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Rachel
Ann Dressler.
Of Armor and Men in
Medieval England: The Chivalric Rhetoric of Three English Knights'
Effigies.
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
202pp; 3 colour, 68 b&w illustrations.
Hardback.
ISBN 0754633683.
Publisher's
recommended price $79.95/£45.00
Despite
the profusion of knightly effigies created between c. 1240 and c. 1330
for tombs throughout the British Isles, these commemorative figures are
relatively unknown to art historians and medievalists. Until now,
their rich visual impact and significance has been relatively
unexplored by scholars. In this study, Rachel Dressler examines
this category of sculpture, illustrating how English military figures
employ a visual language of pose, costume, and attributes to construct
a masculine ideal that privileges fighting prowess, elite status, and
sexual virility.
Like
military figures on the Continent, English effigies represent
knights wearing chain mail and surcoats, and bearing shields and
swords; unique to the British examples, however, is the display of an
aggressive sword handling pose and dynamically crossed legs.
Outwardly hyper masculine, the carved figures partake in artistic
subterfuge: the lives of those memorialized did not always match
proffered images, testifying to the changing function of the knight in
England during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
This study traces the development of English military figures, and
analyzes in detail three fourteenth-century examples-those
commemorating Robert I De Vere in Hatfield Broad Oak (Essex), Richard
Gyvernay at Limington (Somerset), and Henry Allard in Winchelsea
(Sussex). Similar in appearance, these three sculptures represent
persons of distinctly different social levels: De Vere belonged
to the highest aristocratic rank, where Gyvernay was a lesser county
knight, and Allard was from a merchant family, raising questions about
his knightly standing.
Ultimately, Dressler's
analysis of English knight effigies demonstrates
that the masculine warrior during the late Middle Ages was frequently a
constructed ideal rather than a lived experience.
Contents: Introduction; Overview of the English military effigy; The
men behind the stones; The knight's resurrected body; The knight's
social body; The knight's gendered body; Conclusion; Appendices;
Bibliography; Index.
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