The Trastámara period saw the articulation of a powerful and often destructive ideology of chivalry. From a political perspective, knights sought to guard their political prerogatives and wield political power in the kingdom. Always claiming to be loyal servants of the king, they were nonetheless prepared at a moment's notice to go to war with the king or the king's supporters to protect their political privileges. From a social perspective, knights defined themselves through their honor and their linaje. Peasants and commoners, who did not have honor or lineage to the same degree that knights claimed, had no right to violence, as far as knights were concerned. As the exclusive owners of violent action, knights felt free to exercise their violence on those below them in the social hierarchy. In war, the Trastámara nobility often clamored for the prosecution of the holy war, insisting that a king ought to prioritize the war against Islam. These men saw their personal, familial, and kingdom-wide honor as bound up in the past successes of the holy war, and continual advancement of the reconquista was necessary to preserve that honor. Yet knights had no objection to fighting their Christian neighbors, both in Castile and abroad. They believed that God was pleased with their martial activity even when the blood on their swords was loosed from Christian veins. And though most knights were men, women played a key role in chivalric violence, through the production of male heirs, through marriage alliances, and through active violence itself, directing male relatives and vassals into war for their personal and familial benefit. All of these components were central to the larger ideology of chivalry in late medieval Castile.

Most of these components were characteristic of chivalry as it existed across late medieval Europe. The knightly love of independence from higher government oversight is showcased excellently in the struggles between the popular and elite factions in Florence. The disdain and even dehumanization of the lower orders that was articulated so well by the popular ballads of the frontier appeared throughout western and central Europe. Just as it led to the rise of the Irmandiños in the Kingdom of Castile, so it led to the Jacquerie in France and the Great Rising in England.