Coming unexpectedly upon the splendid manuscript painting in British Library Harley 3244 (folios 27b, 28) provided one of those moments that richly reward scholarly work in archives. This striking mid-thirteenth-century illumination vividly portrays knighthood in a righteous struggle against sin and vice.¹ It could easily have been missed, for the obviously visual part of this volume features an engaging bestiary (an illustrated, moralized “book of beasts” at folios 36–71b); this menagerie of animals so suddenly and colorfully intruded among somber treatises on sin, confession, and penance that I half feared an outburst of trumpeting, howling, and braying that would...

Henry of Lancaster (c. 1310–61) and Geoffroi de Charny (c. 1306–56) were vigorous warriors involved in the constant, hard campaigning and diplomacy of the first phase of the Hundred Years War. Although they may never have crossed swords in any engagement, they were often present in the same theaters of war and did meet as envoys for a series of negotiations to secure a truce in 1347.¹ Each had high chivalric standing emphasized by being chosen an original member of his sovereign’s knightly order, Lancaster becoming a knight of the Garter, Charny of the Star. The piety of...

A broad set of ideas about the medieval warrior profession would necessarily be framed in terms of a religious no less than a military ethos. Powerful religious movements of the age thus form an essential backdrop to an emerging ideology that could justify and elevate knighthood. Three of these elements demand special notice because of their undoubted importance: church reform, the widespread culture of asceticism, and lay initiative and independence. Though they may be of equal importance, they do not require equal scrutiny in this study, since some have enjoyed more scholarly attention than others. Church reform, the first topic,...

Finding the balance between piety and independence challenged knighthood and all medieval writers who were certain they should speak to the chivalric ethos.¹ Likewise, all modern investigators know that the presence and power of piety in chivalric life can never be doubted or downplayed. Yet we need to take into account the degree of independence (only briefly noted in the last chapter); its force shaped and complicated knightly piety. Much modern thinking and teaching about chivalry still tips the balance heavily toward the side of an uncomplicated piety among the knights, picturing them as unfailingly obedient sons of Holy Mother...

If knighthood received essential support from an interlinked body of ideas, how did this ideology emerge and how was it diffused? The state of our evidence leaves such questions fraught with difficulties. We cannot know who talked with whom at each tournament or what was said about honor and atonement as the wine flowed and the candles burned low late at night in castle halls. Many voices were heard and many pens scratched on parchment and specific authors cannot be assigned for each idea. Our evidence has, however, strongly indicated that, however pious, ideals for chivalry were not simply generated...

Although medieval discussion of the theology of salvation has received close scholarly scrutiny, such ideas have not generally been brought into analyses of chivalry. Yet explanations of precisely how God is seen to effect human redemption from sin—a subject technically known as soteriology—played a powerful if subterranean role in shaping the religious dimension of chivalry as it emerged in an ascetic culture. Christ’s role as savior was actively discussed in the High and Late Middle Ages, with no single line of thought dominating. Differing theological views, vigorously asserted, were taken up by advocates of chivalry to strengthen an...

Twelfth- and thirteenth-century European culture ordered, analyzed, and classified the social world, no less than the natural world, in an effort to align human society with the will of God. They wanted to identify ideal social categories and to define the proper labor to be performed by each. Given the social and cultural ferment of the time, such an effort could scarcely avoid contention. Given the social status and the particular labor performed by knighthood, the warriors would often stand near the center of this vigorous discussion. Two splendid stories from the twelfth century can take us directly into this...

A few years after the victorious William the Conqueror had won the English crown, the Norman bishops composed (in 1067–70) an ordinance imposing penance on those men-of-war who had helped William gain his great prize. Their slate of sins had to be wiped clean of wartime wrongs. The ordinance laying out conditions was confirmed by the papal legate, Ermenfrid of Sion. The clerics, in effect, invert Geoffroi de Charny’s scale of merit linked to increasing prowess: they produced a graded scale of penance according to the severity of military sin committed. In descending order of severity, penance was imposed...

Chivalric ideology enjoyed a remarkably long and influential life in early European history. Throughout the High and Later Middle Ages and for an uncertain run of years into the Early Modern era, chivalry formed the framework for thought and action among the nonclerical elite. Since many who merely hoped some day to join the elite—or who were actively taking on its coloration as fully as possible—likewise looked to chivalry as the guide to life and conduct, chivalric ideology may safely be considered the lay esprit de corps, the body of ideas by which laymen evaluated conduct, shaped thought,...