The Medieval Risk-Reward Society: Courts, Adventure, and Love in the European Middle Ages by Will Hasty (review)

Will Hasty embeds his ambitious, important study of medieval Arthurian literature into an expansive interpretation of European cultural history based in game theory. Chapter One, ‘The Cultural Action’ lays out the book’s theoretical underpinnings in game theory and in the work of the German political philosopher Jürgen Habermas, which are illustrated with a readable, parable-like section, ‘The Race of Four Cities: Troy, Jericho, Rome, and Jerusalem.’ Chapter Two, ‘The Medieval Self as Bankroll,’ uses Augustine’s City of God to frame the new medieval move, offering as illustration lucid, compelling analyses of two of the most difficult episodes in medieval German literature: from Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the immediate, full efficacy of Parzival’s half-brother Feirefiz’s baptism, which he undertakes for the sole purpose of winning a desirable woman; and Isolde’s ordeal as narrated in Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and Isolde.