The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry (review)

192 Reviews tiredness of commentators', p. 1), Cavill places his study firmly within the context of existing scholarship and advances the discussion enormously and engagingly. H e jocularly formulates and debunks a critical commonplace which he calls 'the First L a w of Gnomo-dynamics' ( ' i f it is obvious what it means, it must mean something else, probably magic', p. 2). The argument that wise sayings are 'instruments of interpretation and paradigms for the perception of the significance of events' (p. vii) situates this section of the Old English corpus in a n e w and exciting context of understanding. Cavill demonstrates that the preoccupation of the maxims with the habitual and conventional in both the social and natural world has m u c h to tell us about the specifically Anglo-Saxon construction of reality. Antonina Harbus Department of English University of Sydney Christine de Pizan, The Book ofDeeds ofArms and ofChivalry, trans. Sumner Willard, ed. Charity Cannon Willard, University Park, Pennsylvania, Penn State University Press, 1999; pp. 223; R.R.P. US$55.00 (cloth), US$18.95 (paper). This translation is a very significant contribution to the corpus of de Pizan's works available to scholars and readers. Until n o w it has been necessary to consult Le Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie either in manuscript or in William Caxton's Middle English translation (1490), published in the Early English Text Society edition (1932). The combined efforts of Sumner Willard and Charity Cannon Willard, the leading Christine de Pizan scholar in the United States, have produced a very accessible translation with introduction, notes and index. The translation is based on the manuscript Brussels, Bibliotheque royale 10476, which is one of the earliest known manuscripts and thought to have been copied after 1413. It was probably commissioned by the duke of Burgundy to assist the military education of the dauphin, Louis de Guyenne, and hence can be considered a sequel to the other didactic works Christine de Pizan composed for his instruction, Le Livre des Fais et Bonnes Meurs du Sage Roy Reviews 193 Charles V on kingship, and Le Livre du Corps de Policie on the role of the military class and the body politic. The treatise has four parts. The first concerns the practice of warfare, containing notably discussion of the concept of Just War (pp. 13-16), the l i s t of attributes sought in a constable, w h o is master of the king's chivalry (pp. 23-26), and many examples from ancient history. The second, describes not only strategies, but also construction of castles, provision of arms and supplies, siege tactics. The third and fourth books have the frame of a dream in which Christine de Pizan holds a dialogue with a wise counsellor, assumed to be Honore Bouvet, on legal aspects of warfare, the contemporary opposition between France and England, and topics such as war of reprisals, judicial combat, coats of arms and colours. In her prologue Christine de Pizan defined her public as 'all readers' (p. 12) to whom she was communicating in plain, clear language the ideas of certain authors then considered authoritative. These sources have been identified in footnotes: Vegetius, De re militari; Frontinus, Strategamata; Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia; and Honore Bouvet's Arbre des batail which is contained in some of the same manuscripts as Le Livre des fais Harmes et de chevalerie, for example British Library, Royal 15 E vi; Brussel Bibliotheque royale, 9009-9011. The editor has provided quotations from English translations of the first three sources and references for the lengthy passages taken from the last of these works. At the beginning of Part III, Christine's interlocutor in fact encouraged her to pick the fruits of his tree (p. 144). Christine's work begins with the invocation of the goddess Minerva and derives precepts and case studies from past history in Parts I I I , then acquires a different form (dialogue between master and friend) and a contemporary source and context in Parts in-TV. The notes add erudition and understanding. They provide crossreferences to other works by Christine de Pizan, as her tendency to...