Our tales of medieval knights, written between the eleventh and thirteenth century, are of course orgies of extreme violence, often for no other reason than to prove one’s bravery and honour. Knights killed for the slightest insult. Their supposed chivalry does not correspond to anything we would call by that name. One of the knight’s means of battle was to ruin his enemy by killing as many of his peasants as possible, and destroying his crops and possessions. One knight tries to woo a princess by promising to rape the most beautiful women he finds in her honour.
