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The Knight and Chivalry book cover
The Knight and Chivalry
1970
First Published
3.51
Average Rating
400
Number of Pages
The concept of chivalry is one of the central ideas of the medieval world, linking the practicalities of warfare to the highest levels of literary and religious idealism. One of the most elusive aspects of chivalry is its relationship with Christian belief, and this study draws parallels between the two, showing how, from the Church's changing attitude to war as reflected in the Crusades, the military orders emerged: Templars, Hospitallers and others - religious chivalry in action. The book also discusses how chivalry played its part in the realm of politics, the ideals of chivalry being clearly seen in the secular orders of knighthood founded by the princes of Western Europe, binding their allies to them with patronage and reward. First published in 1970, the book has been extensively revised to take account of research during the last 25 years.
Avg Rating
3.51
Number of Ratings
47
5 STARS
6%
4 STARS
45%
3 STARS
43%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Richard Barber
Author · 20 books

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. Richard William Barber is a prominent British historian who has been writing and publishing in the field of medieval history and literature ever since his student days. He has specialised in the Arthurian legend, beginning with a general survey, Arthur of Albion, in 1961, which is still in print in a revised edition. His other major interest is historical biography; he has published on Henry Plantagenet (1964) and among his other books is the standard biography of Edward the Black Prince, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine. The interplay between history and literature was the theme of The Knight and Chivalry, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1971 and he returned to this in The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (2004); this was widely praised in the UK press, and had major reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post. His other career has been as a publisher. In 1969 he helped to found The Boydell Press, which later became Boydell & Brewer Ltd, one of the leading publishers in medieval studies, and he is currently group managing director. In 1989, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, in association with the University of Rochester, started the University of Rochester Press in upstate New York. The group currently publishes over 200 titles a year.

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