Recreates in detail the life of this advisor to the Plantagnets and knight extraordinaire. 'Georges Duby, one of this century's great medieval historians, has brought to life with exceptional brilliance and imagination William Marshal, adviser to the Plantagenets, knight extraordinaire, the flower of chivalry. A marvel of historical reconstruction, William Marshal is based on a biographical poem written in the thirteenth century, and offers an evocation of chivalric life -- the contests and tournaments, the rites of war, the daily details of medieval existence -- unlike any we have ever seen.'An enchanting and profoundly instructive book....Owing in signal part to the imaginative scholarship of Georges Duby, darkness is more and more receding from the Dark Ages.' George Steiner New Yorker 'A small masterpiece of its genre....It is a splendid story and Professor Duby tells it splendidly....Duby has reconstructed a living picture of a particular sector of society at a crucial moment, at