Chivalry is the product of feudalism. The feudal lords and nobles raised many knights in order to wage war and suppress the people. They trained their children and small and medium-sized landlords into privileged knights, and later lords, retainers and rich peasants also became knights. Due to the needs of wars in several Crusades and the influence of higher culture in the East during the Crusades, the status of knights has been greatly improved. Knight's creed is loyalty to the monarch (loyalty to the Lord), apologetics, chivalry and martial arts. They take part in all kinds of adventures, not only to protect noble lords, castles and lands, but also to be loyal to and defend their mistress-your wife. The hostess was as sacred as the virgin in the knight's mind, and later developed into the worship and love for the lady. Being able to take risks for his "beloved lady" and win the favor of the lady has become the greatest honor of the knight. All this constitutes the so-called "chivalry". Knight literature is a work describing the adventures of knights, and later it is a popular work describing the passionate love between heroes and beautiful women between knights and ladies.
Chivalrous literature serves to maintain the feudal system, and its basic themes are only two: praising the love of ladies and loyalty to lords, and its heroic beauty stories also have obvious feudal and artificial characteristics. However, some moral beliefs, such as defending the country, helping the weak, protecting women and respecting the elderly, are also in line with the wishes of the people. At the same time, chivalrous literature affirms secular love and praises the joy of secular life and love. After all, it breaks through the bondage of asceticism and deviates from religious teachings. Therefore, some knight literature works also have a certain popularity.
The main genres of knight literature are knight lyric poetry and knight legend.
Knight lyric poetry was first popular in Provence in southern France, commonly known as "Provence lyric poetry". Lyrics mostly praise the heroic deeds of knights and their joys and sorrows with lovers, and it is extremely rare not to write about love. The lyric poems of Provence include Pastoral about the knight's hard pursuit of the country shepherdess, Song of Dawn about the knight's tryst with your wife, Debate Poetry about the dialogue and debate of "elegant love" and so on. One of the most famous is Song of Dawn. It describes the tryst of a knight and his wife in a warm style and the scene of leaving at dawn.
Engels once said: "The song of dawn has become the essence of love poems in Provence." This lyric poem breaks the shackles of church asceticism, describes love and lovers in beautiful and carefully selected language, and praises women while praising religion, God and the Virgin Mary, which is contrary to the morality and imprisonment of feudal churches. Engels regarded this chivalrous love as "the first form of sex in history". When talking about the German poet who also studied this lyric poem and its theme, he said: "Our old Volfram von Eisenbach also left three wonderful poems with this provocative theme, which I think are better than his three heroic poems."
The lyric poetry of Provence has a unique exquisite and delicate feature, and the language is extremely concise. Marx and Engels spoke highly of this. Engels believed that this lyric poem "created the standard language among all ethnic groups for the first time in the new era." At that time, its poetry was a model for Latin-speaking countries and even Germans and Britons. "The lyrics of northern France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Dante are all influenced by the lyrics of Provence.
Another form of knight literature is knight legend, mostly poetic narrative poems, which are generally long. Most of these legends tell the stories of knights who took various adventures in order to win the favor and honor of your wife. Sometimes they conquered pagans in order to protect religion. Most of these stories are divorced from life and have great fantasy.
There are a large number of works describing Wang Yase, an Englishman, and his knights of the Round Table in The Legend of Knight Poetry, which have been produced in Britain, France, Germany and other countries. King Arthur was a historical figure in the 6th century, but Knight's legendary poems made him a legendary hero. The story of King Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table tells that King Arthur has made great achievements and conquered Scotland, England and other places. He lives in a castle with his beautiful wife Guinevere. There is a big round table in the banquet hall of the castle, which can seat 150 knights. But there is often an empty seat on the round table for the knight, who holds the "holy grail" of the blood shed by Jesus during his crucifixion. Among the knights, there is a prominent figure Lancelot, who fell in love with Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur, and had a tryst with him. Arthur discovered the secret and had a conflict with Lancelot. Later, Lancelot left Arthur and didn't come back until Arthur died. At this time, Guinevere has become a nun. This legendary story about the Holy Grail has a strong religious color, while other stories affirm people's right to enjoy love and happiness, deny asceticism morality, and try to describe people (knights) as virtuous people.
There is also the widely circulated story of "Qiu Stan and Seven Colors" in knight legend. There are many copies of this theme, and France, Germany, Italy and other countries have narrative poems on this theme, and the legend of prose style appeared in the13rd century. Joseph Bedier (1864~ 1938) rewrote it.
This story tells that King Mark of England sent his nephew Justine to propose to Princess Catherine of Ireland on his behalf, and the proposal was accepted. But on the voyage home, Ethel fell in love with Tristan. After Ethel married King Mark of England, she still loved Tristan deeply. Mark persecuted them, but he still couldn't stop them from falling in love. Finally, both lovers died.
This work enthusiastically praises sincere love. In the contradiction between loyalty to feudal lords and loyalty to love, Qiu Stan chose the latter without hesitation. This work is a protest against feudal morality and church asceticism. Okasen and Nicolette, which spread in13rd century, is also a famous work, written in the form of poetry and prose. The story tells the story of a duke's son, Okason, who fell in love with a female prisoner, Nicolette, against his father's wishes and regardless of the duties of a knight. After many hardships and struggles, he finally got married. These late chivalrous literature have clearly demonstrated the decline of chivalrous spirit in the Middle Ages and the germination of anti-feudal and anti-church thoughts in modern times.
Knight literature has a certain influence on later European literature. Romanticism in some of these works has been inherited and developed in later works. The tortuous plot and meticulous psychological description of knight literature also provided reference for later novels. But the elements advocating feudal loyalty, exaggerating pornography and hedonism should be abandoned.