Craig Taylor's study examines the wide-ranging French debates on the martial ideals of chivalry and knighthood during the period of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). Faced by stunning military disasters and the collapse of public order, writers and intellectuals carefully scrutinized the martial qualities expected of knights and soldiers. They questioned when knights and men-at-arms could legitimately resort to violence, the true nature of courage, the importance of mercy, and the role of books and scholarly learning in the very practical world of military men. Contributors to these discussions included some of the most famous French medieval writers, led by Jean Froissart, Geoffroi de Charny, Philippe de Mézières, Honorat Bovet, Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier and Antoine de La Sale. This interdisciplinary study sets their discussions in context, challenging modern, romantic assumptions about chivalry and investigating the historical reality of debates about knighthood and warfare in late medieval France.

‘Dr Taylor has produced a fascinating and important study, drawing on a very wide range of texts and providing new insights into French responses to the Hundred Years War. That he does this through the prism of chivalry adds substantially to our understanding of what martial culture meant, whether in the dark days of defeat or in the ultimate recovery of national pride. His book reveals what ‘the flowers of French chivalry' expected of themselves as well as what contemporary society expected of them.'

Anne Curry - University of Southampton

‘This work will take its place as the next big book on the daunting set of subjects announced in its title. Many readers will be delighted to have this book for its clear and balanced analysis of scores on particular issues that have long troubled the field and for guidance on the scholarly works to be read.'

Richard W. Kaeuper - University of Rochester, New York

‘Medievalists who think that there is nothing new to say about chivalric culture in France during the Hundred Years War will be most pleasantly surprised and intrigued by Craig Taylor's encyclopedic treatment of the subject. Surveying the broadest field of texts both literary and historical, Taylor commands the subject as no previous writer has. His account is meticulously documented at every turn, yet remains accessible to the general reader, offering in its focus on the several distinct virtues that constitute chivalry a unique organization that is both appropriately summative (in the manner of Vincent de Beauvais) but mindful of the syntax of ideological change at a time of incipient modernity in martial culture. With Taylor firmly in control of the narrative, the period emerges replete with its contradictions and glories. Simply a masterful account of an essential subject.'

R. Barton Palmer - Clemson University, South Carolina

'Debates about medieval chivalry will continue, but Taylor’s book will take its place among the essential contributions to the field.'

Rory Cox Source: English Historical Review