Determining the end of chivalry

As a student of Richard Kaeuper, it should come as no surprise that medieval chivalry is one of my research interests. Currently, I am preparing two different online bibliographies (one geared for grade school teachers) and one exhibit on the subject. Attempting to reduce such a complex phenomenon as chivalry to about 26 linear feet is forcing me to make significant (and perhaps controversial) interpretations. One of the largest that I am facing to date is determining how to discuss the "end of chivalry." Did it end? If so, when? How? Why? By whom/what? Or did it rather transform into something different from medieval chivalry? If so, the same questions apply. And since we here approach the "Early Modern Age," the source material expands, modes of thinking are changing, and the methodologies available to the historian multiply as well.

The old wisdom, that chivalry was shot down with gunpowder weapons, has been pretty decisively refuted by now: chivalry far outlasted the advent of gunpowder. It also did not really come to grief on the "rise of infantry" or the changing character of the late medieval army (best exemplified, perhaps, by the armies of Burgundy): to Philippe de Commynges, chivalry was still a potent presence, despite the fact that knights often dismounted and sometimes fought with infantry formations.

At very least, neither of these explanations is in any way sufficient by itself. My advisor would argue (and I would largely agree with him) that "chivalry" as such ended when the core of the warrior's identity and loyalty changed. Religious validation became somewhat less important, and loyalty to the state comparatively more important, in ways which left the practice of arms roughly the same while changing the mentality of the man who practiced them. Honor slowly became bound up with serving the state, not necessarily with personal renown gained through deeds of prowess. This (hopefully accurate) paraphrase and summary seems a good explanation, especially when combined with the other (less individually convincing) explanations above--after all, as Strickland has demonstrated, the character of armies did change over time, as the decline of the longbow in Tudor England demonstrates (e.g., among London militia companies, not to mention yeomen).

So, for purposes of an exhibit with limited space, WHEN can we say "Medieval chivalry is no more"? My own slowly evolving opinion is that, for sake of convenience, medieval chivalry ended in 1559, when Henry II of France was killed in a joust. Henry VIII of England, another king who strongly identified himself with chivalry, had died in 1550. And Maximilian I of Germany, the "last knight" and master of the tournament, had died earlier in 1519. It seems to me that, if pressed against the wall, one could say that the passing of the last great "chivalric" monarchs of Europe conveniently marks the passing of medieval chivalry, and the culmination of all those changes which historians identify, often individually. Debatable, surely, and I am still thinking this through, but as a stopping point (and one HAS to stop somewhere) it seems to hold much promise...

Anyhow, back to thinking and writing and commenting on students' work...

thoughts about qualifying exam prep...

So, that time of year is coming up, the time of qualifying exams. I have resigned myself to the fact that, no matter how much one studies, one is never "ready" for these things...One simply attempts to reach a certain "comfort" level of unreadiness. For medieval history here at my university, there is no set reading list--understandably, since it's hard to formulate any kind of comprehensive plan for a massive geographical space over the period of a millennium (one expects to teach the general "High Middle Ages," "Late Middle Ages" courses, naturally, but that's mostly a matter of finding a half-decent non-textbook textbook, and tailoring the course to your own interests, unless you are creative...whatever). On the other hand, how do you process all this information, especially if, as I am doing, you are developing a minor field in modern history as well? [My major field is medieval European history, minor field 1 is medieval monasticism/art history, minor field 2 is modern Germany--which last is really a rather major minor field, and one in which I have various research interests.]

To deal with this situation, I have been attempting to put into practice a bowdlerized version of Duke's system for preparing their history grad students, which is based on preparing a portfolio of their fields, teaching and intellectual philosophies, etc., and which is supposed to serve not only as a exam prep but as job market prep as well. Very useful, it seemed to me, if rather intense, having learned about it, if I'm remembering correctly, as a prospective from another prospective while visiting an institution which was not Duke. The full description, for the curious, is here:
http://www-history.aas.duke.edu/graduate/handbookpreliminaryexams.php

My own approach has been to design a series of syllabus templates, at several levels (introductory, upper level seminar, and graduate seminar), which should cover major teaching topics while at the same time solidifying my reading and grasp of the field in general. So far, not bad, I think. We'll see how it goes in the "dry run" in about a week.

In the mean time, there are certain to be more posts of a more-or-less esoteric nature on various archaic points of history and historiography, some of which will probably be driven by frustration and a lack of sleep. They say it only gets worse from here...

St. Gall codices digitalized...(a la Cologne)

This looks like a first-class site, with excellent digital transfers of various texts. Here is the project description from the website:

'The purpose of the “Codices Electronici Sangallenses” (Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen) is to provide access to the medieval codices in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen by creating a virtual library. The project will begin with a two-year pilot to digitally reproduce a selection of the finest illuminated codices at such a high resolution that researchers cannot only work with the manuscripts but also perform detailed (art historical or otherwise) analyses of the miniatures in the codices. Codex metadata (primarily scholarly descriptions of the codices) will be managed in a database system and referenced with the digitalised items through various access mechanisms. All these elements will constitute a single long-term tool for codex research that can potentially incorporate all the information on the individual codices. The tool can act as a partial substitute for direct examinations of the irreplaceable originals, thereby preserving them. At the same time, an intuitive, appealing internet presentation will communicate the medieval codex culture to a wider audience.'

Link: http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/en/

This project is meant to mirror a similar one for Cologne's archiepiscopal archive, at http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/

Correction Regarding Vatican Archives!!!!

Please note the following correction to the entry on Vatican Paleography course, as per Paul's kind comments below: the Vatican Archive remains open, so the paleography program is doubtless fully operational. My apologies for the error!

Cool Medieval Links for the Serious Student

Greetings! If you are interested in tracking down various sources, resources, and information regarding the medieval world and modern scholarship thereof, you might be interested in the following links (with my own somewhat trenchant commentary). More links will follow at a later time...

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

This has long been the standard beginner's sourcebook for things medieval, and is the brainchild of Paul Halsall at Fordham University. All in all, I feel that the site is not as useful as it once was--due to copyright issues, many entries are simply bibliographic notes, not links to content. Also, since Halsall is also editing ORB's content, a number of the working links take you to ORB anyway. For all that, the IMS remains a fairly useful tool if you are looking for a random source. Great for undergraduates.

The Crusades Encylopedia. http://crusades-encyclopedia.com/

A newer site, maintained by Andrew Holt. It is far from complete, given the scope of the subject, but new material is added fairly regularly. The primary and secondary source collections are very useful indeed, as are the links to scholarly opinion pieces about the crusades, book reviews, movie reviews, and so on. In the primary sources section, there are links for the ENTIRE French series, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, in PDF files (obviously, I am excited about this...). Good resources for the Albigensian Crusade. This site has saved my students several times, and is an ever-improving resource for scholars.


The Labyrinth at Georgetown. http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu/

This is the new and improved Labyrinth--in other words, most of the links work on this new edition (though hardly all, so be warned). Unfortunately, Georgetown has elected to keep the unwieldy search format, which takes some getting used to, and the results of one's search can be highly uneven. On the other hand, the Labyrinth occasionally has links to obscure but very useful scholarly sites, so it is always worth checking in your research.


The ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. http://www.the-orb.net/

I have mixed feelings about The ORB, mostly because my students have tried using the useful summaries and lecture plans as substitutes for reading genuine scholarly work...On the other hand, The ORB does have a fairly impressive collection of primary source materials and general resources--for instance, the only English version which I have found of the Teutonic Knight's "Rule", and a critical one at that (this could well be because I haven't looked hard enough, but still...). Definitely worth exploring...


Some paleography?

Anglo-Norman Paleography. http://paleo.anglo-norman.org/

The site describes itself as "a collaborative venture between the West Sussex Record Office and the Department of English Local History." It contains a good deal of information on Anglo-Norman paleography, a fairly comprehensive bibliography, exercises and self-testing, and much basic information about this important sub-category of medieval studies. It appears to have been designed for a specific university course, and for use with a cd--so, don't be surprised if its content appears choppy and incomplete. Not for the faint of heart!


The Vatican School of Paleography, etc. http://asv.vatican.va/en/scuol/1_directors.htm

This would be more useful if the Vatican Archives hadn't decided to close for a few years for (admittedly important) building repairs...So, the information on this site is a) almost certainly not applicable right now, and b) quite possibly out of date. Nevertheless, it's not a bad thing to tuck this website away for future reference


Latin dictionaries

"Words" by William Whitaker. http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe
Latin-English Dictionary Program. http://users.erols.com/whitaker/words.htm

Notre Dame's Latin dictionary recommends Whitaker's "Words" as a more comprehensive program, and thankfully he has provided it free of charge as a downloadable file (second link). The program is little short of amazing, for example providing you with a complete parsing of verbs--first person singular, present indicative active (not in that order!). I have come across only a handful of words absent from its inventory. Great stuff.


Orbis Latinus, by J. G. Th. Graesse. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html

Karen Green at Columbia has digitalized this old (1909) copy of Graesse's Latin place-name dictionary--indispensable stuff, and something which they don't really teach you (probably because they can't). Place names are often NOT intuitive: for instance, while "Regensburg" and "Ratisbonensis" sound fairly similar, you wouldn't guess that "Wuerzburg" is "Herbipolensis" in Latin...would you? This old edition is not exhaustive, and occasionally makes it difficult to find an entry due to spelling variations, but is still an outstandingly useful resource.



And, for those of you who read German...

Mediaevum. http://www.mediaevum.de/

This is a web portal to all things medieval in German scholarship, including information on most (if not all) medieval academic programs in Germany, a manuscript locater for over 65,000 manuscripts in German archives, links to digitalized manuscripts (more on those in another post), dictionaries, and just about any random scholarly information you can think of. The English version does not have much content, and if you want to get anything out of the site be prepared to click around, dust off your German, and enjoy!

One small step for this man...

Well, I have taken yet another step on the road of "being up to date": I now have a blog. From the title, one might reasonably assume that it will deal heavily with things medieval, and such an assumption would be correct. Look for links, some reviews, notes about medieval conferences and such, in the near future...