From Knights to Captains

Download or read book From Knights to Captains written by Benjamin Lukas and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1490s into the 1630s, French military literature saw a transformation in the representation of French noblemen at war. Depictions of noblemen shifted from medieval knightly images to more modern militaristic ones of noblemen as captains. This alteration in the representation of nobility reflected not only changes in the nomenclature and the role of the nobility in combat, but also alterations in the relationships between nobility, masculinity, and martial violence in French society. At the beginning of this period, chivalric imagery and language played an important role in shaping representations of nobility. Authors portrayed noblemen as knights, with stories of noblemen competing in tournaments and fighting in single combat during battles. These images perpetuated chivalric ties between nobility, masculinity, and warfare. However, an alternative representation of noblemen as captains rather than knights was beginning to rise in prominence, even in these sources. As the trope of the French captain developed, it held on to some aspects of chivalric values and imagery but also adjusted these values to suit the specific martial conditions of the sixteenth century. This shift in representation demonstrates how the Military Revolution - with its expansion of warfare and early development of standing armies - altered how authors of sixteenth-century military literature represented gender norms for their community. The image of the French captain retained elements of chivalric ideals, but authors reimagined them to suit the nobility's new primary role as officers in the kingdom's army. The captain replaced the knight as the standard representation of a nobleman at war, altering the gender norms of noblemen in combat.