‘Comme Nostre Frere’: Knightly Ritual Brotherhood Reconsidered

Abstract

ABSTRACT Maurice Keen wrote a seminal work on knightly ritual brotherhood, claiming that it was a close relationship between two military men. He primarily discussed it as a legal and commercial enterprise. This article argues that this framework is not productive for examining ritual brotherhood because it does not account for the emotional bond which encouraged men to become ritual brothers. I use brotherhood agreements to explore why and how knights swore brotherhood and what were the conditions of the relationship. Brotherhood agreements provide a broader analytical approach for analysing ritual brotherhood through intimate male friendship, male-male love, and masculinity.