Perhaps I will be beheaded for posting treason, but I would be much cheered to see the flower of twenty-first century chivalry hacked down on the field of blood. Would that the French landed a boatload of proper knights on the south coast. Then, the queen would (surely) have to send her knights to fight them. (Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?) How lovely it would be to see Sir Fred Goodwin unhorsed, and on the spiky end of a morning star mace. And all those aging pop stars: Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Mick Jagger. Please, please French knights! Put them to the sword. The whole world would thank you!

I suppose that, when women commonly wore tightly laced corsets, they probably were less able to stand than the generality of their male fellow-passengers.

Indeed, women seem more afflicted than men by fashion items that make it difficult for them to stand. Another, and continuing, example is found in high heeled shoes. On that matter, something returns to mind that has bothered me (on and off) for years.

I can’t recall who she was, nor whether she expressed herself on radio or in print, but a woman advanced this argument: Since men want women to wear high heels, they should give up their seats on public transport. One of the things wrong with this idea is that it depends on a sexist generalisation. Some men, certainly, like women to wear high heels, but “men” as a whole? It would have been less objectionable had it been expressed as “many men” or (more certainly correct) “some men”. I don’t know whether anyone has ever taken a survey to establish the truth of the matter. My guess is that the majority of men don’t care very much either way. I can recall hearing only one man express pleasure in seeing women wear high heels. The man in question was quite certainly a shoe fetishist. It would make a certain sense to say that shoe fetishists should give up their seats to women who wear high heels. But, if expressed thus, it would (I feel fairly sure) make most of the women involved feel uncomfortable (at the very least).

While I have no wish to say women should or shouldn’t wear on their feet what they choose, I find something wrong in their adopting uncomfortable and impractical fashions specifically to please men. Women, I think, should be moved (in such matters) by what pleases themselves, rather than what pleases others. Or is that too idealistic?

This takes us some way from chivalry, but I hope expresses a coherent (and connected) train of thought.

Nice bit of homosociality!

I wonder if that links thematically with the early ‘rakehells’, who tended to hunt in gangs when they went out pillaging, window-breaking and whoring (cf. Shadwell’s The Libertine). The lone Don G-style aristocratic rake (Johnny Depp’s The Libertine) presumably arises out of more of an individualist way of thinking (‘the self’ got invented in the 1700s, of course*).

interesting…

*oh wait

One is to do with Don Giovanni taking Zerlina away to show her his castle. I used to read books about vampirism, and thus gave the eyeball treatment to several potted lives of Elizabeth Bathory. The countess, when finally convicted of monstrous deeds, was walled up in her husband’s castle. One book said that the castle was symbolically her husband’s body, and subjecting her to that punishment had to do with the perception of her as a blood-crazed lesbian. The idea of the castle as a symbolic male body might either illuminate or cloud the Don Giovanni incident.

On Lewis Carroll’s white knight, this character is generally seen as a portrait of the author. There may be something interesting, here, to do with how he perceived his relationship with Alice Liddell.

Another thought to arise is the debasement of knighthood in the modern British honours system. It has long been my view that knighthoods should not go to pop stars, bankers, civil servants and the like. The prime qualification for a knighthood should surely be a proven ability to fight from horseback. Given the popularity of horses with young women, I suspect that most knights — these days — should be female. When I see someone on horseback, she is usually a she.

These practical concerns fit neatly into the romantic Arthurian ideal (courage=prowesse , honour=fidelité and justice=largesse). The ideal of courtoise (giving up your seat on the Tube) didn’t come until much later, probably by the same guy that invented Sir Lancelot.

It also means that the closest modern-day match to original chivalry is probably Tony Soprano.