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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1707: The Ideals of Warfare: Chivalry, Emotion, and the Crusades

Thursday 10 July 2014, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:History Lab, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
Organiser:Claire Trenery, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Moderator/Chair:Simon Thomas Parsons, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Paper 1707-aGranting Mercy and Peace: The Treatment of Opponents in War in 11th-13th-Century Norway, England, and Denmark
(Language: English)
Louisa Taylor, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University College London
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Mentalities, Military History
Paper 1707-bWhen the Crusader's Blood Boiled: Anger and Its Management in Sources for the Crusades
(Language: English)
Stephen Spencer, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London
Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities, Rhetoric
Abstract

This panel examines various attitudes towards warfare from notions of chivalry in Scandinavia to the adaptation and use of crusade rhetoric in Scotland. A wide chronological and geographical scope allows for the acknowledgement and exploration of different and changing approaches to warfare. Chivalric codes of behaviour can be contrasted to the evidence of anger in crusade accounts, illustrating the emotions stimulated by war and how the norms of social behaviour could be forgotten in the heat of a battle. Warfare did not always conform to the ideals of the chivalric code and was often complicated by emotion, politics, and subterfuge.