This is a book that I had been sitting on, and which was silently sleeping for over ten years or so. I finally decided to get together and put it out in the world. The book is called, “Warrior Codes: Bushido and Chivalry”, and is an exploration of the different modes of the warrior class. To me, it is completely fascinating how two different cultures could generate, basically at the same time in their respective histories, a class of warriors that govern themselves through a “cod of behaviour”. There are differences for sure, but there are some striking similarities as well that are worthy of exploration.
Further to the historical acknowledgement that there are these two synchronous societal developments, as someone who is interested in how they are represented in literature it was wonderful to study how these codes are reflected and projected through the lenses of literature. I chose the Tale of the Heike as a representative text of Japanese medieval literature, and the story of Yvain, by Chretien de Troyes.
If you are interested to read about this, please feel free to get the Kindle version through amazon. Available through fine Internet connections everywhere. There is quite a bit of scholarship on both samurai and chivalric culture respectively, but there is very little in the spaces between. This is my very small contribution to that field of study.