The Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry

The Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry by Richard C. McCoy examines how the ceremonial culture of Elizabethan chivalry both mediated and exposed tensions at the heart of Tudor politics. Focusing on the careers of the Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney, and the Earl of Essex, McCoy shows how tournaments, tilts, and other courtly performances were more than rituals of devotion to the crown: they became arenas in which aristocratic ambition, militarism, ...