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15th-century France provides a fruitful opportunity for reflecting upon the classic question of the coexistence of war and literature by observing the changing standards within the nobility to define, praise, disseminate and pursue a new model for social success that combined military and literary competencies. Suggested by a moral literature that fairly consistently and critically called upon the instructions to war lords, this phenomenon is first studied from speeches made to soldiers and from the portrait of the good captain presented in military treatises, informed by experience and a knowledge of history whose popularity is confirmed by a study of the libraries of the great officers. We then turn our attention to the literature penned by the nobility which reveals the aristocracy’s own aspirations and how writing – about war, about service to the prince, and in defense of public service careers – then became a structural element of the identity of the warrior-noble.