of
your owne King and naturall Prince: … it shall bee lawfull
for you to serue against him, without reproach or offence to
all other companions in Armes. (Book 5, Chapter 4)

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But the 15th-century chivalric manuals, such as The Book of the Ordre of Chyualry, Knyghthode and Bataile, The Boke of Noblesse, and The Book of Fayttes of Armes and of Chyuarye, were written more or less from a romantic and medieval viewpoint. Though having varied emphasis on each respect, they concertedly regard chivalry as a combination of religion, war and gallantry. As is prescribed in the Ordre of Chyualry, knights are chosen to fulfil these offices: 1) to maintain and enhance the holy faith; 2) to defend their secular lord; 3) to keep justice and work for a common profit; 4) to protect the weak or the helpless. The ideal image of knight is thus presented as an ecclesiastically elaborated form of the original community-defender by arms.

 Click here to read this article from Fukuoka Women’s University

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