Chivalry is defined in the Websters dictionary as the qualities, as bravery, loyalty and courtesy, of the ideal knight, and the institution of knighthood. Every single knight was expected to act with these honorable qualities, and was required to follow the code as well. The knights around the round table in the book of Tales from king Arthur were expected to act honorably, loyally and with bravery. The perfect and ideal, modern knight consisted the characteristics of being brave, adventurous, determined, polite, strong (mentally and physically), emotionally stable and , however, the most important trait of the ideal knight, was the trait of being loyal and honest. In the adventure of the Holy Graal only the idealist and purest knight could find the Graal, and every knight set forth to look. In the book of Tales from king Arthur the author intended that a pure knight, that followed the code perfectly, was extremely rare and the way they showed this was having only one knight, Sir Galahad, able to find the Holy Graal. Sir Lancelot was also a pure knight and the father of Sir Galahad, however, Sir Lancelot had a sin, and sins with the code of chivalry was look down on. Sir Lancelot was everything an ideal knight wanted to become and achieve. He was brave, honest, adventurous and dependable, although he wasnt loyal to the king once, his sin. This held him back from finding the holy Graal. Even though the code of chivalry was followed by the modern knights in the past time of the early 1800s and 1700s, the code of chivalry can be applied to our society today. The act of being honorable, loyal, brave and honest are applied to our world today in many ways. As I had stated before, the code of chivalry are the qualities of an ideal knight, such as bravery and courtesy, and within our community today our nations army, navy, government and even the ordinary citizens of America, are following a code of loyalty and bravery.
