Knighthood in the High Middle Ages

The author effectively portrays the various types of knight in the medieval era, and to differentiate the real and ideal knights. He says "there never existed in the High Middle Ages a general, binding ideal of chivalry. The expert swordsman, the gallant knight, the courtly knight, the Christian knight are contradictory motifs" (183). What Borst fails to note in his appreciation of these various knights, is that they are all variations on an ideal. If the overall knight-in-general ideal did not exist, then certainly the ideal gallant knight, the ideal courtly knight, and the ideal Christian knight did not exist either.

If Borst wants us to properly appreciate the virtuous standards which the knight provides for us today, he should have left a few details out of his description of those wonderfu

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, unless one is a member of the threatened upper class in this society whose "structure" is "shaken," unless one dreams of having one's wealth and power protected by roving bands of military horsemen slaying the evil invaders from the other side of the tracks. Borst concludes that knighthood teaches us that "rule is ennobled only by service; that the elite needs the community; and . . . that only mental discipline can subdue the chaos of life and the fanaticism of power" (191). One could easily imagine Hitler saying these words as a call to Nazi youth to rise up in the name of the Fatherland, military conquest, and anti-Semitism. M.H. Keen, in "The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages," argues that the law of nations and international law flowed from the laws of war which existed in the Late Middle Ages. Keen says that the chivalry, honor and loyalty which served as the bases for military behavior in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries evolved into international law. The essence of Keen's article is a well-reasoned and convincing claim that while this evolution was not as simple or as clear as some analysts say, it nevertheless generally describes what occurred as nation-states were created in later centuries and as internatio
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Approximate Word count = 1618
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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