Sophie Gee

So

the kind of upfront presentation of the knight is, oh, he's a really good guy.

Obviously, that's what you should be like.

But what we're going to find out across the course of the Canterbury Tales, more than in the prologue itself, is that these terms that appear to be kind of self-evidently virtuous, truth, honour, freedom, courtesy, Chaucer's really tried to get under the hood of these medieval values, sort of feudal values, and say, well, I mean, really, you know, what does it take to be honourable?

or free in a world that's completely organized by warfare and social hierarchy.

What is courtesy?

If you're someone who's gone on killing sprees your entire life, is that courteous?

So Chaucer's already kind of getting the sort of satirical edge of the knife under the writing in this section.

And then we find out that the knight has done a huge number of military campaigns.

It says he was

Ever honoured for his... Sorry, I'm fully going into Irish IKEA here.

Ever honoured for his worthiness.

At Alessandra he was one, it was one.

Full offered time he had the board begun.

Above all nations in Prus.

In Letao had he reused and in Rus.

No Christian man so oft of his degree.

In Granada the sage of A. Caddy B. Of Algeciras and Ridenil in Belmere.

at Lys he was, and at Satalia, when they were one, and at the greatest sea, at many a noble armour had he be, at mortal battles had he be fifteen, and foughten for our faith at Tramazena, and so on.

Now, historians have really got to work on the list of campaigns that the knight has been involved in, and the consensus is it would have been physically impossible for someone to have been