Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages

Chivalry and elite conduct in medieval Europe In popular imagination few phenomena are as strongly associated with medieval society as knighthood and chivalry. At the same time, and due to a long tradition of differing national perspectives and ideological assumptions, few phenomena have continued to be the object of so much academic debate. In this volume leading scholars explore various aspects of knightly identity, taking into account both commonalities and particularities across Western Europe. Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages addresses how, between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries, knighthood evolved from a set of skills and a lifestyle that was typical of an emerging elite habitus, into the basis of a consciously expressed and idealised chivalric code of conduct. Chivalry, then, appears in this volume as the result of a process of noble identity formation, in which some five key factors are distinguished: knightly practices, lineage, crusading memories, gender roles, and chivalric didactics.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

ContributorsDominique Barthélemy (Sorbonne and EPHE, Paris), David Crouch (University of Hull), Jeroen Deploige (Ghent University), John D. Hosler (U.S. Army Command and General Staff College), Sara McDougall (City University of New York), Jean-François Nieus (University of Namur), Eljas Oksanen (University of Helsinki), Nicholas L. Paul (Fordham University), Jörg Peltzer (Heidelberg University), Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani (University of Namur), Louise J. Wilkinson (University of Lincoln), Claudia Wittig (Ghent University)