ABSTRACT
The military manuals written and translated in fifteenth-century England thus present a wide variety of attitudes toward war. All of diem agree with Flavius Vegetius, their major source, regarding the importance of military training and the value of soldiers to the state. He states that his main sources are Cato the Elder, Cornelius Celsus, Paternus, Frontinus, and the regulations of Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian. The author of Knyghthode and Bataile, a verse paraphrase of Vegetius written between 1457 and 1460, was inspired by the strife and turmoil of the Wars of the Roses, He was a patriotic parson of Calais and a faithful supporter of King Henry VI. In Knyghthode and Bataile, the imperialism and nationalism of Vegetius are thus transformed into a new kind of English nationalism. The poet wants to improve the performance of knights so that they can defend the realm and crush rebellion.
