Chivalry, as a classic topic, has been discussed by many scholars in past few decades.  

Chivalry: Its Historical Significance and Civilizing Influence, an important work of chivalry, edited by Edgar Prestage(1928), is the assembly of a series of lecture drafts, discussing the chivalry from varied perspectives. It highlights the academic value on problems of knights and make up for the lack of research in English-speaking world. A team of medieval historians from the university of London, and several experts and scholars invited contributes to its content. However, the book was first published in 1928, due to the restriction of the time and technology, some specific views and opinions they mentioned may not be accepted by today. It mainly discusses the influence of chivalry on posterity in spirit and the inner connection between knights and the literature. There is nothing surprising about their resources of literature, most of them are books of classic, such as The Song of Roland, El Cantar De Mio Cid, das Nibelungenlied, Beowulf, The Legend of King Arthur and The Canterbury Tales. Nevertheless, despite the use of these well-known examples, it still come to extraordinary arguments.

Maurice Keen(1984), the author of Chivalry, introduces the core connotation of chivalry in details and examines the significance of chivalry as a secular social ideal in the period from 1100 to 1500. Keen believes chivalry is the noblemen’ s military system and code of conduct. He finds that historians have exaggerated both chivalry's early Christian dedication and its later secular decadence, and that it may be better described as an ethos in which martial, aristocratic and Christian elements were fused together. The worship of honour, which seeks to give merit and loyal service their due reward in reputation and social respect, was at the heart of the chivalric ideal. An idea of nobility emphasizing the social and moral obligations that high status and a privileged way of life was the most important legacy of chivalry to later times, and it had a profound influence in consequence on the political mentality of the aristocracies of early modern Europe. To sum up, Maurice Keen’s research focuses on the secular significance and religious influence of chivalry.

Ni Shiguang (2007), another Chinese scholar who studies chivalry, has published a series of books about chivalry. A Study of Medieval Chivalry in Western Europe is his representative work, which introduces the knights and chivalry in aspects of their daily life, military life, political life, ideological and cultural life, etc. He makes a point that the life style of the knight has limited and influenced the life style of the whole society in Western Europe. He also reveals the inseparable relationship between chivalry and economy. The knights formed a common code of conduct which included the rules of religious belief, the demands of military obligations, and the norms of moral behavior, affecting the fashion of society as a whole and developed their own culture. The author involves the comparison between Chinese and Western culture, but it is more like a passing comment and still remains on the surface. In addition, most of the historical sources the author mentioned is written by western scholars. There is a lack of reading and research on first-hand materials.

This paper is to discuss chivalry from the aspect of modern equestrian, revealing the representation of chivalry in sports. Equestrianism, the art of horseback riding, used to be the technique for battle. Today it is the pure sports, the union of strength and beat, listed as a pision of Olympic Games competition, including dressage, show-jumping and eventing. Understanding chivalry could help us examining equestrian from a different perspective, realizing its connotation and sportsmanship converted by the spirit of knighthood.

The research is to focus on the cultural impact of chivalry on modern equestrian sports, the development of eight virtues of humility, honor, sacrifice, valor, compassion, honest, justice, spirituality and their practical significance in equestrian sports.