Whats so great about knights in shining armor anyway?
In actual fact the knights were predatory and few of them lived up to their ideals. But the ideals – this is where the beauty comes in. The knight was supposed to be a paragon of courtesy. He was supposed to be gentle to women, and a sworn protector of widows, orphans and other defenseless people. He was supposed to willingly sacrifice his life for a just cause, even against hopeless odds. He was expected to act at all times from noble motives – that is, he was not to be greedy, sleazy, petty, grasping, and so forth. And he was supposed to be pious (the knights of the relgious orders took this to an extreme, but all knights were expected to serve the Church). As the cult of chivalry grew, knights were also expected to be perfect lovers as well. Pretty high expectations for a whole class of men!
The chivalrous knight in shiny armour protector of the people is a myth invented by Alienor of Aquitaine who forced her own knights and noblemen to become polite, even gallant, and learn poetry as well as hacking one’s enemy. The great epics about chivalrous knights come from her court. Until then knights had been nothing but warriors with a nobility title, some with a bit of land attached to the title, most were illiterate and there was nothing gentle or chivalrous about them. Those who owned land fought to protect their territory, the others tried to find someone to serve to get food and a roof. Later the idea of knightly ideals and honour (some of it at least) spread and came to become the tenets of chivalry, though the ideal was much loftier than the reality. The myth stayed even as the knights disappeared.
