Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Jean le Maingre, Marechal Boucicaut (1364-1421), was the very flower of chivalry. From his earliest years at the royal court in Paris, he distinguished himself in knightly pursuits - sorties against seditious French nobles, ceremonial jousts against the English enemy, crusades in Tunisia and Prussia, courtly verses, the establishment of a chivalric order for the defence of ladies, the Order of the Enterprise of the White Lady of the Green Shield - with such resounding success that he was named Marshal of France at the age of only 27. His biography, one of the most important of a series of chivalric biographies from the end of the Middle Ages, is a paean of praise for a paragon, but it is highly partisan, carefully selective: it glosses over the darker, much less successful, side of his career - his participation in command at the catastrophic Nicopolis crusade, his largely ineffective governor-ship of Genoa - and it comes to an end before his ignominious imprisonment and death after the battle of Agincourt in 1415. This first English translation makes available to a wider audience a text that sheds light on the history of France, on crusading in Prussia and the Mediterranean, and on the complicated politics of Italy and the papacy during the Great Schism; it is a highly important contribution to our understanding of chivalric mentalities and attitudes in late-medieval France. It is presented with an introduction and notes. Dr Craig Taylor is Reader in Medieval History, University of York; Jane H.M. Taylor is Emeritus Professor of French at Durham University.
Synopsis
First English translation of the chivalric biography of one of France's leading figures of the middle ages.
Jean le Meingre, Mar chal Boucicaut (1364-1421), was the very flower of chivalry. From his earliest years at the royal court in Paris, he distinguished himself in knightly pursuits: sorties against seditious French nobles, ceremonial jousts against the English enemy, crusading in Tunisia and Prussia, the composition of courtly verses, and the establishment of a chivalric order for the defence of ladies, the Order of the Enterprise of the White Lady of theGreen Shield. He was named Marshal of France at the age of only 27.
His chivalric biography, finished in 1409, is one of the most important accounts of the life of a knight from the Middle Ages. Whilst full of praise, it isalso highly partisan and carefully selective; it glosses over the darker, much less successful, side of his career - in particular his participation in the catastrophic Nicopolis crusade (1396) and his governorship of Genoa, whichcame to an end shortly after the completion of the biography, when a rebellion forced him to leave the city, five years before his capture at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and death in England in 1421.
This first English translation makes available to a wider audience a text that sheds light on the history of France, on crusading in Prussia and the Mediterranean, and on the complicated politics of Italy and the papacy during the Great Schism. It isa highly important contribution to our understanding of chivalric mentalities and attitudes in late-medieval France. It is presented with an introduction and notes.
Dr CRAIG TAYLOR is Reader in Medieval History at theUniversity of York; JANE H.M. TAYLOR is Emeritus Professor of French at Durham University.