Word Finder - chivalry

definition

Cavalry; horsemen armed for battle.

definition

The fact or condition of being a knight; knightly skill, prowess.

definition

The ethical code of the knight prevalent in Medieval Europe, having such primary virtues as mercy towards the poor and oppressed, humility, honour, sacrifice, fear of God, faithfulness, courage and utmost graciousness and courtesy to ladies.

definition

Courtesy, respect and honourable conduct between opponents in wartime.

definition

Courteous behaviour, especially that of men towards women.

definition

A tenure of lands by knightly service.

In English law chivalry meant the tenure of land by knights' service.

The pick of the feudal chivalry composed their ranks; with all Europe to draw upon, their resources seemed inexhaustible, and centuries of political experience made them as formidable in diplomacy as they were valiant in warfare.

His court was famous throughout Europe as a school of chivalry.

Every feudal court and castle was in fact a school of chivalry, and although princes and great personages were rarely actually pages or squires, the moral and physical discipline through which they passed was not in any important particular different from that to which less exalted candidates for knighthood were subjected.'

Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very early period in all countries where chivalry was known.

It is, however, certain that the " most noble " Order of the Garter at least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when English chivalry was outwardly brightest and the court most magnificent.

The chivalry of France, undisciplined and careless of the lesson of Crecy and Poitiers, was quickly stung into action, and the French mounted men charged, only to be driven back in confusion.

Gawain (Welwain, Welsh Gwalchmai), Arthur's nephew, who in medieval romance remains the type of knightly courage and chivalry, until his character is degraded in order to exalt that of Lancelot.

And it was long after knighthood had acquired its present meaning with us that chivalry was incorporated into our language.

The golden age of chivalry has been variously located.

They were, for it, the ages of romance and chivalry.

Therefore the tears and the blood that were shed were not unavailing; the heroism and the chivalry were not wasted.

The Court of Chivalry was a court instituted by Edward III., of which the lord high constable and earl marshal of England were joint judges.

Of these the first three only, which are usually held to rank inter se in the order given, are historically identified with chivalry.

Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762) retain a certain interest for their importance in the history of the romantic movement, which they did something to stimulate.

Soon afterwards at Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for the young king Frederick William and his beautiful wife.

These battles were fought in the spirit of chivalry, and were followed, in 1389, by a three years' truce.

This famous romance of chivalry survives only in a Castilian text, but it is claimed by Portugal as well as by Spain.

The tournaments which took place under his auspices were worthy of the best days of chivalry in France and England.

The name " California " was taken from Ordonez de Montalvo's romance of chivalry Las Sergas de Esplandian (Madrid, 15 ro), in which is told of black Amazons ruling an island of this name " to the right of the Indies, very near the quarter of the terrestrial paradise."

Ladies gorgeously clad, and knights, showing by their dress and bearing their anxiety to revive the glories and the follies of the age of chivalry, jostled mountebanks, mendicants and vendors of all kinds.

The chivalry of Germany pouring through Alpine passes for an Italian campaign, or a coronation, left little trace in history except the lesson of their futility.

The Flemings, however, soon wearying of the oppressive administration of the French governor, Jacques de Chtillon, and the recrudescence of patrician domination, rose and overwhelmed the French chivalry at Courtrai (1302) a prelude to the coming disasters of the Hundred Years War.

It was as at Crcy and Poitiers; the French chivalry, accustomed to mere playing at battle in the tourneys, no longer knew how to fight.

As early as 1509 Tarnowski brilliantly distinguished himself in Moldavia, and took a leading part in the great victories of Wisniowiec (1512) and Orsza (1514), where he commanded the flower of the Polish chivalry.

We are so accustomed to regard Hunyadi as the incarnation of Christian chivalry that we are apt to forget that he was a great captain and a great statesman as well as a great hero.

Codes of Conduct and the strict etiquette of everyday court life revolved around the Code of Chivalry, courtly manners and courtly love.

Napier held his Moslem ally in great esteem, and entertained a very high opinion of his political acumen and chivalry as a leader and soldier.

The court of the lord high steward seems to have been first definitely instituted in 1499 for the trial of Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick; only two years earlier Lord Audley had been condemned by the court of chivalry, a very different and unpopular tribunal.

Concerning the origin of knighthood or chivalry as it existed in the middle ages - implying as it did a formal assumption of and initiation into the profession of arms - nothing beyond more or less probable conjecture is possible.

While he was in the bath two " ancient and grave knights " attended him " to inform, instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of chivalry," and when they had fulfilled their mission they poured some of the water of the bath over his shoulders, signing the left shoulder with the cross, and retired.

It may be true that, in the comparative scarcity of historical evidence, 12 th-century romances present a more favourable picture o£ chivalry at that earlier time; but even such historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in which the unselfish championship of " God and the ladies " was anything but a rare exception.

As a conscious effort to bring religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the average medieval knight in discipline, self-control and outward or inward refinement.

The lectures on the Philosophy of Art stray largely into the next sphere and dwell with zest on the close connexion of art and religion; and the discussion of the decadence and rise of religions, of the aesthetic qualities of Christian legend, of the age of chivalry, &c., make the A sthetik a book of varied interest.

They also find chivalry attractive, so if you are interested in a Libra, expect many doors to be held open for you.

Learning chivalry, and then going on a date while wearing an earpiece to listen to instructions from teammates.

The order of the Legion of Honor is treated under KNIGHTHOOD AND CHIVALRY.

His camp was a school of chivalry, his court a nursery of poets and artists.

Such of them as are not genuine relics of the 12th century are either poetical versions of the leading episodes in the hero's life as contained in the Chronicle, that Chronicle itself having been doubtless composed out of still earlier legends as sung by the wandering juglares, or pure inventions of a later time, owing their inspiration to the romances of chivalry.

But within three months from this time the one duke accused the other of treason, and the truth of the charge, after much consideration, was referred to trial by battle according to the laws of chivalry.

Though of a fickle and treacherous nature, he had all the personal fascination of his family, and is extolled by his contemporaries as a mirror of chivalry.

For the more important religious as distinguished from the military orders of knighthood or chivalry the reader is referred to the headings ST John Of Jerusalem, Knights Of; Teutonic Knights; and Templars.

It is probably to this period and these circumstances that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the military as well as the religious orders of chivalry.

If you do anything contrary to the order of chivalry (which God forbid), I shall hack the spurs from your heels."

But, by whomsoever conferred, knighthood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized.

The last case was that of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his head by the heralds in Westminster Hall.8 Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the Wars of the Roses.

The spirit of chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten.

Chivalry again in its military aspect not only encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the objects of the siege or campaign which is going on.

The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age.

In its own age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour; 9 and if many of its 8 Dallaway's Heraldry, p. 303.