Decline of chivalry

Decline of chivalry describes the gradual fading of chivalry’s outward forms after the period in which its institutions and ideals flourished. The account distinguishes that decline from the disappearance of chivalry’s animating spirit: as the medieval world gives way to a new one, that spirit seeks different forms. Malory’s ability to present knight-errantry as a serious ideal, and the Hospitallers’ relief work after the 1783 earthquake in Sicily, mark two very different moments in that history.

The golden age and its aftermath

The golden age of chivalry is placed from about the middle of the eleventh century to the end of the fourteenth. The Crusades are described as both a cause and an effect of chivalry: the ideals of knighthood animated people of many ranks and nations, and the struggle in the Holy Land in turn strengthened chivalry at home. There, the knight-errant’s work of defending or rescuing vulnerable people and their possessions had its parallel in a wider religious and military cause.

During this flourishing, the institutions of chivalry took shape or reached their fullest form. Its rougher features, the account says, softened as refinement increased, until the courtly model associated with Edward III and the Black Prince could be represented in the writing of Froissart and Chaucer and in romances fashioned from older materials. English knighthood was presented as a pattern for Christendom.

After that high point, chivalry’s outward forms began to decay, though the process was gradual and sometimes seemed to reverse. Such resurgences did not amount to a true revival. The distinction is essential: the forms could weaken even as the spirit they once housed endured and sought new settings better fitted to the world succeeding the Middle Ages.

Malory at the turning point

Malory wrote while, as the account argues, readers could still believe in the marvellous adventures of knight-errantry. A century later, the old forms had become difficult to treat as literal, living ideals: Spenser used them as material for allegory, while Cervantes exposed belief in knight-errantry to satire, even though he himself retained sympathy for its generous spirit.

Malory belongs to the earlier moment. He could portray chivalric ideals through characters treated as serious participants in their world, rather than as figures in an allegory or objects of disbelief. The account credits that presentation with the power to influence the character and manners of his countrymen. His book’s lasting force thus rests not on an expectation that the old institutions would return unchanged, but on the continued life of values carried forward through literature.

A late service by the Hospitallers

The account’s last example of the old spirit within the old forms comes from the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. When news of the great earthquake in Sicily reached Malta in 1783, members of the order acted on their vows: they manned their galleys and went to assist those affected, bringing food, clothing, medicines, and religious consolation.

They appeared at the bedsides of the wounded and dying in a half-military, half-priestly dress: armour covered by a black robe bearing a white cross. The order itself disappeared within a few years, in the same generation. Its relief work therefore serves as a closing contrast to institutional decline: the old organization did not endure, but for one final act its vows and practical service still joined the roles of knight and religious brother.

Forms that fade, ideals that travel

The decline of chivalry is not presented as a simple extinction. Its public forms, institutions, and habits lost their former place, while the ideals associated with them could still be reinterpreted, preserved in romance, or enacted briefly in service to others. Spenser’s allegorical treatment and the Hospitallers’ response to disaster are very different continuations, but both suggest that a tradition may outlast the social arrangement that first gave it shape.

Malory’s lasting importance lies in this interval between persistence and change. His audience could still take knight-errantry seriously; later writers could no longer do so in the same way. The account’s image of an old stock putting out new leaves and fruits makes the point: chivalry’s historical forms decline, while its spirit finds other ways to live.