Chivalry · Chapters

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Chapter companions for Chivalry by James Branch Cabell.

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Chapter 1
Dedication
The author dedicates the book to Anne Branch Cabell, expressing his devotion and obedience to her as his high and noble lady.
Chapter 2
Precautional
The author introduces the volume as a retelling of tales from Messire Nicolas de Caen, a partisan Yorkist and Burgundian chronicler, and discusses the nature of Chivalry as a pragmatic hypothesis and a code of conduct rooted in the idea of vicarship and a tangible, familial relationship with God.
Chapter 3
Chivalry
This chapter, titled 'Chivalry,' presents a dizain des reines, a poetic sequence of ten stanzas each devoted to a queen, exploring themes of love, power, sacrifice, and the complex interplay between illusion and reality within the chivalric code.
Chapter 4
The Prologue
Messire Nicolas de Caen dedicates his book to Isabella of Portugal, Duchess Dowager of Burgundy, explaining his purpose to write of queens and their love affairs. He reflects on the unique burdens of royal women, who must play the game of life on a loftier table, their choices affecting many lives, and invokes the themes of destiny, choice, and the necessity of proving oneself under the gaze of fate.
Chapter 5
The Story of the Sestina
Dame Alianora, Queen of England, seeks out the clerk Osmund Heleigh, a former troubadour who once loved her, to guide her through hostile territory to Bristol after the Barons' War. During their journey, old wounds and illusions are exposed, and Heleigh ultimately sacrifices his life in her cause, dying in a combat with Gui Camoys.

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Dedication

Precautional

Chivalry

The Prologue

The Story of the Sestina