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From what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, but despite the code of Chivalry Knights were pretty much little better than gangsters/thugs that swore their loyalty to a King or Monarch and did as they were told. But apart from actually going against their master could they get away with say, plundering villages, killing innocent peasants, raping a bunch of women, etc.?
In the scheme of things, knights were minor nobility in a feudal system, so they served a lord -- they did not report directly to the king. If a knight decided to plunder one of his lord's villages, he would be punished, as the peasants produced food, labor, and taxes for the lord. If the lord wanted to oppress his own people, his knights and soldiers were expected to operate under whatever rules of engagement the lord permitted.
As joe from dayton said, knights swore fealty to a lord, though they could swear other oaths, such as to the Church, as was the case with knightly orders such as the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers.
Outside the scope of these oaths, Knights were also beholden to local and national laws and regulations, such as they were, as the lord's themselves were beholden to the monarch. But realize the patchwork of authority (or the ability to enforce authority) in Europe and the Middle East was far more intricate and/or non-existent over much of the time period and geographic area.
Thus, outside the area of the lord's authority, a state of war might exist wherein a knight might have acted as he chose and indeed committed what today we would call war crimes. On the other hand, a knight who acted in such a way without the lord's permission might damage the lord's diplomatic relations. Therefore a knight would only commit acts against 'innocents' when given express permission to by his lord.
For example, during the Crusades, Jews and Muslims in Europe and the Levant were considered persona non grata by the Church, so the Church gave knights the permission to deal with them as they chose. Some knights may have simply taken the land and valuables, while others committed acts that can be considered genocidal, but it was done under the authority of the Church, not necessarily at the whim of the knight.
In the scheme of things, knights were minor nobility in a feudal system, so they served a lord -- they did not report directly to the king. If a knight decided to plunder one of his lord's villages, he would be punished, as the peasants produced food, labor, and taxes for the lord. If the lord wanted to oppress his own people, his knights and soldiers were expected to operate under whatever rules of engagement the lord permitted.
More commonly, knights of one lord warred against another lord. Typically, this did not involved knight-on-knight violence, but knights ravaging the rival lord's means of income - burning crops and villages, killing peasants, etc.
The swedish nobility were called knights and served with their soldiers under the king.
Usually they would burn, rape, loot and kill when they advance through enemy territory.
From what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, but despite the code of Chivalry Knights were pretty much little better than gangsters/thugs that swore their loyalty to a King or Monarch and did as they were told. But apart from actually going against their master could they get away with say, plundering villages, killing innocent peasants, raping a bunch of women, etc.?
Yes, this is my impression is well. As a multicultural side note, a significant number of samurai battles were not sublime encounters after a buddhist tea ceremony.
Rather, the not so noble samurai mirrored their European counterparts in that they could resemble groups of thugs with licenses to enforce what ever policies their lord had against local peasants with levels of brutality that could exceed that of their European counter parts.
Likewise, I have a deep suspicion that more than a few samurais avoided fights against other samurais and preferred to concentrate on safe attacks against units of poorly armed, armored and trained peasant levies of rival lords.
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