Summary
Summary of The White Company
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Learning must lead into action
Alleyne Edricson leaves Beaulieu Abbey because his father's will requires him to spend time in the world beyond it. He can read, copy manuscripts and sing, but ordinary life is unfamiliar to him. With a few coins and some advice, he sets out toward his family's home at Minstead.
The journey begins an education that books alone cannot give him. Among strangers, Alleyne must discover how to be brave, choose friends and stand against a bully without abandoning his honest, gentle nature.
Key idea 2
Friendship crosses rank and learning
Start free to read
Key idea 3
Home offers no safe retreat
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Courtesy can be a strength
Start free to read
Key idea 5
A promise sets them moving
Start free to read
Key idea 6
Trust makes soldiers a company
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Courage needs a steady conscience
Start free to read
Key idea 8
History gives the adventure ground
Start free to read
Key idea 9
Loyalty gives the journey meaning
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love medieval adventure, loyal friends who grow up on the road, and stories of knights and archers. Friendship, courage and the code of chivalry give this journey its heart.
What this book is
The White Company is a historical novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1891. Doyle was already known for Sherlock Holmes, yet he hoped to be remembered for this book. He spent months reading chronicles and old songs so that the fourteenth century would feel solid under the reader's feet. The result is an adventure of roads, inns, castles and battlefields, set in England and France in the years around 1366.
The hero is Alleyne Edricson, a gentle young man who has grown up inside a monastery and knows Latin better than the world. When his twentieth year comes, he must leave the cloister and find his place. Soon he is walking out among farmers, archers, knights and rogues, and he has two unlikely companions at his side, a giant ex-monk and a hardened bowman. Together they follow a tiny, short-sighted knight called Sir Nigel Loring into the Hundred Years War.
You get a warm, funny and exciting story about friendship, courage and the code of knighthood, with the long English bow as a hero in its own right. You also get a clear picture of how people lived, fought and spoke in the age of the Black Prince. Let us begin where Alleyne begins, at the gate of a monastery.
In this summary
- 1A young scholar must leave the monasteryFree
- 2Two rough friends join Alleyne's road
- 3A brother's door stays closed
- 4Sir Nigel Loring, the smallest giant
- 5A lady's challenge sends the knight to war
- 6The archers become the White Company
- 7Honour, brotherhood and the cost of war
- 8The real world behind the adventure
- 9How Doyle tells the tale
Key point 1 of 9
A young scholar must leave the monastery
The story opens at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, where the Cistercian monks have raised Alleyne Edricson since he was a child. He is almost twenty and has studied hard. He can read, copy manuscripts and sing, and he has a quiet, honest nature. What he does not have is any knowledge of ordinary life beyond the abbey walls.
His father left a will with an odd condition. Alleyne may stay with the monks until his twentieth year, and after that he must go out into the world and live there for a time. The abbot does not wish to break the rule, and so the young man is sent away with a few coins, some good advice and a little hope. His family holds land at Minstead, and he has a brother there whom he has hardly known.
The forest outside the gate is full of shadows and strange sounds. Doyle describes the New Forest with real affection, with its oaks, its deer, its charcoal burners and its muddy tracks. Alleyne walks through it with a mind full of scripture and little else. Every stranger is a lesson to him.
The opening scenes also set up the novel's big theme. Alleyne has learned how to pray and how to write, but he has not yet learned how to be brave, how to be a friend, or how to hold his ground against a bully. The book will teach him these things, and not by sermons. It will teach him by the people he meets and the troubles that follow.
So the first key idea is simple. A person is not finished when his schooling ends. Alleyne starts the story as a boy who knows words, and he must become a man who can act on them. The question is who will show him how.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Check yourself
Why must Alleyne leave the monastery?
Right. “Alleyne may stay with the monks until his twentieth year, and after that he must go out into the world and live there for a time.”Not quite. “Alleyne may stay with the monks until his twentieth year, and after that he must go out into the world and live there for a time.”
What turns Sir Nigel's life toward war?
Right. “He promises to perform deeds of arms in honour of his lady, and that he will do them in the great wars of the day.”Not quite. “He promises to perform deeds of arms in honour of his lady, and that he will do them in the great wars of the day.”
What does Alleyne's growth suggest about kindness?
Right. “He does not lose his gentleness, and the story suggests that his kindness is part of his strength.”Not quite. “He does not lose his gentleness, and the story suggests that his kindness is part of his strength.”
Questions about The White Company
What is The White Company about?
It follows Alleyne Edricson, a young man raised in a monastery, who leaves to find his place in the world. He joins Sir Nigel Loring and a band of English archers and goes to fight in the wars in France and Spain.
Is The White Company based on a true story?
It is fiction set against real history. The Hundred Years War, the Black Prince and the French commander Bertrand du Guesclin are real. Doyle published the novel in 1891 and set it in the 1360s.
Who is Sir Nigel Loring?
He is the small, short-sighted, polite knight whom Alleyne serves as squire. He is brave, honest and devoted to the code of chivalry, and he is partly based on a real English knight of the same name.
What does the White Company mean?
It means a band of free soldiers, a kind of hired company common in the fourteenth century. In the book it is built around English longbowmen, and it fights under Sir Nigel's leadership.
Is The White Company hard to read?
No, it is lively and clear. The short chapters, humour and strong characters make it easy to follow and enjoy.
