The concept of honor has always been present in the history of humanity. In fact, even today, in our body of law, sanctions are included for the violation of honor, although they are minor crimes and, therefore, punished in a less severe manner.
It was not like this in the Middle Ages, a time in which honor was one of the most important issues (if not the most important) for a human being and a community.. It is difficult for us, men and women of the 21st century, to imagine why our ancestors gave so much importance to honor (and, specifically, honor, which is not synonymous), even admitting death as a penalty for rape.
If you really want to understand how medieval people lived honor and honor, we advise you (as you always have to do when looking at other times and cultures) to get rid of your ideas and beliefs. Only then can you imbibe the true meaning of exactly what honor was like in the Middle Ages.
At first glance, it may seem so. In fact, we often use both words interchangeably, but the reality is that they do not mean exactly the same thing. In the interesting study Around with honor and honor. Evolution in the conception of honor and honor in Castilian societies, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, by María Victoria Martínez (see bibliography), the author collects the opinion of the historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal who, in 1940, clearly distinguished one of another concept.
According to the scholar, honor would refer to something that is earned through one’s own actions, while honor would be subject to the actions of others. In other words, While honor would be related to the virtue and worth of the person, honor would depend on how others perceive this virtue and worth, and also on how the members of the community to which the individual is attached behave..
In general, in the Middle Ages and well into the modern world (in which a still medieval model continued to prevail) honor was understood as something intrinsic to the individual, either due to their own merits or due to belonging to a specific lineage or caste. Thus, the nobles, for example, possessed the honor of their class, which differentiated them from the commoners.
However, honor was something much more mutable, which could be lost quickly; sometimes, not even by one’s own act, but by the acts of others. Let’s take an example to understand it. Let us consider a knight who has the honor of belonging to the privileged class of nobles.. On the other hand, let’s imagine that this same gentleman’s wife has been unfaithful with another man. In this case, the honor of his lineage would be the same, but not his honor, which was inevitably lost according to the values of the time.
What you do wrong will stain the honor of everyone
We must understand the medieval period and, in general, also the early modern times, as a time in which individuality did not exist. This is a fairly recent concept on which the foundations of our society are built, but it was not like that in medieval times.
In the Middle Ages, the individual was part of a whole. The person was not conceived as an entity separate from the rest, much less with his own characteristics. There were individual characters and natures, but each of the people remained linked to that great mechanism that was creation..
Therefore, the individual was inevitably subordinated to the rest, whether to the family, the community, his status, whatever. A carpenter was not just a specific man, but he belonged to a union community of carpenters and, therefore, his actions had an impact on said community. A nun was forever linked to her monastery, and her “good” acts gave fame to her monastic community, while her “bad” acts filled her with disgrace. Thus, what a specific person did expanded to the reality of the community to which he or she belonged.
Women as repositories of family honor
In this order of things, It is easy to imagine that woman, as the giver of life and perpetuator of lineages, was the main pillar on which the honor of the family and caste was sustained.. For a very simple reason: because nobility could only be acquired through blood (although it was sometimes granted by the king), and, therefore, the perpetuation of the lineage was in the hands of the wife.
For this reason, adultery was considered a very serious violation of honor. Not only because it went against what a woman “should be” (chaste, faithful and devoted to God and her husband), but because it endangered the “purity” of the lineage, by running the risk of giving birth to a bastard. . Paradoxically, this was, in part, what gave noblewomen so much power over the family in medieval times, as the future of the caste was absolutely in their hands.
As we have already commented, what one of the members of the community did “tainted” or “purified” the others, even when they had nothing to do with the acts. The dishonor of a daughter (for example, the fact that she had had relations before marriage) extended to the entire family, reaching the point that, once the family honor was sullied, the younger sisters could have serious problems to get married.
This concept of women as “family honor” transcended the Middle Ages and reached modern times, as we have already said. Suffice it to remember the works of the Spanish Golden Age and its attacks on matters of honor, so well portrayed in the dramas and comedies of Lope de Vega.
Of insults and their punishments
Let us briefly return to our current era. In our penal code, the crime of insult is a very minor offense and, therefore, punished lightly. This was not the case in medieval and modern times. If we consider a society in which the value of the person, the family and the community was based on honor, it is logical to think that the violation of this honor entailed severe punishments.
The word insult comes from the Latin in iuria, “without right” or, what is the same, something unfair and that violates honor. The topic of insults was already compiled in ancient Roman Law, but, without a doubt, its rise occurred in the medieval centuries, a time in which the largest compendium of laws related to the topic was created..
Thus, in one of the oldest charters of the Iberian Peninsula, the Charter of Miranda de Ebro (1095), it is stated that injury not only results in harm to the victim, but also to his or her spouse. Once again we find the community (in this case, the institution of marriage) forming part of a single thing and, therefore, an individual receiving the acts of the other.
The concept of “injury” in the Middle Ages
If we take any of these medieval legislative compilations and read the list of insults (that is, attacks against honor) that are penalized, we would undoubtedly be amazed at their number and their nature, different from what we currently consider insult.
For example, in the aforementioned jurisdiction of Miranda de Ebro, as well as that of Jaca, it is considered an insult to grab someone by the beard or hair and, as such, it is punished. On the other hand, Hurting someone before one’s own master is also considered an insult, a total affront to honor, and the social grievance (the fact of being hurt before one’s superior) is taken into account more than the wounds themselves..
In short, what in the Middle Ages was considered an affront to honor is probably not considered as such in our current legal corpus; among other things, because the concept of honor and honor is not the same (nor does it have the same importance as in medieval times).
Knights, repositories of honor
In the Code of the Seven Games of Alfonso The specific passage is titled Of Gentlemen and the Things They Should Do and, in it, the behaviors by which a gentleman should be governed are listed.
In the Middle Ages, the knight was the protector of society (the bellatores) and, therefore, his virtue had to be indisputable. The military establishment was, on the other hand, the one that enjoyed certain privileges (tax exemptions, access to positions of power), so its honor had to be, at all times, impeccable.
We should not therefore think that only the nobility maintained the concept of honor. We have already seen how a humble artisan could also lose honor if, for example, his daughter slept with someone without being married or if he did not correctly carry out the duties assigned to him according to his class. Even so, it is true that it was the knights who lived the idea of honor in a more, let’s say, “ardent and intense” way, precisely because of that important position they enjoyed.
What qualities should a knight possess to maintain his honor? One of the basic points was not to commit a crime, that is, to remain faithful to their lords and not commit any treason. On the other hand, it was taken for granted that a knight must be brave and loyal and always conduct himself with temperance. Chivalric novels and treatises for nobles were responsible for transmitting this idea, which, in the Middle Ages, bore fruit in the model of the Miles Christi or soldier of God..
