Kaeuper R.W. - Chivalry and violence in medieval europe (1999)(en)
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The Ambivalent Force of Chivalry |
Charny closes his great effort with (to borrow Maurice KeenÕs characterization once again46) a combination prayer and war cry: ÔPray to God for him who is the author of this book . . . Charni, Charny.Õ The statement recalls MarshalÕs war cry, which likewise sounded his own name and called conÞdently upon GodÕs aid. CharnyÕs piety is more explicit and certainly more voluble. Yet the basic assumptions are similar. Knights who do their hard duty with loyalty and honesty can be assured of divine favour. God will receive them into an eternity of blissful reward. There can be no question whether or not a man can save his soul by the profession of arms; there can be no danger to the soul in Þghting for the right causesÑin just wars, to protect oneÕs kin and their estates, to protect helpless maidens, widows, and orphans, to protect oneÕs own land and inheritance, to defend Holy Church. The list is generous, and accepts no cavils or criticisms.47 The divine blessing on reformed chivalry is clear.
Even CharnyÕs statement of clerical superiority has a somewhat formal ring; he soon betrays his sense that the great role that chivalry must play in the world gives it a special status. Like William Marshal a century before, he is happiest when religion comes heavily blended with chivalry; again in company with the Marshal, he most heartily endorses clerics who perform all the needed rites and then stand aside for the magniÞcent work with sword and lance.
Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur
How can we add MaloryÕs Morte Darthur,48 a work of imaginative chivalric literature, to the model biography and the treatise composed by a practising knight? This book will, of necessity, be quite different from our Þrst two sources, primarily because it is a highly original reworking of a mass of literary texts, English as well as French. These texts bring with them many currents of thought about chivalry (including some of the most intense efforts to infuse chivalry with monastic values), locked in conßict with developed French ideas about amors. In addition, because of these numerous sources drawn into MaloryÕs work, and often given new shape there, his book is vastly larger and more complex than the two we have so far considered in this chapter.49
46 Keen, Chivalry, 14. |
47 Kaeuper and Kennedy, Book of Chivalry, 154Ð67. |
48Vinaver, ed., Malory. Works. For an introduction to the enormous body of scholarship on this author and work, see Life, Sir Thomas Malory.
49Useful general approaches appear in Brewer, ÔMaloryÕ; idem, ed., Malory, ÔIntroductionÕ; and Benson, MaloryÕs Morte Darthur. On Malory and chivalry, see Tucker, ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ; McCarthy, Morte Darthur, 76Ð93; Barber, ÔChivalryÕ. Beverly Kennedy, Knighthood, argues a highly schematic typology of knighthood in Malory.
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Yet there are sound reasons for making MaloryÕs book our Þnal text, as we consider reform of chivalry by the knightly. One of the few facts about Sir Thomas Malory that can be advanced without igniting instant controversy is that he was a knight himself, and very probably a practising or strenuous knight. He clearly tells us in the pages of the Morte Darthur that he is a knight; the favourite scholarly candidate among the several Thomas Malorys advanced as the author of this great book appears to have had an active career in armour.50
Moreover, he shows concern for the themes that we have already encountered in the life of William Marshal and in the manual of Geoffroi de Charny. In company with the other knight-authors, that is, Malory shows a vast admiration for prowess (the key to honour, if practised properly), a concern for the crucial role of loyalty, a somewhat subordinate interest in romantic love, and an unswerving belief that God blesses the entire chivalric enterprise. We will examine each of these points.51
Could any reader of Morte Darthur doubt that Malory admires prowess? The only danger seems to be the modern tendency to hurry past this virtue in an effort to infuse it with deeper and less physical meanings, or quickly to qualify it with checks and softening qualities more to our modern taste. But Malory likes prowess. He vastly admires men who can beat other men in armour, on horseback, with lance and sword.52
His admiration stands forth most clearly and without competing distractions in the early tales of his book, full of the Ônoble chere of chevalryÕ equated with Ôthe hardyeste fyghters that ever they herde other saweÕ. Malory says Arthur, Þghting with Accolon, has lost so much blood that he can barely stand, Ôbut he was so full of knighthood that he endured the painÕ. Kay is contemptuous of GarethÕs Þrst, simple request of Arthur, a request for sustenance, Ôfor an he had be come of jantyllmen, he wolde have axed [i.e. asked for] horse and armourÕ.53
This admiration for prowess, so evident in MaloryÕs accounts of ArthurÕs wars to establish and expand his realm, scarcely disappears or lessens throughout the rest of the book, even though other themes (the Grail, the love of
50Vinaver, ed., Malory. Works, 110, 726. For a recent extended defence of the Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel as the author, see Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. Mahoney comments that MaloryÕs book Ôis full of touches that demonstrate his practical knowledge of the Þghting lifeÕ: ÔMaloryÕs Morte DarthurÕ, 530.
51Another similarity is that Malory makes of chivalry an ideal as it was in the Marshal biography and CharnyÕs book. Since the world can never quite live up to any such ideals, MaloryÕs book, like the others, is a work of chivalric reform.
52In addition to the quotations which follow, all taken from Vinaver, Malory. Works, see the many examples drawn from Malory in Chapter 7.
53Ibid., 198, 24, 86, 178.
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Lancelot and Queen Guinevere) take on prominence. For it is through the practice of prowess that the knights win worshipÑprobably the highest human good in MaloryÕs view, and a chief ingredient in nobility. Characters who have seen good displays of Þghting say they have seen noble knighthood.54
Throughout the book worship is proved on other menÕs bodies. Balin says to his brother that they will attack King Rion with just this in mind: Ôkynge Ryons lyeth at the sege of the Castell Terrable, and thydir woll we draw in all goodly haste to preve our worship and prouesse uppon hym.Õ55 The many battle scars on LancelotÕs body, evident when for a time he runs naked and mad in the woods, prove to those who see him that he is a man of worship. To fail in a Þght is to get no worship from an opponent.56
Malory so values the military side of knighthood and the worship produced by Þghting well that he emphasizes the life of prowess even at the expense of the romantic love so evident in his French sources. As scholars have argued for some time, Malory speaks in the most positive terms of stability in love, of affection arising naturally and enduring steadfastly; but he seems unhappy and even irritable when love becomes highly mannered and formalized in a cult in the manner of French Þn amors.57
His recasting of the tale of Tristram and Isolde makes the point nicely. Though he tells us Tristram could not live without Isolde, ÔMaloryÕs own statementÕ, P. E. Tucker argues, Ôis not made plausible. On the other hand, much is made of TristramÕs other virtues as a knight.Õ58 Eug•ne Vinaver similarly thinks that Ôlove is not allowed to interfere with the customs of knighterrantry. As a true knight-errant, what Tristram values above all is not the presence of his beloved, nor the joy of sharing every moment of his life with her, but the high privilege of Þghting in her name.Õ59 Tucker identiÞes what may be MaloryÕs key interest in the matter of the love between knight and lady. Malory Ôis concerned largely with stability, that is, loyalty in love. . . . Malory Þnds Þdelity in love praiseworthy in itselfÑultimately, perhaps, because it is a form of loyalty.Õ60 Sadly, love in his own day does not meet MaloryÕs high standards: ÔAnd ryght so faryth the love nowadays, sone hote sone colde. Thys ys no stabylytŽ. But the olde love was nat so.Õ61
54E.g. Vinaver ed., Malory. Works, 277.
55Ibid., 44.
56Ibid., 499, 330, 370.
57See the cogent argument of Tucker, ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ. Cf. Edwards, ÔPlace of WomenÕ.
58ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ, 73. In general this essay has much of interest to say on the entire issue of chivalry in MaloryÕs view.
59Vinaver, Malory. Works, 750.
60ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ, 81. Cf. Peter Waldron, Ô ÒVertuouse LoveÓ, 54Ð61.
61Vinaver, Malory. Works, 649.
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The issue leads to a point of basic importance to understanding MaloryÕs view of chivalry in relation to our earlier exemplars. As Tucker has noted, prowess, too, is praiseworthy in itself, and Ô[a]part from its inherent worth, prowess is admirable because it brings a knight reputation and honour, or what Malory calls ÒworshipÓ Õ.62 The chief qualities which are praiseworthy in themselves and which lead to other virtues are thus identiÞed as prowess and loyalty, the twin pillars which upheld so much of the structure of CharnyÕs book, the interlinked set of qualities so important to William MarshalÕs successful career.
ÔStabylytŽÕ, Malory thinks, should be embodied in good love. Lancelot and Guinevere are true lovers because of their constant loyalty, their stability, despite all obstacles, despite doubts, misunderstandings, and quarrels. ÔStabylytŽÕ should likewise, Malory thinks, be embodied in sound politics. Just as loyalty should bind two true lovers, the knight and his lady, so should loyalty bind together the king and his knights.63 Lancelot, the great knight, upholds Arthur, the great king, who, in reciprocation, supports knighthood. With this great bond mortared in place like a capstone in an arch, all the realm will be whole. Could Charny have read MaloryÕs view, would he not have agreed wholeheartedly, possibly adding one of his exclamations of ÔHe, Dieu!Õ to underscore the point? Furthermore, Charny would have agreed with Malory that to the great pairing of prowess and honour must be added the essential loyalty that makes love prosper, that makes political society work.64
As the Arthurian world collapses, Malory speaks out directly and with force to his audience, presenting a clear view of the problem and at least by implication a simple solution:
Lo ye all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was? For he that was the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and moste loved the felyshyp of noble knyghtes, and by hym they all were upholdyn, and yet myght nat thes Englysshemen holde them contente with hym. Lo thus was the olde custom and usayges of thys londe, and men say that we of thys londe have nat yet loste that custom. Alas! thys ys a greate defaughte of us Englysshemen, for there may no thynge us please no terme.65
62Tucker, ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ, 65.
63The splendid praise of political stability which Malory addresses to his readers (ÔLo ye all EnglysshemenÕ: see Vinaver, ed., Malory. Works, 708) can be compared, with some interest, to a long passage in Sir Thomas GrayÕs Scalacronica (in Maxwell, tr., 75Ð6), and to a political sermonette on unity in Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (in Thorpe, tr., 264Ð5).
64It would perhaps not be pressing a point too far to note that loyalty is here taking on more of a royalist cast, serving as a signpost to the greater emphasis on the crown as the focus of loyalty and source of honour in the centuries to come.
65Vinaver, Malory. Works, 78.
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A stable political society might have a chance, in MaloryÕs view, if it were headed by a great king who was supported by great knights. The participation of them all in the High Order of Knighthood is the key ingredient. Men of worship all working together might make the world right.
The contrast Malory draws between the kingship of Mark and of Arthur speaks to this theme repeatedly. Mark is a felon, no supporter of knights, no discriminating judge of worship in men, no personal practitioner of prowess. This heavy judgement is delivered against him by one character after another. Berluse tells him to his face that he is Ôthe most vylaunce knyght of a kynge that is now lyvynge, for ye are a destroyer of good knyghtes, and all that ye do is but by treson.Õ Dynadan adds to the charges:
ye ar full of cowardyse, and ye ar also a murtherar, and that is the grettyst shame that ony knyght may have, for nevir had knyght murtherer worshyp, nother never shall have. For I sawe but late thorow my forse ye wolde have slayne sir Berluses, a better knyght than ever ye were or ever shall be, and more of proues.66
The quality of prowess in a king is, of course, a key. When Lancelot learns that Mark had murdered his own knight, he opposes him; Mark Ômade no difference but tumbled adowne oute of his sadyll to the erthe as a sak, and there he lay stylleÕ. MarkÕs lack of the essential trait of knighthood could scarcely be clearer. Lacking prowess, he must resort to the trickery that causes Lancelot to label him ÔKynge FoxeÕ.67
Arthur splendidly reverses all these qualities in his practice of kingship. Some of the qualities praised in earlier English works reappear. The young Arthur, holding in his hands the sword just pulled from the stone, promises justice to all; he hears ÔcomplayntesÕ, clearly the plaints or querelae which brought so much judicial work to real-life English kings.68
Yet the emphasis is not placed on Arthur as governor. Malory is much more inclined to praise Arthur as Ôthe ßoure of chevalryÕ, and to assure his readers that Ôall men of worship seyde hit was myrry to be under such a chyfftayne that wolde putte hys person in adventure as other poure knyghtis dedÕ.69 Speaking directly to King Mark, Gaheris later sums up this essential element in ArthurÕs rule, in words conveying a telling contrast: Ôthe kynge regnys as a noble knyghtÕ. Arthur knows, as Mark does not, that Ôa kynge anoynted with creyme [chrism] . . . sholdest holde with all men of worshipÕ.70
66 Vinaver, ed., Malory, Works, 357, 358. |
67 Ibid., 365, 380. |
68Ibid., 10. Cf. Harding, ÔPlaints and BillsÕ.
69Vinaver, Malory. Works, 362, 36. The tradition of the knightly king was venerable. A classic example appears in Sir DegarŽ, ll. 9Ð18: see Laskaya and Salisbury, eds, Breton Lays.
70Vinaver, Malory. Works, 333, 335.
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Malory states the need for this bond between monarchy and chivalry time and again. Even the queenship of Guinevere is evaluated by this same standard. Accused of killing Sir Patrice with poisoned fruit (the unfortunate fellow Ôswall sore tyll he brasteÕ), her innocence is defended by Bors, who justiÞes her in terms of her overall relationship to knighthood:
Fayre lordis . . . never yet in my dayes knew I never ne harde sey that ever she was a destroyer of good knyghtes, but at all tymes, as far as ever I coude know, she was a maynteyner of good knyghtes; and ever she hath bene large and fre of hir goodis to all good knyghtes, and the moste bownteuous lady of hir gyftis and her good grace that ever I saw other harde speke off.71
Here, queenly largesse stands in for the prowess which bonds the king to his knights.
A veritable chorus of knights makes the case for the other half of the formula, the role of the knights themselves. The realm needs great knighthood, they say, to quote only one classic statement:
ÔFor we all undirstonde, in thys realme woll be no quyett, but ever debate and stryff, now the felyshyp of the Rounde Table ys brokyn. For by the noble felyshyp of the Rounde Table was kynge Arthur upborne, and by their nobeles the kynge and all the realme was ever in quyet and reste. And a grete parte,Õ they sayde all, Ôwas because of youre moste nobeles, sir Launcelot.Õ72
Though Lancelot mutters polite disclaimers, the truth has been spoken.
The king and his knights, then, are joint practitioners of the religion of honour, backed, of course, by the God of Christianity. The king runs the court in which this sun shines, its rays touching knights everywhere. Knights who are at the court or who are sent out from the court settle all problems. The great ideal of the privileged is imaginatively maintained: they have a personal bond with the monarch; they basically act out of free choice; few purely royal constraints affect them.73 A good example is set by the king and the great knights; those who will not learn lose their worship at the tip of a lance or the edge of a sword.
Regality plus knighthood yields order. The quotidian reality barely appears at all: if Malory mentions a parliament or the commons once in a while, there is nothing of the work of legal and Þscal administration, of sheriffs and coroners, of taxation, of justices and parchment rolls closely etched with the crabbed Latin record of lawsuitsÑall of the administrative apparatus which helped run medieval England and which had at least left its traces in earlier works of
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Ibid., 617. |
72 Ibid., 699. |
73 |
We will encounter this sense of personal contract or bond as late as the seventeenth century |
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in the Epilogue.
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literature in England. Did Malory, perhaps, take all this for granted in the late Þfteenth century? Or was he, rather, looking behind it to what appeared to him a deeper layer of problems? He seems to be going back to what he must have considered fundamentals, stressing kingship which looks rather like warlordship writ large, alongside knighthood armed with prowess and crowned with worship. If only they would work together, the administrative apparatus (hardly Þt subject for his book, and not in his sources in any case) could work quietly in the background while the trumpets sound and the horsesÕ hoofs pound the earth as they carry their proud warriors to deeds of worship.
The tragedy, of course, is that he knows it does not really work, either in the books he reads or in the world he inhabits. But he must tell the story: Arthur and the Round Table move with unstoppable momentum towards the cliff edge, towards the fall of both the Ômoste kyngeÕ and the fellowship of the greatest knights. His book endsÑdespite these magniÞcent exemplarsÑin human imperfection and utter destruction.
Worship and stability are the great goals celebrated in Morte Darthur. Their realization, however, always seems temporary and fragile, always threatened; and in the end the great structure collapses in a cataclysm of jealousy, treachery, and murderous civil war. This bittersweet ßavour of MaloryÕs great book has surely contributed to its enduring popularity; readers have always responded to its juxtaposition of high ideals with the realities of shattered dreams. For our analysis this combination suggests at least an indirect impulse at work in the interests of reform, conceived in the broadest sense. MaloryÕs admiration for a world of chivalry and worship, of stability in true love, and honourable governance, is so heartfelt that he need not explicitly advocate a reform programme; as in the model biography of William Marshal, the glowing description of the ideal (and constant reminders of its neglect or inversion) may be enough. Contemporary readers could well Þnish the text with a sense that their world should more closely approximate this ideal, that chivalry could provide a moral as well as a military and societal structure. Medieval and Tudor readers found the book deeply satisfying and hopeful. Belief in the grandeur and possibilities of linking chevalerie with royautŽ, blessed by the understanding practitioners of clergie, was far from moribund in the late Þfteenth century.
Certainly, William Caxton thought so as the sheets of MaloryÕs book came out of his printing press. As Caxton famously advised his readers in his preface to the printed book, ÔDoo after the good and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renomee.Õ74 Whatever his doubts about the historicity of
74 Vinaver, ed., Malory, Works, xv.
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Arthur, he said outright in his edition of Morte Darthur that Malory could be read as a text of reform as well as a paean of praise:
And I, accordyng to my copye, have doon sette it in enprynte to the entente that noble men may see and lerne the noble actes of chyvalrye, the jentyl and vertuous dedes that somme knyghtes used in tho dayes, by whyche they came to honour, and how they that were vycious were punysshed and ofte put to shame and rebuke; humbly bysechyng al noble lordes and ladyes with al other estates, of what estate or degree they been of, that shal see and rede in this sayd book and werke, that they take the good and honest actes in their remembraunce, and to folowe the same. . . . Doo after the good and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renomee.75
Reform to ensure MaloryÕs ideal of knighthood is not only built into the structure and spirit of the entire work but appears in speciÞc messages scattered throughout its pages. Malory gives continual signposts along the high road to worship. There are rules to be followed in the Þghting; men who yield are to be spared; women are to be protected; jealousy is no part of true worship. Tristram announces uncompromisingly that Ômanhode is nat worthe but yf hit be medled with wysdomeÕ.76 Lancelot is shocked when he is told about a vile knight: Ô ÒWhatÓ, seyde sir Launcelot, Òis he a theff and a knyght? And a ravyssher of women? He doth shame unto the Order of Knyghthode, and contrary unto his oth. Hit is pytŽ that he lyvyth!Ó Õ77 The ÔothÕ to which Lancelot refers is that which Arthur required of his knights at every Pentecost. At the feast which originated the custom:
the kynge stablysshed all the knyghtes and gaff them rychesse and londys; and charged them never to do outerage nothir mourthir, and allwayes to ße treson, and to gyff mercy unto hym that askith mercy, uppon payne of forÞture of their worship and lordship of kynge Arthure for evirmore; and allways to do ladyes, damesels, and jantilwomen and wydowes socour; strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never to enforce them, uppon payne of dethe. Also, that no man take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis.78
It is a practical oath. The reform goals are not wild: no outrages, murder, treason, no Þghting for immoral causes in hope of gain, no rape (at least none committed against gentlewomen); knights are, instead, to help ladies.
All such efforts, Þnally, came with the stamp of divine approval. Malory, no less than William Marshal and Geoffroi de Charny, combines a belief in God
75Printed in ibid. A characteristic English social broadening is at work here; reformed chivalry is not limited to an exclusive caste, but is considered a guide to life for all honourable men.
76Ibid., 428. The powerful pull of prowess appears a few pages later, however, when Malory tells us that two brothers Ôwere men of grete prouesse; howbehit that they were falsse and full of treson, and but poore men born, yet were they noble knyghtes of their handysÕ: p. 437.
77 Ibid., 160. |
78 Ibid., 75. |
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as the author of chivalry with a fairly independent attitude towards speciÞc clerical restraints. He knows God can have no quarrel with prowess per se. As the quest for the Holy Grail begins, no knight, Malory says, found a Ôbraunche of holy herbe that was the signe of the Sancgreall . . . but he were a good lyver and a man of prouesseÕ.79 The combination of virtues calls to mind CharnyÕs belief in living Ôby force of arms and good worksÕ.80
Malory is willing at times in this tale to follow his sources and to emphasize absolute faith over prowess. Lancelot, coming to the entrance to Corbenic, guarded by lions, has the sword he has drawn struck from his hand. A voice tells him: ÔO, man of evylle feyth and poure byleve! Wherefore trustist thou more on thy harneyse than in thy Maker? For He myght more avayle the than thyne armour, in what servyse that thou arte sette in.Õ81 Yet MaloryÕs Grail quest is not that of his thirteenth-century French source (examined in Chapter 12), with its strict and judgemental comparison of mere earthly chivalry with the true, heavenly chivalry.82 As Richard Barber observes, if he thinks of the Grail quest as Ôthe greatest of all the quests undertaken by ArthurÕs knightsÕ, it Ôstill remains an adventure, and not an integral part of the TableÕs purpose. And this tells us a great deal about MaloryÕs attitude to chivalry.Õ83 He may think of chivalry as ideally a high order, with genuine mission and high dignity, but (as P. E. Tucker observes) his ideal is more like a great secular order than the celibate and highly ecclesiastical Order of the Temple as catechized by St Bernard of Clairvaux. In MaloryÕs view, chivalry may be right or wrong in its practice, and stands thus in need of constant reform, yet it is all ÔworldlyÕ chivalry to him. The division falls, in other words, not between earthly and heavenly, but between right chivalry and wrong chivalry in the world.84
In fact, like so many late medieval Englishmen, MaloryÕs concern for religion regularly translates into an attempt to practise morality in the quotidian world. A hermit tells Gawain that Ôwhan ye were Þrst made knyght ye sholde have takyn you to knyghtly dedys and vertuous lyvyngÕ.85 This is exactly what MaloryÕs Lancelot tries to do. As a fallible man in the world, he fails, of course, but that failure does not diminish him in MaloryÕs eyes. The goal remains a virtuous life in the practice of chivalryÑin the world. The perfection of Galahad, much though it must be admired, is not for most men, and so is not really a
79 Vinaver ed., Malory, Works, 81. |
80 Kaeuper and Kennedy, Book of Chivalry, 160. |
81Vinaver, Malory. Works, 596.
82For a range of points of view, see ibid., 758Ð60; Benson, MaloryÕs Morte Darthur, 205Ð22; Mahoney, ÔTruest and Holiest TaleÕ; Atkinson, ÔMaloryÕs LancelotÕ; Shichtman, ÔPoliticizing the IneffableÕ.
83 |
Barber, ÔChivalryÕ, 34. |
84 Tucker, ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ. |
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Vinaver, Malory. Works, 535. The parallel with being a Ôgood lyver and a man of prouesseÕ, |
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quoted just above, is striking.
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practical model for knights trying to live in the world.86 It is to encourage and steer these noble knights living in the very real world that Malory wrote.
Texts that are especially close to knighthood in the world, then, show us again that the chivalry of strenuous knights was not simply practiceÑhow knights actedÑbut also how they thought about practice, and with what enthusiasm they spoke their hopes for an ideal that was so largely of their own makingÑ or at least of their own choosing. Emphases changed over time as our writers responded to perceived changes in their society. Charny focused on a decline in prowess in an age marked by disastrous defeats of French knighthood. Malory said much about loyalty and political stability in an age of dynastic strife in England, and much about personal morality at a time when the focus of lay piety was directed at virtuous living in the world.
Yet the similarities linking William MarshalÕs Histoire, CharnyÕs manual, and MaloryÕs great summa are instructive. These three works particularly value the prowess that secures honour; the knights in these texts live by loyalty, the needed complement to prowess; if love of a lady is not the centre of their lives, they accept, or even praise love as a spur to prowess, as its just reward; and if they stoutly keep watch over their rights where the clerics are concerned, they thank God heartily as the source of the highest patronage given so freely to those who live the strenuous life and hazard their bodies, their honour, their all, in the great game of chivalry.
Both Ramon Llull and Raoul de Hodenc likewise testify to this conception of chivalry, though they both oppose it. Their books reveal lively fears that active, practising knights will place excessive belief in prowess. Raoul de Hodenc worries that the constellation of beliefs centred on prowess will smother liberality and courtesy; from Þrst-hand experience, Llull fears that prowess will engender pride and disruptive violence.
For William Marshal, Geoffroi de Charny, and Sir Thomas Malory, however, this set of values rightly shapes the world they Þnd honourable. Their books offer praise for that world and press forward the hope that all will be well if only their fellow knights adhere to such ideals even more closely.
86 See the thoughtful discussion of Tucker in ÔChivalry in the MorteÕ.