Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the sixth Strawberry Hill Conference, 1994 (Medieval Knighthood, 5) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0851156282 ISBN 13: 9780851156286

Publisher: Boydell Press, 1995

Synopsis

Cumulatively [the volumes] are of increasing value as repositories of scholarship on the multi-dimensional subject of knighthood ... highly informative and useful. ALBION

Studies treating a wide variety of aspects of knighthood. Topics include the way in which the word "knight" has been used, studying the terminology and ritual concerned with "making a knight"; the circumstances and implications ofthe knighting of the social elite of England between 1066 and 1272; the difficulties of distinguishing between knight and clerk, as exemplified by Abelard's multi-faceted image; the debt which Geoffrey de Charny's treatise on chivalry owes to the ideas and ideals of knighthood in Arthurian prose romances; and the linguistic competence of the twelfth-century knightly classes as courtly audience of troubadour song. There are also important contributions onthe warhorse; and on the fortifications of fourteenth-century English towns, arguing that they were more the expression of bourgeois aspirations than a response to serious military threat.

Professor STEPHEN CHURCH teaches in the Department of History, University of East Anglia; Dr RUTH HARVEY is lecturer in French, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College.

Contributors: RICHARD BARBER, MATTHEW BENNETT, JONATHAN BOULTON, MICHAEL CLANCHY, CHARLES COULSON, RUTH HARVEY, ELSPETH KENNEDY, AD PUTTER

About this title

About the Authors

S.D. Church is Professor in Medieval Studies at the University of Lincoln.

Ad Putter is Professor of Medieval English at the University of Bristol, UK, co-director of Bristol's Centre for Medieval Studies, and Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author and editor of numerous books, with a particular interest in Medieval Romance texts and the works of the Gawain poet. He is currently leading a research project on the literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations.

RICHARD BARBER has had a huge influence on the study of medieval history and literature, as both a writer and a publisher. His first book on the Arthurian legend appeared in 1961, and his major works include The Knight and Chivalry (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971), Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe and The Holy Grail: the History of a Legend which was widely praised and was translated into six languages.

From the Back Cover

These studies treat a wide variety of aspects of knighthood, ranging from its emergence as an identifiably noble estate to the appropriation of chivalric trappings to serve bourgeois interests. Topics include the way in which the word 'knight' has been used, studying the terminology and ritual concerned with 'making a knight'; the circumstances and implications of the knighting of the social elite of England between 1066 and 1272; the attitudes and interests of the knights and clerics at the court of Champagne; the multifaceted 'image' of Peter Abelard, illustrating the difficulty in distinguishing between knight and cleric; the debt which Geoffrey de Charny's treatise on chivalry owes to the ideas and ideals of knighthood in Arthurian prose romances; and the linguistic competence of the twelfth-century knightly classes as audience of troubadour song. There are also important contributions on the warhorse (challenging misconceptions on its size, qualities, advantages and limitations on campaign), and on the fortifications of fourteenth-century English towns, arguing that they were more the expression of bourgeois aspirations than a response to serious military threat.

Edition details

• Publisher: Boydell Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0851156282
• ISBN 13: 9780851156286
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282
• Editor: Church Professor Stephen D., Harvey Professor Ruth