Digby, Kenelm Henry, 1800-1880

Kenelm Henry Digby (c. 1797–1880) was an Anglo-Irish writer, whose reputation rests chiefly on his earliest publication, The Broad-Stone of Honour, or Rules for the Gentlemen of England (1822), which contains an exhaustive survey of medieval customs. The work was subsequently enlarged and issued (1828–29) in four volumes, entitled Godefridus, Tancredus, Morus and Orlandus. Digby's exposure to Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe as a youth encouraged him to romanticize the Middle Ages. Broad-Stone contributed to the Young England movement's feudalist ideology and influenced many of Digby's Cambridge contemporaries. The book inculcated in readers ideas of chivalry and staunch Catholicism and stressed the importance of the heart’s knowledge over intellectual learning, presenting historical figures as role models. Digby's revival of medieval principles helped young men of his day construct their idea of what being a "gentleman" means.