Originally published in 1933. As mediaeval society was dominated by the feudal caste, a biography that depicts the position, activities, manners, and thoughts of a member of that class might do much to elucidate the history of the period. This is what Sidney Painter had in mind when he wrote a William Marshal: Knight-Errant, Baron, and Regent of England. The subject has proved a peculiarly fortunate one. The fourth son of John fitz Gilbert, marshal of the king's court, William for the first forty years of his life was a landless knight who devoted most of his time and energy to tournaments. In the year 1189 by his marriage to the daughter and heiress of Earl Richard of Pembroke, William became a great feudal lord with fiefs in Normandy, England, Wales, and Ireland. Thus his biography depicts the two extremes of feudal society-the landless knight and the rich baron. Finally in 1216 he was chosen regent of England for the young king, Henry III, and his biography becomes for three years the history of England.

Originally published in 1949. Lacking the warlike bluntness of his predecessor, Richard the Lionheart, John came to the throne of England at a time when economic forces in the realm were threatening to undermine the very basis of feudal power. The Reign of King John covers his attempts to adjust a political system to cope with this threat and at the same time to assert the hegemony of the monarchy over its chief rivals-the barons and the church-made his reign one of particular importance and significance in English history.

Originally published in 1943. Sidney Painter explores the Angevin and Plantagenet baronage by surveying the methods that barons used to increase their prestige. Studies in the History of the English Feudal Barony challenges the traditional view of the Hundred Years' War as pivotal to the transition from twelfth-century lords and vassals to the nobility of the fifteenth century; from Painter's perspective, the feudal structure of the military had dissipated by the thirteenth century.

Originally published in 1937. Painter's Scourge of the Clergy is a biography of Peter of Dreux, who was the Count of Dreux from 1298 to 1345. This book engages in a conversation with specialists of medieval France and Brittany, given that Peter's career gives historians insight into the quarrels between church and state, the crusades of St. Louis, the struggles between French kings and vassals, and the rivalry of the Capetian and Plantagenet monarchies.

Originally published in 1940. Chivalry denotes the ideals and practices considered suitable for a noble. The word itself is reminiscent of the aristocratic society of medieval France dominated by mounted warriors. As early as the eleventh century, several different views of chivalric standards and behavior had appeared. During the next four hundred years, these conceptions of the ideal nobleman were developed by and for the feudal ruling class. French Chivalry studies chivalry from the perspectives of both social history and the history of ideas. The first chapter provides readers unfamiliar with medieval history the background required for understanding the chapters on chivalry.

The author describes the various ideas that may be called chivalric, illustrates their nature and content from contemporary literature, and attempts to show what effect they had on the ethical principles and practices of the feudal nobility.

An introduction to the understanding of everyday life in the early Middle Ages. The social history of this period has been studied intensively for years, but few brief, concrete, and comprehensive accounts of daily life in medieval Europe have appeared. To fill this gap Professor Painter has written an essay that could be read by the college history student with benefit. It outlines the most important technical developments, and infuses the life of this period with understanding and sympathy.