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The Journal of Military History 67.4 (2003) 1273-1274



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The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism. Edited by D. J. B. Trim. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003. ISBN 90-04-12095-5. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 359. $115.00.

Trim unites a formidable array of scholarly talent in this examination of the relationship between chivalry and the rise of military professionalism. Concentrating mainly on late medieval and Renaissance Europe, the central theme explores whether chivalry and professionalism were incompatible, and whether the decline of chivalry was a prerequisite of the rise of military professionalism, or merely a consequence. [End Page 1273]

The volume comprises twelve case studies: Matthew Bennett examines the "popularisation" of chivalry in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; Michael Mallett reiterates his defence of the Condottieri of Italy; Malyn Newitt charts the fortunes of Portugal as a military power, 1400-1600; and Simon Pepper discusses the Renaissance military engineer. David Potter, Luke MacMahon and Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly each examine the balance of chivalry and professionalism in three contemporaneous armies: those of sixteenth-century France, England, and Electoral Saxony. Fernando González de León looks at the ethics of war, with particular reference to Spain's campaigns in the Low Countries. Trim himself tackles the growth of military professionalism (and the survival of a chivalric ethos) in the Netherlands. Martyn Bennett argues that the British civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century broke down the traditional structures that had underpinned military organisations. Mark Weitz's essay rounds off the collection, with a survey of the emergence of a professional ethos within the Confederate officer corps, 1861-65.

Trim's thoughtful introduction provides a rigorous definition of "military professionalism" but offers less discussion of "chivalry," for which readers are referred to earlier works by, for example, Richard Barber and Maurice Keen. To profit most from this volume, therefore, the reader would need to be familiar with the established literature. Any discussion of "chivalry" in relation to medieval warfare runs the risk of reinforcing popular notions of conflicts dominated by knights on horseback engaged in disorganised pitched battles. Several of the contributors to this volume are at pains to emphasise that chivalry did not preclude competence; Matthew Bennett argues that it was actually essential to military professionalism, similarly Mallett states that such professionalism was always part of the medieval world. Trim himself suggests that the dichotomy between chivalry and professionalism is, to some degree, false. Other contributors are more ambivalent; González de León describes Francisco de Melo, "a thorough product of chivalric culture," refusing to hide his troops behind a marsh at Rocroi in 1643. Whilst it's unsurprising (and not undesirable) that contributors to such a volume should differ over interpretations, a fuller discussion of the historiography of chivalry and its actual role in the conduct of medieval warfare (in all its manifestations), might have given readers a useful context for the individual essays.

This volume takes us from John Hawkwood to John Singleton Mosby in a series of essays of consistently high quality. It is rare, and very welcome, to find such a specialised work that will appeal to medievalists, early modernists and modernists alike.



Gervase Phillips
Withington, Manchester, United Kingdom

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