The Chivalrous Ideal and Courtly Love
The chivalrous ideal and courtly love in the English Medieval Period
Sir Gawain and The Wife of Bath
Research paper by Alina Mais
Understanding the terms “chivalry” and “love” as portrayed in the English Medieval Period
A quick search of the English dictionary serves us an explanation of “chivalry” as firstly used to simply indicate a body of knights or horsemen equipped for battle. Secondly, it is employed in the sense of knighthood in the abstract; knighthood as a class or order; the position and quality of a knight. Thirdly, “chivalry” is used in a broader sense to include the whole knightly system of the later Middle Ages, with its particular religious, moral social codes and traditions.
Professor Hearnshaw of London University quotes, in his study on chivalry, two French historians which state that “chivalry was a system which modified and completed feudalism. It was not an institution, but an ethical and religious association, shedding a ray of ideal beauty through a society corrupted by anarchy.” (Bemont and Monod, Medieval Europe )
Whether or not this ideal was brought to real life is a matter that I will not insist upon in this particular study. It is suffice to say that even the Church itself was infected at the time with blatant immorality. My self- proposed quest, further in my research, is to demonstrate how much of this ideal can be uncovered in Sir Gawain.
The matter of “true love” as we have grown to know nowadays is far from being valid in the Medieval Period, adultery being one of its main characteristics. To better understand such a concept I have turned to Andreas Capellanus’ “The Art of Courtly Love” in which he starts with the definition of love as being “a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love’s precepts in the other’s embrace.” The “precepts” include jealousy and adultery, love and
Sir Gawain and The Wife of Bath
Research paper by Alina Mais
Understanding the terms “chivalry” and “love” as portrayed in the English Medieval Period
A quick search of the English dictionary serves us an explanation of “chivalry” as firstly used to simply indicate a body of knights or horsemen equipped for battle. Secondly, it is employed in the sense of knighthood in the abstract; knighthood as a class or order; the position and quality of a knight. Thirdly, “chivalry” is used in a broader sense to include the whole knightly system of the later Middle Ages, with its particular religious, moral social codes and traditions.
Professor Hearnshaw of London University quotes, in his study on chivalry, two French historians which state that “chivalry was a system which modified and completed feudalism. It was not an institution, but an ethical and religious association, shedding a ray of ideal beauty through a society corrupted by anarchy.” (Bemont and Monod, Medieval Europe )
Whether or not this ideal was brought to real life is a matter that I will not insist upon in this particular study. It is suffice to say that even the Church itself was infected at the time with blatant immorality. My self- proposed quest, further in my research, is to demonstrate how much of this ideal can be uncovered in Sir Gawain.
The matter of “true love” as we have grown to know nowadays is far from being valid in the Medieval Period, adultery being one of its main characteristics. To better understand such a concept I have turned to Andreas Capellanus’ “The Art of Courtly Love” in which he starts with the definition of love as being “a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love’s precepts in the other’s embrace.” The “precepts” include jealousy and adultery, love and