Knights Were Heavily Armed and Prone to Violence
These warriors were commanded by warlords and rewarded with land, or with license to plunder the villages where they did battle, looting, raping and burning as they went.
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“In the early Middle Ages, church councils were praying to be delivered from knights,” Wollock says. “What develops as you get into the late 11th, 12th century is a sense that knights have to have a professional code if they're going to be respected and respectable.”
There was never a firm consensus on what he meant to be a good knight. The most common values found in rules that commanders created for knights revolved around the practical needs of a military force: bravery in battle and loyalty to one's lord and companions.
“You’ve got all these people who are very prone to violence, heavily armed,” says Kelly Gibson, a medieval historian at the University of Dallas and editor of Vengeance in Medieval Europe. “You've got to find some way to get them to get along.”
The Chivalrous Knight Appears in Romantic Fiction
Still, Wollock argues that chivalry did go well beyond the simple need for a disciplined military. Particularly in romantic literature of the time—some of it written expressly for young noblemen who were being trained for knighthood. Knights were presented as pious, generous and merciful.
“To be a great knight, you ought to have consideration of civilians, for women,” Wollock says. “The greatest knights are inspired by the love of some lady out there and want to impress her and win her love by doing great deeds.”