An examination of the ways in which the fluid concept of "chivalry" has been used and appropriated after the Middle Ages. One of the most difficult and complex ethical and cultural codes to define, chivalry has proved a flexible, ever-changing phenomenon, constantly adapted in the hands of medieval knights, Renaissance princes, early modern antiquarians, Enlightenment scholars, modern civic authorities, authors, historians and re-enactors. This book explores the rich variations in how the Middle Ages were conceptualised and historicised to illuminate the plurality of uses of the past. Using chivalry as a lens through which to examine concepts and uses of the medieval, it provides a critical assessment of the ways in which medieval chivalry became a shorthand to express contemporary ideals, powerfully demonstrating the ways in which history could be appropriated. The chapters combine attention to documentary evidence with what material culture can tell us, in particular using the built environment and the landscape as sources to understand how the medieval past was renegotiated. With contributions spanning diverse geographic regions and periods, it redraws current chronological boundaries by considering medievalism from the late Middle Ages to the present. Katie Stevenson is Senior Lecturer in Late Mediaeval History and Director of the Institute of Scottish Historical Research at the University of St Andrews; Barbara Gribling is a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of History at Durham University. Contributors: David W. Allan, Stefan Goebel, Barbara Gribling, Steven C. Hughes, Peter N. Lindfield, Antti Matikkala, Rosemary Mitchell, Paul Pickering, Katie Stevenson

First full-length study of the impact of the Gothic Revival across the arts, from literature and architectural theory to houses, furniture and interiors. The Gothic Revival, rich, ambitious, occasionally eccentric, but nonetheless visually exciting, is one of Britain's greatest contributions to early modern design history, not least because for the most part it contravened approvedtaste: Classicism. Scholars have tended to treat Georgian Gothic as an homogenous and immature precursor to "high" Victorian Gothic, and centred their discussion around Walpole's Strawberry Hill. This book, conversely, reveals how the style was imaginatively and repeatedly revised and incorporated into prevailing eighteenth-century fashions: Palladianism, Rococo, Neoclassicism, and antiquarianism. It shows how under the control of architects, from Wren toPugin, Walpole and Cottingham, and furniture designs, especially those of Chippendale, and Ince and Mayhew, a shared language of Gothic motifs was applied to British architecture, furniture and interiors. Georgian Britain was awash with Gothic forms, even if the arbiters of taste criticised it vehemently. Throughout, the volume reframes the Gothic Revival's expression by connecting it with Georgian understandings of the medieval past, and consequently revises our interpretation of one of the most influential, yet lampooned, forms of material culture at the time. Peter N. Lindfield is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Stirling.

An examination of the ways in which the fluid concept of "chivalry" has been used and appropriated after the Middle Ages. One of the most difficult and complex ethical and cultural codes to define, chivalry has proved a flexible, ever-changing phenomenon, constantly adapted in the hands of medieval knights, Renaissance princes, early modern antiquarians, Enlightenment scholars, modern civic authorities, authors, historians and re-enactors. This book explores the rich variations in how the Middle Ages were conceptualised and historicised to illuminate the plurality of uses of the past. Using chivalry as a lens through which to examine concepts and uses of the medieval, it provides a critical assessment of the ways in which medieval chivalry became a shorthand to express contemporary ideals, powerfully demonstrating the ways in which history could be appropriated. The chapters combine attention to documentary evidence with what material culture can tell us, in particular using the built environment and the landscape as sources to understand how the medieval past was renegotiated. With contributions spanning diverse geographic regions and periods, it redraws current chronological boundaries by considering medievalism from the late Middle Ages to the present. Katie Stevenson is Senior Lecturer in Late Mediaeval History and Director of the Institute of Scottish Historical Research at the University of St Andrews; Barbara Gribling is a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of History at Durham University. Contributors: David W. Allan, Stefan Goebel, Barbara Gribling, Steven C. Hughes, Peter N. Lindfield, Antti Matikkala, Rosemary Mitchell, Paul Pickering, Katie Stevenson