Ivanhoe Study Guide

Walter Scott was the ninth of his parents’ twelve children, only five of whom would survive infancy. A childhood bout of polio seriously sickened Scott, who walked with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life. Scott’s father was a lawyer; by his early teens, Scott had begun both his studies at Edinburgh College and an apprenticeship in his father’s office. Ultimately, he studied law and became a lawyer himself. His literary career began with translating German novels and collecting and editing traditional Scottish ballads. He would begin writing his own original poetry and novels in his mid-30s, around the same time he entered an editorial relationship and business partnership with printer and publisher James Ballantyne. In his 50s, Scott experienced a serious bout of ill health, followed by the bankruptcy of both his publisher  and Ballantyne & Co, the printing firm in which he was also an investing partner. The only member of any of these organizations capable of generating a sizeable income, Scott agreed to take responsibility for not only his personal share of the debt but those of his partners and their companies, a debt of well over £10 million ($13 million) in modern money. Nevertheless, he generated enough income from the six novels, two short stories, two plays, and 11 works of nonfiction he authored between 1826 and his death to pay off the debt in full within seven years. Sadly, Scott died, following a series of strokes, a year before the debt was cleared.

Two main historical contexts inform the action of Ivanhoe, which is set at the end of the 12th century. The political strife between Saxons like Cedric and the (unscrupulous and abusive) Norman aristocracy dates to the Norman Conquest, which took place about a century earlier. In 1066, William the Duke of Normandy invaded England, claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne through his cousin Edward the Confessor. Civil strife between rival English claimants to the throne enabled William and his forces to overthrow English resistance and for William to declare himself king of England, upon which he installed a Norman aristocratic ruling class imported from France. Ivanhoe’s King Richard is William’s great-great-grandson. Only a few decades after the Norman Conquest, Pope Urban II declared the beginning of the First Crusade, a religiously inspired war through which European powers hoped to recapture Jerusalem and areas of Palestine they called the “Holy Land” from Muslim rule. The First Crusade culminated in the capture of Jerusalem and the establishment of a Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. In 1187, the brilliant sultan of Egypt and Syria, Saladin, recaptured Jerusalem, instigating the Third Crusade. European Crusader Armies, led by King Richard I of England, King Philip II of France, and Frederick I, emperor of Germany and Italy, successfully recaptured much of the territory Saladin occupied, but failed to recapture Jerusalem—a failure which Richard and Ivanhoe both lay at the feet of Templar Knights like Sir Brian. Following this embarrassing defeat, King Richard was captured by his enemies and prevented from returning to England until he could raise the necessary funds to pay his ransom.

In the Dedicatory Epistle that begins the novel, Scott acknowledges his debt to the 18th and 19th century historians whose works he consulted for information about life in medieval England, including Robert Henry’s The History of Great Britain from the Invasion of it by the Romans Under Julius Caesar and Sharon Turner’s The History of the Anglo-Saxons from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest. He borrows literary elements from the work of Geoffrey Chaucer; elements of his characterization of Locksley, Prior Aymer, and the Cleric of Copmanhurst seem to borrow from descriptions of the Yeoman and the Monk in the Canterbury Tales. The vivid descriptions of the tournament field and the adventures of King Richard while in disguise as the Black Knight borrow themes and motifs from medieval romances including Richard Coeur de Leon and Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale.” Scott also clearly drew inspiration from the works of William Shakespeare, particularly the plays King John and The Merchant of Venice, the latter of which examines the violent and extortionary treatment experienced by Jewish people in medieval and early modern Europe. Finally, the Dedicatory Epistle places Ivanhoe as a work of historical fiction that uses elements of medieval romance to comment on modern lives and events. A similar but more modern example of a book that uses a quasi-mythical medieval past to comment on modern issues is T.H. White’s 20th-century The Once and Future King.