Editing Chivalry (section)

===Late Middle Ages===
In the 14th century [[Jean Froissart]] wrote his [[Froissart's Chronicles|''Chronicles'']] which captured much of the [[Hundred Years' War]], including the [[Battle of Crécy]] and later the [[Battle of Poitiers (1356)|Battle of Poitiers]] both of which saw the defeat of the French nobility by armies made up largely of common men using [[longbows]]. The chivalric tactic employed by the French armoured nobility, namely bravely charging the opposition in the face of a hail of arrows, failed repeatedly. Froissart noted the subsequent attacks by common English and Welsh archers upon the fallen French knights.

''Chronicles'' also captured a series of uprisings by common people against the nobility, such as the [[Jacquerie]] and [[The Peasant's Revolt]] and the rise of the common man to leadership ranks within armies. Many of these men were promoted during the Hundred Years' War but were later left in France when the English nobles returned home, and became mercenaries in the [[Free Companies]], for example [[John Hawkwood]], the mercenary leader of [[White Company]]. The rise of effective, paid soldiery replaced noble soldiery during this period, leading to a new class of military leader without any adherence to the chivalric code.

Chivalry underwent a revival and elaboration of chivalric ceremonial and rules of [[etiquette]] in the 14th century that was examined by [[Johan Huizinga]] in ''[[The Autumn of the Middle Ages|The Waning of the Middle Ages]]'', which dedicates a chapter to "The idea of chivalry". In contrasting the literary standards of chivalry with the actual warfare of the age, the historian finds the imitation of an ideal past illusory; in an aristocratic culture such as Burgundy and France at the close of the Middle Ages, "to be representative of true culture means to produce by conduct, by customs, by manners, by costume, by deportment, the illusion of a heroic being, full of dignity and honour, of wisdom, and, at all events, of courtesy.... The dream of past perfection ennobles life and its forms, fills them with beauty and fashions them anew as forms of art".<ref>{{harvp|Huizinga|1924|loc=Pessimism and the ideal of the sublime life|p=30}}</ref>

In the later Middle Ages, wealthy merchants strove to adopt chivalric attitudes. The sons of the bourgeoisie were educated at aristocratic courts, where they were trained in the manners of the knightly class.<ref name=sweeney/> This was a democratisation of chivalry, leading to a new genre called the [[courtesy book]], which were guides to the behaviour of "gentlemen". Thus, the post-medieval gentlemanly code of the value of a man's honour, respect for women, and a concern for those less fortunate, is directly derived from earlier ideals of chivalry and historical forces that created it.<ref name=sweeney/>

Japan was the only country that banned the use of [[firearm]]s completely to maintain ideals of chivalry and acceptable form of combat. In 1543 Japan established a government [[monopoly]] on firearms. The Japanese government destroyed firearms and enforced a preference for traditional Japanese weapons.<ref>{{cite book| last = Gillespie  | first = Alexander | year = 2011| title = A History of the Laws of War|volume=2: The Customs and Laws of War with Regards to Civilians in Times of Conflict | page = 14| publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing| isbn = 9781847318404}}</ref>