Editing Chivalry (section)

==Terminology and definitions==
{{Further|Knight#Etymology}}
[[File:Leighton-God Speed!.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A young woman in a medieval-style dress of cream satin ties a red scarf to the arm of a man in armour and mounted on a horse. The scene is set at the portal of a castle.|''[[God Speed (painting)|God Speed]]'' by English artist [[Edmund Leighton]], 1900: depicting an armoured knight departing for war and leaving his beloved]]

The term "chivalry" derives from the [[Old French]] term {{lang|fro|chevalerie}}, which can be translated as "[[cavalry|horse soldiery]]".{{refn|The term for "horseman" (''chevalier'', from Late Latin ''caballarius'') doubling as a term for the upper social classes parallels the long-standing usage of Classical Antiquity, see ''[[equites]]'', ''[[hippeus]]''.<ref>{{harvp|Anonymous|1994|pp=346–351}}</ref>|group=Note}} Originally, the term referred only to horse-mounted men, from the French word for horse, {{lang|fr|cheval}}, but later it became associated with knightly ideals.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dougherty|first1=Martin|title=Weapons and Fighting Techniques of the Medieval Warrior 1000–1500 AD|date=2008|publisher=Chartwell Books|isbn=9780785834250|page=74}}</ref> The French word {{lang|fro|chevalier}} originally meant "a man of aristocratic standing, and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of heavy cavalryman and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he is."<ref>{{harvp|Keen|2005|p=1}}</ref> Therefore, during the [[Middle Ages]], the plural {{lang|fro|chevalerie}} (transformed in English into the word "chivalry") originally denoted the body of heavy cavalry upon formation in the field.<ref>{{cite book |title=Dictionnaire ecclésiastique et canonique portatif |date=1766 |location=Paris |page=364 |edition=Tome I}}</ref> In English, the term appears from 1292 (note that ''[[cavalry]]'' is from the Italian form of the same word).{{refn|loaned via [[Middle French]] into English around 1540.<ref>{{harvp|Hoad|1993|p=67}}</ref>|group=Note}}

The meaning of the term evolved over time into a broader sense, because in the Middle Ages the meaning of {{lang|fro|chevalier}} changed from the original concrete military meaning "status or fee associated with a military follower owning a [[war horse]]" or "a group of mounted knights" to the ideal of the Christian warrior ethos propagated in the [[Romance (heroic literature)|romance]] genre, which was becoming popular during the 12th century, and the ideal of [[courtly love]] propagated in the contemporary [[Minnesang]] and related genres.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chivalry|title=chivalry|website=Merriam-Webster|language=en|access-date=2018-02-28|archive-date=16 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116121302/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chivalry|url-status=live}}</ref>

The ideas of chivalry are summarized in three medieval works: the anonymous poem ''[[Ordene de chevalerie]]'', which tells the story of how [[Hugh II of Tiberias]] was captured and released upon his agreement to show [[Saladin]] (1138–1193) the ritual of Christian [[knighthood]];<ref>{{harvp|Keen|2005|p=7}}</ref> the ''Libre del ordre de cavayleria'', written by [[Ramon Llull]] (1232–1315), from [[Mallorca]], whose subject is knighthood;<ref>{{harvp|Keen|2005|p=9}}</ref> and the [[#''Book of Chivalry''|Livre de Chevalerie]] of [[Geoffroi de Charny]] (1300–1356), which examines the qualities of knighthood, emphasizing ''prowess''.<ref>{{harvp|Keen|2005|p=15}}</ref> None of the authors of these three texts knew the other two texts, and the three combine to depict a general concept of chivalry which is not precisely in harmony with any of them. To different degrees and with different details, they speak of chivalry as a way of life in which the military, the nobility, and religion combine.<ref>{{harvp|Keen|2005|p=17}}</ref>

The "code of chivalry" is thus a product of the [[Late Middle Ages]], evolving after the end of the [[crusades]] partly from an idealization of the historical knights fighting in the Holy Land and from ideals of courtly love.

===Ten Commandments of Chivalry===
Pioneering French literary historian [[Léon Gautier (historian)|Léon Gautier]] compiled what he called the medieval Ten Commandments of chivalry in his book ''La Chevalerie'' (1884):<ref name=Gautier1884>{{cite book|first=Léon|last=Gautier|author-link=Léon Gautier (historian)|year=1891|orig-year=1884|title=Chivalry|publisher=Routledge|chapter=The Code of Chivalry|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XttCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA26|translator-first=Henry|translator-last=Frith|page=26}}</ref>

# Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions.
# Thou shalt defend the Church.
# Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.
# Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.
# Thou shalt not [[Wiktionary:recoil#Verb|recoil]] before thine enemy.
# Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.
# Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
# Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word.
# Thou shalt be generous, and give [[Wiktionary:largesse#Noun|largesse]] to everyone.
# Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
In fact, there is no such medieval list.  Gautier's effort was a series of moral bullet points he abstracted from his broad reading of 12th and 13th century romances.