The origins of courtliness : civilizing trends and the formation of courtly ideals, 939-1210 /

Jaeger (German, Bryn Mawr) has produced an erudite, clearly and directly written study of the impact of educational and episcopal influences on the development of courtly ideals. His brilliant work seeks and finds the generative forces of medieval courtly traditions in classical Rome, thus bringing courtliness within the rubric of Haskin's 12th-century Renaissance. Jaeger's book concentrates on the German experience rather than on the French; he persuades readers that imperial curiales, their education and experience, form the nexus of the chivalric code of the fuedal nobility. Jaeger's command of the sources is ``awesome''; there is little relevant to his story that he has not read, although the leap from 10th and 11th-century sources to Castiglione (Book of the Courtier, 1561) is somewhat troubling. There are no other English-language works with which to compare this book-it is sui generis, an original and important contribution to medieval studies. The bibliography is exhaustive for German, English, and Latin sources, and the book is beautifully produced. Most highly recommended for all libraries serving the intellectually curious as well as the serious student of the European past.-J.W. Alexander, University of Georgia