In St Edmund’s Abbey in Suffolk, an inconspicuous monk took up writing one day in the middle of the 12th century.
The majority of the scenes feature a priest dueling with a scholar while sporting the typical “tonsure” haircut and bald patch. Even this is rather unconventional. Many current beliefs about how knights fought are probably untrue. One is the grace with which sword combat was conducted, which was not at all like how they are portrayed on television or even in medieval literature. The code of chivalry, is a set of guidelines for how to conduct oneself honorably in war, in theory, bound knights. And yet, according to Grant, these admirable principles weren’t always upheld, much alone in practice.
