What was the nobility like in Sir Thomas Malory's time?

Malory himself was ostensibly a member of the nobility, and yet he was accused of various crimes ranging from ambush to r*pe during his life, and he died in jail. This is one example of how the chivalric codes portrayed in the literature of the period were not adhered to as strongly in real life. This period was also characterized by the ‘war of the roses’ in which England was inflicted by a civil war, something that the homosocial bonds in the Arthurian court does not reflect, although the civil war with Mordred does.

What was the nobility like in Sir Thomas Malory time and how was it like and unlike the noble knights he wrote about