Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

shame, striving with the skill of your hand and the effort of your body to as great a
degree as your powers can extend in order to inflict damage on your opponents, always
being among the first in battle. By so doing you will receive greater recognition for
your achievements from your friends and enemies...
As the reputation of the knight depended upon his martial virtues being acknowledged
by his peers, there was a need for those deeds to be witnessed and an emphasis on the
performing of individual teats, such as being first to engage the enemy in battle. Such
deeds were recorded in the chronicles and narratives, which are full of the names of
knights who appear only once and only because of a noteworthy act of prowess.
For example, we are told ot Robert, the son of Gerard of Buonalbergo, serving as
Bohemond of Taranto's standard-bearer during the First Crusade, and how he carried
his lord's banner right in amongst the Saracens, making its tails float in their faces and
'with a tremendous shout momentarily checked them'.
There was also a sense that fights should be a fair contest of arms, and that the
chivalric warrior should not use underhand means to win. This was true in
tournament, where we find rules against bracing lances against the saddle bow, or
having gauntlets whose fingers locked closed around a weapon, but was also true in
battle. This is most clearly reflected in the romances. When a party of three knights
ambushes Erec and Enide in the tale of the same name, they attack the hero one at a
time because, Chretien tells us, 'at that time it was customary that two knights should
not join in an attack against one, and if the others had attacked their adversary it
would have been considered treachery'. The same was true in real life, as shown by
William Marshal's sparing of the future Richard the Lionheart's life outside ot
Le Mans, described earlier. Not that this meant that rudej de guerre and feints could not
be used. As we have seen, ambushes and the like were legitimage tactics and an
acceptable part of knightly behaviour.
A third element to this particular aspect was an emphasis on loyalty to one's
comrades and one's lord. Jean du Bueil, the writer of the 15th-century semi-
autobiographical work Le Jouvencal, says that:
It is a joyous thing, a war ... you love your comrade so much in war. When you see that
your quarrel is just, and your blood is fighting well, tears rise to your eyes. A great
sweet feeling of loyalty and of pity fills your heart on seeing your friend so valiantly
exposing his body to execute and accomplish the command of our Creator. And then
you are prepared to go and die or live with him, and for love not to abandon him.
And out of that, there arises such a delectation, that he who has not experienced it is
not fit to say what delight it is.