Professor Emeritus Michael Prestwich, OBE, owns an enviable reputation
in Medieval Studies, having long dominated Plantagenet scholarship
with such works as The Three Edwards, Edward I, and War,
Politics, and Finance under Edward I, and Armies and Warfare
in the Middle Ages: the English Experience. Nevertheless, despite
this sterling output on matters martial, Professor Prestwich has
over the years expressed less interest in matters relating to chivalry;
as late as July, 2009, at the England’s Wars conference
at the University of Reading, he expressed doubts concerning the
utility of studying chivalry (construed here as the knight’s
cultural milieu and behavioral expectations) as an avenue to understanding
Edwardian warfare. It is therefore a pleasant surprise to pick up
this utterly delightful book, Knight: The Medieval Warrior’s
(Unofficial) Guide, which provides Professor Prestwich’s
holistic interpretation of a knight’s world-view with impeccable
scholarship and style.
As
the title might suggest, the book seems pitched toward a younger
(or at least a more informal) audience. Illustrations are plentiful,
and include some wonderful color plates. Notes are kept to a few
pages at the end, and Prestwich employs a familiar, gently humorous
style throughout--the reader is addressed directly throughout as
a young person with knightly aspirations. Yet it would be a mistake
to think that scholarly precision is sacrificed--not in the least!
The examples and prose flow faultlessly, each vignette coming exactly
where it should. After perusing so many sub-par, cheesy, or otherwise
barely satisfying popular books on knights, we at last have a volume
that sets the record straight.
The
contents are straightforward: if you were knight in period between
1300 and 1415, what would your life be like? What would you do, how
would you view the world, and what kinds of cultural, social, and
military attitudes would you possess or would be expected of you?
The answers to these questions are
“pure Prestwich,” if such a phrase may be employed. From
the very beginning, he makes clear the dominant activity of his medieval
knight: “This is not a book of instruction for the sort of
knight who may go on one or two campaigns, but who spends most of
his time managing his estates, playing his part in local politics
and attending law courts. This is a manual for the knight at war” (7).
Prestwich’s three exemplars of knighthood, whom he references
throughout the book, reinforce this insistence on a martial chivalry:
Geoffroi de Charny, John Hawkwood, and Jean II le Maingre, nicknamed
Boucicaut. Of socio-military changes in the fourteenth century, Professor
Prestwich as this to say: “Although squires are going up in
the world, there is no doubt that the knights are the true elite
in society and in war, and it is to knighthood that you should aspire” (26).
How
to make those aspirations a reality forms the core of the book, beginning
with chapters on training, “becoming a knight,” military
hardware, and orders of knighthood. The opening lines of this last-mentioned
chapter are worth quoting, as they give an excellent epitome of the
entire book:
People enjoy belonging to clubs and organizations. It gives them
a sense of belonging, and a shared identity. Knights are no different
in this respect. There are a large number of orders that you may
be able to join, which will provide you with comradeship and a feeling
of importance. Their rituals will help reinforce your chivalric ideals.
You should, however, be wary of who you sign up to….You are
unlikely to want to join a knightly order such as that of the Hospital,
whose members are part monk, part knight. Such orders are in clear
decline, and you would probably not enjoy the monastic discipline
involved (54).
The remaining chapters (ten in all) explore various aspects of the
knight’s military career—retinues, tournaments, campaigning,
mercenaries, battle, siege, ransoms, and so on. In the midst of these
is the rather curiously placed Chapter 11, “Ladies and Damsels,” which
does a tongue-in-cheek job of helping the aspiring knight to navigate
the Scylla and Charybdis of medieval gender relations, precariously
teetering as they did between ideal (very much our modern conception
of chivalry) and reality (much less pleasant or socially-inclusive).
The
non-material aspects of knighthood hold comparatively less interest
for our author. Chapter 9 is a short assessment of crusading, of
which Professor Prestwich says, “Going on crusade should be
the high point of a knightly career” (108), and yet it was, “[o]f
course… not compulsory for a knight to go on crusade. John
Hawkwood was among those who never did so…It will, however,
add to your reputation if you do join a crusading expedition, and
it should help you to attain salvation.” (116) Similarly short
is the last chapter, “Piety and Memory,” which presents
the knight’s view of religion and spirituality as essentially
utilitarian, and emphasizes (largely correctly, in the reviewer’s
opinion) the knight’s obsession with memorialization, especially
after his death. The “concepts of chivalry” as such lurk
in the background of much of the study, but are handily dealt with
in a page or two (33-4).
“You need to think about all the chivalric values,” says
Professor Prestwich,
“but you will find that they do not always coincide with the
realities that you face.” (35) Considering the amount of scholarship
in the last decade or so dedicated to exploring precisely this issue
(Matthew Strickland’s and Richard Kaeuper’s studies come
to mind), this reviewer was slightly disappointed with the brusque
dismissal of a topic so important to a knight’s weltanschauung.
Nevertheless, following sources such as Charny’s Book of
Chivalry, Professor Prestwich does advocate martial prowess
as the cornerstone of a good knight (or, per Steve Muhlberger’s
studies of deeds of arms, a “good man at arms”): “You
will find that your reputation depends above all on your display
of prowess. Show that you are bold, brave, and skillful in the
use of arms; that is the mark of a true knight” (35). These
qualities make mercenaries less objectionable than modern readers
might think--“[y]ou might expect the experts to regard this
kind of career as the contradiction of all that is chivalric, but
Geoffroi de Charny is far from hostile to it.” (117) However,
opportunities to display these martial qualities are fewer and
more problematic than you might think, and the chapters on battle
and siege make this abundantly clear; two sub-sections are entitled
simply “Watch out for archers” (167) and “Do
not try to be a hero.” (171) “Never think,” says
our author, “that the fighting in battle is going to be a
glorious experience, a splendid opportunity to demonstrate your
knightly skills. It is going to be noisy, crowded, and utterly
terrifying.” (169-70) He draws on Barbour’s Bruce,
Dlugosz’s account of Tannenberg, and Froissart among others
to provide vivid illustrations of the dynamics of battle, which
Charny held to be the top chivalric activity (148).
A
map, a timeline, a glossary, a list of sources, and guide to further
reading wrap up the book. An especially nice touch is the inclusion
of the 2001 film A Knight’s Tale (an outstanding chivalric
film, in the reviewer’s humble opinion), as well as the De
Re Militari website, among others.
All
in all, this is a most impressive little volume—humble in its
presentation, and near-flawless in its execution. It is the sort
of book which takes a lifetime of experience to write, and admirably
reflects the scholarship, as well as the warmth and humor, of its
author.