Lancelot's Compromised Morality

Countless people have had their hearts broken due to cheating and deception. However, in the Arthurian legend, these disastrous love triangles have much more devastating consequences. One story in the Arthurian legend is of Iseult, King Mark, and the knight Tristan, and their eventual demise as a result of their love triangle. Then, before King Arthur was even conceived, his father Uther and the Duke Gorlois fought over over Igraine, and waged a war over her, costing many lives. Finally, Lancelot’s affair with Arthur and Queen Guinevere set off a chain of actions that destroy the kingdom of Camelot. In the Arthurian legend, love triangles always have fatal consequences and never end well between its constituents.

In these two selections, chivalry governs the knights’ behavior through their respect towards women. Knights were not allowed to ever be married or in

During the Medieval times chivalry was one of the most important characteristics a knight could display. Chivalry was viewed as a moral obligation that involved bravery, honor, respect, and gallantry. Knights were expected to uphold this code or face social consequences for any infractions, with punishments ranging from humiliation to termination of their knighthood. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” presents the struggles knights faced with honoring the chivalrous code at all times. Sir Gawain, while imperfect, exhibits qualities expected of knights and embodies the internal struggle between honoring the chivalrous code and giving into selfish desires.

During the late Middle Ages (1066-1485), a moral code came out that the medieval knights had to follow. This term was the code of chivalry. The code of chivalry was, at times, very hard to stay loyal to. Throughout this period, literature amongst the king and knights lives had a major role. In this time period there were multiple knights and kings. Being that said, there were plenty of them to follow the code of chivalry. However, each one are tested throughout their time. These test were just simple things to prove if they were loyal to the code and their lord or if they were not. Many had failed to prove their loyalty, which very few had succeeded (“Chivalry”). King Uther, Sir Gawain, and Sir Lancelot have put their loyalty on the line, but

Medieval Europe had a code for love know as, The Rules of Courtly Love. These rules were exemplified in characters seen in a book written about that era, The Once and Future King. One of the main characters, Lancelot, follows these rules. Lancelot follows the Rules of Courtly Love because he follows the rules that, the easy attainment of love makes it of little value: the difficulty of attainment makes it prized, he whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little, a slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved, and that a true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.

Have you ever been taught how to treat a lady? Have you ever been told how you should be treated? Today, respect for women is different, but I think it’s the same way for men as well. In the old ways, women had to respect their men, and obey them. The men in some ways were generous to their wives. They are also showing people what true knights were supposed to act like in the medieval time period. In the movie, the knights show respect to all of the people. In the stories Sir Gawain and the Green knight, and Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. They show how the knights end up showing that they are well educated, and respectful to the people that they meet. The three ideas of chivalry are respect, integrity, and honor.

Have you or someone you know showed courage in your lives? There was and always will be many stories that probably have the same of amount of courage as the people you know or see in the news. One of those stories is “The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake”, which tells the tale of one of King Arthur’s most beloved and talented knight, Sir Launcelot. He loves to adventure and help others with moral courage. However, Sir Launcelot is not the only sense of moral courage in this story. In “The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake”, the setting and its tone are two of the many literary elements that develops the theme of moral courage.

The Middle Ages was a time with feudalism, chivalry and medieval romance. In the Middle Ages, every knight had to follow the code of chivalry. The code of chivalry was a code of behavior that all knights had to follow. There was many rules like honesty, loyalty, modesty, courtesy, and many more. If you followed all of these rules, you was considered a good knight. Sir Launcelot of King Arthur’s round table followed the code of chivalry the most.

Knights have always fascinated people with their daring deeds and good manners. In the Pearl Poet’s “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” the Green Knight arrives at King Arthur’s castle to Challenge his Knights, but no one accepts the challenge until finally, Arthur stands up. Eventually, Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and has his reputation challenged along the way. When Sir Gawain became a knight, he promised to live by the Code of Chivalry just like I live my life by a set of rules. My code of honor shares similarities with the Code of Chivalry.

In the Middle ages Europe was a dangerous place and people used the code of chivalry to stay “safe”. The code of chivalry tells us that medieval values basically say, to protect whom needs protection, be a genuine person , don’t pursue the evil that may surround you, be kind to everyone that you may want to be kind to you, always show respect and honor , and most important worship God (Doc. 5).

In medieval times, chivalry was something that many men lived up to. If a man lived up to the expectations of chivalry he was said to be loyal, brave and courageous. For some it was difficult to follow certain codes especially when it came to romance, an example: Sir Lancelot in the movie “First Knight.”

Jerry Zucker's First Knight is an Arthurian adaptation that incorporates the meritocratic aspects of modern chivalry through its portrayal of Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot is a character who is a nomad before being taken in by King Arthur after he displays a great amount of courage through overcoming a treacherous gauntlet-styled obstacle course and by going out of his way to save Guinevere after she was kidnapped by Sir Malagant. He does not fight nor think like a traditional knight, preferring to use his speed, intelligence, and courage to win his battles as opposed to his strength like a traditional knight would. He exemplifies many aspects of chivalry, but breaks the traditions of it because of his background and his eccentricities and that

Chivalry is code of conduct used by knights, and heroes of the past. “Chivalry, the order of knighthood and, especially, the code of knightly behavior that was a feature of the High and later Middle Ages in western Europe”(Funk). Along with this idea of Chivalry, Feudalism was used in Europe as well. Feudalism is the system of both government and land ownership, where in exchange for a nobleman 's oath of loyalty, a king would grant them land. The ideas of Chivalry was expressed through out all sorts of different literary works, such as songs, poems, and more. The Two stories of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Morte D’Arthur express some of the ideas of Chivalry.

Courtly love in the medieval romance story of Lancelot (also known as The Knight of the Cart) is the driving force of this famous romance beloved for generations. This proves to be an interesting subject, seeing is a lot of other medieval stories do not focus on love and instead, show it in a rather negative light. This was obviously seen in another medieval story, Njal’s Saga, where not only were marriages arranged and sometimes unwanted by one or both parties, the relationships between men and women were rought with conflict, hatred, and sometimes even murder. The women were not beautiful, diminutive, helpless creatures; they were as strong as their male counterparts. Men also had relatively no interest in love, only of going on grand adventures

        In the Medieval era, aristocrats considered knights the nobility in feudal society. Arthurian Knights are equipped with weapons and armor, while partaking in violence and bloodshed. As highly skilled fighting men, they hold power over other members of society. The only way to restrain a knight’s actions is through chivalry, or a code of conduct they have to follow. Without chivalry, Gawain, the “Prologue” knight and the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” knight would not have been able to call themselves knights. Despite the human flaws that each knight bears, all three knights represent knighthood and the chivalric code because of its importance in medieval society.