SOURCE: Benson, Larry D. “Knighthood in Life and Literature.” In Malory's Morte Darthur, pp. 163-85. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.

In the following essay, Benson contends that Malory's depiction of chivalric deeds and tournaments in Le Morte Darthur was based on incidents and traditions established by real-life knights.

The case of chivalry in its more general sense is much the same as that of courtly love. Romance chivalry—the idea that a knight must perform deeds for the honor of his lady and to acquire “worship”—was in the twelfth century a literary ideal, with only an indirect relation to the life of the times. The early romances present a heightened and purified image of the life that some of the more sophisticated twelfth-century nobles might have wanted to live if they had been blessed with the wealth and leisure to do so. But we know of none...