01-06-2005, 07:43 AM
Oh... I wish I had been paying attention to this thread sooner.
Chivalry is a great ideal to try to live up to but in reality very few knights or royalty followed the code of Chivalry. Sure many of them would bring it up when it suited them but the number of people who actually lived chivalricly were quite few.
Death in battle also wasn't as common as movies would have us believe. More often than not it would be some form of illness or an infected wound. I'm not talking about wounds in battle but more likely an injury from doing chores around the house.
Fuedal Japan was very similar. Bushi, the way of the samurai, was even more strict than the chivalric code of conduct in Europe. It was also abused even more.
It's fun to romanticize the finer aspects of ages gone by and it would be nice if more people would live chivalricly in this day and age.
If you see a guy getting beaten up by four other guys and you know that you would get beaten if you tried to help him, then the chivalric thing to do would be to go get help. Getting yourself beaten down doesn't help anyone.
A woman can only take advantage of your kindness to the extent that you let her. It is proper to open a door for a woman or your elders but it's also up to them to be gratious for that service. If you find yourself in a relationship with a person who isn't gratious for your kindnesses then it's time to find someone else to have a relationship with.
If you're interested in meeting other people who want to share the ideals of the middle ages then check out your local chapter of the SCA (check out http://www.sca.org). It's a club dedicated to reliving the finer points of the middle ages without having to be a mendicant or peasant unless that's what you really want to be.
I just realized that I'd much rather be sitting around with a beer talking about this with you folks than sitting here typing about it.
Chivalry rocks. Just don't be a tool.
Chivalry is a great ideal to try to live up to but in reality very few knights or royalty followed the code of Chivalry. Sure many of them would bring it up when it suited them but the number of people who actually lived chivalricly were quite few.
Death in battle also wasn't as common as movies would have us believe. More often than not it would be some form of illness or an infected wound. I'm not talking about wounds in battle but more likely an injury from doing chores around the house.
Fuedal Japan was very similar. Bushi, the way of the samurai, was even more strict than the chivalric code of conduct in Europe. It was also abused even more.
It's fun to romanticize the finer aspects of ages gone by and it would be nice if more people would live chivalricly in this day and age.
If you see a guy getting beaten up by four other guys and you know that you would get beaten if you tried to help him, then the chivalric thing to do would be to go get help. Getting yourself beaten down doesn't help anyone.
A woman can only take advantage of your kindness to the extent that you let her. It is proper to open a door for a woman or your elders but it's also up to them to be gratious for that service. If you find yourself in a relationship with a person who isn't gratious for your kindnesses then it's time to find someone else to have a relationship with.
If you're interested in meeting other people who want to share the ideals of the middle ages then check out your local chapter of the SCA (check out http://www.sca.org). It's a club dedicated to reliving the finer points of the middle ages without having to be a mendicant or peasant unless that's what you really want to be.
I just realized that I'd much rather be sitting around with a beer talking about this with you folks than sitting here typing about it.
Chivalry rocks. Just don't be a tool.
Gullible isn't in the dictionary.