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Renaissance Chivalry?

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Joshua Santana:
Over the past three months, I have been doing research for SIGMA as well as private research for my own interests. 

I have read that in the Renaissance Era, the code of chivalry faded away with the advances of gunpowder weapons.  However I am the individual that doesn't give up on what mainstream historians believe.  This along with my interests in the teaching of Paulus Hector Mair, rapier fencing and renaissance chivalric literature (yes Don Quixote is included) collided with my ambition to find the answer to this question:  "Did the Code of Chivalry truly die away in the Renaissance or did last through the Era in a different perspective?"

This new undertaking has been most fruitful in finding plenty of source material from historical, military and literary perspectives.


But aside from this, I want to ask you this:  "Do you think that Chivalry lived on in the Renaissance or did it not?" 

SirNathanQ:
Yes, chivalry didn't die then from an Caliver, and today it hasn't died from an assault rifle.

Chivalry extends far beyond one's role on the battlefield after all.  :)

Ian:
I think it might be worth examining what chivalry was really defined as during the high middle ages as well.  We have the book A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry by Geoffroi de Charny, written in the 14th century.  But for the most part, real medieval chivalric behavior seemed to extend from the nobility to other nobles, and ended there.  Chivalry wasn't a courtesy much extended to the common man-at-arms or peasant soldier by his knightly counterpart on the battlefield.

So, are we talking about the Victorian notion of Chivalry or the more recently accepted 'medieval form of chivalry,' that it appears knights really followed?  I'm not trying to say that what we think of as modern day Chivalry is purely the fantasy of Victorian historians (i hate that that rhymes), but I don't think real knightly chivalry of the 13th/14th/15th centuries was quite as poetic as 19th century historians have made it out to be.

My point is, I think it would be wise to have a good understanding of what Chivalry was to the people of Medieval Europe prior to the Renaissance and not paint the Victorian ideal of Chivalry onto a group of people it didn't really apply to before moving forward.

edit for further thoughts:
I think a huge aspect of what made the Chivalric code viable as it applies to battle in the Middle Ages was the fact that a large portion of combat was hand to hand.  Extending courtesy to a fellow knight of an opposing army, in a practical sense, required you get close enough to him to recognize his heraldry as someone of standing and then capture him after subduing him.  In the age of gunpowder, as the very nature of warfare itself changed, I would think this practice become more and more difficult.  As killing becomes more indiscriminate I can see the practice of not killing your knightly counterparts practically more difficult and the battlefield itself more dangerous for you to even try.  This could lead to what would ultimately be perceived as a loss of the Chivalric code in battle, so I can see where the notion comes from.

Sir Edward:
Some good points made here so far. I'll briefly add also that as knighthood evolved away from being a combat class, and into a position of minor nobility, the meaning of Chivalry also evolved with it. As the Renaissance got started, this change had pretty much already occurred, and so Chivalry was being equated more with courtly (noble class) behavior.

Sir James A:

--- Quote from: Joshua Santana on 2012-03-05, 21:12:46 ---However I am the individual that doesn't give up on what mainstream historians believe.

--- End quote ---

This is great. Think of the Chinon Parchment. For 700 years, people thought the Templars were heretics. The Chinon Parchment had absolved them of that .... except, it was written in the early 1300s, and discovered in 2001. "History", as it is, can sometimes change substantially ... or rather, it's not history, but what we think we know of it.

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