For Honour and Fame

Nigel Saul takes a relatively benign view of medieval noblemen. He rejects the once-fashionable notion that war was all about money and land, and that chivalry was just tinsel. And, although he sees a steep decline in standards in the last medieval century, he thinks that chivalric values did have a real influence in civilising the conduct of war... Saul can make the most unpromising material speak to us with a directness that can surprise even those who are already familiar with it. This is a rich book that does ample justice to its complex theme

The Times

Clear sighted history

Guardian

Professor Saul's achievement is to provide for the first time a holistic overview of English chivalric culture in its historical perspective. This is a fine book, whose richness of texture defies a brief review, but which will undoubtedly become a classic

BBC History Magazine

The book is full of solid, engrossing history…[it] serves, too, as a primer in medieval history, and the political and martial achievements of this country's rulers from William to Henry VII… Saul is a clear-eyed historian, not one to be taken in by popular legend

Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

Chivalry has often been something of a footnote in other volumes concerning the Middle Ages but here Saul proves that it is a worthy topic in and of itself

Bookgeeks