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Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Online ISBN:
9780191697388
Print ISBN:
9780199244584
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Richard Kaeuper
Richard Kaeuper
University of Rochester, New York State
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Published online:
3 October 2011
Published in print:
12 April 2001
Online ISBN:
9780191697388
Print ISBN:
9780199244584
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Medieval Europe was a rapidly developing society with a problem of violent disorder. This study reveals that chivalry was just as much a part of this problem as it was its solution. Chivalry praised heroic violence by knights, and fused such displays of prowess with honour, piety, high status, and attractiveness to women. Though the vast body of chivalric literature praised chivalry as necessary to civilization, most texts also worried over knightly violence, criticized the ideals and practices of chivalry, and often proposed reforms. The knights themselves joined the debate, absorbing some reforms, ignoring others, sometimes proposing their own. The interaction of chivalry with major governing institutions (‘church’ and ‘state’) emerging at that time was similarly complex: kings and clerics both needed and feared the force of the knighthood. This book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes which surrounded the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.

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