In the lady, or the tiger, which inference can be best made about why the king is described as “semi-barbaric” rather than wholly barbaric?

Read the passage. and thus they fought all the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold earth. and ever they fought still till it was near night, and by then was there a hundred thousand laid dead upon the down. in the passage from morte d’arthur by sir thomas malory, what are the bolded words an example of?