chakravyuha

We are all familiar with the Chivalric literature featuring popular characters like King Arthur and Lancelot – brave knights who are strong and moral, uphold virtue, save damsels in distress, and are overall awesome people. It turns out that the real medieval (circa. the high middle ages – 12th, 13th century) knights were nothing better than thugs and villains. The local life in a medieval village was cut-off from the distant king. It was the local knight (or knights – there could be more than one knight in one area) who had the wealth and power. Encased in armor when they went out and protected by their stone castle walls when they were at home, knights acted as gangsters, ordering people to pay taxes in exchange for – theoretically at least – offering protection. Knights with land also forced peasants to work on their lands, most of the time for free. Most of what the peasants produced went into the hands of someone else. According to Philip D, Chivalric literature developed by these medieval plutocrats in an attempt to whitewash or at best to salvage the reputation of these otherwise extremely unpleasant people. So the next time you read about the knights of the round table, you know that it’s a fantasy in the very real sense. Even the characters it’s supposed to be based on, were not quite the heroic people that are described and hailed in these texts.

[Source]: Philip Daileader, Associate Professor of History at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, on the Planet Money podcast.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS