William Marshal: The Flower of Chivalry Paperback - 1987

First line

THE EARL can bear no more.

From the rear cover

Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians, has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imagination William Marshal, adviser to the Plantagents, knight extraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historical reconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poem written in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation of chivalric life-the contests and tournaments, the rites of war, the daily details of medieval existence-unlike any we have ever seen.

From the jacket flap

Recreates in detail the life of this advisor to the Plantagnets and knight extraordinaire.

Media reviews

"Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians, has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imagination William Marshal, adviser to the Plantagenets, knight extraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historical reconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poem written in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation of chivalric life -- the contests and tournaments, the rites of war, the daily details of medieval existence -- unlike any we have ever seen.

"An enchanting and profoundly instructive book....Owing in signal part to the imaginative scholarship of Georges Duby, darkness is more and more receding from the Dark Ages."

George Steiner

New Yorker

"A small masterpiece of its genre....It is a splendid story and Professor Duby tells it splendidly....Duby has reconstructed a living picture of a particular sector of society at a crucial moment, at the brink of great change. The vividness, the intimacy, and the historical perception with which he presents his picture of the fascinating and eventful life of the Marshal, and of the world in which he lived, will win him readers not just among scholars, but among all who are drawn by the unending interest of the humanity of the human past."

New York Review of Books

"Duby succeeds wonderfully....Everything works."

New York Times Book Review