MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN BRITAIN: THE CHIVALRY ROMANCES

Middle English prose of the 13th century continued the tradition of Anglo-Saxon prose – didactic and directed toward ordinary people rather than aristocratic society.The fact that there was no French prose tradition was very important to the preservation of the English prose tradition, formed with the help of the story-tellers and historians.Poetry took a lyrical turn under the impact of French sources.
In the 13th century the romance, an important continental narrative verse form, was introduced in England. It drew from three rich sources of character and adventure:

the legends of Charlemagne (the matter of France);
the legends of Greece and Rome (the matter of Troy and the matter of Rome);
the British legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (the matter of Britain).

We generally define chivalry as a system of ethical ideals that arose from feudalism and had its highest development in the 12th and 13th centuries. Chivalric ethics originated mainly in France and Spain but spread rapidly to the rest of the Continent and England. Young noblemen were taught from early childhood the principles of both Christian and military morality and conduct. Piety, honour, valour, courtesy, chastity and loyalty were the chief chivalric virtues. 

The chivalry romances include for the first time in literature a deep psychological analysis, a description of the heroes’ inner feelings. Although the narrative element gets a considerable place, the description of different events is not the main purpose of these works, as the spiritual life of the Middle Ages is present in them to a great extent.

Man’s rights to love and happiness on earth (and not only in Heaven, as promised by the church) are proclaimed here. The chivalry romances generally present love as a noble sentiment, in contrast with the ecclesiastical morals that considered it a dirty aspect of human nature. It is true that in the legend about the Holy Grail the author(s) tried to preach the idea of renouncing earthly goods and devoting one’s activities to purity, which was to be rewarded after death, but this is a theme that gets only a secondary place in the chivalry literature.However, it is obvious that the romances idealized the idea of chivalry. They described the refined and delicate manners of the knights, who came to find the ancient manners rough and unfit and who adopted the notion of politeness and noble behaviour. In real life – and there is plenty of evidence to prove this – the knights were not exactly the embodiment of lofty ideals: they could be arrogant and false, mean and uncivil. But the romance knight was always presented as generous, loyal, honest and brave.Women, who in Anglo-Saxon times had been but a shadowy part of a man’s universe, get a new status in the chivalrous romances: they are an ideal worth fighting for.