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Discuss the ideas of militaristic loyalty and honor found in Froissart's Chronicles with the same issues found in Beowulf The story of the great warrior Beowulf is set in Southern Scandinavia during the 5 th and 6 th centuries C. E, though written down much later. Jean Froissart, c. 1337 c. 1410, accompanied the Black Prince to Bordeaux in 1366 and two years later accompanied the Duke of Clarence to Milan. He describes the nobles of England and their deeds during the first part of the 100 years war. As well as English knights many of those who fought were mercenaries from Italy, so they only had monetary loyalty to the cause, while others were Flemish allies with minimal loyalty to the king through his wife Phillipa of Hainault.
The war took place right at the end of the feudal system period. It actually lasted from 1337 to 1453. Its cause was the claim of the English kings, from Edward III to Henry V, to be rulers of France. They based this claim on the fact that Edward III was the nephew, through his mother, of the late French king, but French law favored Philip VI, the kings cousin, as it said that the crown could not be passed to a woman or through a woman. Knights were professional soldiers, horse riders, well armed and trained.
By the 11 th century they were almost nobility, but their number had declined by the 13 th century and they disappeared as a fighting force with the advent of gunpowder when the need for hand to hand fighting diminished. In the late medieval period they trained as pages from about the age of 7 in the home of some nobleman. Later they became squires a sort of valet to a knight. At the age of 21, occasionally earlier, they became knights, skilled in the use of lance and sword and strong enough to wear the heavy armour of the time. They were people who were looked up to and respected. In the Christian world becoming a knight had religious as well as military connotations, the ceremony of actual knighting him being preceded by a long chapel vigil.
He wore white to symbolism purity and red to indicate nobility with black shoes that carried with them the idea of the possibility of death. He prayed that his sword would be used only in defence of what was right and that he would not injure anyone unjustly. The ceremony involved the candidate kneeling in submission and swearing an oath of loyalty before being dubbed with a sword and being pronounced a knight. At that time he must have felt exalted, that he was on a mission that was important to God and man. He was a loyalist in the sense that he was bound by oaths of loyalty to the powers that be. The king received loyalty simply because of his position in society.
Being seen as loyal was the only way to gain honor. He was required to serve for 40 days a year and received a wage for his efforts. His role was both to attack enemies of his Lord and to defend his property and people. Honor was gained in battle and by the recognition of his bravery in the fight by those around him and those he served. The poem Beowulf begins with mention of king Hrothgar of the Danes and tells of how his childhood friends willingly obeyed him and became famous soldiers, lines 68 following. The king built a great hall so that he and his warriors could feast and enjoy their spoils.
The king and later Beowulf, gained the loyalty of their warriors because of their deeds of valour and their attitudes to their friends. The second section of the poem describes the warriors and their weapons and their rattling shirts presumably chain mail. Their helmets were gold trimmed and bore figures of boars, the symbol of the favourite god Freyr. The sea-guards words are typical of a knight I guard here so that no forces hostile to the Danes may raid. He is described later as being on horseback and as a shield warrior.
Beowulf describes his companions as hearth-companions, and later as table companions i. e. people who lived together, possibly even grew up together. Their camaraderie is obvious. They came to help defeat the monster because of natural links of kinship, loyalty and friendship rather than the more artificial ones of the army described by Froissart.
The Dane Hrothgar says, Because of past kindness and deeds done you have come my friend Beowulf. He describes how Beowulf's father had sworn oaths of loyalty to him. The battle that follows is a symbolic fight to the death between good and evil and in some cases this was the same reason for the knights of later times to fight, as when they went on the crusades, though of course Beowulf is written about a pre-Christian era. It was an age of heroes when one was prepared to die for ones kin and Lord. Armies were small, but so were those of the opposition and battles tended to be fought on foot and so became hand to hand combats to the death between individuals.
The king honors Beowulf by giving him armour, horses and a to i. e. a solid gold neck band. After the invasion of 1066 all land in England belonged to the king. He distributed much of it among his cronies in return for promises of service.
Those who were suspected of being disloyal would loose their land, so showing loyalty was important. The barons and knights in turn gave land to peasants in exchange for food and service from them. In Froissart's time knights were still important, especially as they now had stirrups and so could more easily fight on horseback, but the skill of archers and crossbow men tended to be what won battles. War would have been seen as a great adventure, with God on their side. The knights would have soon found that this earlier feeling of mission disappeared however as the war dragged on endlessly. They fought for different reasons.
Beowulf fought only out of loyalty and revenge for evil deeds as he killed the monsters. He fought alongside men he had grown up with and trusted, the men he asked finally to build a mound in his honor on the sea cliffs after his death. He claimed to have traded his life for the peoples needs. The men who fought alongside the Black Prince in France were fighting for economic reasons their king, or in the case of the mercenaries the king who paid them, wanted power over France. It was a quibble of law that bought them to France rather than a moral reason.
His first chapter is entitled Of the bravest knights in this present book. He describes them as fighting for the king even when he wasnt present. These knights worked within a strict code of etiquette. They had been taught from an early age exactly how to behave.
The feudal system on which all this was based came about after the end of the Roman empire when farmers came to depend upon larger landowners for protection and this was gradually formulated into rules that extended into many areas of life, mostly for the benefit of the nobility, such as how many days service a Lord could demand. The protector would be looked up to and called Sir or Lord by the common people. The system was supposedly based upon based upon need and greed rather than kinship or natural loyalty as had occurred in the tale of Beowulf. The book includes a description of the Black Princes actions in burning towns full of innocent people to the ground.
There must have been those on the English side who felt that even if this bought victory it was dishonourable. We see warriors on both sides though the Danes were heathens and the English were Christian. It is what makes them warriors that is different. Beowulf and his men are inspired by thoughts of true loyalty. They have lived and fought together and trust each other against a common foe.
They seek revenge life for life. After the battle they would have shared the spoils. The knights of the 100 years war were part of a system about which they had little choice. They took an oath of fealty or faithfulness and as a result their king demanded their skills in battle and, if they were to continue at the level in society that they had become accustomed to, they must accede. Some may have had noble thoughts of chivalry, but for the majority it was a job that had to be done.
The benefits would have gone mainly to the king who was often not even present, but sent his deputies, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence. They received honor, i. e. public esteem, because of their deeds, but meanwhile they were neglecting homes and families. Beowulf knew who his enemy was and fought to the death with that particular enemy. He was worthy of the honor he ultimately asked for, a memorial mound and view of the spoils.
The English army committed genocide in order to try to gain what their king wanted and so maintain their own position. They hung the leaders that they beat like thieves, thus taking away any semblance of honor they might have had. It was not one battle to the death, and then a return home to hall and feasting and reward, for valor, but a long drawn out battle and sieges that bought devastation to the country. Ultimately they failed. Books Breteton, Geoffrey, editor and translator, 1978, Jean Froissart, Chronicles, Penguin Classics Heaney, Seamus, translator, reprint 2001, Beowulf, London, W. W.
Norton & Company Electronic source ONeal, Micheal J. Knights and the tradition of chivalry, Crusades Almanac, Editors Means, Marcia and Neil Schlager UXL Gale 2005. e-notes. com 2006 found at web > retrieved 12 th December, 2006
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