The Knight in History
Author(s): Frances Gies
A magisterial history of the origins, reality, and legend of the knight
“A carefully researched, concise, readable, and entertaining account of an institution that remains a part of the Western imagination.” —Los Angeles Times
Born out of the chaos of the early Middle Ages, the armored and highly mobile knight revolutionized warfare and quickly became a mythic figure in history. From the Knights Templars and English knighthood to the crusades and chivalry, The Knight in History, by acclaimed medievalist Frances Gies, bestselling coauthor of Life in a Medieval Castle, paints a remarkable true picture of knighthood—exploring the knight’s earliest appearance as an agent of lawless violence, his reemergence as a dynamic social entity, his eventual disappearance from the European stage, and his transformation into Western culture’s most iconic hero.
Review(s):
“Illuminates the evolution of knighthood”
“A carefully researched, concise, readable, and entertaining account of an institution that remains a part of the Western imagination.”
“Splendid … This detailed look, focusing as it often does on individual men, shows the knight in a new and more interesting light, whether Roland or Galahad.”
“Gies’s writing is fresh and direct, her scholarship is exact, and she approaches her subject with excitement.”
ISBN: 9780060914134