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ceebeegeeAfter the thorough defeat of the English at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, early medieval observers could be forgiven if they believed they had witnessed the demise of the infantry. Harold’s tight column of foot soldiers had ultimately proven no match for the mobility, speed, and sheer force of weight displayed by William the Conqueror’s Norman cavalry, and the 11th century nascent warrior society, which William exemplified perfectly, took notice. And so, encouraged by William of Poitiers’s panegyric portrait of the Conqueror leading his troops on horseback to overwhelming victory and the vivid, dashing imagery of the Bayeux Tapestry, the cult of Chaucer’s “verray, parfit, gentil knyght,” the elite mounted warrior guided by a moral and social code, emerged in the generations following Hastings, inspiring poet and historian, king and soldier. For over 200 years the cavalry’s invincibility in medieval warfare and the mystical righteousness of the knight were held as an article of faith—until the Battle of the Golden Spurs at Courtrai in 1302 proved the infantry was far from obsolete, and that the highly trained warrior caste could in fact be brought low by its presumed inferiors....
Whew. Banged out most of this Monday night but did some Tuesday night and Wednesday as well. This was actually kind of interesting because I used the Bayeux Tapestry as a source, and "quoted" sections of it in the paper, c&p-ing it into the body of the paper.
Even the etymology of Poitiers’s original text binds soldier to horse—William’s sobriquet of “redoubtable mounted warrior” reads as “terribilem equitem” in Latin. Appropriately the Norman horses share in their masters’ triumph: we read “[e]ven the hooves of the horses inflicted punishment on the dead as they galloped over their bodies” and the final image in the Tapestry shows William’s cavalry pursuing the fleeing English.
And my conclusion:
...[L]ater on we read “[m]ore than a thousand simple knights…fell there, and more than three thousand splendid chargers and valuable horses were stabbed during the battle.” These horses are not just valuable but splendid—the bewilderment of the anonymous Annales chronicler at this disaster is manifest and there is an elegiac quality to these passages, as though medieval chivalry itself were dying. Generations of cavaliers, nurtured on tales of the Conqueror and inspired by the imagery of the Tapestry, are now betrayed by their faith in the assumed superiority of the mounted warrior. But perhaps the knights themselves betrayed the code of chivalry—perhaps, as the cult of medieval knighthood developed and armor grew heavier, they took for granted their own invulnerability, and trusted that a cavalry charge and elite status were proof enough against the rabble. Courtrai would challenge such comfortable assumptions—and as a final insult to knightly and aristocratic privilege, we are told that “[d]uring the battle many [infantry]…who previously little thought that such a thing could happen to them, were knighted.”
I think you can tell I'm a Southerner from this passage! There is an echo of Rhett and Ashley's wistfulness for gallantry and the old days in this writing, now that I think of it, especially when Ashley looks at Scarlett and admires her gallantry (in the book, it's when she's making the dress out of the curtains). And the Southerners were crazy for medieval chivalry, they loved Sir Walter Scott.
DONE. Now, on to finals. And softball.
Whew. Banged out most of this Monday night but did some Tuesday night and Wednesday as well. This was actually kind of interesting because I used the Bayeux Tapestry as a source, and "quoted" sections of it in the paper, c&p-ing it into the body of the paper.
Even the etymology of Poitiers’s original text binds soldier to horse—William’s sobriquet of “redoubtable mounted warrior” reads as “terribilem equitem” in Latin. Appropriately the Norman horses share in their masters’ triumph: we read “[e]ven the hooves of the horses inflicted punishment on the dead as they galloped over their bodies” and the final image in the Tapestry shows William’s cavalry pursuing the fleeing English.
And my conclusion:
...[L]ater on we read “[m]ore than a thousand simple knights…fell there, and more than three thousand splendid chargers and valuable horses were stabbed during the battle.” These horses are not just valuable but splendid—the bewilderment of the anonymous Annales chronicler at this disaster is manifest and there is an elegiac quality to these passages, as though medieval chivalry itself were dying. Generations of cavaliers, nurtured on tales of the Conqueror and inspired by the imagery of the Tapestry, are now betrayed by their faith in the assumed superiority of the mounted warrior. But perhaps the knights themselves betrayed the code of chivalry—perhaps, as the cult of medieval knighthood developed and armor grew heavier, they took for granted their own invulnerability, and trusted that a cavalry charge and elite status were proof enough against the rabble. Courtrai would challenge such comfortable assumptions—and as a final insult to knightly and aristocratic privilege, we are told that “[d]uring the battle many [infantry]…who previously little thought that such a thing could happen to them, were knighted.”
I think you can tell I'm a Southerner from this passage! There is an echo of Rhett and Ashley's wistfulness for gallantry and the old days in this writing, now that I think of it, especially when Ashley looks at Scarlett and admires her gallantry (in the book, it's when she's making the dress out of the curtains). And the Southerners were crazy for medieval chivalry, they loved Sir Walter Scott.
DONE. Now, on to finals. And softball.
