Book description
The medieval code of chivalry demanded that warrior elites
demonstrate fierce courage in battle, display prowess with weaponry,
and avenge any strike against their honor. They were also required to
be devout Christians. How, then, could knights pledge fealty to the
Prince of Peace, who enjoined the faithful to turn the other cheek
rather than seek vengeance and who taught that the meek, rather than
glorious fighters in tournaments, shall inherit the earth? By what
logic and language was knighthood valorized?
In Holy Warriors, Richard Kaeuper argues that while some
clerics sanctified violence in defense of the Holy Church, others were
sorely troubled by chivalric practices in everyday life. As elite
laity, knights had theological ideas of their own. Soundly pious yet
independent, knights proclaimed the validity of their bloody
profession by selectively appropriating religious ideals. Their
ideology emphasized meritorious suffering on campaign and in battle
even as their violence enriched them and established their dominance.
In a world of divinely ordained social orders, theirs was blessed,
though many sensitive souls worried about the ultimate price of rapine
and destruction.
Kaeuper examines how these paradoxical chivalric ideals were
spread in a vast corpus of literature from exempla and chansons de
geste to romance. Through these works, both clerics and lay military
elites claimed God's blessing for knighthood while avoiding the
contradictions inherent in their fusion of chivalry with a religion
that looked back to the Sermon on the Mount for its ethical foundation.
"Kaeuper's arguments brilliantly elucidate the theological
ideas that were used to justify chivalric conduct. . . . The book is
carefully and elegantly written, and the arguments are abundantly
documented. It must be essential reading for any scholar concerned
with the knightly culture of the Middle Ages."-Michael Prestwich,
American Historical Review
Richard W. Kaeuper is Professor of History at the University of
Rochester. He is author of Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe and
coeditor (with Elspeth Kennedy) of The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de
Charny: Text, Context, and Translation, the latter also available from
the University of Pennsylvania Press.
