Customer Reviews

The Book of The Medieval Knight

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Absolutely a must-have book, filled from cover to cover with archetecture, heraldry, manuscripts, effigies, and statues. It provides an in-depth look at the High Middle Ages... the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is also quite a large bit dedicated to the political evolution of the time. This is a fantastic book!!

First off, this book is of the medieval knight and therefore spends most of its time covering English and French History. So, I'm not sure where these comments come from wanting middle eastern knights. They weren't knights. They had different names.

The scope of this book covers the Hundred Years War to the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses . . . expect to cover mostly French and English History, as these were the two cultures who began the chivalric code and were the main players during that era.

While it's true that there were knights in other areas of western and eastern Europe, they all emulated the French and the English. That's why Turnbull spent his time with these two countries.

If you want a similar example to THE MEDIEVAL KNIGHT but hate anglocentric History, check out his THE BOOK OF THE SAMURAI or even THE MONGOLS. Just stop whining! :D

An entertaining, interesting and very informative read, the text is enthusiastic and intelligent, the illustrations and photos help you to see what the author is talking about and keep your interest. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in this subject or any artists looking for accurate medieval reference material.

I am not a military historian, though I spent a good portion of my life wishing to study military and medieval history. I was delighted to find this book in a random L.A. bookstore, and I'm still happy I picked it up.

It's lavishly illustrated with photos, drawings and the like; I found it a pleasant and interesting overview of knights in medieval England and, to some extent, France.

And that's where the 3-stars rating comes in. Please take this with a grain of salt--but I would guess that this book succeeds in evaluating knighthood in England more than anywhere else. If it sought to perform the same function for European knights in general, this Anglocentric presentation didn't succeed. Mind you, where the background exists, it's fairly detailed. But I would have liked to see this scholarship extended to more of continental Europe. If you're looking for anything on the Germans, forget it.

Other than that, a nice addition to my (growing) collection of military history books.

While this book is oversized, making it good for having lots of pictures, the material inside is very much a treatise into european knighthood only, addressing almost not at all middle eastern, eastern soviet, or asian thoughts and ideas.

But, it does have good pictures.