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The Chivalric Turn examines the medieval obsession with defining and practising superior conduct, and the social consequences that followed from it. Historians since the seventeenth century have tended to understand medieval conduct through the eyes of the writers of the Enlightenment, viewing superior conduct as 'knightly' behaviour, and categorising it as chivalry.
Using, for the first time, the full range of the considerable twelfth- and thirteenth-century literature on conduct in the European vernaculars and in Latin, The Chivalric Turn describes and defines what superior lay conduct was in European society before chivalry, and maps how and why chivalry emerged and redefined superior conduct in the last generation of the twelfth century. The emergence of chivalry was only one part of a major social change, because it changed how people understood the concept of nobility, which had consequences for the medieval understanding of gender, social class, violence, and the limits of law.
List of contents
- PART ONE : INTRODUCTION
- 1: Conduct, Habitus, and Practice
- 2: Field of Study
- PART TWO : THE SOCIAL FIELD
- 3: The Origins of Cortesia
- 4: The Preudomme
- 5: The Preudefemme
- 6: Villeins, Villains, and Vilonie
- 7: The Courtly Habitus
- PART THREE : STRESS IN COURTLY SOCIETY
- 8: The Insurgent Woman
- 9: The Table
- 10: The Enemy
- PART FOUR : HEGEMONY
- 11: The Conspiracy of Deference
- 12: The Disruptive Knight
- 13: The Noble Knight
- 14: The Chivalric Virus
About the author
David Crouch is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Hull.
Summary
Historians have tended to understand medieval conduct through the eyes of Enlightenment historians, seeing superior conduct as 'knightly' behaviour, categorising it as chivalry. This book shows what superior lay conduct was in Europe before chivalry, and maps how and why chivalry emerged and redefined superior conduct in the late twelfth century.
Additional text
Crouch handles the model and the exceptions with aplomb. His sources are primarily literary; as he himself says, his monograph is largely a study of "genre." Using normative sources such as conduct manuals, of which he displays a masterly command, Crouch exhaustively details the pan-European development and debate on elite self-definition via modes of behavior in the high Middle Ages.
Report
Medievalists working on identity and culture of the high Middle Ages will find this monograph particularly useful for its breadth and in-depth analysis of chivalric tracts, as will historians of the development of prescriptive behavioral codes over time. Klayton Tietjen, Comitatus
