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Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

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Sir Edward:

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe
by Richard W. Kaeuper
Oxford University Press
1999
ISBN 0-19-924458-8

I've only read the first chapter so far, but this looks to be a fascinating read. It discusses the dichotomy of chivalry as a set of high ideals, along with the brutality and violence that plagued medieval Europe, and how they interacted.

Chapter 1 begins with a talk about some of the period writings concerning how violence was used to secure and protect the peace, and how many of the stories illustrated a public fear of knights battling amongst themselves and causing collateral damage.

I'm glad I picked this one up. :)

Das Bill:
Interesting. I may pick this one up. I'd definately appreciate a review when you're done, particularly on how scholarly it is. Its a subject that can be done really well or terribly, depending on the author. For example, I have the book Gentlemen's Blood by Barbara Holland that is outright terrible. She basically talks about honor as nothing more than an excuse for over-testosteroned men to kill each other for fun, and the book is full of what she seems to think is clever humor. So I'm always a little weary of exactly how much research has gone into these kinds of books, even when they list a ton of sources.

Sir Edward:

This one seems very nicely done so far, and well researched. The author also wrote the foreword for the Geffroi de Charney's Book of Knighthood copy that I have, and it contained a lot of interesting insights into the time in which he lived and the context in which he wrote it. It's definitely more scholarly, and in fact starts out deriding other "scholarly" works that look only at one aspect or another, whether it's doing as you mentioned, or going the other way and viewing it only through the rose tinted lenses of the romantic ideal. Instead, the author says that one must look at all of the aspects in order to get a sense of the reality of the period. One must look at how chivalry influenced the violence, and vice versa, and how people managed to uphold the ideals and how they failed, and what those ideals actually might have been.

The first chapter sets the stage pretty well for the state of Europe in the early 12th century, before the notion of chivalry started to really take hold into the forms we're more familiar with.

Das Bill:
Okay, that's sold me. I definately am going to pick up a copy to read.

Sir Griff:
A really scholarly book that you might like Bill is Crescent and Cross by the English writer, academic and scholar Hugh Bicheno. It is a treatise that covers everything and anything related to the battle of Lepanto in 1571, and I mean literally. The book covers the battle like a theatre play, with chapters titled "Props" (for the technology used at the time, like early muskets replacing arquebuses), "Plot" (for events leading up to the battle and the causes, which were a hell of a lot) and "Cast" (many, many people of the age who would have a part to play in the battle of Lepanto...either them or their descendants) among others. The book is really well researched and gives an accurate and unbiased view of the battle and the factions that fought. It's also the first book that gives me a firm understanding of the Ottoman Empire and how it was organized, in comparison with Western states. It also explains how the notion of 'Italy', 'Spain' or 'Germany' was non-existent at the time with great geographical and cultural divides separating the people of said places both culturally and ethnically.

I really recommend it, though the academic speech can be a little too detailed sometimes. It's really like a big old treatise on the Sixteenth Century as a whole.

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