CHIVALRY: LEGEND OR REALISTICALLY RELEVANT CODE?

The word "chivalry " evokes pictures of a knight clad tete a pied in full plate mail armor, astride a mammoth destrier steed (also clad in heavy plate armor), carrying both a massive lance with which to gore those opposing him and a glimmering long sword to hack his enemies into submission. Full of the esprit de noblesse, he is a model of courage in the face of danger- this courage drives him to accomplish daring feats of heroism in the face of innumerable odds and grave peril, "for chivalry abideth not so agreeably in no place as in no-blesse of courage " (Keen 10). He rides alone or in company, in search of a noble quest or the hand of a fair maiden. He is polite and benevolent in victory and deferential in defeat. He is a "knight errant, " portrait of the chivalric ideal. Historically, of course, it is a relatively simple thing, with a certain amount of research and interpretation, to reach the conclusion of Maurice Keen in Chivalry when he said that "Chivalry is a word that came to denote the code and culture of a martial estate which regarded war as its hereditary profession " (239). The historian has at his hands a variety of tool