The necessity that knights “uphold and defend women” is also central to texts we have read, and failure to is depicted as “folly” (341). Knights making possibly foolish decisions (Lancelot hesitating to, and then alighting the cart, for instance) have often been driving plot elements. In terms of knightly virtues, I think Lull’s emphasis on a knight being reasonable rather than foolish comes through in many of the narratives we’ve read this semester. Of course, Lull’s language also implies the gravity with which he is approaching knighthood and what constitutes a worthy knight he refers to chivalry as a science (339) and also describes how crucial the study of Christian doctrine is to a knight’s training. These characteristics are all featured in the romances we’ve read, though perhaps we take them for granted as readers as part of the world/setting. Lull describes how the true knight needs to be served by “the most noble beast,” that being the horse (337), have “a servant who can care for his horse” (338), and routinely participate in hunts and jousting tournaments. I was struck by how much attention Lull, in The Book of the Order of Chivalry, devoted to the technical/material aspects of being a knight, which we didn’t see as much in, for instance, Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love.
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