Resumen de Chivalric entertainment at the court of Henry Iv: The Jousting Letters of 1401

Sarah Carpenter, Meg Twycross, Philip Bennett

• This greeting opens the first of a series of vivid imaginative letters initiating jousts for the 1401 New Year’s Day celebrations at Eltham Palace. The combats proposed formed part of the spectacular Christmas entertainment offered by Henry IV to the visiting Emperor of Byzantium, Manuel II Palaeologus. The thirteen letters are miniature fictions, written in the court language of Insular French, acting in some sense as a script and storybook for the performance; they not only help us to understand what was staged, but also give insight into some of the complex ways in which chivalric performance could be deployed...