A Virtuous Knight. Defending Marshal Boucicaut (Jean II Le Meingre, 1366-1421) (original) (raw)
The Livre des fais du bon messire Jehan le Maingre (1409) is one of the most famous chivalric biographies of the Middle Ages. It presents Jean II Le Meingre, known as Boucicaut (1366-1421), as an ideal knight and role model, and has frequently been seen by modern scholars as a last-ditch effort to defend traditional chivalric values that were supposedly in decline. Here, however, Craig Taylor argues that the biography is a much more complex and interesting text, fusing traditional notions of chivalry with the most fashionable new ideas in circulation at the French court at the start of the fifteenth century. Rather than a nostalgic criticism of contemporary knighthood, it should be seen as a showcase of the latest ideas on chivalry, written to renew the enthusiasm of the great French princes for a man who was in grave danger of falling out of favour: its purpose was to celebrate and to defend a beleaguered Boucicaut against his critics at the royal court, and to explain his actions as governor of Genoa, his failed crusading enterprises in the Eastern Mediterranean and his unsuccessful efforts to broker a solution to the Papal Schism.
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2020
MA Dissertation (2020) Chivalry in the Middle Ages has often been defined as ‘the religious and moral system of behavior that the perfect knight was expected to follow’.1 However, singular definitions of chivalry should be disregarded because displays of medieval masculinity and chivalry were a complicated mixture of social conditions, institutional influence, and individual motivation. Using fictional and 'factual' literature, the dissertation attempts to understand the multiplicity of masculinity and individual knightly motivations caused by competing factual and fictional depictions of chivalry. Overall, histories of chivalry and masculinity between c.1350-c.1410 in France have been treated singularly for one core reason: the ideal qualities of chivalry have been treated as the reality for all-knights, when in fact chivalric ideologies were unique to individuals and overlapped in both factual and fictional literature of the period.
De Re Militari
This volume is an English translation of a fifteenth-century biography, recounting the short but eventful life of a Burgundian nobleman, Jacques de Lalaing (c. 1421-1453). Lalaing's career in the service of Philip the Good of Burgundy exemplified many of the ideals of the later medieval aristocracy. A noted jouster, diplomat and soldier, whose deeds were recorded by other contemporary writers, such as Olivier de la Marche, Lalaing died at the young age of thirty two, struck by a cannonball while besieging the castle of Poeke. The biography, commissioned by Lalaing's family as a memorial, depicts him as a modern paladin, selflessly devoted to the Virgin Mary and his lord, the ideal knight in both word and deed. While the text itself may present some difficulties to the general reader, Brown-Grant and Damen's edition, with its exhaustive introduction and apparatus, is a rich source for the history of the medieval aristocracy, its literature, tournaments and wars.
By comparing two knights of two different eras, can we record the evolution of chivalry? William Marshal (c.1147-1217) lived during the age in which chivalry was mid-way through it evolution. He lived the life of a knight who had to fight for his living and propelled himself through the ranks of the aristocracy due to his achievements on both the battlefield and the tournament. When he was knighted before the battle of Drincourt (1167) he held no land. However, upon his death he held the prestigious earldom of Pembrokeshire, lands in Ireland as well as being the Marshal of England during Henry III's infancy. Richard Beauchamp on the other hand was born into a noble family. His father was part of the Lord's Appellant which rebelled against Richard II (1387) and from this the Beauchamp family lost all of their land. However, upon Henry Bolingbroke (future Henry IV) usurping the crown from Richard in 1399, Thomas Beauchamp found himself in royal favour. Like Marshal, Richard proved himself on the battlefield. He was present at the battle of Shrewsbury (1403) and ventured on a pilgrimage (similar to Marshal). Upon his return he loyally served Henry V in France and became the lieutenant of Calais. Both of these knights lived in two different eras. Richard was more educated and learned of the ways of the chivalric culture than Marshal due to it's evolution. However, both were great warriors and leaders of men who extended their wealth. This dissertation discusses both of the lives of these great knights while comparing the differences of the late Twelfth and early Fifteenth Centuries.
"Medieval European military elites were generally capable of fighting either mounted or on foot. However, many had adopted the warhorse as a sign of status and drew their name from it, such as chevalier in French, caballero in Spanish and chivaler in Anglo-Norman. During the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, noble and lesser European military elites came to identify themselves as a common social ‘order’ with similar rights and functions, and a shared code of chevalerie (knighthood or chivalry). Through analysis of two autobiographical texts this paper will consider the representation of crusading and chivalry. Jean of Joinville’s Vie de Saint Louis and the Llibre dels Fets of King James I of Aragon cover the lives of two European monarchs who enjoyed long reigns during the thirteenth century and undertook two or more crusades. Through analysis of these texts, this paper will discuss whether, by the thirteenth century, participation in a crusade was deeply embedded in the expectations of elite martial groups. Further, that it had became part of their normative behaviour as a one of the principal actions or ‘deeds’ a preudomme (good and valiant knight) could perform to conform to the expectations of his peers. Keywords Medieval warfare, chivalry, crusading, reconquista"
thirteenth century was an era of growing population, extensive land clearance, expanding towns and rapid social mobility. Governments grew more powerful and legal systems more complex. Distinctions of legal and social rank also became more elaborate. All these developments affected the aristocracy of thirteenth-century Europe, but none will serve to define the aristocracy itself as a group within society. Rather, the aristocracy of thirteenth-century Europe defined itself by its self-conscious adherence to a European-wide set of common cultural values and assumptions embodied in the cult of chivalric knighthood. Before we discuss how the aristocracy changed, we must first know who they were. It is with chivalry, therefore, that we must begin.
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