Middle Ages How to Take Care of a Woman and Have Character for a Knight

When looking over history and researching love, the first story I remember being told growing up was the one of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was based on the story that they were created for each other and from the point meant to be together; under the direction of God. Then the next story that I can recall is the story of Cinderella and Snow White, where Princes came to their rescue to claim them as their Queen.

The association of Kings and Queens have always been in existence, but there is one fairy tales stories that changed the landscape of the true relationships within the royals. That one story is known as Camelot that will be reviewed to have had the strongest effect on the guidelines of chivalry, courtship and love. Even though the story and history of Camelot are all made up from the imagination of one’s mind, the stake hold claim that it has made in history is one that cannot be rivaled.

Medieval times set in place the guidelines for chivalry with how you are to go about caring for a lady and gaining her Love. I plan to review how that played out across the centuries and still hold place in our current time. As you will see with the imagery that I have collected and the text, the 21st century still holds on to the relevance of the myth of Camelot within today’s culture. As we know chivalry is a practice that came from the Middle Ages and gave the bases for how to care for a women and have character for a Knight.

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In an article by Jan Broekhoff called “Chivalric Education in the Middle Ages”, it stated that “the precise origin of the chivalric practices of the Middle Ages remain rather obscure” , which basically goes along with most scholarly reference on Camelot also; that they are not quite clear on the facts that were based on lies. What I do find to be clear with researching this topic is that if a story is told often enough, that it will take a hold on people and they will begin to give points to make the story true for themselves and others.

The author Laura Ashe writes in her article, “Love and chivalry in the Middle Ages” about how “the chivalrous knight of the Middle Ages had begun as a simple warrior, unarmed man who rode a horse into battle, fighting with spear and sword. But as the literature of medieval romance began to blossom in the 12th century, a sophisticated culture of courtly behaviour between men and women begun to change the idealized image of the knight”. So as a little girl I remember the story going that the Knight rode around through the land slaying the evil dragons and saving the lady in distress. Always angling the point that chivalric gentlemen would come to the rescue of her and save with their great strength. Continuing the portrayal of men in a power position and claiming that women needed to be saved. Chivalry evolved over time to be a format for fighting with honor, integrity and a guideline for winning your ladies hand for marriage.

With that being said; and the fact that most of the interaction with others being based on fighting/warfare, it is understandable why this is the scale on which things are measured in this timeframe. Ashe notes in her article that “Waco’s long poem Brut (c.1155) introduced the French-speaking nobility to the legendary King Arthur, whose court was the greatest of all” , which began the story by which all other courts and nobles would be compared and measured by. Even with many Kings and great courts throughout many lands, they palled in comparison to King Arthur’s noble court. Broekhoff points out that “despite this decay of chivalric practices, the ideal of the nobility continued to influence society long after feudalism and the nobility had lost their importance for the structure of society” . Camelot was a mythical place that was created to construct the bases of all stories of righteous for love.

As famed writer Jodie Renner once wrote in a blog about a compelling good short story, “it has to have a narrative, complex and charismatic characters, plot twist, develop a unique voice for the story, create interesting supporting characters, situate the reader early on and lastly make every element and image count”. The story of Camelot hits all the key points that make for a good story, but I want to under cover what make this story a classic that has come down through generations and is even currently being reflected in history of modern times. David Pfanner wrote about King Arthur in the 20th century in his thesis of, “The Millennium King Arthur: The Commodification of Arthurian Legend in the 20th Century; he stated “having witnessed an enormous increase of interest in the Arthurian legend. In addition to major films such as Excalibur (1981), First Knight (1995) and Arthur (2000) there has been at least one television series produced by the BBC, Arthur of the Britons, and a long radio series on King Arthur from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.”

With further research across time, I found that Camelot and King Arthur had transcend the normalcy of folklore and have carried over into modern culture with regards to relationships, like the Kennedys in the 1970s and now with even Prince Henry marrying Meghan Markle. With over 23,000 references online to the very nature of Prince Henry and Meghan Markle being referred to as a modern day Camelot; the story has not ended but taken on a new and modern form in new popular culture. On the day that Prince Henry and Meghan Markle got married, 29.2 million people watched this wedding that started at 7am EST and was on for 3 hours. Survey Monkey statics showed that the age range of the viewers started at18 and went up with varies sex and race. The point is that no matter what your background is every still wants to believe in the fairy tale……and the Happily Ever After.