The Necessity of Display within the Upper Medieval Classes

Most of our conversation of The Knight's Tale, and for most of the Canterbury Tales, began with looking at the character's through which the tales were conveyed, as each narrator had specific traits that led to reasoning as to why each story was told. However, most of our discussion of the knight was focused around the fact that the knight was more of a mercenary, or a warrior who adopted the guise of the knight in order to make money or side with the current ruling class. The first chapter of this book, Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to The Italian Renaissance, embellishes on this idea, and revealing, much to my surprise, that this practice was actually fairly common since knighthood became associated with nobility. The process of becoming a knight, because of its intensity with regards to both physicality and monetary cost, was often forgone, meaning that many trained individuals instead opted for the position of "esquire," where oftentimes, as Scaglione writes:

Indeed, the young nobleman's economic predicament was not without stress: whereas he was barred from working for a living, he nevertheless needed to keep up with the standards of the rich princes who replaced the petty local lords. Prodigal display was a distinguishing trait of the chivalric class all along, but financial irresponsibility took its toll and many an indebted knight had to sell his land to the hated parvenu villains or give it back to the prince, perhaps in return for a place at court. (19)

From this point forward, The Knight's Tale, despite being a mythical story, becomes less far-fetched. Most of Theseus' power arises from these "prodigal displays," and the very creation of the stadium for the gods takes on the concept of financial irresponsibility. When attached to the knight and the squire, both their stories can be seen as attempts to live up the standards of the ruling classes, but each story falls just short of what would actually be considered "noble."

The book can be found here:
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4j49p00c;brand=ucpress