Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Knight’s Tale, and Malory’s Morte

The term “chivalry” refers to one of the most popular medieval social ideals. Indeed, this term has excited the imagination of poets and readers throughout history, and modern cultures continue to revise the chivalric ideals of past ages. However, pinpointing what the term meant within the medieval period is difficult at best. The source of this difficulty lies within the fact that there was never one consistent definition for chivalry. Indeed, the meaning of the word seems to shift between cultures and throughout time. For example, the earliest usage of the word seems to denote only mounted cavalry; however, as time shifts, the word becomes synonymous with certain martial ideals. As the period progresses, the ideal of chivalry encompasses a more total social paradigm, incorporating a wide array of ideals including honor, hospitality, and love. Even this rough outline of chivalry’s history fails to account for the shifting ground that surrounds this term. However, regardless of an individual culture or poet’s conception of chivalry, it remained a popular ideal. Indeed, it was most often communicated within the genre of romance, and romance is among the most popular of medieval genres. Often times, these romances not only celebrate the ideal of chivalry but they also examine and critique it. Certainly, the form of the romance offers a perfect vehicle for this exercise. Whereas epic heroes are different from ordinary people by kind, the heroes of romance are different only by degree. While they may be a little stronger, a little smarter, or a little more honorable than the average person, we see within their victories the victories of the culture, and we experience within their failures the failures of the social...

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...on seems to point towards the sort of cross-factionalism that the chivalric order demands. When Lancelot destroys him, he is in effect destroying the tie that binds the factions together, and Gawain reacts with rage. When the smoke clears, Gawain and Arthur are dead, and the dream of Camelot is destroyed. The critique here seems to be on humankind more than chivalry, for while chivalry stands as a great ideal, the men and women of Camelot were unable to subordinate their own desires to it. As with Gawain and the Green Knight, the text examines the most perfect example of chivalry that has existed and finds it flawed.

In this way, medieval romance walks a delicate path between honoring the chivalric ideals and critiquing their execution. Ultimately, these texts seem to criticize humanity’s inability to live up to the code as often as they do the code itself.