人妻少妇专区

In Review

Gallant knights on horseback, banners unfurling before stirring tournaments鈥攖oday鈥檚 popular notions of the chivalric world are profoundly influenced by people in the 19th century who saw the Middle Ages through a romantic haze, says Richard Kaeuper, professor of history.

And he is out to change that.

Kaeuper has devoted his career to it, with books such as Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry (University of Pennsylvania, 2009) and Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Clarendon Press, 2001). Now he鈥檚 completing a book, commissioned by Cambridge University Press, called Medieval Chivalry, which looks at the concept generally.

The way people for the past couple of centuries have thought of chivalry isn鈥檛 the way medieval knights experienced it. Chivalry was a violent, often grisly, phenomenon. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hands-on cutting and thrusting. It鈥檚 a very bloody profession, and they admire it to excess,鈥� he says. But he also insists that chivalry is more than a timeless warrior code.

Though its influence is still felt, chivalry is specific to a historical period鈥攆rom roughly the second half of the 11th century into the 16th century鈥攁nd it underpins medieval society in many ways. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an immense topic that goes everywhere,鈥� he says.

The term 鈥渃hivalry鈥濃�攗nlike 鈥渇eudalism鈥濃�攊s a medieval one, and an essential concept for the age. It denotes 鈥渄eeds of great valor performed by knights,鈥� he says. But it also refers to the collective body of knights present in an action and鈥攎ost important鈥攁 set of ideas and practices. He writes that 鈥渧irtually every medieval voice we can hear accepts a chivalric 尘别苍迟补濒颈迟茅 and seems anxious to advance it (and often to reform it toward some desired goal) as a key buttress to society, even to civilization.鈥�

Chivalry is 鈥減retty much a French creation,鈥� and then it moves through Western Europe. The English, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Germans not only adopt it but make it their own.

He identifies three phases of chivalry. The first, he calls 鈥渒nighthood before chivalry鈥濃�攖he beginnings of the military profession in the period before kings and other noblemen would have called themselves knights. In the second period, such high-born men begin to cultivate an identity as knights. Tournaments come into being and literary romance and epic flourish. And in the third phase, which he calls 鈥渃hivalry beyond formal knighthood,鈥� the influence of chivalry pervades society. By then, it鈥檚 a 鈥渟et of ideas that organizes thought and behavior.鈥�

Kaeuper uses five 鈥渕odel鈥� knights to guide readers through the concepts of his book: cross-Channel, 13th-century hero William Marshal; 14th-century king of Scotland Robert Bruce; 14th-century French knight and author Geoffroi de Charny; late 14th-century Castilian warrior Don Pero Ni帽o; and 15th-century English knight and author Thomas Malory, still famous for his Le Morte d鈥橝rthur. All the figures鈥攚hose lives illustrate changes over time in chivalry and its geographical range鈥攁re the authors or subjects of a major textual work.鈥淭hey鈥檙e active participants鈥� in the chivalric world, he says.

As a historian, Kaeuper finds enormous value in literary texts. 鈥淚 use a lot of miracle stories, as well as standard imaginative literature,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e important鈥攂ecause they are imaginative, because they show what people are worried about, what they鈥檙e hoping for.鈥�

The title of his book is deliberate because Kaeuper wants to emphasize that what he is examining is medieval chivalry, not post-medieval chivalry or neo-Romantic chivalry. Describing his task as 鈥渃utting a path through the thickets of Romanticism,鈥� Kaeuper says that people in the 1800s in England and continental Europe, and to a lesser extent, the United States, looked back to the Middle Ages in a search for national identity and in an effort to escape problems of modernity.

鈥淔ar from dark,鈥� he writes, 鈥渢he medieval past was not only colorful and fascinating, but too important and too useful to be ignored. The romantic revivers did not and perhaps could not recognize that they were altering the original drastically and investing it with meanings that would have surprised its first practitioners.鈥�

According to Kaeuper, the chivalric world resonates still鈥攁nd he feels its power as it touches on issues of violence, religion, governance, and more.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a scary subject, because it鈥檚 so serious,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he editor of one of my books wrote to me and said, 鈥楾his isn鈥檛 just about the Middle Ages. This is a modern book.鈥� That鈥檚 not the goal. My goal is to understand the Middle Ages. But you can see how it applies.

鈥淚f you start thinking modern as you go into the past, you distort the past. If you start with the past and see if it informs the present, I think you鈥檙e on the right path.鈥� 锘匡豢

鈥擪athleen McGarvey