The Book of Chivalry is not a manual on tactics or technique, it is a treatise on how to live -- and die -- like a knight. It describes "The Way of the Knight." And, importantly, it was written --likely dictated aloud to a scribe as the Hagakure was -- by an actual knight. Charny was not a monk or a poet or a politician or a novelist or a Victorian or a modern historian. He was a battle tested knight held in high regard as an exemplar of chivalry by his king and his peers. Chivalry was his Way.
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The word chivalry is most often used today to denote some sort of Victorian gentlemanliness, especially deference toward women. While Charny notes that men can triumph when they put their hearts into winning the love of a lady, he also says that such men are "so naïve that they are unaware of the great honor they could win through deeds of arms." He acknowledges the draw of women and their ability to motivate men, and advises both men and women to love loyally, but sees obsession with romance as a distraction from winning honor and places romance in perspective. The word chivalry comes from the French chevalier, meaning horseman, and it is the French equivalent to the word English word "knight." The knight was a warrior, analogous to the samurai. His primary function was to kill men in honorable combat for his lord, his King, his God, and occasionally just on general principle. The Knight did not exist merely to impress and fawn over the ladies. Chivalry was the Way of the knight, his code of conduct, his standard of honor. And it was with fostering knights of exemplary worth, courage and honor that Geoffroi de Charny was primarily concerned.
"Fascinating."
Amazon: A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry and The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation (U PA Press)
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