When Knighthood Was in Flower
...ight needed to be wealthy. In order to become a knight, steps had to be taken. A young man, for instance, would need to become a squire and serve as an apprentice to a knight for years, before he can be dubbed a knight. Fighting was now more of an art than violence. This all began with the influential role of the church and their constant goal of limiting violence. Chivalry was also influenced by the “notion that a war could be holy.” This almost served and was utilized as an excuse to fight, knowing that you are fighting for holy reasons. Chivalry not only aimed towards constructive use of violence, but it also taught the knights how to carry themselves in the battlefield as well as with women. It also brought about “courtly love”, which was a relationship between a knight and his lady. The troubadours from southeast France wrote their poetry mainly with themes of love and pain. This courtly love is said to have four stages, first beginning with “hesitating”. This is when the lover does not know how to express himself and let the lady know how he feels. The next stage is “pleading” where he tells the lady he loves her. The third stage, “hearing,” is when the lady says no to the lover but she plays both sides of possibly accepting or rejecting him. The last and fourth stage, “service,” is when the lady accepts her lover and they are bonded together. David Herlihy, Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History and author of this article, “When Knighthood Was in Flower,” began his article with the feminist critics who have taken offense to the idea of chivalry. They believed that chivalry embodied the women to be attractive, but it also exemplified them as being nonhuman, almost as if not having emotions or intellect to act and speak for herself. Chivalry, as Herlihy stated, had put limitation on women which led to the feminist critics to advocate the androgynous personality where both male and female carry responsibilities of both sexes. In the relationship women, he also states that the society, which embraced chivalry, was perhaps almost unwelcoming of wom...