At the heart of the morality that characterized knighthood and the Middle Ages in general lies the monotheistic Christian empire. With the ultimate objective of spreading Christianity, the Church justified what they believed to be necessary violence by passing it off as religious justice. The chaos that came from this decision resulted in the establishment of knighthood as a means of measuring one’s self and others morally through the eyes of God. From this scope of moral judgement, Chivalry formed medieval culture both in society itself and in literature to follow. By embracing the religious ideals of Chivalry, Peredur sacrifices the reality of the morally unjust men who defy the expected norms, whereas Game of Thrones parodies this overly demanding moral expectation by creating a cynical portrait of humanity.
The origin of medieval chivalry lies in the development of the vast Roman empire that preceded it. Perhaps the most integral catalyst for the Roman dynasty was its religious justification of war. Robert Stacey notes this in The Laws of War: Constraints of Warfare on the Western World,
‘By identifying Romanitas (literally, ‘Romanness’) with adherence to Roman Christianity, however, the early Middle Ages added to this tradition of bellum Romanum, a wholly un-Roman celebration of war by God's people for God's own purposes, chief amongst which were to protect and extend the Christian faith of Rome’ (28).
As Stacey points out, war was celebrated by the Christians because the Romans masqueraded it as the protection and extension of the Christian faith of Rome. This religious outlook on battle acted as the seedling that eventually grew into two centuries of bloodshed, later becoming known as the Crusades. In this sense, the conceptual realignment of war as a maintenance of religious control diminished the negative perception of its associated violence.
War as an act of religious cleansing quickly got out of hand, forcing the Church to restrain intra-Christian violence in the tenth and eleventh centuries. From this attempt, the outline of the laws of war that would emerge in the age of chivalry came to fruition.
‘Carolingian church councils issued a number of decrees which included that noble miscreants give up their belt of knighthood as part of the punishment for their crimes, increased imposition of penances on warriors who fought against other Christians. These changes contributed to the emergence of a social order which drew an increasingly sharp division between the noble by virtue of his horses and arms, and the unarmed, vulgar herd of common humanity’ (29).
As Stacey observes, the restriction on the right to bear arms established more clearly the difference between noble warriors and unarmed peasants. This emerging social order and decreased fighting between Christians formed a noble perception of knighthood. Knights were not only empowered fighters because of their weapons, but they were also figures of moral authority as they were soldiers of God charged with upholding his idealized beliefs of humanity. In the eyes of a citizen, a knight must be a person of high moral standing because if he weren’t, then his right to reprimand sinners violently would be revoked by the church.
The moral idealization of knights was evident in both the social system of feudalism and the literature of the early Middle Ages. The Mabinogion, the earliest prose stories of British literature compiled in Middle Welsh during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, features the story of a peasant farmhand named Peredur turned heroic knight. At the story’s beginning, before Peredur leaves his home to become a knight, his mother advises him on how to conduct himself in a chivalrous world. ‘Wherever you see a church, chant the Our Father to it. If you see food and drink, if you are in need of it and no one has the courtesy or goodness to offer it to you, help yourself. If you hear a scream, go towards it, and a woman’s scream above any other scream in the world. If you see a fair jewel, take it and give it to someone else, and because of that you will be praised’’ (883). Though his mother gives Peredur this advice, it might as well be a general guideline for any aspiring knight. The connotation of ‘chant’ in sight of any church suggests Peredur’s relationship to God should be devout. A strong Christian disposition is characteristic of all victorious knights, as is the protection and respectful treatment of women. The phrasing of ‘above any other scream in the world’ prioritizes a woman’s well-being in a knight’s eyes. However, this doesn’t imply that women are the only subjects of a knight’s service. The general possessive of ‘a scream’ suggests that a knight should be ready to assist anyone in danger, regardless of gender. Finally, the words ‘give’ and ‘praise’ indicate that ownership of public admiration is more valuable than ownership of fair material items. These instructions combine to portray the ideal knight as a selfless servant of God who strives to be as honourable as their lord himself.
In knighthood, honour goes hand in hand with reputation. Because a knight is a morally upstanding being, the truth of his words and his social perception are a reflection of himself. It is no surprise then that the antagonist of Peredur should be Cai, a knight of King Arthur’s court who abuses his power to insult and harm the dwarf Gwenhwyfar: ‘Then everyone hung his head for fear of being asked to avenge the insult to Gwenhwyfar. And they assumed that no one would commit such a crime as that unless he possessed strength and power or magic and enchantment so that no one could wreak vengeance on him.’ (901). The phrase ‘fear of being asked’ suggests that the court is less afraid of Cai himself as they are of the besmirchment of their reputation that would ensue if they failed to avenge Gwenhwyfar. The denotation of ‘assume’ meaning ‘to suppose to be the case without proof’ indicates the presumption that Cai is as strong as he acts to be. While this might seem foolish by today’s standards, it’s important to remember that back then, to question the word of somebody with the status of a knight in King Arthur’s court was almost inconceivable. This bravery exemplifies the heroism of Peredur, who starts as no more than a peasant without horse or arms, to avenge Gwenhwyfar even though it is not his responsibility. To fight for the defense of those unable to protect themselves is a clear sign of the nobility of a true knight. Just to set out on a journey with this purpose proves Peredur to be a person of exemplary moral standing, regardless of his knighthood.
As where the vernacular of Peredur embraces the religious ideals of chivalry, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ Game of Thrones parodies it. The central character of the first season is Eddard Stark, a religious man who leaves his home in Winterfell for King’s Landing to serve as the principal strategist to his old war partner, King Robert Baratheon. Much like Peredur, Eddard is a man of honour who prioritizes moral values and religious obedience. Though he is not technically a knight, he is the closest character to the idealized Christian knight in terms of actions and beliefs. But very much unlike in Peredur, the medieval world in Game of Thrones is much more cynical than the Roman Catholic Church would prefer.
Whereas the world of Peredur presupposes the widespread moral righteousness of the god-fearing citizens that comprise it, Game of Thrones embraces a more realistic outlook in which the morals of honourable people crumble at the hand of humanity’s evil. A key example of Ned struggling to hold onto his honour in a cruel world comes during his final small council meeting as the hand of the king.
Visible in the photo above, Stark is the only council member framed by the light of the stained glass window. Eddard’s positioning indicates his emphasis on religious morality, which is absent among the rest of the council members, who are shrouded in darkness since stained glass windows are synonymous with those in churches. This visual language is confirmed when King Robert proposes that the council put in motion the murder of a young pregnant girl with blood right to his throne. The rest of the council agrees with him, except for Ned, who sees it less as a preventative measure than the unnecessary murder of an innocent child. Ned’s attempt to counter Robert’s aggressive plan stems from the basis that the king would dishonour himself if he did so. In response to this argument, Robert claims, ‘Honour?! I’ve got seven kingdoms to rule. One king. Seven Kingdoms! Do you think honour that’s keeping the peace? It’s fear. Fear and blood.’ That the king admits explicitly that fear and blood keep the peace instead of honour is evidence of Game of Thrones’s departure from the idealized morals that Christianity sought to employ throughout the early Middle ages.
In their 2016 Loomis Lecture on Moral Chivalry, Alan and Barbara Lupeck state that ‘One of the things that fostered the creation of Arthurian books and Arthurian images at that time and long afterward was an emphasis on an idealized conception of knighthood, which many believed could serve as a model for behavior, particularly the behavior of the young.’ (3). Both Peredur and Game of Thrones can be analyzed from this standpoint of emphasized knighthood. It being an Arthurian text, Peredur sacrifices the reality of the morally unjust men who defy the expected norms of Christianity to portray what was in the Middle Ages, considered to be model behavior, in an attempt to encourage it. The unjust execution of Ned Stark, despite his exemplification of this righteous behavior, exposes the cynical reality of human immorality and the liability of nobility that Game of Thrones explores unforgivingly, which Peredur attempted to keep from the public for its own good.
Benioff, Dan and D.B. Weiss, Game of Thrones, ‘A Golden Crown’, Home Box Office, 2011. Features an essential scene I use as evidence to impress the heightened nobility of Ned Stark in an immoral world.
Lupack, Alan, and Barbara Tepa Lupack. ‘The 2016 Loomis Lecture: Moral Chivalry and the Arthurian Revival’. Arthuriana, vol. 26, no. 4, 2016, pp. 3–32. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26443625. Accessed 3 May 2020. Integral textual evidence that describes the emphasis on morality in the Middle Ages as well as the literature it inspired.
Sioned Davies, The Mabinogion, ‘Peredur son of Efrog’, Oxford University Press, 2007. Kindle File. Essential text which serves as the base of argument that the idealized morality of Christianity influenced the knighthood and society of the Middle Ages.
Stacey, Robert C. ‘The Age of Chivalry,’ The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World, edited by Michael Howard et al., Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 27–39. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bghc.6. Accessed 4 May 2020. Academic text that analyzes the laws of Chivalry in the context of the Catholicism of the preceding roman empire.