Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Walter Scott, published in 1819 and set in twelfth-century England during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, following the Saxon knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe, disinherited by his father Cedric for supporting the Norman-aligned Richard and for his love of Cedric's ward Rowena. Returning in disguise from the Crusades, Ivanhoe competes anonymously in a tournament, becomes entangled with the outlaw Robin Hood's band, and helps rescue Rowena and the Jewish moneylender's daughter Rebecca, who has fallen in love with him, from the Norman knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, before Richard's return restores order and Ivanhoe marries Rowena. Scott used the novel to dramatize the centuries-long tension between Saxon and Norman England as a vehicle for exploring chivalry, religious prejudice and national identity, and its version of Robin Hood, King Richard and Norman-Saxon conflict shaped most later popular retellings of medieval England. Enormously popular on publication and translated widely, Ivanhoe is credited with reviving broad public interest in the Middle Ages and medieval romance across nineteenth-century Europe and remains Scott's most widely read novel.