Knights: more like Tony Soprano than Lancelot ~the History Channel

[sjmiller]

Me, I wish they'd stop using the term "Dark Ages."

I figured I would start with the Roman era misconceptions and work my way up to the whole "Dark Ages" myth.

 

[Henry]

In the books it was about anyone who happened to be on the path of a knights marauding warband.

I keep coming back to the 1631 Seige of Magdeburg; something like 80% of the population was killed, I think? Pretty nasty business, and that was AFTER the blossoming of Chivalric tales...

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I was watching a show on the history channel about the dark ages. One of the quotes that stuck out in my mind was that "Knights were more like Tony Soprano than Lancelot." Their job was to be enforcers and raiders. The only code was from the church that knew that they couldn't collect enough money whilst local lords were constantly pounding on each other.

Is this in any way surprising to anyone?

To paraphase from the book “A World Lit only by Fire,” Christianity survived the Middle Ages in spite of them rather than because of them.

 

[green slime]

In the books it was about anyone who happened to be on the path of a knights marauding warband.

The peasants sheltering in Acre, the last great crusader fortress, didn't fare too well in 1291 either.

Any war, any time, on the side being invaded, it really sucks to be a lower working class citizen/peasant.

 

[Salthorae]

If all these peasants are sitting around smoking blunts, no wonder they're taking the brunt of the suffering in the war.

Can you even imagine their hunger? Basic wartime famine combined with the muchies? Oh those poor suffering souls...

But seriously, no I don't think it takes the D&D paladin/knights off the hook for a couple of reasons.

1) you can't apply modern sensibilities to the thought processes of men from 1000 years ago. I can't say absolutely that there wasn't a concept of "human rights" in the Medieval period of Europe, but very very few people if any would have held it. The rest of the society was ordered on a heirarchical basis of "Divine Right". The word Heirarchy is even derived from the Late Greek: heirarkhia which means "the rule of a high priest". In this vein then, those knights were acting on the example and orders of their "superiors" and acting those out of their "inferiors". In that system there isnt' really a concept of shouldn't, it's one of duty...

2) Even if you do the above, D&D paladins are different than Medieval knights. They are a romanticised version, held to an almost infinitely higher standard than the dark age knights per the RAW...

my 2cp

 

[D.Shaffer]

Yeah, I enjoyed that line, too.

Lovely Pig Farm ya got there. Shame if sumpin' happened to it..."

Me? I rather enjoyed the lines they had about the Norse vikings, myself.

 

[green slime]

Me? I rather enjoyed the lines they had about the Norse vikings, myself.

What? C'mon, share!

 

[Celebrim]

Is this in any way surprising to anyone?

It's precisely because of that that I'm inclined to distrust it. It seems every age wants to repaint history to suit itself. When what we discover from history is precisely what we expect to discover, it really worries me. Why should I be inclined to think that the current spin is any less spin than the romantic view of the knight as chivilric idea?

 

[green slime]

It's precisely because of that that I'm inclined to distrust it. It seems every age wants to repaint history to suit itself. When what we discover from history is precisely what we expect to discover, it really worries me. Why should I be inclined to think that the current spin is any less spin than the romantic view of the knight as chivilric idea?

I think to expect anything else of people of bygone ages other than that they were people, with dreams, aspirations, virtues, misconceptions, and flaws, filled with hate, love, and indifference, IOW, similar to people today. The exact morales and reasoning may be slightly different, yet they killed for similar reasons, they went to war for similar reasons, they fell in love for the same reasons.

 

[shilsen]

I think that let's D&D paladins and knights off the hook!

Thoughts?

I think the historical nature of knights has no influence whatsoever on the nature, and what is expected, of knights and paladins in the D&D game.