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 of the 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...

This wide-ranging and instructive collection makes a valuable addition to the fast-growing body of work on medieval chivalry.' HISTORY

Reviewing the first volume in this series, Christopher Allmand, writing in English Historical Review, said: Once again, a volume of papers published by the Boydell Press has made a useful interdisciplinary contribution to an important and difficult subject. Historians may read this book with profit.' But not only historians, for the contributions to these volumes are wide-ranging, and cover all aspects of culture in the middle ages, with a strong emphasis on continental literature.

The Strawberry Hill conferences on medieval knighthood, from which these volumes spring, aim to bring together historians and literary scholars whose interests focus on medieval chivalry, to bridge the gulf between the two areas of specialisation and explore matters of common interest. Eight papers cover a wide area, both territorially and chronologically, but common themes emerge. One group of essays deals with the embellishments of lordship, both architectural and heraldic, studying residences and also developments in armour. A second group concerns ideals which motivated the aristocracy of...