Knights and Chivalry

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Order and Hierarchy in Medieval Society
• Medieval legacy to western societies: A system of values based on honour
• The multiple facets of chivalry, as an order of knights, an ethos, a status and a concept
• The social, political, technologic and economic changes in the late Middle Ages
• The aristocratic culture in the late Middle Ages
• Key primary sources for the study of the chivalry

Cognitive Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Identify nature, aims and composition of contemporary sources both textual and iconographic
• Engage with historical debates.
• Structure your ideas and research findings into well-ordered oral (participation in seminars) and written assignments (essays and commentaries)
• Analyse critically these primary sources: extract relevant information from them and comment upon this information perceptively (using secondary sources)
• Use technical vocabulary relating to chivalry: chivalry, vassal, lord, nobility, feudalism, tournaments, jousts, indentures, brotherhood-in-arms, round tables, Arthurian romances, orders of chivalry, etc.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Develop orally and in writing sound and well supported arguments
• Select and analyse critically relevant information for the study of a particular topic
• Analyse a (historical) concept in all its complexity
• Select relevant information and provide a critical analysis of it

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The origins of knighthood
• The perfect knight or the ideals of Knighthood
• Tourneys: Tournaments, Jousts and Pas d’Armes
• Chivalry, mercy and ransoms
• The changing face of war in the late middle ages
• Chivalric discipline to military discipline
• Brotherhood-in-arms and chivalric orders
• Vows, crusades and crusading Ideals
• Heralds and heraldry
• Chivalric kings and national chivalry

Teaching and learning methods

• Weekly one-hour lecture and one-hour seminar
• An additional session on Essay Writing
• Field trip to Winchester
• Individual tutorials (preparation for essay and feedback)

This module aims at giving you an in-depth knowledge and understanding of chivalry and the chivalric culture in the Late Middle Ages. The approach is thematic. Each week a new theme will be examined. A lecture will set the framework (question, sources, state of current knowledge) while the appending seminar will be focused on one or two primary sources linked with the weekly theme. It is therefore essential that you attend both lectures and seminars.

The trip to Winchester may include a visit to the cathedral, the Westgate, Sally Port and the Great Hall to see the round table. Visits to these buildings will help you think about the spaces and places associated with knights, chivalry and the aristocratic culture. Participation on this trip is not a formal requirement of the module, although you are strongly encouraged to do so.

This module, like all of the 15 credit History modules offered to second year students, will be research led and it will focus heavily on primary sources. You will study an individual source in depth each week. As such, this module will provide you with a sound preparation for the source- based work undertaken in year 3 during the Special Subject and the dissertation.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Vale, M.G.A (1981). War and chivalry: warfare and aristocratic culture in England, France and Burgundy at the end of the Middle Ages. London.

Kaeuper, R. W (1999). Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. Oxford.

Guard, T (2013). Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the fourteenth Century. Woodbridge.

Trim, D.J.B., ed (2003). The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism. Leiden.

Loomis, R.S., ed (1959). Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages. Oxford.

Stevenson, K (2006). Chivalry and knighthood in Scotland, 1424-1513. Woodbridge.

Coss, P (1998). The Lady in Medieval England, 1000-1500. Trowbridge.

Keen, M (1984). Chivalry. New Haven and London.

Barber, R. and Barker, J.R.V (1989). Tournaments, jousts, chivalry and pageants in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge.

Saul, N. (2011). For Honour and Fame. Chivalry in England, 106-1500. London.

Keen, M (1996). Nobles, knights, and men-at-arms in the Middle Ages. London.

Keen, M., (2002). Origins of the English gentleman: heraldry, chivalry and gentility in medieval England , c.1300-c.1500. Stroud.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External