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Chivalry conjures up images in my mind of the knight fully armed, perhaps with the crusaders, with a red cross sewn upon his surcoat; of martial adventures in strange lands; of castles with tall towers and of the fair women who dwelt in them. It is also, for that very reason, a word elusive of definition. One can define within reasonably close limits what is meant by the word knight, or in French: “chevalier”, which is very close to the word chivalry. It denotes a man of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of a heavy cavalryman, and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he is - who has been “dubbed'' to knighthood. But chivalry is not so easily pinned down. It is a word that seems to have been used with different meanings and shades of meaning and in different contexts. Sometimes chivalry is spoken of as an order of religion; sometimes it is spoken of as an estate, a social class; and sometimes it spoken of as no more than a body of heavily armed horsemen. Sometimes it is used to encapsulate a code of values that belong to this order or estate. Chivalry cannot be divorced from the martial world of th