Lettered Knight

Martin Aurell is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Poitiers and Director of the Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton (1999) and of the Institut Universitaire de France (2002–2012). He is the editor of the review Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale. He works on nobility, chivalry, kinship and power in Catalonia, Provence, Languedoc, and in the Angevine Empire.

• 1.Introduction1.1 The Renaissance of the twelfth century 1.2 Scholasticism, reading and writing1.3 ‘Literature’ and orality1.4 The lettered and the unlettered1.5 The cleric and the knight1.6 Courtesy and the civilisation of mores2. Knighthood and Literacy2.1 Schooling and teaching children to read and write2.1.1 Sons faced with the choice of taking up arms or the calling of the cloister2.1.2 The first teachers: family, private tutors, and courtly clerics2.1.3 In the monastic, cathedral and parish schools2.1.4 From cloister to secular life2.1.5 Italian precocity and pragmatic knowledge2.1.6 Methods of learning, new programs and the spread of writing in the vernacular 2.2 The Latin of the knights2.2.1 The Latin skills of Anglo-Norman knights2.2.2 The Italian educated nobility2.2.3 Semi-literate laymen2.2.4 Book collectors and patrons3. Knighthood and Literary Creation3.1 The court and literary social life3.1.1 Castles transformed into palacesHalls, rooms and gardensA literary setting3.1.2 Literature intended for performanceLadies holding salonDancing, jeux partis and dialogues3.1.3 Minstrels and professional performersWide-ranging skillsThe dissemination of political songsRivalry with the knights and clericsA more positive image3.2 The Knight Writers3.2.1 Songs: a preference for the brief genreThe troubadours on love and warNorthern trouveres and Germanic Minnesänger3.2.2 Romances, sagas and other fictional genres: a rare form of writingThe Grail, love and war in FrenchThe German ministerialsItaly, compilers and encyclopaedistsSnorri Sturluson’s sagasImpiety or religiosity?3.2.3 History and memory: telling the CrusadeOverseas adventure in oc and oïlThe Catalan-Italian wars around the Mediterranean3.3 Learned Women 3.3.1 The education of girlsPreceptors and schoolsConvent education Disparate educational levels3.3.2 Women readersThe indispensable PsalterReceiving love poems and letters3.3.3 Women writersWomen epistolariansMarie de FranceTrobairitz, hagiographers and visionaries3.3.4 The superiority of feminine knowledge?4. Clerical Instruction and Civilizing Knightly Mores4.1 War and the codifying of violence4.1.1 The moral of the story4.1.2 Rebuking greed, violence and vanityPillaging and murderHunting, tournaments and games4.1.3 The chivalrous idealWarring under the king for peace and justice The knighthood and dubbingSparing human livesThe crusade as armed pilgrimageThe paradox of the soldier monks4.1.4 The internalisation of persuasive arguments?4.2 Manners: mastering movement and speech4.2.1 Courteous clerics4.2.2 Instructional books on civility4.2.3 Clothing and attireCleanliness and eleganceShame and immodesty4.2.4 Self-control in gestures4.2.5 Table manners4.2.6 The art of pleasant conversation4.3 Love: refinement and self-control4.3.1 The patient, enduring and meek lover4.3.2 Perfecting oneself through love4.3.3 Classical knowledge and courtly love The debate on knights and clerks in love4.4 Religion: the warrior’s piety4.4.1 The lettered knights and theological thought4.4.2 Courtliness and piety4.4.3 Mass attendance and the dangers of Pharisaism 4.4.4 Meditating at church, invoking the Holy Virgin, and other forms of devotion4.4.5 Love for fellow-men, alms and voluntary poverty 4.4.6 Confession and penance4.4.7 The knight’s ....