Module 3 - Part 4: Web Resources

Other parts of this module include:
Index  |  Part 1: Overview  |  Part 2: Explorations and Exercises  |  Part 3: Texts and Contexts

The Paradoxical Nature of Medieval Warriors

The visual tradition: Celebrations of war in the medieval arts

This excellent site, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, provides a wide range of texts and images that help us appreciate the world of medieval warfare.

The knight at arms
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Arms and armor: The glamour of war

The paradoxical nature of medieval warfare extends to the paraphernalia with which men went into battle. Fighters always need armor for self-defense and weapons for offensive action. But whereas modern soldiers wear uniforms designed to camouflage their presence, to blend into the landscape as far as possible, medieval (and ancient) warriors arrayed themselves in splendor. Thus one might overlook the ugliness of battle when contemplating the beauty of the instruments with which battle was waged.

A close-up of the knight at arms
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A tomb effigy of one of the nemeses of France, Edward the Black Prince, the first son of Edward III of England, who flourished during Chaucer's lifetime. Note that in the precincts of the church, he is commemorated in his armor, as were many of the fighting men of the time.
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Reconstructed helmet from the Sutton Hoo Hoard (associated with Beowulf's world)
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This spectacular piece of dress armor from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art "reproduces in steel the extravagant puffed-and-slashed costume of the German mercenaries" of the sixteenth century.
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The type of armor worn by Atsumori in the Tale of the Heike
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Armor worn by the rival clans in the Tale of the Heike
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This Meiji vase in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore beautifully illustrates the warfare along the seashore that takes place in the Tale of the Heike.
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The chivalric code

As if it were a game and not a mortal contest, war had rules; the chivalric code is a dazzling literary invention that sanitized and glorified unspeakable acts. Warriors practiced their art at jousts and tournaments during peacetime. By Chaucer's era, chivalric activity had less to do with cavalry charges and more to do with spectacles like this.

Jousts in London, from the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris
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The chivalric disciplines that made a knight out of a squire are described in these two passages. Note how well Chaucer's squire conforms to the expectations of his role.
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Cherishing the narratives of medieval warfare

In every culture that produced stories of heroic deeds, beautiful manuscripts and exquisitely illustrated pages attest to the high value placed on the ideals inherent in medieval warfare.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript
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Roland. This beautiful illustration comes from a manuscript from Saint-Gall.
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Rostam and Sohrab
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Ellesmere manuscript illustration of the Knight
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A woodcut reproduction of the squire
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The real world of battle

Map of Fourth and later Crusades. Note how far-flung are the sites of the Knight's battles.
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From the Gibraltar Museum site, background information relevant to the Knight's exploits "In Moorish Africa, at Belmarin" (line 54). "Belmarin" refers to the Berber nomads "known as the Banu Marin or Marinids," as this site explains.
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A letter from the Sixth Crusade vividly describing the approach to a battle at Alexandria, Egypt, where the Knight fought in 1365.
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Accounts of the First Crusades, the source of the horrific description of the bloody porch of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem quoted in the overview of this site.
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The career of Sir John Hawkwood, a famous English mercenary. After fighting in France for the English forces of Edward III, Hawkwood sold his services to the Italian city of Florence.
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The historian Jean Froissart described the role of foreigners like Hawkwood in the Italian wars of the fourteenth century.
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An equestrian image of Hawkwood by a great artist of the Italian Renaissance, Paolo Uccello.
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Further reading: Contrarian perspectives

Lynn Nelson provides a provocative introduction for students about to read the Song ofRoland.
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Terry Jones, Chaucer's Knight, 1980, offers a great deal of historical information about Hawkwood, to whom he likens the Knight. Most scholars reject Jones's efforts to diminish the stature of Chaucer's pilgrim, but he provides fascinating information about the wars that Chaucer names in listing the Knight's credentials.