The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
The Sword in the Stone is a 1938 novel by British writer T. H. White. First published by Collins in the United Kingdom as a stand-alone work, it later became the first part of a tetralogy, The Once and Future King. A fantasy of the boyhood of King Arthur, it is a sui generis work which combines elements of legend, history, fantasy, and comedy. Walt Disney Productions adapted the story to an animated film, and the BBC adapted it to radio.
Jousting is a medieval and renaissance martial game or hastilude between two combatants either on horse or on foot. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism.
"The Knight's Tale" is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
A tournament, or tourney, was a chivalrous competition or mock fight in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and is a type of hastilude. Tournaments included mêlée, hand-to-hand combat, contests of strength, accuracy, and sometimes jousts. Although some thought that the tournaments were a threat to public order, the shows were still often held to celebrate coronations, marriages of notable figures, births, recent conquests, peace treatises; to welcome those considered of great importance, such as ambassadors and lords; or for no particular reason at all, and simply for entertainment. Certain tournaments are depicted throughout the Codex Manesse.
In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight.
Jabberwocky is a 1977 British fantasy comedy film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam. Jabberwocky stars Michael Palin as Dennis, a cooper's apprentice, who is forced through clumsy, often slapstick misfortunes to hunt a terrible dragon after the death of his father. The film's title is taken from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871).
"The Squire's Tale" is a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It is unfinished, because it is interrupted by the next story-teller, the Franklin, who then continues with his own prologue and tale. The Squire is the Knight's son, a novice warrior and lover with more enthusiasm than experience. His tale is an epic romance, which, if completed, would probably have been longer than rest of the Tales combined. It contains many literary allusions and vivid descriptions.
Sir Lionel is the younger son of King Bors of Gaunnes and Evaine and brother of Bors the Younger in Arthurian legend since the Lancelot-Grail cycle. He is a double cousin of Lancelot and cousin of Lancelot's younger half-brother Hector de Maris. He later became the subject of one of the famous Child Ballads (#18).
The White Company is a historical adventure by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, set during the Hundred Years' War. The story is set in England, France and Spain, in the years 1366 and 1367, against the background of the campaign of Edward the Black Prince, to restore Peter of Castile to the throne of the Kingdom of Castile. The climax of the book occurs before the Battle of Nájera. Doyle became inspired to write the novel after attending a lecture on the Middle Ages in 1889. After extensive research, The White Company was published in serialised form in 1891 in The Cornhill Magazine. Additionally, the book is considered a companion to Doyle's 1905–06 Sir Nigel, which explores the early campaigns of Sir Nigel Loring and Samkin Aylward.
Ulrich von Liechtenstein was a German minnesinger and poet of the Middle Ages. He wrote poetry in Middle High German and was author of noted works about how knights and nobles may lead more virtuous lives. Ulrich was a member of a wealthy and influential ministerialis family from Liechtenstein in Styria. He was born about 1200 at Murau in the Duchy of Styria, located in the present-day country of Austria.
A pauldron is a component of plate armor that evolved from spaulders in the 15th century. As with spaulders, pauldrons cover the shoulder area. Pauldrons tend to be larger than spaulders, covering the armpit, and sometimes parts of the back and chest. A pauldron typically consists of a single large dome-shaped piece to cover the shoulder with multiple lames attached to it to defend the arm and upper shoulder. On some suits of armour, especially those of Italian design, the pauldrons would usually be asymmetrical, with one pauldron covering less and sporting a cut-away to make room for a lance rest.
The Sword in the Stone is a 1963 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney and released by Buena Vista Distribution. It is based on the novel of the same name by T. H. White, first published in 1938 and then revised and republished in 1958 as the first book of White's Arthurian tetralogy The Once and Future King. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, the film features the voices of Rickie Sorensen, Karl Swenson, Junius Matthews, Sebastian Cabot, Norman Alden, and Martha Wentworth. It was the last animated film from Walt Disney Productions to be released in Walt Disney's lifetime.
The Black Shield of Falworth is a 1954 American Technicolor film from Universal-International, produced by Robert Arthur and Melville Tucker and directed by Rudolph Maté. It stars Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, David Farrar, Herbert Marshall, and Torin Thatcher. The screenplay, set in Medieval England, was adapted by Oscar Brodney and is based on Howard Pyle's 1891 novel Men of Iron. The original music score was composed by Hans J. Salter although his name does not appear in the screen credits. The only musical notation is given as: "Music Supervision by Joseph Gershenson". Made Universal's music department head in 1940, Gershenson's name appeared on nearly every film made by that studio from 1949-1969.
Sir Nigel is a historical novel set during the early phase of the Hundred Years' War, spanning the years 1350 to 1356. It was written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in serial form during 1905–06 where it was illustrated by Joseph Clement Coll. It was illustrated by The Kinneys and Arthur Twidle in its book editions. It is the background story to Doyle's earlier novel The White Company (1891), and describes the early life of that book's hero, Nigel Loring, a knight in the service of King Edward III in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War. The character is loosely based on the historical knight Neil Loring.
The Accession Day tilts were a series of elaborate festivities held annually at the court of Elizabeth I of England to celebrate her Accession Day, 17 November, also known as Queen's Day. The tilts combined theatrical elements with jousting, in which Elizabeth's courtiers competed to outdo each other in allegorical armour and costume, poetry, and pageantry to exalt the queen and her realm of England.
Ipomadon is a Middle English translation of Hugh of Rhuddlan's Anglo-Norman romance Ipomedon composed in tail-rhyme verse, possibly in the last decade of the fourteenth century. It is one of three Middle English renditions of Hugh's work: the other two are a shorter verse Lyfe of Ipomydon and the prose Ipomedon, both of the fifteenth century. Each version is derived independently from the Anglo-Norman Ipomedon, which Hugh wrote 'not long after 1180', possibly in Herefordshire. It is included in a list of the popular English romances by Richard Hyrde in the 1520s.
Sir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval (Percival), first appeared in medieval literature in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the 12th-century Old French Conte del Graal, well over one hundred years before the composition of this work. Sir Perceval of Galles was probably written in the northeast Midlands of England in the early 14th century, and tells a markedly different story to either Chretien's tale or to Robert de Boron's early 13th-century Perceval. Found in only a single manuscript, and told with a comic liveliness, it omits any mention of a graal or a Grail.
Sir Ector, sometimes Hector, Antor, or Ectorius, is the father of Sir Kay and the adoptive father of King Arthur in the Matter of Britain. Sometimes portrayed as a king instead of merely a lord, he has an estate in the country as well as properties in London.
The Squire is a fictional character in the framing narrative of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He is squire to the Knight and is the narrator of The Squire's Tale or Cambuscan. The Squire is one of the secular pilgrims, of the military group. The Knight and the Squire are the pilgrims with the highest social status. However his tale, interrupted as it is, is paired with that of the Franklin. The Squire is a candidate for the interrupter of The Host in the epilogue of the Man of Law's Tale.
