England’s gentry. In Luther’s time, German peasants vented their rage
against their noble masters. These risings were put down with vindictive
slaughter, showing that the gentle knight of legend was also a ruthless
killing machine.
And yet, chivalry as an exemplary way of life left rules of gentlemanly
conduct for Europe’s future society. After gunpowder made castles and ar-
mored knights obsolete, the ideals of chivalry were preserved in Baldassare
Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier,which set standards of chivalric cour-
tesy in the urban courts of Renaissance Italy, and the faded image of me-
dieval knighthood emerged again in modern times as the Knights of the
Golden Fleece, the Order of the Knights of the Garter, and the French Or-
der of the Star. European monarchs continue to confer the title of chevalier
or knight on distinguished public figures.
The ghost of the armored knight as a bloodied savage fighter lies with
his bones under the sod of countless battlefields. As a virtuous warrior of
ballad and song, he lives on in popular legend.
T. V. Tuleja
See alsoEurope; Heralds; Knights; Orders of Knighthood, Religious; Orders
of Knighthood, Secular; Religion and Spiritual Development: Ancient
Mediterranean and Medieval West; Swordsmanship, European Medieval
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