Chivalry

I. Economic Expansion (what was lacking in Charlemagne's time)

A. Agricultural Improvements

1. Heavy plow/Draft Horse team

2. Three Crop Rotation

B. Higher yields--more surplus wealth
1. Return of cash economy

2. Lords increasingly ask for rents rather than service

a. rents generate cash and greater potential for wealth

b. payments of rents creates new incentives

3. Rise of free peasantry (under contract)  and decline of serfdom

C. Expansion of Trade and Growth of Cities
1. Importance of cloth trade
2. Rise of the bourgeoisie

D. Significance of economic expansion
1. population growth
2. powerful aristocracy
3. transformation of the warrior class in landowners and courtiers
a. how can aristocrats further extend their wealth and power?

II. Code of Chivalry transforms warriors into courtiers. Shaped by three influences

A. Culture of combat encapsulated in the tournament

1. can still prove honor and worth, and seek advancement, wealth and power

2. Rules of the tournament (melee)

a. two teams ranging the countryside

b. starts on horseback, continues on foot

c. safe zones for rest

d take captives for ransom

e. later rules limiting types and qualities of weapons

3. tournament as spectacle and entertainment and moral lesson

a. entertainment value apparent in 14th-century paintings

b. upholding chivalric virtues

c. tournament compared with other sports

B. Courtly literature is second influence on chivalry

1. warrior romance: Song of Roland

2. love romance: Lancelot (1177)--combines combat and courtly love

a. why love become an important theme in romance?

b. importance of aristocratic marriage

C. The church seeks to sanctify chivalry

1. opposes both tournaments and courtly romance

2. seeks to make the Crusades the main expression of chivalry

3. writers respond by writing Christianized romances