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Re: Courtly behavior (fwd)




Poster: clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)

AEdric the Grene:

> At 03:17 PM 2/22/99 -0600, Craig Levin wrote:
> >Unless you're using the old classification of Painter (whose
> >study has been cast in doubt by the works of Barber and Keen),
> >it's not really all that easy to tease the two apart. Certainly,
> >by the fourteenth century, when Froissart was writing his
> >_Chroniques_, a work as unlike a love poem as anything I've ever
> >read, the codes of amour courtois and knighthood are inextricably
> >intertwined.
> 
> I by no means admit to being an expert on either, but from what I have
> read, I've noticed the rules that have been gathered or proclaimed for each
> do not seem to imply any overlap.  As I believe I said previously, though,
> the two did develop into known concepts together.  In any case, it seems
> quite possible to follow the Code of Chivalry without getting into Courtly
> Love.  I fail to see why one must automatically demand the other.  No
> argument, no insult, I just do not see it.

It all depends on who's giving the rules. Gutierre Diaz de Gamez
or Anthoine de la Salle, who were both authors of chivalrous
biographies of the late Middle Ages, would have argued that
courtly love formed an integral part of chivalry, and that no
good knight was without his lady love. On the other hand, the
minstrels who created the Matter of France and William Marshal
wouldn't have mentioned courtly love at all, because it hadn't
been created (for the Matter of France) or because it hadn't
gotten to where he was (for William Marshal). As I said, it all
depends on one's persona; indeed, as Barber notes, before the
1100's, there really wasn't anything like chivalry, and as Lewis
notes, there wasn't courtly love before then either. Afterwards,
there's a brief period where one did quite well without the
other, but by the 1300's, they're linked, for all practical
purposes.

> Say what?  That's not what I said.  Perhaps you misread the statement.
> There's nothing about needs, but there is something about abilities varying
> by person, yes.  I assume you did not mean to put words in my mouth and
> attempt to make it look like I'm trying to inject some socialistic nonsense
> in the Middle Ages.  That's certainly not what I'm saying at all.  All, I'm
> saying is that the SCA obviously expects courteous, if not Chivalrous,
> behaviour from its members, and definitely Chivalry from all Knights (It's
> a req for Knighthood, after all), some of whom happen to be female.  That
> seems more like basic equality than socialism.  Or maybe you believe that
> basic equality is socialism?  Please clarify your meaning.

I must have misread it-please forgive me.

> Anyway, I suppose I could have just dropped the whole "abilities" phrase
> anyway.  I was only thinking about physical differences in what people can
> do.  And, honestly, that doesn't affect Chivalry.

Very true. Courtesy is in the heart, and not the muscles, IMO.

Pedro de Alcazar
-- 
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html 
clevin@ripco.com
Craig Levin
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