2 EVIDENCE ON CHIVALRY AND ITS INTERPRETATION

OUR investigation can rely in part on the kinds of evidence long used by

historians—chronicles and judicial records, for example. But this book

will draw heavily on the evidence available in the vast body of chivalric literary

texts, a rich source much less frequently (and certainly less comprehensively)

used by historians. It is a species of evidence that can provoke doubts and misgivings.