| Chivalry is not an institution which made a sudden and specific appearance in history and it would be fruitless to search for the place of its birth or for the name of its founder as it was neither promulgated by a Pope nor decreed by a Sovereign. While the delivery of arms, i.e. coming of age and joining of the war band, is very Germanic in origin, the knight was to inherit the lands of the magnate of the Roman World, the political power of the Praetorian Guard and the horsemanship of the "equesto ordo" or Milles of the Republic; however, it was Charlemagne's professional soldiers who would become the bridge between antiquity's Milles and Germanic warrior elite and the first knights. From the 9th through 16th Century, the knight would become a chivalric warrior defined by age, place, a sense of virtue and a sense of duty, e.g. a knight was a Christian Warrior fighting the Saracens like Lull, a servant of his king like Charny and a courtier (i.e. a standard of nobility by example) like Castiglione. We will look at period treatises on the topic of Chivalry from the anonymous Ordene de Chivalerie and texts by Raoul de Hodenc, Raymond Lull, Alfonso X the Learned of Castile, Geoffroi de Charny and Baldasare Castiglione as well as period literature and modern academic writings including texts from Keen and Barber. This class will NOT be recorded. |