This original and authoritative text reveals how chivalry was part of the problem of violence in medieval Europe, not merely its solution. The ideal was to internalize restraint in knights, but a close reading of chivalric literature shows chivalry also praised heroic violence by knights. This fascinating book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes surrounding the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.

Ranging broadly between the years 1000 and 1400, Richard Kaeuper assesses the impact of war and lawmaking on the evolution of the royal governments of England and France. From the economic and political costs of war and the development of royal justice, to the crown's attempts to control private violence and the relationship between public opinion and government action, his book provides thorough coverage of issues of central importance in late medieval history.

The Book of Chivalry is the most pragmatic of all surviving chivalric manuals. Written at the height of the Hundred Years War, it includes the essential commonplaces of knighthood in the mid-fourteenth century and gives a close-up view of what one knight in particular absorbed of the medieval world of ideas around him, what he rejected or ignored, and what he added from his experience in camp, court, and campaign. Geoffroi de Charny was one of the quintessential figures of his age, with honors and praise bestowed upon him from both sides of the English Channel. He prepared the Book...

Violence was endemic in the medieval world, to an extent most modern people find shocking. Violence was part and parcel of the public world of institutions (church, state, chivalry) and the private world of households. In an age of dynamic expansion it was present everywhere, and contemporary response to it was contradictory: it was both wrong and at the same time a regulatory feature of society. This book brings together the views of a number of scholars on aspects of violence in medieval society, in England and the larger canvas of western Europe, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century....

How law is made, how governance works, and the response of the governed remain crucial modern questions whose roots in many parts of the world reach deep into the past of medieval England. Scholars have long discussed these issues and new perspectives regularly emerge. This volume brings together contemporary views from leaders in the field and from younger scholars, both historians and literary critics. Classic themes and incidents are creatively revisited and new avenues of approach are suggested.