Blackwell Reference Online

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Medieval aristocrats were fundamentally social animals. I mean not merely that aristocrats lived in groups, but rather that their lives, their social and individual identities, and, in many cases, their sociopolitical fortunes were largely defined, shaped, and revised through social interactions, particularly with other aristocrats.If such comments seem true on a basic level, it would nevertheless take far more space than is available here to explore each permutation of them. Instead, this study focuses on three contexts in which aristocratic identity, values, and sociopolitical standing were constantly being forged, broken, and reforged. Each context — kinship structures, the social world of court, and normalizing discourses of behavior that we might term chivalry — has produced a significant body of modern scholarship. Not uncoincidentally, each of these three contexts has also been shaped by distinct theoretical axes of analysis deriving at least in part from cross-disciplinary fertilization. This chapter attempts to discuss these three contexts in which aristocratic identity and culture were formed with an eye toward accomplishing three interrelated goals: first, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing literature; secondly, to call attention to the methodological assumptions that underlie each context; and, thirdly, to suggest some profitable future lines of ... log in or subscribe to read full text