The Chivalric Code of Le Morte d’Arthur Throughout the tales of King Arthur, stories of brave knights and noble lords captivated the society of the European Middle Ages. These stories gave a criterion forpeople to base there values and way of life on. During the 1400’s knighthood was comingto an end. Sir Thomas Malory wanted to recapture the lose of chivalry with his tale “LeMorte d’Arthur”. He wished to inspire people to return to the basic ideals of the chivalriccode. Le Morte d’Arthur presents the importance of possessing the characteristics ofhonor, loyalty, and courage. The most important aspect of the chivalric code is honor. Without honor a man isbelieved to be less of a person during the Middle Ages. If you were to loose your honor,then somehow you, or someone else, must go to any lengths to regain that honor. In LeMorte d’Arthur, a knight is injured mortally and dies. When the squire of the knightpresents himself before King Arthur he tells Arthur, “he had been attacked by KingPellinore at the well, and then begged that he should be buried, and that one of Arthur’sknights should avenge his death.”(Malory, p.99) The squire knows that the deceasedknight’s honor must be returned. A young squire named Gryfflette begs Arthur to makehim a knight so he can avenge the fallen knights honor. Gryfflette’s plea to be a knightgoes to show how important it is that a man’s honor be intact no matter what the cost maybe.In being a chivalric, along with possessing honor, you must also have large ofamounts of courage and bravery. Arthur knows Gryfflette is not ready to become aknight, yet he still allows him to become one because he knows how important it is toreturn honor to his dead comrade. Gryfflette leaves in search of King Pellinore anddisplays great courage by going and facing a much more seasoned knight such as he. “SirGryfflette struck t...
