65 pages • 2 hours read
E.H. GombrichA Little History of the World
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 1936A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “Chivalrous Knights”
Gombrich begins his chapter on the Age of Chivalry by acknowledging that the reader has likely heard many wonderful tales about brave knights and damsels and says that “the best thing is that all of it really existed” (137). This era came about around the year 1000 and flourished for centuries in Germany, England, and particularly France. Gombrich begins his description of knighthood by first describing the fortresses that held them, built by peasants on hills or cliffs, surrounded by moats. He then explains how one would become a knight. The son of a knight would be sent as a child to another castle as a page and would become a squire to a knight at 14. If successful in his training, he would be dubbed a knight at 21 in a solemn and sacred ceremony. Gombrich suggests that the ritual and solemnity of knighthood made them not just soldiers, but also members of an order, like monks: “A monk served God through prayers and good works and a knight served God through his strength” (140).
Gombrich then turns to describe what chivalry, or behavior befitting a knight, would entail. One important aspect of chivalry was the defense of women. Knights battled in their honor and obeyed their whims out of respect. Jousting tournaments were also an important element of chivalry in peacetime. Gombrich reminds the reader that a knight’s ultimate obligation as protector, however, was to Christendom. He then introduces the Crusades, a campaign initiated in 1096 by the pope to rescue Jerusalem from Arabic rule. The Christian knights, known as crusaders, were victorious, but once they entered the Holy City, they massacred Muslims, discarding their Christian and chivalric ideals. Now that they had founded a Christian Jerusalem, it needed to be defended, and knights back home in England, France, and Germany were constantly on crusade there, largely unsuccessfully. Gombrich denounces the behavior of these supposedly chivalrous knights and says that the only good thing to come out of the Crusades was the discovery of Arab culture. What they had learned of the Greeks and Romans in their conquest was now brought back to Europe.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Emperors in the Age of Chivalry”
During this Age of Chivalry, the Hohenstaufen family, a family of knights, ruled Germany. One of them was Emperor Frederick I. Here, Gombrich digresses to discuss the use of currency. In rural areas, money was not in circulation because bartering was sufficient to meet the needs of the population. In cities, where trades were numerous and specialized, a kind of universal currency was necessary. Thus, in Germany, where there were very few cities, there was very little money. In Italy, money had been used since Roman times. The merchants in the cities of Italy flourished through trade. They were not serfs or lords but their own masters, whose fortunes were built on their business ventures.
Frederick I, as Holy Roman Emperor, wanted to supplement his power by collecting taxes from these wealthy Italian vassals, who were reluctant to obey any ruler. He joined the Third Crusade in 1189 and drowned on his way to Jerusalem. His grandson, Frederick II, eventually succeeded him. Now, the pope and the emperor once again became locked in conflict over power. The pope wanted Frederick II to undertake a Crusade and win back Jerusalem. Instead, Frederick simply negotiated free passage to the Holy Sepulcher through diplomacy. The pope grew concerned that Frederick II had become too friendly with the Arabs. Frederick, undeterred, crowned himself King of Jerusalem. For all of his ambitions, he died in 1250, and with him both the Age of Chivalry and the reign of the Hohenstaufens ended.
During this period, a new horde from the East had arrived, the Mongols. They were able to breach the Great Wall of China, and after they conquered China and Persia, they took Hungary and Poland. In 1241, they reached Germany. It was then, when they were the largest empire the world had known, that their ruler Genghis Khan died, and his armies retreated back east. In 1273, the princes of Germany elected a knight from the castle Habsburg in Switzerland named Rudolf as their king. He went to war with the king of Bohemia, taking Austria, which he then gave to his sons, forming the base of the Habsburg family’s influence.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Cities and Citizens”
This chapter begins by describing city life and infrastructure during the turn of the 14th century. Between the time of Frederick I and the death of Rudolf I, Germany had transformed from a rural country to a state with trading relationships, currency, and merchants, like Italy. Those who traded in the markets of cities were not bound to any land or its owner, other than the king, giving a sense of greater freedom. Craftsmen belonged to groups of their fellow artisans called guilds. Gombrich describes the process of becoming a master craftsman as being quite similar to knighthood. One first became an apprentice, then a journeyman, and finally a master. Like knights, guilds had codes of honor and a sense of responsibility to God. Craftsmen and wealthy merchants built enormous churches in their towns, where citizens would gather. Gombrich contrasts this Christian obligation with the treatment, in these same cities, of Jews, who were restricted to trading professions and were often beaten and robbed.
Here, the chapter departs from its description of city life and details the circumstances of the Hundred Years’ War. By 1300, France had the most powerful sovereigns of Europe. In 1066, the Normans had taken over the English crown, technically making England a vassal of the French king. When the French had no heir, the English claimed a right to both France and England. The war between the French and the English began in 1337 and spanned more than 100 years. When the English seemed close to victory, a French shepherdess named Joan of Arc convinced the French to let her lead an army. She felt she had been compelled by God to drive back the English, and she succeeded. As revenge, the English captured her and burned her at the stake for witchcraft in 1431.
Gombrich concludes the chapter by explaining that despite the ongoing war, this was a prosperous period in Europe. Reading had become common, and people traveled across Europe to study at universities. In Germany, power had become decentralized, and princes ruled their regions independently, with the emperor ruling from Prague as the most powerful among them.
Chapters 23-25 Analysis
In these chapters, Gombrich tackles the immense task of describing not only the Age of Chivalry as a cultural and social phenomenon, but also the vast political and economic changes occurring contemporaneously. He builds a clear and concise connection between these factors by comparing the process of becoming a knight to the process of becoming a master artisan. However, over these three chapters, he also poses these two roles as incongruous, as the rigid feudal system that allowed for a class of knights was rendered increasingly irrelevant by the emergence of the mercantile class. Gombrich describes, in simple terms, how the growth of cities and specialized trade resulted in the need for a universal type of currency. He acknowledges how the use of money as a means of exchange is foundational to his audience and playfully challenges their conception of currency as a necessity: “Try eating a coin” (137).
In his description of chivalry and the role of knights in court, Gombrich provides a detailed picture of how knights were expected to behave and suggests that the fantastical legends of knights and damsels not only are based in a magnificent reality, but also are unable to accurately depict just how magnificent chivalry was. Addressing the reader, he says that if you still feel compelled to open the door for a woman, it is because the influence of this period has remained (140).
Nevertheless, he contrasts his enthusiasm and fondness for the age of chivalrous knights with reminders of its shortcomings. Gombrich asks that, if you ever see the knight’s castles that still stand today, you think not of the knights, but of the builders: “spare a thought for […] peasant serfs, men deprived of liberty—bondsmen, as they were called. For it was they who had to split and carry the rocks, haul them up and pile them on top of each other” (139). He also characterizes the Crusades as a hypocritical, shameful exploit of the so-called Christian knights.
