Chivalry: The Path of Love

“Their high feast was love, who gilded all their joys. Love brought them as homage the Round Table and all its company a thousand times a day. What better food could they have for body or soul? Man was there with woman, and woman there with man. What else should they be needing? They had what they were meant to have. They had reached the goal of their desire.” — Gottfried von Strasbourg, Tristan and Isolde

This small book is a concise account of the medieval cult of chivalry. Chivalry was an ideal code of behaviour for men at arms, especially for the nobility and for those who aspired to fame in the new European world of the twelfth and later centuries.

Chivalry: The Path of Love is a beautiful and illuminating introduction to the ancient code of behaviour that shaped the relations between the sexes in medieval times. This lavishly illustrated volume presents a concise account of the evolution, history, and practice of chivalry, from its roots in the religious fervour of the crusades to its zenith in Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Court of Love, where romantic disputes were resolved.