The Armour Archive

What tomes could I read to expand my limited expertise of late 14th C England?

Al little more info about what aspect you woudl like to learn about would be helpful. Here are some different directions you could go:

Four Gohic Kings and The Wars of the Roses (Yes this one covers the late 14th century and into the 15th) are both large-format, splashy, visually-ornieted histories of the time.

Daily Life in Chaucer's England Is a great reference for living history of the period.

For armour you best sources are the general ones like Blair or Edge and Paddock.

You cannot go wong with reading literature of the period like Chaucer's Canturbury Tales Or Langland's Piers Plowman

Binski's Age of Chivalry (not to be confused with other lesser volumes with the same name) is an excellent catolog of objects and art from the period.

Finally, the whole Museum of london series covers excavations form London. See tiltles like Shoes and Pattens, Knives and Scabbards, Dress Accessories, Pilgrim and Secular Badges, Hosehold Goods, Texties and Clothing

There is a start.

Read this guy. He knows everything.

http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/people/pc/

I echo the advice given, and I'll trot out the old saw again: Read The White Company and Sir Nigel.

Now, why would I say that? It's not what I'm reading. I'm reading The Organization of War under Edward III, which is a book about military preparation, administration, and logistics mid-14th century England. But I would be out of my mind to recommend such a book to someone with "limited expertise" in the era. It's a technical book, and a great one, but without context, without the ingredients to imagine the life and times, it would be exceedingly difficult to read and understand.

These fictional stories, written in Victorian times, however, impart the flavor of the era. My own basis of knowledge suffered a great deal until I read them, because I was having trouble understanding the 14th century milleu.

So. Read The White Company, and Sir Nigel. Then go for something like The Calamitous 14th Century, by Tuchman or The Last Knight by Cantor.

With a couple of surveys under your belt, you can then tackle Froissart or Charney, and begin then to make your way into more and more specialized works dealing with whatever interests you. Check bibliographies of books to see paths you might follow.

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org

Jehan, my dear sir, I agree with you on everything except Cantor's book. The Last Knight was a terrible disappointment to me. For a man who allegedly is/was one of the finest medievalists, he showed a distinct lack of understanding of 14th c. material and martial culture. HUGE and really basic mistakes in research. My own opinion is that he was so comfortable with his identity as a senior scholar, that he didn't bother to check some pretty basic facts. Inexcusable in my view.

On the other hand... the man knows his economics. And his "Inventing the Middle Ages" is priceless in understanding modern conceptions of the period.

So... I'd read The Last Knight, but only after you have such a thorough basic understanding of the period that you can see through he "less well-researched" facts.

I was fuming every other page when reading that.

Strongbow wrote:Jehan, my dear sir, I agree with you on everything except Cantor's book. The Last Knight was a terrible disappointment to me.

So... I'd read The Last Knight, but only after you have such a thorough basic understanding of the period that you can see through he "less well-researched" facts.

I was fuming every other page when reading that.

Agreed.

I also need to disagree with Jehan's assessment of the White Company and Sir Nigel reflecting the milieu of the 14thC. They reflect the selective and optimistic attitudes of romantic Victorian Gothic Revivalist "historians". I think they are excellent entertainment but might create an unbalanced view of the time. Now before Jehan takes exception to my comments, I agree you should read them. Just don't confuse them with an historical study.

An interesting and more balanced read is Peter Coss, "The Knight in Medieval England." (Vitus' suggestion) Another is Richard Kauper, "Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe." Of course, Maurice Keen, "Chivalry" is pretty standard reading. All are easy to find texts worth keeping and rereading periodically. Finally, read Talbot's suggestions. Especially "Daily Life in Chaucer's England. "

Strongbow, thanks for reminding me of what I myself felt as a moderately experienced medievalist while reading Dr. Cantor's swan song: A feeling that I knew more than him. But you and I bought the ability to feel this way from reading. A lot. Even though I have been studying for a long time, his was one of the first books where I actually felt that I was indulging the writer by continuing, and I had a solid grasp of the incorrect information and how it led him astray. Whatever Dr. Cantor's errors (and I think we ought to keep in mind that he was writing it under duress as his wife was dying, I am led to believe--this doesn't excuse his academic errors but it explains his lack of attention to detail), I felt that he captured the "rock star" phenomena of a man like John of Gaunt in a way that others haven't. Anyone who is really going to go deep into the reading of books is going to find out for themselves that getting published doesn't infer infallibility, anyway. Besides, if Cantor is so wrong, his error will be readily apparent to the beginner and make them feel confident in their finding out his mistakes. Sometimes an easy pitch right down the middle is desired.

Kel, no need to worry about me taking exception--I just know you're wrong. Though I am humble in many things, in this at least I have enough self esteem not to worry about an academic disagreement.

Sir Nigel and The White Company sank the hook for me, ten years ago now before I knew the names which I now know like my best friends, Kaueper (I hear he's a dick par excellence!) and Painter, Froissart and Charney. Once I read Doyle's (well researched for the time--check his bibliography for Sir Nigel), I knew what I wanted to do, and I was able to find the other more technical readings more accessible. I have done what I have, fueled by that initial vision--incorrect though it is if you insist that one concentrates first on the real instead of the ideal--and would not have become who I am nor portrayed a 14th century esquire as I do if I had started with say, Medieval Mercenaries or Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, both of which are powerful books.

If I had been bogged down by too much hard truth, I wouldn't have got out the gate. I would have been hemming and hawing over the grey instead of striving in the black and white.

I wholeheartedly agree that The White Company and Sir Nigel are flawed, but they are flawed in exactly the right way, and I hold that one will find that if they read Froissart after they read Sir Nigel and The White Company that the words leap from the page, as if they had already read them in a past life.

Please come out to this event the Compaigniye du Chalis is planning over Memorial Day in 2007. You strike me as a learned man, though maybe too smart. I think a beer or six, a fine plate of meats and cheeses, and some Owain Phyfe might do you good.

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org

Jehan, we totally agree on "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel."

Although not "scholarly" correct, I felt Doyle really nailed the "feel" of 14th c chivalric culture. Sir Nigel could have stepped off the pages of Charny's "Book of Chivalry"

He who does best, is most worthy. Indeed.

Jehan de Pelham wrote: Besides, if Cantor is so wrong, his error will be readily apparent to the beginner and make them feel confident in their finding out his mistakes.

That's not so much my concern. My concern is where I DON'T know that he's wrong.

My general feeling is that if I can't trust him to get the facts right where I know the facts, how can I trust him to get them right when I don't know them. Having said that, I still think the book is worth a read. Gaunt is a fascinating figure, and I think Cantor was right to use him as an exemplar.

Actually, I agree more with you on The Last Knight than I initially did. I think a thread detailing his errors might be interesting. What did you find? The one I can remember right off the bat is the old "Armor was so heavy that men at arms could hardly move" crap. But this one was so ridiculous that I knew exactly how that mistake crept in: He hadn't ever met anyone who had worn it.

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron,org

I would recommend Tuchmann's - A distant mirror - a superb book, centred around Engeurrand De Coucy, a Frenchman.

Barbara Hanawalt - the Ties that Bound - peasant life

British Museum Press - craftsman series - one of which written by Paul Binski - covers a good range of late medeival crafts not just 14th though.

Women in the medeival Town - Ulrika Uitz - a good exposition on women's roles in the late middle ages, lots of 14th C European info.

I confess to attempting to read the White Company but found it dull and being a natural Victoriano-phobe when it comes to the middle ages I steer well clear. Distant Mirror is more factitious than WCo and written by a historian of some repute.

I promise not to say one more thing about The White Company, at least in this thread. It is beginning to become tedious even to myself, which must mean that it is beyond tedious for everyone else.

I wouldn't suggest The White Company and Sir Nigel for facts. They are for flavor. But we could discuss the errors in Doyle's works in a separate thread, which I'll start.

I too found The White Company dull, until I got some ways in. It sat on my shelf, with a bookmark in between a couple of pages in the first couple of chapters for a year. I was drinking a beer or three one evening and decided to pick it up again. I know that making a reader slog through a hard beginning is inexcusable in a writer, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing in a different time. I think that the pub wrasslin' scene between Hordle John and Samkin was what got me hooked--something about the drinking and the fighting and the recruiting.

Most of the books which are worth reading for factual information are quite scholarly. Even Tuchman's survey, though written in a style that most students of history would find engaging, is...well...it's still a history text. Books like The White Company are for getting people interested enough in the era to give the more factual books a try.

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org

Jehan de Pelham wrote:
Kel, no need to worry about me taking exception--I just know you're wrong. Though I am humble in many things, in this at least I have enough self esteem not to worry about an academic disagreement.

Noted.

Sir Nigel and The White Company sank the hook for me, ten years ago

I think it was the Black Shield of Falworth or something like that for me. Totally addicted to non-fiction now, sadly. My wife kindly tolerates the growing stacks of books that overflow my home office.


Please come out to this event the Compaigniye du Chalis is planning over Memorial Day in 2007. You strike me as a learned man, though maybe too smart.

LOL. I think I just heard HG Finvaar spurt a beer out his nose. John, we must meet. I will quickly disabuse you of such notions...

I think a beer or six, a fine plate of meats and cheeses, and some Owain Phyfe might do you good.

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org

No doubt. I would enjoy the experience.

Cheers!

Jehan de Pelham wrote:Sir Nigel and The White Company sank the hook for me, ten years ago now before I knew the names which I now know like my best friends...

You have my complete understanding about the "sinking of the hook" phenomenon. Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and that silly book about the Holy Grail (Holy Grail, Holy Blood) sunk the hook into me, believe it or not. All the harping for years by my SCA friends couldn't get me to go do something of that type, but a couple of overly-dramatic historical fluff reads did the trick.

(Don't worry, I'm not saying your faves are "historical fluff reads"; I haven't read them, so I don't have any opinion.)

-Tasha