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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 6:42 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Bill, I agree with the spirit of what you are saying and many of the specific points, but I think you may go too far in the opposite direction. I haven't read much on civilian violence in late medieval Europe, though, so feel free to prove me wrong with references.

Bill Grandy wrote:
-The rapier was invented in the Renaissance for street brawling, which was common in the day.

I have never seen a single shred of evidence to suggest that street brawling was common. Europe had laws, after all. Duels certainly happened, but in Italy there was a legal process that one went through... it wasn't Disney's Three Musketeers, where you offended someone and you drew swords and fought. If you did that, you'd get arrested, plain and simple. Killing was illegal, and even for duelling there was a formal legal process.

Sidney Anglo has some anecdotes, eg. of an English nobleman who was attacked by an enemy and his retainers when riding past “a place called Scotland Yard.” Many medieval and renaissance people complained about the new fashion of wearing swords which were used to brawl and intimidate people, and many towns passed laws banning or restricting the wearing of sidearms. The rapier is a poor choice of sword for war, which suggests that it developed for duelling or brawls. People don't wear functional swords all the time unless they think they might use them (see what happened to the smallsword once it was merely a badge of caste).

Fiore dei Lieberi's art (written down c. 1410) has a whole section on dealing with an opponent who suddenly attacks you with a knife when you are unarmed. He also discusses how to deal with a mugger who has put a weapon to your throat or grabbed you by the collar to demand money. Those sound like self-defense situations, although not brawling.

Moreover, medieval and early modern Europe was a society with lots of drunken young men and a weak violence taboo (the Germanic tradition of vengeance clashing with the pacifistic elements of Christianity). A fair amount of un-planned violence is inevitable in a society like that. We should make sure not to exaggerate this violence, or play down the elements of sport and friendly competition in medieval martial arts, but they definitely had a role outside warfare, tournaments, and duels.
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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 7:38 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think perhaps some people are missing my point. I'm not saying that these arts weren't used for violence: They absolutely were. My point is that we in modern times really take it too far, where we over emphasize the idea that it was all about down in the gutter, dirt-in-the-face, ear-biting brutality. There's the idea that everything else is just pure romaticism. The historical evidence shows that this wasn't always true. Sure, some of it was, but there was much more to studying martial arts than kill at all costs, including various social and cultural reasons.
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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 7:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:


I get your point and I agree that these times were not completely lawless with the streets overflowing with brawlers, but I don't think we should go to the other extreme.


Oh, I absolutely agree, and I want to clarify that this isn't my intent. My intent is point out how we shouldn't go to either extreme, but instead look at what the historical record shows (and it shows a whole lot of shades of gray).

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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 7:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

Greg Coffman wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean about spiritual development. Could you elaborate?


Hi Greg,
What I mean is that there is a signifcant amount of evidence where people intertwined the study of combat with higher goals such as religion, ethics and personal development. Chivalry is probably the most obvious trait, and I think its a shame when people say that chivalry was just a "fad" or an ideal that didn't exist in practice, because it was a very strong tenent in European society. How people feel about it in modern times doesn't matter: The volumes of period texts dedicated to chivalry, the overwhelming amount of references to chivalric ethos within martial treatises, and the very fact that so many references to it were intertwined with combat shows that it was a very important aspect to a warrior's sense of ethics, duty, and attitude to life.

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Jared Smith




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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 8:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

Bill Grandy wrote:
There is this false idea that medieval and Renaissance Europe was this lawless, rough and tumble world where anything went, and you might have to fight for your life at any turn of the corner.


I do think that tends to be exaggerated in many films. At least in 12th through most of 14th century era, there was a papal policy against battle field killing that could be avoided...that is to say hostage taking was common and encouraged on a wide spread political-military basis. I would guess that this declined during the 100 years war.. but that is really transitioning into more modern army structure and the end of the medieval era.

Historical eastern martial artists seem to get a lot more credit for having a full range of character traits that are not strictly pure weaponry (competence in arts, spiritual awareness, etc.) It is seldom mentioned that the high medieval age knight was expected to be competent in many aspects if they wanted to advance; some form of art (poetry, painting, singing, etc.), capable of entertaining upper classes at court, an inspiring leader figure, good provider for his men, courtisan/ politician, etc. Although you can find a few figures who were promoted almost solely upon battle field performance and how they inspired soldiers on the battle field (Bertrand du Guesclin), that was more of an exception than the rule.

Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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PostPosted: Tue 29 Jul, 2008 8:25 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Manning wrote:
I haven't read much on civilian violence in late medieval Europe, though, so feel free to prove me wrong with references.


Hi Sean,
The thing is, people didn't write about "non-violence", just as the news today doesn't. People wrote about the extraodinary. But if you really want references, just read period literature and look at the percentage spent talking about violence and the percentage that talks about daily life, farming, dinner time manners, etc. Just like in most time periods and cultures.

I don't really want to get into the rapier for civilian/military use argument here, as that belongs in its own thread (and indeed, has been discussed several times before). Suffice it to say, though, that we as modern people shouldn't make judgements about things that people in period often disagreed with, and saying that a rapier is a poor choice for war is not a comment I'm willing to state as fact, considering just how many people in period didn't seem to agree. Seeing as I'll never fight in war with or without one, I'll never know.

Quote:
Fiore dei Lieberi's art (written down c. 1410) has a whole section on dealing with an opponent who suddenly attacks you with a knife when you are unarmed. He also discusses how to deal with a mugger who has put a weapon to your throat or grabbed you by the collar to demand money. Those sound like self-defense situations, although not brawling.


Sure... but so does the guy who runs the karate school in the mall near me. Yet the crime rate around my neighborhood is pretty low. That isn't to say that these techniques wouldn't have been used in a life or death situation: They obviously were. But the fact that people learned the techniques isn't proof that their society was overrun by thugs and hooligans constantly looking for a fight.

Quote:
Moreover, medieval and early modern Europe was a society with lots of drunken young men and a weak violence taboo (the Germanic tradition of vengeance clashing with the pacifistic elements of Christianity). A fair amount of un-planned violence is inevitable in a society like that.


Well, that's a pretty unfounded exaggeration. I could say the same thing about most countries today.

Quote:
We should make sure not to exaggerate this violence, or play down the elements of sport and friendly competition in medieval martial arts, but they definitely had a role outside warfare, tournaments, and duels.


Agreed, and I hope I'm clear in saying that this was never my point.

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Christian Henry Tobler




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 9:36 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yes, exactly Bill. This is something I remind students of when they read about particular medieval feats of arms - the spectacular ones are the ones most described.

We know a lot about the deeds of the Burgundian knight Jacques de Lailang, but that's likely because he was a total, risk-taking, hard case. There must be dozens of tournaments that we know little or nothing about though, because chroniclers don't write things like: "September, 1443 - A grand tournament is held oustide Bruges; the knights had a good time breaking lances and no one got hurt." In the same fashion, you'll never see a newspaper headline that reads "Boise, Idaho family holds family cookout." Wink

History records the extraordinary, and shuns the prosaic. One of the greatest criticisms of Barbara Tuchmann's book on the 14th century, "A Distant Mirror", is that it focuses too much on the terrible things that went wrong, and sometimes ignores the fact that life simply went on as normal for some folks.

All the best,

Christian

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Steven H




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 10:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Good crime statistics are hard to come by for the Medieval period however some work on it has been done. In "Farewell to Alms", economist Gregory Clark uses parish records from 1250-1850 to track violent crime rates (and a variety of other stats), for England. The violent death rate i.e. murder and war was around 10-20 per 100,000 in the Medieval period. Which means that more than 99.95% of the population died non-violent deaths.

Estimating from modern US crime statistics we might expect the violent crime rate was 500-1000 per 100,000. And property crime is 5,000-10,000 per 100,000.

All told only one person out of every 5-10,000 dies of violence. One in 100 is the victim of violence; and one in ten is the victim of property crime.

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Randall Moffett




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 11:06 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I have the fortune to have at my use the books of fines for the town of Southampton for parts of the 15th century on. To be fair very few homicides occur over the century, fights are much more common. The idea that you had to carry a weapon around all the time to stay alive is far fetched, at least by the records I have seen. That said most of the fights in Southampton, as one might expect in a large port, involved sailors......

I have also been able to see accounts from London and York as well, they all seemed about the same. Political issues, many national seem to be a much bigger issue that led to violence. The war of the Roses period in York comes to mind as does Neville and Percy fights. Many of these are fairly brief events. The town leadership comes down pretty hard on people involved and loosing your right to practice your trade or even live in a town or city you built a life could be your end.

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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 12:09 pm    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

I personally find it utterly astounding how persistent this type of thinking is. Many people want to think that life in medieval times was orderly and peaceful, and swordsmen were polite, chivalrous gentlemen who abhorred violence - because that is what they can relate to best. Many people in fact seem to want to separate the violence from fencing entirely, as if it weren't there. Some of the same people in many cases who for example believe it is best to learn to fight without ever sparring. I don't see the old days as one continual episode of Mad Max, but it was hardly Brideshead Revisited. From the 16th century on back, violence may not have been a daily occurance but it was a routine part of life at all levels of society, particularly in places like Italy. You may want to back out of some of those books on courtly etiquette for a moment and remind yourself of an overview of the times. War, plagues, famines, seiges, factional strife, political purges, religious persecution banditry and street crime were a daily reality.

Bill Grandy wrote:

To say the rapier was invented for this kind of lawlessness is to assume our ancestors ruled without care for their citizens wellfare. Of course, some people did break the law. But if this were as common as myth would have it, why would you advertise this by carrying around a rapier? In fact, why would the government let you carry them around at all?


cough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia

It's revealing that you equate "our ancestors" with those who ruled. There were far more who were ruled than rulers in Medeival / Renaissance Europe. Most people today who actually are descended from the latter class (as opposed to very distantly related) are still in it - and have hobbies like Grand Pris racing, flying, yachting or ski jumping rather than HEMA or re-enactment.


J

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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 12:19 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Chad Arnow wrote:
I think a lot of it comes from overgeneralization. We can't paint with broad brushstrokes. Some swords were heavy, some were light; some were in the middle. Some areas were lawless and filled with sword-wielding brigands; some weren't. Some people used rapiers on the battlefield; others didn't. Sometimes knights tried desperately to kill each other in battle; sometimes they captured their compatriots, treated them like royalty and sold them back to their families. And there are areas in between all the extremes that happened, too.

I think the modern mind wants neat, easily definable buckets with which to categorize things. HIstory and humankind aren't that tidy. Happy

The only absolute: there are no absolutes. Happy


I think thats a pretty astute observation. That said, you probably are also generalizing to say that everything was equal. Was it 50/50 or more like 70/30?

It would be really interesting to see some modern sophisticated data visualization software used to examine statistics of violence in different parts of Europe in history. I have seen a few things like that done to show war deaths in the 20th century for example.

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 12:43 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Steven H wrote:
for England. The violent death rate i.e. murder and war was around 10-20 per 100,000 in the Medieval period. Which means that more than 99.95% of the population died non-violent deaths.


I think the conflation of conditions in certain parts of England for those of Europe in general are a major part of how the whole Reanassaince Faire / Medieval Times / Dungeons and Dragons version of pre-Industrial European history was created in the first place. The summary of Medieval life you get in high school probably isn't too far from the reality in certain parts of rural England, but doesn't come close to the Italian city-states, Brittany, Paris, the Balkans, the Hanse towns of Northern Germany and the United Provinces, the old Swiss Confederacy, Spain during the Reconquista, and etc. and etc.

So if your statistics are accurate, lets try to keep in mind, England does not Europe make.

Meanwhile, what was the 'crime' rate in the border areas near Scotland I wonder...? What was the crime like in London? From reading the Canting Crewe I got a very different impression of urban England than what you describe. There are numerous anecdotes of the street crime of London on various HEMA websites, period records complaining of the Swash and Buckler men hanging around the taverns and etc. I don't know enough about English history to put this in a proper context, but I'd like to take a harder look at those stats, and those of some other parts of Europe before agreeing with this kind of assertion.

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 1:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
I think thats a pretty astute observation. That said, you probably are also generalizing to say that everything was equal. Was it 50/50 or more like 70/30?



I never said anything/everything was equal. I didn't even use the word "equal" in my post... There's no way to know what the ratios were of everything. That's why I noted some things on opposite ends of their spectrum and also noted:

I wrote:
And there are areas in between all the extremes that happened, too.


My point is that we can't paint in broad brush-strokes. We can't say everyone did certain things or that no one did. Or that things were only like X and never like Y in location Z.

Were there as many light swords as heavy or as many lawless areas as areas ruled by law? Almost certainly not. I don't know anyone who would say there were equal amounts of everything. Thinking things are equal 50:50 is as flawed as thinking they were 100:0...

Happy

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 1:23 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Clearly there was a lot of violence, and it was an on-going concern, just as violent crime is a daily occurrence today. However I must agree that it's difficult for people to gauge it accurately and that there are still many misconceptions about the severity of it.

Take for example the pilgrimages to the Holy Land during the crusades era. This was a perilous journey, fraught with risk of being attacked and robbed. We know this in part due to the founding purpose of the Templar order. However, the part that I find interesting is just how common these pilgrimages were. For such a long journey, you would think that if violent crime rates were as high as some purport it to have been, that these pilgrimages would have been completely impractical. The fact that it continued with success tells me that even though it was considered perilous, the vast majority were able to pass through without being assaulted and killed. No one would have gone if there had been virtually no chance for success.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that medieval society wasn't as different from the modern era as we make it out to be.

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 2:19 pm    Post subject: A wee dram of Hobbes if you please         Reply with quote

This is a great thread. It needs only a little Hobbes from the year 1651 to put the argument into its deservingly proper frame. To wit:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

This was a world (in 1651) rife with rapiers, no?
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 3:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Coming back with some (hopefully) relevant stats about duels and violence in Renaissance France...

I have quickly run through a book I have (Duels, by Martin Monestier), full of anecdotes but alas a bit weak on numbers. However here are some I managed to find.

In the Memoirs of Sully, minister of Henri IV, it is said that between the coronation of the king in 1589 and 1606, more than 4000 duelists died. That is, 235 nobles per year for duels only, not counting the less honourable assassinations. There were of course particularly bloody days, such as the 6 april 1606, that saw no less than 3 duels and 4 assassinations in Paris. Sully duly notes that the offenders were not even sought after, much less punished. Of course there were unmentionned calmer days in other parts of the kingdom to reach the average Wink

The situation was apparently not much better under the previous kings, back to Henri II who decided not to grant any other formal judicial duels after Jarnac killed La Châtaigneraie in 1547. Other writings of the time mention 6000 casualities over the reign of Henri II.

There is also an unsourced number saying that before the end of the reign of Henri IV in 1610, the death toll of duels had reached 8000. All of this was prohibited but the king was very forgiving, thus the high number.

All told, until the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, it is reasonable to say that there was a noble engaged in deadly duel (so that's not even technically self-defence) for each day of each year. Multiply this by a factor to find the number for all duels even non-lethal. The population in France at the time was roughly 20 million, unfortunately I was unable to estimate the number of nobles, that is, the fraction of the population that took part in duels. Maybe someone here has a rule of thumb to find that out?

Anyway, the duel was very repressed under Louis XIII, then Louis XIV, and finally under Louis XV it was much more benign. Between 1720 and 1741, in Paris, there were only 14 deadly duels. Assuming about as many in other Provinces (further away from the center of power, thus less agitated), it's nearly a shift from one kill every two days to one or two kills per year. Perhaps a coincidence, but in this more civilized society the rapier had mostly disappeared and had been replaced by the smallsword.



Maybe the risk of dying in duel was not so great. After all, even at the height of the duel craze, you had only 1/(number of potential participants) chance per day to take part in a deadly encounter. Still, if I were a young noble in Paris at the time, a bit keen on my honour and seeking recognition, I'd sure do my best to be prepared for these illegal assaults. Not to mention the skills aquired could only help my military career. I don't think it's too far fetched to say that in France, the development of the rapier and the evolution of fencing was heavily influenced by this deadly custom of illegal duelling.

Another thing to note is that young French nobles were very keen on traveling to Italy to learn fencing, and that Italian masters were heartily welcomed to the court. Isn't it possible that the demand from these customers influenced a little bit the development of even Italian fencing?

And I'd still be interested to see stats of the same sort about Spain, Italy, and other countries. Not just texts of law, but actual estimates of how much the law was respected, and how it was perceived at the time.

Regards,

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Fabrice Cognot
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 5:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Nice post, Vincent.

Add to that the countless fights that were not recorded, or those who took place between commoners.

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 7:24 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think we do mosly agree, Bill. There have been a lot of exeggerations in the WMA community in the past decade about how common and accepted lethal violence was in medieval Europe. I just think we need to be careful not to go too far in the opposite direction and forget that some places and times were quite violent.

[quote="Bill Grandy"]
Quote:
Moreover, medieval and early modern Europe was a society with lots of drunken young men and a weak violence taboo (the Germanic tradition of vengeance clashing with the pacifistic elements of Christianity). A fair amount of un-planned violence is inevitable in a society like that.


Well, that's a pretty unfounded exaggeration. I could say the same thing about most countries today./quote]
I'm not sure if there are any countries today where the main drinks were alcoholic, like it was in medieval and Renaissance Europe. It is a fact that drunks and young men are most likely to get into fights in most societies. I've seen the relevant statistics, although I can't remember where. And its a fact that medieval/renaissance culture was a lot more accepting of private violence than, say, modern Canadian culture is ... especially among the aristocracy, once the duelling craze got started.

I think I'll add a few books on violence in medieval and early modern Europe to my reading list. But some posts in this thread have been very educational!
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Michael Eging




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 8:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

We discussed some of this in the "masters thread" in the context of application of the Arts in violent situations.

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...;start=100

Look, there was a lot of violence in regions of Europe as Jean points out, regions awash is warfare and associated violence ad lawlessness as geographies changed hands. Fiore, Liechtenauer and others recorded their experiences with the fencing arts in regions that were hot beds of conflict. Also, there were no forensics, tracking devices, professional police forces, etc. to track down the dead. Unless they were noteworthy, there is not even a footnote if they disappeared due to violence.

As to pilgrimages being a sign of certain levels of safety, I read an article lately about tourism in Iraq being completely dead, except for the religious pilgrims who consider this act of pilgrimage to be sacred and well worth the cost of a martyrs death if violence occurs. Pilgrims through the ages brave challenges, including violence. In the late Middle Ages and Rennaisance I would not view the fact that they went as a sign denoting an absence of violence.

Nothern Italy was the violent playground of Empires through much of the Renaissance. We have to be very careful about our broad brushes as Bill rightfully points out, but martial intent and the use of these skills for violent purposes (whether lethal or non lethal) was clearly a major part of the program in some of the regions burned over by military action both on and off the battlefield. And in areas where there were higher levels of stability there was also inconsistent application of law, graft, theft and murder. Jean also pointed out other areas of conflict that were running sores of violence.

All of Europe lawless? No. I agree. But a violent time? Fortified manors. Walled towns (built during the Renaissance). Regions of constant warfare between France, Italian city states and the Holy Roman Empire. Tension and conflict in between Austria and the Ottomans. Banditry. Armies that looted when they won. Armies that looted as they lost and disintegrated into lawless bands. The fencing art came out of this age.

Chivalric elements. Those were very likely to have been the ideal. However, as we all know, the ideal and the practical/or real application are oft two different things.

Just a few thoughts.

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Tim May




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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 9:23 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Concerning chivalry, there was much written in the middle ages. The French Romances, Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, Gawain and the Green Knight, much of Chaucer, but while so much was written about it this does not necessarily mean it was the truth. Upon examination, many of these texts, especially Gawain and some of Chaucer (these also are the two with which I am most familiar) chivalry is the very impetus of the story. Despite this, more often than not it is the failure of this chivalry, the fragility of it that is of paramount importance.

In The Green Knight, Gawain essentially fails, he does not prove himself as honorable and courageous as is desired and even expected by this lofty ideal. Despite this, he is welcomed back to Arthur's court a hero, and his failings as a knight remain unimportant to any but the knight himself. This may demonstrate that perhaps these ideals were too much for any mortal knight, and that adherence to the general principal of them, getting it almost right, was good enough for society.

I am not disagreeing with you Bill, I think that this complete separation of honor and arms is a bit much, but that perhaps the people living in the times were dealing with exactly the same question we are in this forum: How much violence is acceptible and what real standards are there to govern this. Chivalry seems an ideal, impossible for even the greatest knights to completely adhere too, and that leaves much ambiguity. At least in the earlier middle ages in times such as when "Gawain" was written it was still a quite transitional society, where violence was very much a part of the old (though this in and of itself was closely regulated, just read the Icelandic Sagas), and the new tenants of Christianity often seemed at odds, and a new order had to be established, a new set of principles.

Hopefully I've helped a bit, if not, I'll head back to the books Happy
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