Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Map 1
- Map 2
- Map 3
- Map 4
- Introduction
- Part I
- Part II
- 6 Military Service, Careerism and Crusade
- 7 ‘All are truly blessed who are martyred in battle’: Crusading and Salvation
- 8 Chivalry, Literature and Political Culture
- 9 The Chivalric Nation and Images of the Crusader King
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Register of English Crusaders c.1307–1399
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
9 - The Chivalric Nation and Images of the Crusader King
from Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Map 1
- Map 2
- Map 3
- Map 4
- Introduction
- Part I
- Part II
- 6 Military Service, Careerism and Crusade
- 7 ‘All are truly blessed who are martyred in battle’: Crusading and Salvation
- 8 Chivalry, Literature and Political Culture
- 9 The Chivalric Nation and Images of the Crusader King
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Register of English Crusaders c.1307–1399
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
Summary
Central to this emergent debate over the preferred outlet for arms in the 1380s and 1390s lay the relationship between national patriotic interests and faithful prosecution of the crusade ideal, tensions prominent throughout the pages above. Knightly constituents of the later crusades may, or may not, have been well placed to reconcile such competing ideals, but their presence raises some important final questions. As many knights found, going against the infidel offered a route to social advancement, promotion in county community and at court, as well as an opportunity to escape the backwaters of domesticity. It has been seen how crusading's various appeals and forms could spill over into military behaviours at court, not only when talk of a royal crusade was in the air. It has also been seen how the wide reach of English crusading on the fringes of Christendom was mirrored by a generous reception for its participants within the value system of contemporary chivalry. Supporting this, as previous chapters have tried to make clear, was a raft of sidewards cultural pressures and incentives, affirming the role of the itinerant knight-penitent. Yet also bearing down on aspirant crusaders was an increasingly rich vision of chivalric honour, national destiny and Christian salvation, centred on the figure of the warrior king and the much-prophesised recovery crusade. Importantly, although largely overlooked in modern accounts, this image of royal and chivalric power, bound up in the crusade, helped nourish and affirm military society's commitment to the cause, fusing with other messages and pressures associated with loyalty to the crown.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Chivalry, Kingship and CrusadeThe English Experience in the Fourteenth Century, pp. 182 - 207Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013