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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9362681" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Mallory's Le Morte d'Artur is technically an early Renaissance work (14-something), and is where about 75% of modern Arthuriana tropes arise. . Nennius Historia Brittonum and the Vulgate Cycle are earlier than Mallory, and about 10% of the arthurian tropes; much of Mallory's tropeset builds on those two. Chrétien de Troyes' Romances get folded and spindled into Mallory, too. .Then Arthuriana gets the weirdness of TH White's focuses on Lancelot and his anachronisms... but grounded on Le Morte.yep.Yep. The tales are mostly renaissance era. THe actual knights-Paladin, however, were not Crusaders. They were 200 years to early, and that puts them in the Dark Ages. Before the crusades. When the crusading was done against the neighbors, not the Muslims.More likely the Renaissance and Romantic eras revisions of those tales.Not so fast there, skippy... The D&D paladins are a power fantasy, but there's not much Christian about them.Holy warriors exist in many traditions. Including the Muslims. The inspiration source is there, but it's been blanched quite a bit, and even more in later editions.Gygax et al didn't know even as much as you. And were writing in a time when political correctness as we think of it was on the opposite side of Gender, Preference, and LGBTQIA rights from now. Essentially, it was the last gasp of the dark ages echoing.And know that the Paladin in D&D bears only passing resemblance to both the brutal warriors of Charlemagne, and the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitler. The Hospitlers became, eventually, the Knights of Malta, and still exist as a very expensive and active charitable fraternal order with Papal knighthood.They are far closer to the unrealistic and heroic tales with their Renaissance and Romantic period embellishments. They're a myth borrowing a name.Not medievalThe concept of a holy warrior and what good means are not quite universals, but are hardly uncommon as myth. And equally as grotesque in historical documentation.The only connection to the crusaders is the one you showed: the holy symbol on the shield.They're connected to the myth, and the myth is disconnected from the reality by 600-800 years...I'm not saying it's not a problem. You're clearly distressed.I am saying, "The evidence you present is extremely thin and based upon versions told 600-950 years later than the people they are about and being annoyed by the disconnect that the story authors could not know" and "Gygax didn't do his homework very well" - plus, I don't know whether the Paladin was Gygax's. I know the non-LG paladinical types are very much not his. Just ignore the linkage, because it's not strong enough nor well known enough to be a problem for most, unless you make it a problem. It's just not worth the stress. Go with the myth, not the historical reality. It's just more fun that way.</blockquote>

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