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> That first part is quite important. Knights could have been thugs or even warlords but they weren't. Not because they would have been stopped by the state, wh
by garmaine 8y ago
> That first part is quite important. Knights could have been thugs or even warlords but they weren't. Not because they would have been stopped by the state, which were fairly small and weak at the time, but because they largely chose not to.
That’s historical revisionism. Modern ideas of chivalry mostly post date the age of knights. In their own time they were thugs and mercenaries granted land as a reward for their brutality in combat.
(But the knights of this order were medicines, not warriors, in their primary purpose. What you say is more true of these knights, but not knights generally.)
- toyg 8y agoThey weren’t just doctors - at their peak, these knights were fundamentally bankers: at a time were travelling with valuables on your person was extremely unwise, you could open an “account” with them in Europe, travel all the way to the Middle East, and withdraw your cash when there. It started as a simple issue of logistics, but soon the order realized all that cash could be managed, and they started loaning it out to kings and merchants, which obviously made them even richer. This is the likely cause of their eventual downfall, because kings of that age had the annoying habit of defaulting on their debts by “eliminating” their sources.
- Lio 8y ago> This is the likely cause of their eventual downfall, ... I think you may be mixing in the history of the Knights Templer there. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta had no “eventual downfall” to any Christian King in the way the Templers did.
- garmaine 8y agoYou’re confusing the knights of Malta with the knights templer.
- benj111 8y ago>granted land as a reward for their brutality in combat. Isn't that also revisionism? You don't exactly win wars by being chivalrous. Hacking some one to death at point blank range isn't ever going to be nice. We attach similar ideas today, to modern soldiers. Cognitive dissonance isn't a new thing. Yes modern ideas of chivalry are just that, modern. I have no problems believing that they, and their culture believed they lived a 'good' life.
- garmaine 8y agoYou survive wars by being chivalrous. That’s where chivalry comes from—it does not mean protecting women and children or holding open doors or whatever nonsense. It was a medieval code of warfare where nobility were not killed but held for ransom no matter the circumstance. Landed families could participate in sanctioned warfare with relatively little personal risk. Their peasant soldiers would die, and they may lose their lands, but they themselves were likely fine. Chivalry died with the invention of the longbow because death now rained down indiscriminately from above.
- benj111 8y agoWikipedia dates the longbow to paleolithic times, so I'm not sure chivalry died with it. And judging by the effectiveness of the longbow you seem to be making my case for me That chivalry doesn't win wars. That said I do agree chivalry was useful for making the battlefield survivable. It still existed in some form until the world wars with 'gentlemanly conduct', I'm not sure it was ever internally consistent.