Maurice Keen

Maurice Hugh Keen (born October 30, 1933 in London , † September 11, 2012 ) was a British medieval historian and military historian, known for research on knighthood .

life and work

Keen's father, Harold Hugh Keen, was a Fellow of Balliol College , Oxford and administered the university's finances . Keen attended Winchester College and studied from 1954 in Oxford at Balliol College history, where he befriended Thomas Henry Bingham and John Keegan (whose sister Mary he later married). In 1957 he received his bachelor's degree and in 1961 his master's degree. He was a Junior Research Fellow at Queen's College, Oxford and became a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol College in 1961. From 1974 to 1978 he was Tutor of Admissions there, from 1980 to 1983 Vice-Master and in 2000 he retired.

In 1984 he received the Wolfson History Prize for his book Chivalry (Knighthood). In it he emphasized that the romantic and self-glorifying image of the knight in Thomas Malory and later in the 19th century in Walter Scott did not correspond to reality. A code of conduct had existed since the 12th century, but it was only valid for the way knights dealt with one another and served them (and those who were promoted to the knighthood) as a means of social advancement and protected them and their families from the excessive violence customary at the time . In this regard, it was a forerunner of international martial law in Europe in the 12th to 15th centuries, albeit limited to the social group of nobles and knights. The rules of conduct continued to have an effect in civil society, for example in the image of the gentleman and in rules of conduct for officers.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society , the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Academy .

Fonts

• The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, Routledge & K. Paul 1965
• The Pelican History of Medieval Europe, Routledge Kegan & Paul 1968
• England in the Later Middle Ages, London: Methuen 1973, ISBN 0-416-75990-4
• The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, University of Toronto Press, 1978, ISBN 0-8020-1612-X
• Chivalry, Yale University Press, New Haven 1984, ISBN 0-300-03150-5 (and London, The Folio Society 2010)
  • German translation: Das Rittertum, Artemis 1999
• Some Late Medieval Views on Nobility, University of London, 1986, ISBN 0-7187-0760-5
• Nobles, Knights and Men-at-arms in the Middle Ages, Hambledon Continuum, 1996, ISBN 1-85285-087-6
• Medieval Warfare: A History, Oxford University Press 1999
• Origins of the English Gentleman, Stroud: Tempus, 2002, ISBN 0-7524-2558-7
• with Peter Coss (Ed.): Heraldry, pageantry, and social display in medieval England Boydell Press 2002

literature

• Peter Coss, Christopher Tyerman (Eds.): Soldiers, Nobles and Gentlemen: Essays in Honor of Maurice Keen . Boydell & Brewer 2009.

Web links

• Paul Vitello, obituary in the New York Times , September 25, 2012