The Book of the Knight of the Tower: Manners for Young Medieval Women (review)

Rebecca Barnhouse's purpose in providing this modern English translation of TheBook of the Knight of the Tower, along with her commentary, is to make the book available to "general readers and undergraduate students." The average reader would have difficulty wading through the Middle English translation by William Caxton, which dates back to the fifteenth century. In order to give a sense of how people would have reacted to this book during the Late Middle Ages, Barnhouse uses as examples the historical figures of the knight Geoffrey de la Tour Landry, his first wife Jeanne de Rougé, their three daughters, and the daughters of a wool merchant named Robert Goodwyn. She imagines the ages of Sir Geoffrey's daughters and what kind of family Robert Goodwyn might have had in order to show how the book might have been used in the instruction of their daughters.

Part 1 provides a brief biography of Sir Geoffrey de la Tour Landry and explains how he gathered tales of good and bad women to make a book that would show his daughters how to make good marriages or how to ruin their chances. Barnhouse provides details about Caxton's translation, which was copied by use of a printing press. The author compares The Book of the Knight of the Tower to similar manuals such as Le Menagier de Paris,Le Miroir des Bonnes Femmes, Christine de Pizan's Livre des Trois Vertus, and other conduct books. Before launching into the translation, Barnhouse notes that the original version had 144 chapters; the modern English translation includes over half of Sir Geoffrey's stories along with commentary. Barnhouse used Caxton's earlier translation as the basis for this updated one.

Part 2 includes stories from the original Book of the Knight of the Tower along with Barnhouse's commentary. The author includes both Caxton's prologue and Sir Geoffrey's prologue. The didactic intent of Sir Geoffrey's book shows itself clearly in the initial chapters, which deal with devout practices such as prayer, fasting, and confessing one's sins. This is not to say that there is not an amusing side to the stories. For example, in the chapter on going to mass, Sir Geoffrey tells the story of a knight and his lady who liked to sleep in until noon. The people of the parish felt that they should wait for their lord to arrive before they started mass. The result was that there was no mass that day. In another story, a lady made the whole parish wait for her while she got dressed. Of course, a positive role model is generally interspersed among the sinners. One story tells of a countess who heard three masses every day.

In the chapter on manners and marriage, Barnhouse debunks the popular notion that all girls during the Middle Ages were married off by the young age of twelve. Barnhouse points out that it was generally only royalty who "married their children at improbable ages, sometimes as young as six or seven" (75). Sir Geoffrey makes it clear to his daughters that if they do not display proper manners they can lose their chances for a good marriage. Some of the stories in this chapter are amusing as well as didactic. One story tells of a girl who was not chosen for marriage because, like a weathervane, she turned her head often. Another tells of a girl who wanted to show off her nice clothing in the middle of the winter and so did not wear a coat when she visited a knight who was seeking marriage. She was so cold that the knight perceived her as being very pale, and so he chose her sister who looked fresh and pink.

The most difficult chapter for readers to digest without spitting it back out is the chapter on wifely subservience to their husbands. Barnhouse carefully prefaces these stories with a discussion of the...