<P> In origin, the term chivalry means "horsemanship", formed in Old French, in the 11th century, from chevalier (horseman, knight), from Medieval Latin caballārius . The French word chevalier originally means "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 heavy cavalryman and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he is". In English, the term appears from 1292 (note that cavalry is from the Italian form of the same word). </P> <P> The meaning of the term evolved over time because the word chevalier was used differently in the Middle Ages, from the original concrete military meaning "status or fee associated with military follower owning a war horse" or "a group of mounted knights" to the ideal of the Christian warrior ethos propagated in the Romance genre, which was becoming popular during the 12th century, and the ideal of courtly love propagated in the contemporary Minnesang and related genres . Thus, chivalry has hierarchical meanings from simply a heavily armed horseman to a code of conduct . </P> <P> The ideas of chivalry originated in three medieval works: the anonymous poem Ordene de Chevalerie, that tells the story of how Hugh II of Tiberias was captured and released upon his agreement to show Saladin (1138--1193) the ritual of Christian knighthood, the Libre del ordre de cavayleria, written by Ramon Lull (1232--1315), whose subject is knighthood, and the Livre de Chevalerie of Geoffroi de Charny (1300--1356), which examines the qualities of knighthood, emphasizing prowess . Based on the three treatises, initially chivalry was defined as a way of life in which three essential aspects fused together: the military, the nobility, the religion . </P> <P> The "code of chivalry" is thus a product of the Late Middle Ages, evolving after the end of the crusades partly from an idealization of the historical knights fighting in the Holy Land and from ideals of courtly love . </P>

What rules did knights follow under the code of chivalry