Argumentative Essay On Chivalry

When you think about the medieval times probably the first thing that you think about is a knight in shining armor or some king of great king. This is not uncommon because at the time those people were the celebrities of their day, for example the most powerful person in the kingdom was the king and his queen. Under the king was a group of warriors who dedicated their lives to serve and die in the name of the king, these men were known as knights. Now if you know much about knights you are probably familiar with the term Chivalry. The word itself comes from the French and is used as code for the knights to follow as they live out their lives. Chivalry can be described by three main categories; strength, courage, and respect. In order to become
In all honestly it was fairly simple to follow this code of ethics, if you will, because in order to be a knight you had to have certain qualities to start. For example if you’re going to lay your life on the line for a king and his power you have to have some courage to be able to in fact put your life on the line. You also have to have strength because at the time you weren’t fighting with guns, but rather swords and spears, heavy swords and spears. Not only is the weaponry you’re using heavy, but you also have a great deal of hand to hand combat in order to survive and because of this you need to have a great deal of physical strength. The final category of Chivalry is respect, arguable the most important, knights were expected to have respect for their leaders, their king and queen, and women. If you grew up in a household were you were taught to respect women by opening doors for them or just simple treating them in a good way you were brought up under this
As previously mentioned in order for knight to be successful in any way he had to have a great deal of physical strength or he would perish against a stronger opponent. We see this great deal of strength exhibited in “Sir Garwain and the Green Knight” in lines 192-198; “Garwain grips to his ax and gathers it aloft… brought it down deftly upon the bare neck, that the shock of the sharp blow shivered the bones and cut the flesh cleanly and clove it in twain… the head was hewn off and fell to the floor.” It simple to understand that in order to be able to actually cut a man’s head off with any type of cutlery you have to have physical strength. I’m certain that the ax used in this scene was probably very sharp as all weapons of the time were kept, but I’m just as aware that without strength the head could have very well stayed attached to the body. I raise turkeys to show at the country fair during the summer and sell them to someone for slaughter. I personally butcher the birds for the buyers and have to cut the heads of the birds off myself, so I know exactly how much force it takes to go clean through bone with a blade. As we’ve already talked about knights had to have physical strength if they had any chance of survival and as this sections shows you Sir Garwain was no exception to this category of chivalry. We also see the category of strength and