Video Intro

In this video, Professor David Green introduces the Black Prince, and how chivalry was presented in a fourteenth-century source.

Source

Life of the Black Prince by the Herald of Sir John Chandos, ed. and trans. M. K. Pope and E. Lodge (Oxford, 1910). The passage discussed can be found on p. 136, lines 145-93.

Discussion Questions

• Why did the Hundred Years War start in 1337?
• Why did the Hundred Years War last so long?
• What was at stake in the Hundred Years War?
• Was chivalry anything other than a literary phenomenon in the later middle ages?
• How did chivalry shape conduct during the Hundred Years War?
• According to Chandos Herald, what characteristics did the ‘perfect’ knight possess in the late middle ages? Were his views shared widely?

Cite 

Green, David. “Chandos Herald’s ‘Life of the Black Prince,” Middle Ages for Educators, April 21, 2020. Accessed [date]. https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/chandos-herald%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98life-black-prince%E2%80%99