Homage in the Twelfth Century Facing p. 156
Costume of a Nobleman (Thirteenth Century) Page 177
A Teacher Holding a Ferule in His Hand " 180
Maneuvering with a Lance in the Thirteenth Century " 185
A Knight at the End of the Thirteenth Century " 190
German Helmets of the Thirteenth Century " 192
A Tournament in the Twelfth Century Facing p. 214
Attack on a Wall with the Aid of the Sap " 239
A Marriage in the Thirteenth Century " 266
A Thirteenth-century Burial Scene Page 284
A Group of Priests (Thirteenth Century) " 287
A Shrine in the Form of an Altar (Thirteenth Century) in the Cathedral at Rheims " 299
View of an Abbey of the Thirteenth Century Page 313
The Galleries of the Cloister of the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel (Thirteenth Century) " 316
The Refectory at the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel (Thirteenth Century) " 318
A Benedictine Monk (Thirteenth Century) " 320
A Piece of Furniture Serving as a Seat and a Reading Desk " 335
A Fair in Champagne in the Thirteenth Century Facing p. 366
Episcopal Throne of the Thirteenth Century " 374
Notre Dame and the Bishop's Palace at the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century " 395
Thirteenth-century Window in the Cathedral of Chartres, Representing Saint Christopher Carrying Christ " 400
This book describes the life of the Feudal Ages in terms of the concrete. The discussions center around a certain seigneury of St. Aliquis. If no such barony is easily identifiable, at least there were several hundred second-grade fiefs scattered over western Christendom which were in essential particulars extremely like it, and its Baron Conon and his associates were typical of many similar individuals, a little worse or a little better, who abounded in the days of Philip Augustus.
No custom is described which does not seem fairly characteristic of the general period. To focus the picture a specific region, northern France, and a specific year, A.D. 1220, have been selected. Not many matters have been mentioned, however, which were not more or less common to contemporaneous England and Germany; nor have many usages been explained which would not frequently have been found as early as A.D. 1100 or as late as 1300.
Northern France was _par excellence_ the homeland of Feudalism and hardly less so of Chivalry, while by general consent the years around 1220 mark one of the great turning epochs of the Middle Ages. We are at the time of the development of French kingship under Philip Augustus, of the climax and the beginning of the waning of the crusading spirit, of the highest development of Gothic architecture, of the full blossoming of the popular Romance literature, and of the beginning of the entirely dissimilar, but even more important, Friar movement.