Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou
By Amy License,
Pen and Sword Books, 256pp, £19.99/$35
During my days as an undergraduate, a professor of history under whom I was studying once summarised the standards of medieval chivalry as “pagan warrior codes with a Christian veneer”. It would be hard to find a summary of any topic at once so brief and so insightful.
If, at least in theory, the society of the Middle Ages recognised the superiority of the priesthood and the religious life over the profession of arms, it was the latter which, at least for all practical purposes, continued to be treated as the highest ideal for the layman – often in ways which led to gratuitously violent practices that directly violated Catholic moral theology and canon law.
