Who Did He Know?

Knowledge of the Past: the Knight of the Tour Landry

Earlier, I gave you a sample of the cultural literacy of two medieval gentlemen. One of them was Chaucer, who was probably unusually well read. I’ve removed him from the mix. What follows is a list is characters from the past, historical, mythical, literary or scriptural, that a moderately educated medieval gentleman, the Knight of the Tour Landry, knew about and wrote about. The Knight of the Tour Landry doesn’t seem to have been exceptionally scholarly.

You shouldn’t conclude that he necessarily read Homer, or even the Bible. He probably drew much of his cultural literacy from anthologies of edifying anecdotes and moral maxims, sermons, and other secondary sources.


The Old Testament
Aaron
Abraham
Absalom
Abigail
Adam
Ahab
Ahaziah
Anna
Ahasuerus
Ammon
Apame
Athiliah
Balaam
Bath-sheba
Ben-ammi
Daniel
David
Deborah
Delilah
Elkkanah
Elishah
Esau
Esther
Eve
Hannah
Haman
Hamor
Isaac
Jacob
Jehosheba
Jehu
Jeroboam
Jezebel
Joab
Job
Joacim
Joseph
Lot
Moses
Mordecai
Naboth
Noah
Onan
Penninah
Pharaoh
Rahab
Rachel
Rebecca
Ruth
Sampson
Sara
Sarah
Solomon
Sennacherib
Sheba, Queen of
Susanna
Tamar
Tamar (daughter of David)
Tobit
Uriah
Vashni
Zacharias
Zarah
Zimri

The Greeks
Helen
Menelaus
Paris
Priam

The Romans
Cato
Cato the Younger
Nero
Sybil, the

The New Testament
Herod, (Three Herods conflated)
Herodias
John the Baptist

Other
Brunhilda