Middle Age Morals
The Middle Ages were full of kings and queens, princes and princesses. The ones who protected them were the knights. They were to ride with “chivalry, trust, honor, generosity, and courtesy.” (Chaucer, “General Prologue” 142). Most of the knights from The Middle Ages always upheld their moral code; however, some did not. Which leads to the question of, “Were all knights in The Middle Ages moral?” Three knights from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales and “Sir Gawain the Green Knight” possess both immoral and moral characteristics.
The knight from “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” was the most immoral out the three knights. The knight broke his moral code when, “By very force he took her maidenhead.” (Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” 182). This validates that he did not ride with chivalry, generosity, or courtesy. Knights are supposed to protect women and respect them; he decided to take advantage of a vulnerable young maiden. This deed that is considered punishable by death displays that he lacks morals and believes he can commit any act (immoral or moral) that he desires. The knight’s immorality is also illustrated when he protests and complains, trying to maneuver his way out of his word of honor with an old woman. “Old lady, by the Lord I know that such my [promise], but for God’s love think of a new request …” (Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” 187). This action personifies how selfish the knight is, he only made the promise to save his own life, never intending to keep his word. Unlike this knight, Sir Gawain a knight from, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” exhibits a handful of moral characteristics as well as immoral.
Sir Gawain possesses both immoral and moral qualities. He firsts presents his immoral n...
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...ain a moral code all day every day, till they pass away. Be that as it may, you still carry that moral code with you. Immoral tendencies lie in all of us, but it is our choice whether to either give in or reframe from it altogether. All three knights share one common thing: they are all human. Regardless of who you are — a knight, president, king, teacher, a friar or even a student — morals are within you.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Knights Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. Ed. R.M. Lumiansky. NY: Pocket Books, 2001.19-63. Print.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. McDougal Littell Literature: British Literature. Ed. Janett Allen. Dallas: McDougal Littell, 2008. 182-192. Print.
“Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.” McDougal Littell Literature: British Literature. Ed. Janett Allen. Dallas: McDougal Littell, 2008. 226-239. Print.
Life during the Middle Ages was full of social change, division, and classism. This feudal society of Britain was divided into three estates. (social classes) Within the second estate was the the knight who was a soldier for the king who fought in many battles. Even though the knight is expected to have the strength and the skills to fight in battle, all knights during the Medieval period additionally had a chivalrous aspect to them. Chivalry was the honor code of a knight which included bravery, courtesy, honor, and gallantry toward women. Within the stories of the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “Le Morte d’Arthur”, the code of chivalry was broken by knights which show the corruption of England’s feudal society.
The poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tells of one knights struggle to uphold the code of chivalry. What makes a knight a noble knight? Why does this social standard force us to hold this individual to higher expectations? What should we think about Sir Gawain when he breaks his vows in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight? How does Sir Gawain and Arthur’s court pass the test of The Green Knight? This paper will argue that Sir Gawain, despite his mistakes, is the greatest knight because of his repentance and the lesson he learns when he encounters The Green Knight.
Sharma, Manish. "Hiding the Harm: Revisionism and Marvel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." EBSCO host Academic Search Premier.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
Sir Gawain is presented as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. He is the perfect knight; he is so recognised by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood.
Mandell, Jerome. Geoffrey Chaucer : building the fragments of the Canterbury tales. N.J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992.
In the Medieval Period, knights dedicated their lives to following the code of chivalry. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a number of characters performed chivalrous acts to achieve the status of an ideal knight. Their characteristics of respect for women and courtesy for all, helpfulness to the weak, honor, and skill in battle made the characters King Arthur, King Pellinore, and Sir Gryfflette examples of a what knights strove to be like in Medieval society. Because of the examples ofchivalry, Le Morte d’Arthur showed what a knight desired to be, so he could improve theworld in which he lived.
(2) Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales edited by M.H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001). All future references will come from this text.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fit in with the concept of a romance; it has all the elements that would make one consider the text as so. The tale holds adventure, magic, a quest and an unexpected reality check that even those who are considered “perfect” are also just humans. The author used this story as a way of revealing faults in some of the aspects of knighthood through the use of intertwining chivalric duty with natural human acts; thus showing to be perfectly chivalrous would be inhuman.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed Mack, Maynard et al. W. W. Norton and Co. New York, NY. 1992. 1551-1621.
In the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Poet Pearl, Sir Gawain, knight of the Round Table, acts chivalrously, yet his intents are insincere and selfish. It is the advent season in Middle Age Camelot, ruled by King Arthur when Poet Pearl begins the story. In this era citizens valued morals and expected them to be demonstrated, especially by the highly respected Knights of the Round Table. As one of Arthur’s knights, Sir Gawain commits to behaving perfectly chivalrous; however, Gawain falls short of this promise. Yes, he acts properly, but he is not genuine. The way one behaves is not enough to categorize him as moral; one must also be sincere in thought. Gawain desires to be valued as
In the final scenes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s encounter with Sir Bertilak allows Gawain to perceive his own flaws, manifested in his acceptance of the Green Girdle. The court’s reaction to his personal guilt highlights the disconnect between him and the other knights of the Round Table. Gawain’s behavior throughout the poem has been most noteworthy; his understanding of his sin, one that many of us would dismiss since it was propelled by his love of life, enhances his stature as a paragon of chivalry.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Chaucer, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an anonymous author, are both sophisticated fourteenth-century examples of medieval romance. Medieval romances captured the heart of their audiences as narratives and stories that featured a protagonist, often a knight, and dealt with religious allegories, chivalry, courtly love, and heroic epics. The concept of the knight emerged from the remnants of the Anglo-saxon literature and ideals and influence of the Christian religion and church. There is a distinct difference between the famous pagan heroic like Beowulf and the romantic medieval tales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight of the Canterbury Tale. The Anglo-Saxon hero Beowulf exemplified qualities expected of warriors who could attain kingship by their heroism and battle deeds. They possessed the qualities of valor, military prowess, generosity, and honor. The hero fights for the survival of their tribe and nation, and it is in battle that the mettle of the epic hero is ultimately tested. The romantic conventions , influenced by Christianity and French ideals, created a new chivalric knight who sets out on a trial or adventure. They possessed similar qualities to their epic hero counterparts – valor, loyalty, honor, and skill in battle – but differed in knowing temperance, courtesy towards women, and courtly skills. The hero is no longer fighting for his people but for his ideals. By the 14th century, The Tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Canterbury Tales have began to criticize the notion of chivalry which had become old and obsolete in their society; the idealization of chivalry practiced by knights could longer withstand the complexities and indeterminateness of situa...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Brian Stone. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 222-77. Print.
In today’s society the differences in morals between the rich and the poorer classes are virtually non-existent, but during Medieval times “morals and, above all, the virtues at its center, played an important role not only for distinguishing between good and bad, but, more importantly, even for the structuring of society” (Virtus 1). The aristocracy class and the immoral poor class had morals but how they demonstrated them varied; the aristocratic class used chivalry as the basis of their morals, while the immoral poor class did not. Chivalry was not only a code of conduct for those who followed it; chivalry was a way of life. ‘Chivalry first arose in Europe during the Crusades. Chivalry dealt with loyalty honor, and service to women on and off the battle field’ (“The Medieval Period: 1066-1485” 76). The Knight in The Canterbury Tales is the perfect example of someone who follows the code of chivalry. Chaucer describes him with much admiration as “a most distinguishable man, who from the day on which he first began to ride abroad had followed chivalry, truth, honor generousness and courtesy” (Chaucer, "The Prologue." 117). While Chaucer praises the knight for ...