The Book of Geoffroi de Charny: With the Livre Charny

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The poem known as Livre Charny , by Geoffroi de Charny, has never been published. It has been overshadowed by the other work attributed to him, Livre de Chevalerie . Nigel Bryant's brilliant new translation of this long-neglected poem, based on a hitherto overlooked original Charny manuscript housed in Oxford, vividly conveys Charny's self-deprecating and extraordinarily down-to-earth attitudes towards the knightly career. Charny is surprisingly blunt in his blunt descriptions of the mishaps and mortal dangers to be expected, from losing in a tournament, to homesickness on crusade, to being concussed whilst attempting to scale an enemy tower. Nothing else quite like it is to be found in medieval literature. Ian Wilson's introduction provides a markedly revised understanding of Charny's career as serving soldier, crusader, councillor, and finally royal standard-bearer: he was killed at Poitiers in 1356. Most importantly, as Bryant and Wilson argue, Charny's Book is so different in style from the Book of Chivalry that it is highly unlikely that the latter was composed by the Charny who died in 1356. The Book of Chivalry is found in two grand manuscripts with Charny's incomplete set of questions on chivalric matters, now at Oxford or Madrid, neither of which contain Charny's Book. Instead - and inevitably of moment to many a chivalry specialist - The Book of Chivalry is arguably a work of the 1380s composed by Charny's son of the same name, possibly as a kind of memorial to his heroic father.