The household knights of King John

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Nigel Saul

The world of medieval chivalry is at once glamorous and violent, alluring yet alien. Our popular views of the period are largely inherited from the nineteenth-century romantics, for whom chivalry evoked images of knights in shining armour, competing for the attention of fair ladies - with pennons and streamers fluttering from castle battlements. But what is the reality? Were the rituals and romance of chivalry designed to provide an escape from the brutal facts of almost continuous warfare? Or did they instead help regulate the conduct of war and moderate its violent excesses? Nigel Saul charts the introduction of chivalry by the Normans, the rise of the knightly class as a social elite, the fusion of chivalry with kingship in the fourteenth century and the influence of chivalry on literature, religion and architecture. He shows us a world of kings and barons, castles and cathedrals - a world shaped by Richard the Lionheart and the Crusades, by Magna Carta and the rule of law, by battles like Bannockburn and Crecy, by the Black Death and by tournaments, round tables and the cult of Arthurianism. Structured around the related themes of war, politics and knighthood, For Honour and Fame tells the story of England from the Norman Conquest to the aftermath of Henry VII's triumph at Bosworth in the Wars of the Roses. Wide-ranging, vivid and authoritative, this is the first book to treat chivalry as part of the wider history of medieval England. - Publisher.

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Barbara Donagan

Drawing extensively on primary sources, and with the focus on examining what the war was like to live through - for example the living conditions for soldiers, the conduct of war, etc. - this study illuminates the human cost of war and its effect on society, both in our own day as well as in the 17th century.

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K.W. Mitchinson

"The fear of a cross-Channel invasion had been a recurrent worry to Britain's naval, military and political leaders for centuries. By 1908 the likely invader had changed but the British public, alarmed by lurid tales of a bestial, rampaging German army protected by the might of the Kaiser's provocative new fleet, demanded greater security. Although the War Office and Government were confident that full-scale invasion was unlikely, they continued to assume that vulnerable and strategically important sites might be raided by up to 150,000 troops. Defending Albion analyses the responses of the British military and civil authorities to the perceived threat. It is the first published work to explore the schemes designed to confront an enemy landing and to examine the difficulties faced by the derided Territorial Force in trying to meet the challenge. It also investigates the long-neglected political and military problems posed by the unwanted spontaneous creation of what is today the largely unknown existence of the 'Dad's Army' of the Great War, the Volunteer Force."--Jacket.

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Walter Scott

The father of the historical novel, Sir Walter Scott invented a literary form that has remained popular for over one hundred and fifty years. Infusing his works with romance, action, and suspense, he brought long-gone eras back to life with splendor and spectacle.Set in England just after the Third Crusade, Ivanhoe is the tale of Wilfrid, a young Saxon knight, and his love for the royal princess Rowena. With his father against their union, Wilfrid embarks on a series of adventures to prove his worth, finding himself in conflict against the Normans and the Templars, and allied with such larger-than-life figures as Robin Hood and Richard the Lion Hearted. A timeless story of courage, chivalry, and courtly love, Ivanhoe is a grand epic, and its place in classical literature is assured.