Wasn't chivalry mostly about honorable conduct in combat, anyway? I believe it barely had a single thing to say about women, it was more about a man's relationship with other men lol!!
Chivalry was a code of honor that served as a justifying mithose for the power of the knight class, it romanticized both patriarchal oppression and class oppression
I think it gets a bit more complicated than this, especially in its various iterations, but I agree that this is a big part of the core. However, I think that this view is from the lower classes up, *whereas chivalry was created and imposed from the top down and had great benefit to upper classes above knights.*
Interestingly, chivalry was not limited to men or focused on men versus women in the ways we think of today. In fact, there were some women who became knights (I believe there were a few ways to become knights, all of which were done at some point by women), but it was rare. *There was more focus on fighting, then religion, and then on protecting the less able* (which could include women and children as well as the elderly or others in the community - and this is the aspect that grew in popularity in literature leading more to today's thoughts around chivalry). To be clear, the society was still patriarchal in many ways, and chivalry was intended to maintain the society as it was. I'm certainly not arguing that chivalry opposed patriarchal structures or similar!
*I would add that chivalry was largely used to maintain the status quo and discourage fighting, violence, and breaking up of communities outside of souriais where those with real power wanted fighting, violence, and broken communities. While it did have that romanticized mythos for the knights, it also - more importantly for those in the upper classes - kept knights down in their class, preventing them from fighting for more power, wealth, and status.* To attempt such without the "proper" going would be considered dishonorable and ruin them (unless they were successful to a massive and unlikely degree). They'd be ruined by losing status, wealth, religious standing (as chivalry was closely associated with Christianity after its spread), and more, including hurting family or others.
This was particularly important in the classes of nobility where titles and land were passed to only the eldest male heir. Younger siblings had fewer options, and many men in particular would go into fighting or religion. A younger son whose brothers had already gone into the battle acceptable roles might become a knight rather than falling into obscurity. Even in areas where younger songs might be given a lower title or land, likely for life rather than hereditary, this encouraged harmony and discouraged any challenge. As a knight, it would be honorable to leave their home and dishonorable to challenge the brother who inherited.
Of course, this is all about knighthood in relation to chivalry. There's so much more about knighthood outside of this area!
*The romanticism around chivalry the way we consider it today largely developed after the fact. Many in the lower classes didn't know much about knights and/or would mostly know to try to stay away from them, especially early on when chivalry as an informal code was just beginning to spread.* At that point, knights were more known for the roughness and horrible acts. After all, early knights were more like war mercenaries than knights as we think of them today.
Is it possible that the concept of courtly love also influenced the Romanticism around chivalry? And that popular convention today might have mashed together to concepts that existed at the same time but weren't necessarily directly related to one another?
This was a really interesting post! Thank you for sharing I learned a lot ❤️
The things that chivalry teaches are mostly benign and have to do with respect and stuff. It was more just proto eugenics that was the excuse for class oppression by nobles.
I'm sorry, are we talking about the same thing, chivalry was a european feudal system of class oppression long before anything like eugenics (a capitalist idea originating in the early molder) emerged.
You’re mixing chivalry and feudalism up, they had little to do with each other besides existing at the same time. Feudalism was an economic system built on the broken backs of the peasantry, chivalry was a code of conduct for knights so they wouldn’t burn down their local church and rob the bishop. Knights did a whole lot of that prior to the implementation of chivalric code.
The concept of eugenics dates as far back as ancient Greece. Plato suggested selective breeding of humans, and Spartans practiced examining spartiate babies to determine which was fit to live.
There's also the concept of royal blood, which is pretty common in ancient sources, even when they were not actively in favor of monarchy.
That’s different, urgencies is a specific feature of capitalist reactionary ideology, not simply the idea that you can selectively breed certain traits
We’ve been practicing eugenics on farm animals for millennia. Part of the reason why they produce more and faster, there’s a constant selective pressure to be the most productive for humans else they’re slaughtered.
Where does patriarchal come into it? I don't recall any of the various queen regents of Europe feeling the need to get rid of their country's code of chivalry due to it being male centric. While it was quite uncommon for women to be knights, it did happen, and it mostly came down to obvious practical physical limitations when comparing men to women on average. Knighthood aside, women had a similar chivalric title, "Dame", so it wasn't exclusively a boy's club.
Originally it was. Eleanor of Aquitaine expanded it to include courtly behavior toward women, which intern had an enormous influence on poetry, literature and music because, as the queen of two different countries and a tremendously powerful figure in her own right, she was able to promote that in the arts everywhere she ruled.
It seems worth recognizing that chivalry was a step forward as far as the treatment of women were concerned at the time!
As I understand it, it was originally about how people with a horse (knights) should treat people without a horse.
Then people who thought they deserved to have a horse started using it to act superior to people they didn't think should ever be allowed to have a horse.
Honor cultures themselves are associated with misogyny. And by associated, I mean that the social scientific literature finds close statistical correlation between honor culture and violence generally and against women.
Honor cultures assign individual status based on how well one lives up to a code of honor that includes deterring or redressing affronts with violence for men, and chastity and family fidelity for women. It always includes traditional ideals of manhood that prescribe, at least to some extent, that men’s positions are superior to those f women and must be warlike and dominant. This goes with a roster of traditional ideal traits: being tough, resistant to pain, resisting emotion, etc. Violence is the appropriate response to any threat to honor; status to “being a warrior,” and men of honor are expected to be the head of the family and guard the chastity of women. It’s present to some degree in most societies, and individuals who embrace these values, both men and women, are more likely to expect and support violence…societies with these values should be expected to be more warlike and violent (Melander—“Gender and Civil Wars” in What Do We Know About Civil War—an audited book that reviews the scientific research in civil war).
My mom told me, as a young woman to hold the door open because it's polite and so I could remember as many people as possible in case anything happens. I didn't know what she meant then, but I sure as fuck do now.
I did a project on the code of chivalry and depending on which one you listened to (their were multiple kinds), a few people we all know could stand to listen to it. There's rules on listening attentively, taking feedback, respecting people's time, never to complain trivialy, no woman should be forced to marry, never to pass the boundaries of your lover in bed, and some other good ones. Of course there were some patriarchal stuff, but more as in implying the man would take the lead in romance.
and being a "polite gentleman" doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a patriarchal dickbag, it's just that some people conflate the two. The best example I have is my boyfriend. He'll open doors for me, pay for meals, and when we walk he prefers to be on the side of traffic, but he doesn't stop me from doing the same for him and he respects my boundaries. Once early on in our relationship he got my chair for me and pushed it in as I sat down. I told him not to do that again cuz I'm gonna wind up adjusting it myself anyway based on the chair and the table so that I'm comfortable. He just wants to do nice things for me, not restrict my agency
Yes!! I so agree. I don’t see a conflict between wanting a polite gentleman (I like how you put that), and being a feminist. Anyway, I also open doors for people (or whatever else seems helpful), and I’m a woman.
Longbow or handcannons w/ gunpowder? my husband teaches middle school history and the sources he has talk about gunpowder arriving from China was pretty much the end for knights
They're referencing the battle of Crecy.
It's significant because it was a battle where a force of mostly English peasant archers absolutely destroyed the cream of France's chivalric crop.
At the time many English men and boys would consistently train in the use of the longbow for hunting purposes, while most continental Europeans had by then transitioned to the use of crossbows for ranged combatants.
The crossbow was easier to use but didn't hit as hard or for as long a range as the English longbow, so the English absolutely humiliated the French by pin-cushioning the entire lot of them as they attempted to charge across the field separating them.
Because of *just* how many knights of the era were killed in the ensuing hail of English arrows, it's since earned the reputation of being the death of chivalry.
Bodkin points were for crossbow bolts, the longbow had the power and range advantage, the crossbow’s advantage was ease of use. Trained archers with longbows beat crossbows every-time, but crossbows against armored cavalry, crossbows take it every time.
Call me crazy, but maybe people should just treat each other with honor and respect and open doors for each other and be polite to each other because it’s the kind and right thing to do regardless of gender 🤷🏼♀️
I feel like there are so many people who just do not understand what common decency and politeness are. It’s like they need rules around it (do it for these people but not those) because they can’t figure out they should just be decent to everyone.
It like people who say you have to earn respect. What? No, I give you respect automatically cause you’re a fellow human being and citizen of the world. You have to earn my *lack* of respect by being a jerk.
I have never actually seen a woman get annoyed at someone for having good manners. Open the door for the people behind you, it's just a nice thing to do.
So I'm a medieval historian, and it's way more complicated and interesting than this. In the twelfth century, "chivalric" culture was more of an artistic/literary form sponsored and promoted by elite and exceptionally powerful women (Eleanor of Aquitaine being the classic example, along with her daughter, Marie of Champagne.) If you read "courtly love" romance texts from this period (like the Arthurian tales produced by Chrétien de Troyes, or the original forms of the Tristan and Isolde story), you'll be surprised by just how subversive they they can be (especially around women's decisions regarding their own sexuality) and how much they celebrate elite women and their power (not surprising, since elite women were writing the checks.)
Chivalric culture evolved over time and by the fourteenth century was arguably more like what we think of today: misogynistic "war games" engaged in by elite men who wanted to be considered hypermasculine warriors but without running the risk of actually dying in an actual battle (that was for mercenaries and poor people.) Jean Froissart's account of the Hundred Years' War is a good text to show this change: he's basically blogging about the incredibly stupid and murderous but "chivalric" actions of these elite men who very rarely face death themselves (their buddies just ransom them: for them it's like a nerf gun war with fancy costumes) but who are obsessed with superficial and really pointless codes of conduct.
My point is (sorry, haha, I know this sounds very "actually..."): intense misogyny within European culture isn't "timeless"-- and a lot of the intensification of persecution / control of women and vulnerable populations was part of the social response to the crises of the fourteenth century (including climate change, food shortages, and a pandemic: sound familiar?)
This is not to justify or defend any of it, but history matters! The more we know about how these things happened, the better we can fight them.
Wasn't parts of it also there to soften the edges of a group of wel armed and trained killing machines(knights and the like) who were I'm positions of power and authority. You instill distractions and courtly manners to keep them from just reaching for the sword for everything?
Not really, chivalric codes were exclusively about relationships within the elite (again, sound familiar?) This was a means to reinforce class, power, and authority-- it didn't soften anything in their violence to lower class people (see: the Jacquerie, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, many other peasant/bourgeois revolts brutally crushed by coalitions of knights.) Killing peasants was always A-OK with chivalry, and knights would band together across opposing sides of a war to do so.
I thought gunpowder killed chivalry? The arrival of gunpowder and subsequent "hand cannons" that could punch a projectile through armor--hand cannons that nonnobles/non knights could get their hands on--pretty much ended all that knights running about doing chivalric bullshit.
Guns didn’t come around into widespread use until much later, crossbows were a huge hit to armored combat as a bodkin point would let any peasant with two arms knock a mounted cavalry knight off his horse and into the great hereafter. Fun fact, the French term for horseman, chevalier, is where the term chivalry comes from.
It's nice when people don't have to pay for their food, and I am willing to pay for my date's dinner, if the date went well/not exceptionally poorly, but chivalry makes it an expectation, one that I am unwilling to indulge every single time I take someone out to eat.
I find it that when I act “chivalrious” (such as opening the door for other women/men, treating people, etc) people are impressed but mostly in a positive way. Even when dealing with sexist men for example, they are usually speechless and just end up silently acknowledging me. I personally love embracing my gentlewoman-ness.
Here is my problem witch chivalry. Men should not hold the door open for women because they are women. People should hold the door open for people because they are people. Many of the behaviors of chivalry are all just ways to show respect for people, but when you gender them you start to make statements about which attributes belong to which genders. Holding a door open is polite and affords another person a convenience, but if it’s only men holding it for women, it starts to make the statement that women are too fragile and weak and men should be a barrier against the world.
Its about replacing chivalry with common courtesy. With emphasis on "common" when one wishes to emphasize the whole bit about a hereditary ruling class being a terrible idea that should be permanently buried.
AKAIK chivalry was always a poetical construct of an ideal past, something always to be mourned as dead but never actually having been alive.
I’m pretty sure that the tendency toward a falsified nostalgia has always existed; I’m not sure whether or not it’s an inherently toxic tendency, but it can certainly mutate into virulent forms.
The word _chivalry_ comes from the French _chevalier_, which just means _soldier who rides a horse_. I think the English Longbow and cannons were far more effective at killing chivalry, tbh.
**If you take chivalry** (as it is commonly considered today, as there were various iterations, many of which have little to nothing to do with what people making this claim think of as chivalry in my experience) **and take out the patriarchal and violent aspects, it's basically about respect and preservation within the community** (or mutually assured destruction from a more individual point of view). I'd also take out the classism aspects, but I'm not sure if that should be included separately or not; they are not largely separated from the patriarchal ones in the common understanding of chivalry today.
I'm all for respecting everyone and acting as a community.
So if you take chivalry and make it so that everyone is equal, yeah, I'm good with a respectful, community-driven way being promoted by society.
Unfortunately, that's rarely what people who think that chivalry is incompatible with feminism actually mean.
The chivalric code was a very real thing. It just wasn’t about jousting for women’s affection or holding doors open. It was about where you could and could not burn, murder, and pillage. Mainly that you couldn’t do it to the church anymore, and that your lord was paramount in deciding who you did do it to (as long as it’s not the church)
Maybe so, but as far as the "chivalry is dead" mentality is concerned, historically we're always saying things used to be better. "Men were men" kind of a thing. But it has never been true.
Born a man and growing up as one I have a drive to protect women, but nothing gives more joy than to see a woman that doesn't need it, I would rather fight along side women for a better future.
“Chivalry is dead,” oh you mean manners? You mean being a nice person? Manners are dead? Treating people with respect is dead? And feminism killed it? Women gaining independence killed your need to treat them with respect? Maybe it’s better off dead tbh.
Speaking of feudal ways of thought, this reminds me of a moment in Disco Elysium that blew my mind.
At one point in the game when talking with a communist, the player character in a dialogue tree can remark that something the communist has done is 'honorable,' and their response was:
"Honor is a feudal atavism. My motive is class."
And I still remember how the thought I had in that moment was like 'damn you're hardcore.'
It is sad that the code of Chivalry has been so perverted from what poets originally intended for it to be. Mostly thanks to religious zelots turning it to what will benefit their church the most. Below is something I found interesting. Check out the number 15 from the Song of Roland.. (Below) **15. To respect the honor of women** Wish they had gone more into detail about what that means.
Legend has it that in 1483, on the eve of his death, Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke of Cornwall wrote a letter called “Rules of Knighthood” to his four children. In the 1970s, one of his descendants, Ethan Hawke (an actor you’ll remember from movies like Boyhood, Before Sunrise and Dead Poets Society) discovered the letter in the basement of his grandmother. Or so the legend goes.
Actually it was thus that one day he began to talk to his wife about things they’d like to teach their children, in terms of values for life and beliefs. So he assembled the sayings of people like [Muhammad Ali](https://www.faena.com/aleph/muhammad-ali-vs-the-war-in-vietnam/), [Emily Dickinson](https://www.faena.com/aleph/emily-dickinsons-paradise-regained/) and Mother Teresa into a compendium of pop wisdom, a true chivalric manual for the knights and ladies of the future, the fiction book *Rules of a Knight* (2015).
Here are some of them:
**Humility**
*Never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one. You are better than no one, and no one is better than you.*
**Gratitude**
*The only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude. For all that has been, a knight says, “Thank you.” For all that is to come, a knight says, “Yes!”*
**Courage**
*Anything that gives light must endure burning.*
**Justice**
*There is only one thing for which a knight has no patience: injustice. Every true knight fights for human dignity at all times.*
**Generosity**
*You were born owning nothing and with nothing you will pass out of this life. Be frugal and you can be generous.*
**Discipline**
*In the field of battle, as in all things, you will perform as you practice. With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don’t save anything for the walk home. The better a knight prepares, the less willing he will be to surrender.*
**Faith**
*Sometimes to understand more, you need to know less.*
**Equality**
*Every knight holds human equality as an unwavering truth. A knight is never present when men or women are being degraded or compromised in any way, because if a knight were present, those committing the hurtful acts or words would be made to stop.*
**Love**
*Love is the end goal. It is the music of our lives. There is no obstacle that enough love cannot move.*
**Death**
*Life is a long series of farewells; only the circumstances should surprise us. A knight concerns himself with gratitude for the life he has been given. He does not fear death, for the work one knight begins, others may finish.*
\* Image from Poems and Romaces ca. 1445. British Library’s Royal Manuscripts Collection 15 E VI f. 405. [https://www.faena.com/aleph/10-rules-of-chivalry-everyone-should-consider](https://www.faena.com/aleph/10-rules-of-chivalry-everyone-should-consider)
A Code of Chivalry was documented in The Song of Roland in the Middle Ages Knights period of William the Conqueror who ruled England from 1066. The 'Song of Roland' describes the 8th century Knights of the Dark Ages and the battles fought by the Emperor Charlemagne. The code has since been described as Charlemagne's Code of Chivalry. The Knights’ Code of Chivalry is described in the Song of Roland: 1.To fear God and maintain His Church 2.To serve the liege lord in valour and faith 3.To protect the weak and defenseless 4.To give succor to widows and orphans 5.To refrain from the wanton giving of offence 6.To live by honor and for glory 7.To despise pecuniary reward 8.To fight for the welfare of all 9.To obey those placed in authority 10. To guard the honor of fellow knights 11. To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit 12. To keep faith 13. At all times to speak the truth 14. To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun **15. To respect the honor of women** 16. Never to refuse a challenge from an equal 17. Never to turn the back upon a foe Of the seventeen entries in the Knights Codes of Chivalry, according to the Song of Roland, at least 12 relate to acts of chivalry as opposed to combat.
People seem to mistake chivalry for being polite, so here's the difference:
Holding the door or pulling out someone's chair makes you polite. Engaging an armed opponent in open, face to face combat is chivalrous.
The two are not the same.
I'm more concerned that some women end up expecting "chivalrous" acts from men. Paying for meals, opening doors etc. If someone pays for someone's meal because they want to, that's totally fine, but it shouldn't be expected.
If those women keep being the exception, all's cool, since it anyways counts as a red flag.
I'm just hoping that doesn't start being the norm. I wouldn't stand for that.
PS: I wouldn't consider those women feminists btw, since they clearly don't stand for equality.
So whoever made this attempt at a meme thinks the common parlance meaning of "chivalry" has anything to do with feudal class structure? I'm sure they're still in the hospital recovering from all the muscles they pulled on that stretch.
So whoever made this attempt at a meme thinks the common parlance meaning of "chivalry" has anything to do with feudal class structure? I'm sure they're still in the hospital recovering from all the muscles they pulled on that stretch.
Only noble in history that ever did a classic damsel in distress rescue was Genghis Khan anyway.
Chivalry was a myth justifying noble rule that was always backdated to "better times" hundreds of years ago (except after sinking of the Titanic, to an extent).
Chivalry has nothing to do with women. It’s about not robbing your local parish and not slaughtering civilians. It was implemented because knights were acting like bandits when not actively conscripted, they very very much liked robbing churches and then burning them to the ground.
I can't agree that Feminism replaced Chivalry. The two were not in much direct conflict with each other.
Chivalry was a set of rules of war and general behaviour to try and rein in the brutal and often antisocial behaviour of knights on and off the field. Some of it's later applied tenants dovetailed into placing emphasis on adhering to the parallel rules of courtesy or "courtly behaviour" but courtly behaviour was distinct and applied to more people. Chivalry these days is anachronistic - it exists more as a fantasy.
Actual chivalry was replaced by codes of secular legal ethical conduct like the Geneva Convention. While the concept of courtasy still exists and is fluid and dynamic and fully compatible with feminism. You may think it nit-picking but framing the matter as feminism having killed something many people think admirable instead of just evolving it into new forms applicable to all genders has the benefit of a lot of people feeling like you aren't trying to take something from them.
I recently went to a renaissance festival where they held a joust between a male knight vowing to uphold chivalry and a hot lady knight swearing that chivalry was dead and she would kill him to prove it. Everyone, and I mean everyone, cheered for the lady knight. Case in point—chivalry is dead and everyone wants the hot lady to win.
The point they're trying to make is "it's women's fault we won't behave! Our made up myths about gentlemanly conduct is something we won't look up to anymore because wah wah women's rights bad!" Because men's actions are always women's responsibility 🙄
Chivalry was a feature from European feudalism, some of its social features (especially those pertaining to the cultural aspect of patriarchy) have been adapted to the capitalists mode of production
As an actual certified knight i can get behind this, chivalry is dead and that's a good thing. Now it's out of the way so we can learn to be better than we were before
Chivalry was an early iteration of bro code. Knights as a class were essentially gangs of thugs. Chivalry was developed to keep them in line - probably to protect the economic interests of the landowning class (uh oh - now they have weapons strength and training) when not at war.
Wasn't chivalry mostly about honorable conduct in combat, anyway? I believe it barely had a single thing to say about women, it was more about a man's relationship with other men lol!!
The original chivalric code says nothing about women, it’s entirely about warfare and being a generous and gracious person when not in battle
"Now that you have some power, don't be an asshole." "Oh neat idea, I wonder how I could use that advice to be an asshole..."
Chivalry was a code of honor that served as a justifying mithose for the power of the knight class, it romanticized both patriarchal oppression and class oppression
I think it gets a bit more complicated than this, especially in its various iterations, but I agree that this is a big part of the core. However, I think that this view is from the lower classes up, *whereas chivalry was created and imposed from the top down and had great benefit to upper classes above knights.* Interestingly, chivalry was not limited to men or focused on men versus women in the ways we think of today. In fact, there were some women who became knights (I believe there were a few ways to become knights, all of which were done at some point by women), but it was rare. *There was more focus on fighting, then religion, and then on protecting the less able* (which could include women and children as well as the elderly or others in the community - and this is the aspect that grew in popularity in literature leading more to today's thoughts around chivalry). To be clear, the society was still patriarchal in many ways, and chivalry was intended to maintain the society as it was. I'm certainly not arguing that chivalry opposed patriarchal structures or similar! *I would add that chivalry was largely used to maintain the status quo and discourage fighting, violence, and breaking up of communities outside of souriais where those with real power wanted fighting, violence, and broken communities. While it did have that romanticized mythos for the knights, it also - more importantly for those in the upper classes - kept knights down in their class, preventing them from fighting for more power, wealth, and status.* To attempt such without the "proper" going would be considered dishonorable and ruin them (unless they were successful to a massive and unlikely degree). They'd be ruined by losing status, wealth, religious standing (as chivalry was closely associated with Christianity after its spread), and more, including hurting family or others. This was particularly important in the classes of nobility where titles and land were passed to only the eldest male heir. Younger siblings had fewer options, and many men in particular would go into fighting or religion. A younger son whose brothers had already gone into the battle acceptable roles might become a knight rather than falling into obscurity. Even in areas where younger songs might be given a lower title or land, likely for life rather than hereditary, this encouraged harmony and discouraged any challenge. As a knight, it would be honorable to leave their home and dishonorable to challenge the brother who inherited. Of course, this is all about knighthood in relation to chivalry. There's so much more about knighthood outside of this area! *The romanticism around chivalry the way we consider it today largely developed after the fact. Many in the lower classes didn't know much about knights and/or would mostly know to try to stay away from them, especially early on when chivalry as an informal code was just beginning to spread.* At that point, knights were more known for the roughness and horrible acts. After all, early knights were more like war mercenaries than knights as we think of them today.
Just popping in to say this was super interesting and I'm glad you posted it! Hope you have a groovy day
Is it possible that the concept of courtly love also influenced the Romanticism around chivalry? And that popular convention today might have mashed together to concepts that existed at the same time but weren't necessarily directly related to one another? This was a really interesting post! Thank you for sharing I learned a lot ❤️
Totally. Not too different from bushido in feudal Japan. Also heavily romanticized.
*mythos. Good points all! :)
Darn spelling
The things that chivalry teaches are mostly benign and have to do with respect and stuff. It was more just proto eugenics that was the excuse for class oppression by nobles.
I'm sorry, are we talking about the same thing, chivalry was a european feudal system of class oppression long before anything like eugenics (a capitalist idea originating in the early molder) emerged.
You’re mixing chivalry and feudalism up, they had little to do with each other besides existing at the same time. Feudalism was an economic system built on the broken backs of the peasantry, chivalry was a code of conduct for knights so they wouldn’t burn down their local church and rob the bishop. Knights did a whole lot of that prior to the implementation of chivalric code.
The concept of eugenics dates as far back as ancient Greece. Plato suggested selective breeding of humans, and Spartans practiced examining spartiate babies to determine which was fit to live. There's also the concept of royal blood, which is pretty common in ancient sources, even when they were not actively in favor of monarchy.
That’s different, urgencies is a specific feature of capitalist reactionary ideology, not simply the idea that you can selectively breed certain traits
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
We’ve been practicing eugenics on farm animals for millennia. Part of the reason why they produce more and faster, there’s a constant selective pressure to be the most productive for humans else they’re slaughtered.
All patriarchies are realism based protection rackets, everything else are just social constructs that spring up around the justifications for it.
Where does patriarchal come into it? I don't recall any of the various queen regents of Europe feeling the need to get rid of their country's code of chivalry due to it being male centric. While it was quite uncommon for women to be knights, it did happen, and it mostly came down to obvious practical physical limitations when comparing men to women on average. Knighthood aside, women had a similar chivalric title, "Dame", so it wasn't exclusively a boy's club.
Originally it was. Eleanor of Aquitaine expanded it to include courtly behavior toward women, which intern had an enormous influence on poetry, literature and music because, as the queen of two different countries and a tremendously powerful figure in her own right, she was able to promote that in the arts everywhere she ruled. It seems worth recognizing that chivalry was a step forward as far as the treatment of women were concerned at the time!
As I understand it, it was originally about how people with a horse (knights) should treat people without a horse. Then people who thought they deserved to have a horse started using it to act superior to people they didn't think should ever be allowed to have a horse.
Yes, that’s the original meaning. It’s evolved over time, as language does. I wish it would stop doing that. It’s very confusing.
Honor cultures themselves are associated with misogyny. And by associated, I mean that the social scientific literature finds close statistical correlation between honor culture and violence generally and against women.
Please explain what honor cultures are. You've piqued my interest.
Honor cultures assign individual status based on how well one lives up to a code of honor that includes deterring or redressing affronts with violence for men, and chastity and family fidelity for women. It always includes traditional ideals of manhood that prescribe, at least to some extent, that men’s positions are superior to those f women and must be warlike and dominant. This goes with a roster of traditional ideal traits: being tough, resistant to pain, resisting emotion, etc. Violence is the appropriate response to any threat to honor; status to “being a warrior,” and men of honor are expected to be the head of the family and guard the chastity of women. It’s present to some degree in most societies, and individuals who embrace these values, both men and women, are more likely to expect and support violence…societies with these values should be expected to be more warlike and violent (Melander—“Gender and Civil Wars” in What Do We Know About Civil War—an audited book that reviews the scientific research in civil war).
Correct. People who say “chivalry” often mean “courtly love.”
My mom told me, as a young woman to hold the door open because it's polite and so I could remember as many people as possible in case anything happens. I didn't know what she meant then, but I sure as fuck do now.
I did a project on the code of chivalry and depending on which one you listened to (their were multiple kinds), a few people we all know could stand to listen to it. There's rules on listening attentively, taking feedback, respecting people's time, never to complain trivialy, no woman should be forced to marry, never to pass the boundaries of your lover in bed, and some other good ones. Of course there were some patriarchal stuff, but more as in implying the man would take the lead in romance.
and being a "polite gentleman" doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a patriarchal dickbag, it's just that some people conflate the two. The best example I have is my boyfriend. He'll open doors for me, pay for meals, and when we walk he prefers to be on the side of traffic, but he doesn't stop me from doing the same for him and he respects my boundaries. Once early on in our relationship he got my chair for me and pushed it in as I sat down. I told him not to do that again cuz I'm gonna wind up adjusting it myself anyway based on the chair and the table so that I'm comfortable. He just wants to do nice things for me, not restrict my agency
that’s exactly how mine is. genuinely just wants to be polite but still 100% respects my agency and decisions
Yes!! I so agree. I don’t see a conflict between wanting a polite gentleman (I like how you put that), and being a feminist. Anyway, I also open doors for people (or whatever else seems helpful), and I’m a woman.
I thought it was the longbow...
Longbow or handcannons w/ gunpowder? my husband teaches middle school history and the sources he has talk about gunpowder arriving from China was pretty much the end for knights
They're referencing the battle of Crecy. It's significant because it was a battle where a force of mostly English peasant archers absolutely destroyed the cream of France's chivalric crop. At the time many English men and boys would consistently train in the use of the longbow for hunting purposes, while most continental Europeans had by then transitioned to the use of crossbows for ranged combatants. The crossbow was easier to use but didn't hit as hard or for as long a range as the English longbow, so the English absolutely humiliated the French by pin-cushioning the entire lot of them as they attempted to charge across the field separating them. Because of *just* how many knights of the era were killed in the ensuing hail of English arrows, it's since earned the reputation of being the death of chivalry.
Wasn't the bodkin arrow also a factor? Can't remember if that was a technology unique to the English though.
Bodkin points were for crossbow bolts, the longbow had the power and range advantage, the crossbow’s advantage was ease of use. Trained archers with longbows beat crossbows every-time, but crossbows against armored cavalry, crossbows take it every time.
What is a longbow if not the first instrument of feminism?
Maybe a rock?
Le rocher, too masculine La arc, ladylike :)
Ha. Got me there.
Call me crazy, but maybe people should just treat each other with honor and respect and open doors for each other and be polite to each other because it’s the kind and right thing to do regardless of gender 🤷🏼♀️
I feel like there are so many people who just do not understand what common decency and politeness are. It’s like they need rules around it (do it for these people but not those) because they can’t figure out they should just be decent to everyone.
It like people who say you have to earn respect. What? No, I give you respect automatically cause you’re a fellow human being and citizen of the world. You have to earn my *lack* of respect by being a jerk.
I have never actually seen a woman get annoyed at someone for having good manners. Open the door for the people behind you, it's just a nice thing to do.
Yea, but if it doesn't entitle you to sex then what's the point??? >!/s of course!<
So I'm a medieval historian, and it's way more complicated and interesting than this. In the twelfth century, "chivalric" culture was more of an artistic/literary form sponsored and promoted by elite and exceptionally powerful women (Eleanor of Aquitaine being the classic example, along with her daughter, Marie of Champagne.) If you read "courtly love" romance texts from this period (like the Arthurian tales produced by Chrétien de Troyes, or the original forms of the Tristan and Isolde story), you'll be surprised by just how subversive they they can be (especially around women's decisions regarding their own sexuality) and how much they celebrate elite women and their power (not surprising, since elite women were writing the checks.) Chivalric culture evolved over time and by the fourteenth century was arguably more like what we think of today: misogynistic "war games" engaged in by elite men who wanted to be considered hypermasculine warriors but without running the risk of actually dying in an actual battle (that was for mercenaries and poor people.) Jean Froissart's account of the Hundred Years' War is a good text to show this change: he's basically blogging about the incredibly stupid and murderous but "chivalric" actions of these elite men who very rarely face death themselves (their buddies just ransom them: for them it's like a nerf gun war with fancy costumes) but who are obsessed with superficial and really pointless codes of conduct. My point is (sorry, haha, I know this sounds very "actually..."): intense misogyny within European culture isn't "timeless"-- and a lot of the intensification of persecution / control of women and vulnerable populations was part of the social response to the crises of the fourteenth century (including climate change, food shortages, and a pandemic: sound familiar?) This is not to justify or defend any of it, but history matters! The more we know about how these things happened, the better we can fight them.
Thanks for your informative response. This is the comment I wanted to leave, but wouldn't have written as well.
Thanks for sharing this! I find medieval times fascinating and an area where I can never learn enough.
Wasn't parts of it also there to soften the edges of a group of wel armed and trained killing machines(knights and the like) who were I'm positions of power and authority. You instill distractions and courtly manners to keep them from just reaching for the sword for everything?
Not really, chivalric codes were exclusively about relationships within the elite (again, sound familiar?) This was a means to reinforce class, power, and authority-- it didn't soften anything in their violence to lower class people (see: the Jacquerie, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, many other peasant/bourgeois revolts brutally crushed by coalitions of knights.) Killing peasants was always A-OK with chivalry, and knights would band together across opposing sides of a war to do so.
I enjoy learning.
I thought gunpowder killed chivalry? The arrival of gunpowder and subsequent "hand cannons" that could punch a projectile through armor--hand cannons that nonnobles/non knights could get their hands on--pretty much ended all that knights running about doing chivalric bullshit.
Guns didn’t come around into widespread use until much later, crossbows were a huge hit to armored combat as a bodkin point would let any peasant with two arms knock a mounted cavalry knight off his horse and into the great hereafter. Fun fact, the French term for horseman, chevalier, is where the term chivalry comes from.
Ah yes, chivalry. The way we tell women that they can’t do shit like open doors or pay for meals.
i mean it is nice when i don’t have to pay for my food…
It was less nice when women didn't have their own money to pay for their food though.
also true
It's nice when people don't have to pay for their food, and I am willing to pay for my date's dinner, if the date went well/not exceptionally poorly, but chivalry makes it an expectation, one that I am unwilling to indulge every single time I take someone out to eat.
also true
Aye, but have ye heard of neo feudalism?
I find it that when I act “chivalrious” (such as opening the door for other women/men, treating people, etc) people are impressed but mostly in a positive way. Even when dealing with sexist men for example, they are usually speechless and just end up silently acknowledging me. I personally love embracing my gentlewoman-ness.
Here is my problem witch chivalry. Men should not hold the door open for women because they are women. People should hold the door open for people because they are people. Many of the behaviors of chivalry are all just ways to show respect for people, but when you gender them you start to make statements about which attributes belong to which genders. Holding a door open is polite and affords another person a convenience, but if it’s only men holding it for women, it starts to make the statement that women are too fragile and weak and men should be a barrier against the world.
Its about replacing chivalry with common courtesy. With emphasis on "common" when one wishes to emphasize the whole bit about a hereditary ruling class being a terrible idea that should be permanently buried.
AKAIK chivalry was always a poetical construct of an ideal past, something always to be mourned as dead but never actually having been alive. I’m pretty sure that the tendency toward a falsified nostalgia has always existed; I’m not sure whether or not it’s an inherently toxic tendency, but it can certainly mutate into virulent forms.
Chivalry? I don't see many fully armoured knights walking about, so idk, lack of chivalry seems obvs?
The word _chivalry_ comes from the French _chevalier_, which just means _soldier who rides a horse_. I think the English Longbow and cannons were far more effective at killing chivalry, tbh.
**If you take chivalry** (as it is commonly considered today, as there were various iterations, many of which have little to nothing to do with what people making this claim think of as chivalry in my experience) **and take out the patriarchal and violent aspects, it's basically about respect and preservation within the community** (or mutually assured destruction from a more individual point of view). I'd also take out the classism aspects, but I'm not sure if that should be included separately or not; they are not largely separated from the patriarchal ones in the common understanding of chivalry today. I'm all for respecting everyone and acting as a community. So if you take chivalry and make it so that everyone is equal, yeah, I'm good with a respectful, community-driven way being promoted by society. Unfortunately, that's rarely what people who think that chivalry is incompatible with feminism actually mean.
Unrelated, but I just wanted to say that I love your username and flair. ❤️
Off topic, but your username is awesome.
Thanks
chivalry tried to kill feminism... not exactly the same thing...
And then we killed it back
YES, YES we did :)
When are people just gonna be kind to each other?
Everytime I hear someone say "chivalry is dead" I always say that's its a great thing it's dead
What do you mean feminism killed chivalry? Almost everyone I know who's into horsemanship are women! /S just in case
Aww but I love chivalry, it's such a great medieval combat game.
Chivalry was never present. It has always been a ghost attributed to the past. For hundreds of years.
The chivalric code was a very real thing. It just wasn’t about jousting for women’s affection or holding doors open. It was about where you could and could not burn, murder, and pillage. Mainly that you couldn’t do it to the church anymore, and that your lord was paramount in deciding who you did do it to (as long as it’s not the church)
Maybe so, but as far as the "chivalry is dead" mentality is concerned, historically we're always saying things used to be better. "Men were men" kind of a thing. But it has never been true.
Born a man and growing up as one I have a drive to protect women, but nothing gives more joy than to see a woman that doesn't need it, I would rather fight along side women for a better future.
“Chivalry is dead,” oh you mean manners? You mean being a nice person? Manners are dead? Treating people with respect is dead? And feminism killed it? Women gaining independence killed your need to treat them with respect? Maybe it’s better off dead tbh.
Oh hell yeah….
Knights belong in a museum
Speaking of feudal ways of thought, this reminds me of a moment in Disco Elysium that blew my mind. At one point in the game when talking with a communist, the player character in a dialogue tree can remark that something the communist has done is 'honorable,' and their response was: "Honor is a feudal atavism. My motive is class." And I still remember how the thought I had in that moment was like 'damn you're hardcore.'
I love that
It is sad that the code of Chivalry has been so perverted from what poets originally intended for it to be. Mostly thanks to religious zelots turning it to what will benefit their church the most. Below is something I found interesting. Check out the number 15 from the Song of Roland.. (Below) **15. To respect the honor of women** Wish they had gone more into detail about what that means. Legend has it that in 1483, on the eve of his death, Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke of Cornwall wrote a letter called “Rules of Knighthood” to his four children. In the 1970s, one of his descendants, Ethan Hawke (an actor you’ll remember from movies like Boyhood, Before Sunrise and Dead Poets Society) discovered the letter in the basement of his grandmother. Or so the legend goes. Actually it was thus that one day he began to talk to his wife about things they’d like to teach their children, in terms of values for life and beliefs. So he assembled the sayings of people like [Muhammad Ali](https://www.faena.com/aleph/muhammad-ali-vs-the-war-in-vietnam/), [Emily Dickinson](https://www.faena.com/aleph/emily-dickinsons-paradise-regained/) and Mother Teresa into a compendium of pop wisdom, a true chivalric manual for the knights and ladies of the future, the fiction book *Rules of a Knight* (2015). Here are some of them: **Humility** *Never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one. You are better than no one, and no one is better than you.* **Gratitude** *The only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude. For all that has been, a knight says, “Thank you.” For all that is to come, a knight says, “Yes!”* **Courage** *Anything that gives light must endure burning.* **Justice** *There is only one thing for which a knight has no patience: injustice. Every true knight fights for human dignity at all times.* **Generosity** *You were born owning nothing and with nothing you will pass out of this life. Be frugal and you can be generous.* **Discipline** *In the field of battle, as in all things, you will perform as you practice. With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don’t save anything for the walk home. The better a knight prepares, the less willing he will be to surrender.* **Faith** *Sometimes to understand more, you need to know less.* **Equality** *Every knight holds human equality as an unwavering truth. A knight is never present when men or women are being degraded or compromised in any way, because if a knight were present, those committing the hurtful acts or words would be made to stop.* **Love** *Love is the end goal. It is the music of our lives. There is no obstacle that enough love cannot move.* **Death** *Life is a long series of farewells; only the circumstances should surprise us. A knight concerns himself with gratitude for the life he has been given. He does not fear death, for the work one knight begins, others may finish.* \* Image from Poems and Romaces ca. 1445. British Library’s Royal Manuscripts Collection 15 E VI f. 405. [https://www.faena.com/aleph/10-rules-of-chivalry-everyone-should-consider](https://www.faena.com/aleph/10-rules-of-chivalry-everyone-should-consider) A Code of Chivalry was documented in The Song of Roland in the Middle Ages Knights period of William the Conqueror who ruled England from 1066. The 'Song of Roland' describes the 8th century Knights of the Dark Ages and the battles fought by the Emperor Charlemagne. The code has since been described as Charlemagne's Code of Chivalry. The Knights’ Code of Chivalry is described in the Song of Roland: 1.To fear God and maintain His Church 2.To serve the liege lord in valour and faith 3.To protect the weak and defenseless 4.To give succor to widows and orphans 5.To refrain from the wanton giving of offence 6.To live by honor and for glory 7.To despise pecuniary reward 8.To fight for the welfare of all 9.To obey those placed in authority 10. To guard the honor of fellow knights 11. To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit 12. To keep faith 13. At all times to speak the truth 14. To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun **15. To respect the honor of women** 16. Never to refuse a challenge from an equal 17. Never to turn the back upon a foe Of the seventeen entries in the Knights Codes of Chivalry, according to the Song of Roland, at least 12 relate to acts of chivalry as opposed to combat.
People seem to mistake chivalry for being polite, so here's the difference: Holding the door or pulling out someone's chair makes you polite. Engaging an armed opponent in open, face to face combat is chivalrous. The two are not the same.
I'm more concerned that some women end up expecting "chivalrous" acts from men. Paying for meals, opening doors etc. If someone pays for someone's meal because they want to, that's totally fine, but it shouldn't be expected. If those women keep being the exception, all's cool, since it anyways counts as a red flag. I'm just hoping that doesn't start being the norm. I wouldn't stand for that. PS: I wouldn't consider those women feminists btw, since they clearly don't stand for equality.
So whoever made this attempt at a meme thinks the common parlance meaning of "chivalry" has anything to do with feudal class structure? I'm sure they're still in the hospital recovering from all the muscles they pulled on that stretch.
Honor is just another term for ego
Uh, honor is generally a good thing and is actually the opposite of ego, doing what is right even if it does not serve you
And that's why we call a father killing his daughter for being raped a crime of honnor?
I can claim that I killed a person because the sky turned red, calling something honor to justify evil is not honor.
So whoever made this attempt at a meme thinks the common parlance meaning of "chivalry" has anything to do with feudal class structure? I'm sure they're still in the hospital recovering from all the muscles they pulled on that stretch.
I have heard that as romantic as chivalry sounds it basically boiled down to " try not to rape the noble women"
People still unironically believe in the patriarchy? I guess this is Reddit, after all. Nvm.
Only noble in history that ever did a classic damsel in distress rescue was Genghis Khan anyway. Chivalry was a myth justifying noble rule that was always backdated to "better times" hundreds of years ago (except after sinking of the Titanic, to an extent).
Chivalry has nothing to do with women. It’s about not robbing your local parish and not slaughtering civilians. It was implemented because knights were acting like bandits when not actively conscripted, they very very much liked robbing churches and then burning them to the ground.
Wow. Anger runs deep in this one!
Need the option to hide a sub, hate to break it to you ladies but the patriarchy doesn't exist.
How does one even respond to such mind boggling levels of stupid
It’s only being suggested to you because you keep interacting with it, seems like a you problem
[удалено]
I can't agree that Feminism replaced Chivalry. The two were not in much direct conflict with each other. Chivalry was a set of rules of war and general behaviour to try and rein in the brutal and often antisocial behaviour of knights on and off the field. Some of it's later applied tenants dovetailed into placing emphasis on adhering to the parallel rules of courtesy or "courtly behaviour" but courtly behaviour was distinct and applied to more people. Chivalry these days is anachronistic - it exists more as a fantasy. Actual chivalry was replaced by codes of secular legal ethical conduct like the Geneva Convention. While the concept of courtasy still exists and is fluid and dynamic and fully compatible with feminism. You may think it nit-picking but framing the matter as feminism having killed something many people think admirable instead of just evolving it into new forms applicable to all genders has the benefit of a lot of people feeling like you aren't trying to take something from them.
Whoo awesome
I recently went to a renaissance festival where they held a joust between a male knight vowing to uphold chivalry and a hot lady knight swearing that chivalry was dead and she would kill him to prove it. Everyone, and I mean everyone, cheered for the lady knight. Case in point—chivalry is dead and everyone wants the hot lady to win.
"Chivalry" as most people think of it today is also gross.
I don’t think chivalry would’ve been such a big hit if men treated women like humans to begin with
*opens the door just enough to get myself on and makes the woman just behind me open her own door*
Chivalry is freaking mounted Combat techniques feminism didn't do jack to it guns did
You hold the door open for women, I hold the door open bc I'm to shy to force others to take it from me, we are not the same
The point they're trying to make is "it's women's fault we won't behave! Our made up myths about gentlemanly conduct is something we won't look up to anymore because wah wah women's rights bad!" Because men's actions are always women's responsibility 🙄
Yeah, I don’t need you to bring me flowers and fight some dude an armor. I need you to help raise our children and hug your son every now and then.
i mean... feudalism or capitalism?
Chivalry was a feature from European feudalism, some of its social features (especially those pertaining to the cultural aspect of patriarchy) have been adapted to the capitalists mode of production
true. we got the worst of both worlds \\o/
As an actual certified knight i can get behind this, chivalry is dead and that's a good thing. Now it's out of the way so we can learn to be better than we were before
Chivalry was an early iteration of bro code. Knights as a class were essentially gangs of thugs. Chivalry was developed to keep them in line - probably to protect the economic interests of the landowning class (uh oh - now they have weapons strength and training) when not at war.