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

Women appeared in the stories, not just as the doting, proud or mourning mothers
of the epics, but as wives to be won, queens to be venerated and obeyed, and
individuals of wit, intelligence and cunning. How far this was reflected in the status
and position of women in medieval society is a hotly debated topic, but the idea was
most definitely an important one.
The Minnesanger of Germany are a fine example ol the importance of courtly love to
the chivalric ideal. Many ol these poets were knights, both active warriors and pursuers
of jin amors, courtly love. They were poets, writing /Minnesang, songs and lyrics on the
theme of courtly love, but also about the political events of their day. The Swabian
Minnedtinger Hartmann von Aue wrote a number of versions of the Arthurian myths, as
did many of his contemporaries, whilst another, Neidhart von Reuental, wrote poems
insulting his enemies. Similarly talented knights were to be found throughout Europe
especially, if unsurprisingly, in the Languedoc
region of southern France, the cradle of fin amors.
Throughout the 12th and early 13th centuries
knights became more and more aware of
themselves as a distinctive order of society.
As this coalesced new tenets were added to
the chivalric ethos which emphasized it. The
warriors who had been inclusive and comradely
now became exclusive and regarded themselves
as an increasingly closed elite. Within that group,
however, the idea of comradeship in arms was
retained. The 12th-century chronicle the H'utoria
GaLfridi records Count Geoffrey of Anjou as
saying 'Are we not knights, should we not
therefore owe a special compassion for knights?'
It became increasingly normal for knights to
show mercy to a defeated opponent, seeking
to capture rather than to kill each other.
Describing the battle of Bremule fought between
the King of France and the Duke of Normandy
in 1119, the chronicler Orderic Vitalis says that
only three out of some 800 knightly combatants
were killed because they spared each other out of
a sense of 'fellowship in arms'.
The knights' sense of their exclusivity
continued to grow. Tournament seems to have
CHIVALRY: THE KNIGHTLY CODE -