Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France during the Hundred Years War by Craig Taylor (review)

Craig Taylor's new study offers a thoughtful corrective to dominant narratives of 'chivalry' that have either emphasized decline, or have suggested a naïve focus on individual honour that is unconcerned with broader military encounters or outcomes. Taylor defines chivalry with respect to a class or category of people, not in connection to norms or culture, and shows the degree to which the values associated with chivalry were complex and dynamic, subject to debate and change. Taylor's opening chapter on texts and contexts emphasizes the near-ubiquity of military conflict of one sort or another in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France, which produced abundant reflection on questions largely centred on the legitimate use of force: Who may rightfully exercise violence? In what circumstances? With what objectives and with respect to whom? Taylor argues that the 'chivalric' texts that have often been read as normative or descriptive were actually prescriptive and aspirational efforts to reshape military culture; they sought to limit violence and to inculcate in their readers a sense of obligation to the weak as well as service to king and kingdom. The remaining chapters focus on the qualities that defined knighthood—honour, prowess, loyalty, courage, mercy, wisdom, and prudence—and illuminate the tensions within each of these putative virtues. With respect to prowess, for instance, the 'cornerstone of medieval chivalric culture' (p. 91) founded upon force and competition, Taylor shows that while certain types of violence (for example, crusade) were justified and praiseworthy, and other types (for example, popular violence) were categorically condemned, a great many encounters fell into a grey area in which the right to exercise or authorize violence was potentially at issue. Similarly, with respect to courage, Taylor demonstrates that this quality ought not be understood in absolute or strictly individual terms, but pragmatically, as a kind of Aristotelian juste milieu situated between cowardice and rashness that is operative on a collective level. Taylor also highlights the increasing prominence of wisdom and prudence. Strategic thinking and effective leadership were explored and promoted not only in clerical milieux, but in texts owned and sometimes written by knights and nobles. The practical quality of prudence, largely the product of experience, might also be acquired through reading about the experiences of exemplary figures. In short, 'chivalry' was never monolithic or static, and Taylor's book effectively highlights the debates that accompanied and produced changes in the role of the knight, and of military culture, in late medieval France. Because France was the site of so much warfare and violence, writers were thinking a lot and in very practical terms about warfare, its effects, its aims, and how and by whom it might best be prosecuted. Taylor shows how texts sought to circumscribe violence by asserting royal monopoly over the exercise of violence, defining the laws governing military encounters and the treatment of non-combatants, prisoners, and enemies, and emphasizing a Roman military model (derived largely from Vegetius) with a focus on discipline, self-control, and dedication to the common good.