Daily Archives: February 26, 2014

1/26/2014

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We talked a little today about getting ready to read The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights.

A few things we discussed were feudalism, chivalry, and courtly love.

Feudalism was the caste system or hierarchy that the Normans introduced, with the king on top and the serf on the bottom. In class, we talked about the feudal society on Klein ISD and the feudal burden that each person.

You are my vassal; I am Mrs. Ekster’s vassal; Ekster is Dr. Cain’s vassal; Dr. Cain is the school board’s vassal.

We also talk about chivalry and courtly love.

From Wikipedia:

When examining medieval literature, chivalry can be classified into three basic but overlapping areas:

  1. Duties to countrymen and fellow Christians: this contains virtues such as mercy, courage, valor, fairness, protection of the weak and the poor, and in the servant-hood of the knight to his lord. This also brings with it the idea of being willing to give one’s life for another’s; whether he would be giving his life for a poor man or his lord.
  2. Duties to God: this would contain being faithful to God, protecting the innocent, being faithful to the church, being the champion of good against evil, being generous and obeying God above the feudal lord.
  3. Duties to women: this is probably the most familiar aspect of chivalry. This would contain what is often called courtly love, the idea that the knight is to serve a lady, and after her all other ladies. Most especially in this category is a general gentleness and graciousness to all women.

These three areas obviously overlap quite frequently in chivalry, and are often indistinguishable.

Then, we did the anticipation guide in BB. It’s under Arthurian Legend. Print it to One Note, follow the instructions, and turn it in. In order to turn it in, you’ll need to PUBLISH the file as a single web page. Drop that off in BB so you can get credit.

Then, we read The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights – pages 7-12. You can easily read that on your own by reading it after school one day or checking out a book from me.

Happy reading!