Cliff Notes Version of a Classic Tale

Sir william marshall was a man of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. He was one of the younger sons of a knight called john marshall, who was fighting in the anarchy between stephen and matilda. Marshall's biography is brilliant because he's such a carismatic and entertaining character. His central moral precept is loyalty. And loyalty is what his entire story over these tens of thousands of old french verse is supposed to make us meditate upon.