Chivalry In King Arthur's Court
Women's view of Chivalry in King Arthur's Court
King Arthur's court is often presented as home to noble knights; however it may also be found that opposing views exist of how Knights of the Roundtable carried themselves, such as presented in Marie de France's Lanval and Chaucer's Wife of Bath, where one knight is being mistreated by his fellow brothers-in-arms and another knight is simply a rapist. These authors question the nobility of the knights as well as of the ladies and through their literary works they both critique the male world as well as the upper class.
Marie de France in her description of King Arthur's court and its rules leaves a romantic notion, as to how noble knight shall carry himself as true gentleman. Her Lanval …show more content…
Here, it is shown that knights were true noblemen only as long as they didn't have to go against their own will and marry old women. Perhaps in the company of fair ladies or even fairies they behave themselves well and held well up to the common standard of chivalry that all King Arthur's knights obeyed but once made to do something against their will they were no longer noble and it was highly questionable whether they acted better than peasants. For certain, Wife of Bath shows how lower class people regarded nobility and what they thought of them. However, what is interesting is that the old lady this nobleman was married to asks him on their first night "Fareth every knight thus with his wif as ye? Is this the lawe of King Arthures hous?" (lines 1094-95), showing clearly that lower class people thought that King Arthur's knights had to act just like their king as he served as the embodiment of chivalry. As we can see it wasn't really so and there were even knights that weren't great depictions of chivalry as Marie de France described them in
King Arthur's court is often presented as home to noble knights; however it may also be found that opposing views exist of how Knights of the Roundtable carried themselves, such as presented in Marie de France's Lanval and Chaucer's Wife of Bath, where one knight is being mistreated by his fellow brothers-in-arms and another knight is simply a rapist. These authors question the nobility of the knights as well as of the ladies and through their literary works they both critique the male world as well as the upper class.
Marie de France in her description of King Arthur's court and its rules leaves a romantic notion, as to how noble knight shall carry himself as true gentleman. Her Lanval …show more content…
Here, it is shown that knights were true noblemen only as long as they didn't have to go against their own will and marry old women. Perhaps in the company of fair ladies or even fairies they behave themselves well and held well up to the common standard of chivalry that all King Arthur's knights obeyed but once made to do something against their will they were no longer noble and it was highly questionable whether they acted better than peasants. For certain, Wife of Bath shows how lower class people regarded nobility and what they thought of them. However, what is interesting is that the old lady this nobleman was married to asks him on their first night "Fareth every knight thus with his wif as ye? Is this the lawe of King Arthures hous?" (lines 1094-95), showing clearly that lower class people thought that King Arthur's knights had to act just like their king as he served as the embodiment of chivalry. As we can see it wasn't really so and there were even knights that weren't great depictions of chivalry as Marie de France described them in