The knight and chivalry

Richard Barber

The concept of chivalry is one of the central ideas of the medieval world, linking the practicalities of warfare to the highest levels of literary creation and to religious idealism. To understand it, it is necessary to look at both history and literature, and to give equal weight to the worlds of reality and imagination, in order to examine the complex interaction between the two which produces chivalry. The first part of the book looks at the prehistory of chivalry, the warriors and knights of early medieval Europe, their social function and status. It considers the ceremonies which began to set off the knight from other men, their place at princely courts, and the complex reaction of the Church to this new order of society. From this, the quest for chivalry leads to the literary world of the chansons de geste and the early romances, and to the biographies and handbooks which...

See on goodreads | librarything