Ivanhoe and Romance

I've been reading Ivanhoe during Christmas Break. It is a romance, which does not mean that it has a cover with a scantily clad woman being swept into the arms of a loosely-dressed but obviously very muscular man (which is what we see most in Barnes and Noble or the checkout of Bi-Lo).
Instead, a literary romance refers to an adventure story typically set in medieval times with knights, castles, ladies, jousting, and chivalry. There's not much of that left in our modern notion of romance. Romance is typically highly-idealized. It does not often deal with the realities of life but instead focuses on the high ideals of society, in the form of chivalry. Chivalry is a term used to describe, loosely, the code of behavior practiced by knights and lords under the system of feudalism.
Sir Walter Scott is said to have revived the art form in the nineteenth century with his Waverly novels, of which Ivanhoe may be the most famous (but there is also Rob Roy). Scott wrote a great tale of love, honor, and duty and set it in one of the most turbulent times of merry old England: the reign of Richard the Lion-Hearted. Richard is away, but may be on his way home and his brother Prince John is acting as regent. The major conflict is between the favored Normans and the oppressed Saxons. Racism is a major theme of this novel and it is interesting how Scott makes it play out. While Normans are guilty of racism toward the Saxons, both are guilty of the same thing toward the Jews represented in the novel.
As I read more, I'll post some entries on the way these themes work out.