INTRODUCTION

A possibly English plaque of around 1300 in the form of a charging knight. His helm is adorned with an antler crest, which is repeated on the head of his caparisoned warhorse. He wears ailettes (flat pieces of wood, leather or parchment, that would have been decorated with his coat-of-arms) on his shoulders and his sword is acutely pointed to burst through mail links. (Metropolitan Museum, New York/Public Domain)

The years between 1200 and 1500 saw the flowering of the chivalrous knight, before his ultimate demise in the century that followed. It is the period that embraced both the ideals of chivalry as we think of them today and also the image of the knight in shining armour. Early knights were basically fighting men, but during the 12th century this attitude had been somewhat compromised and the modification of ‘chivalry’ from being a word simply denoting horsemanship, to include the attitude of respect for women and protection of the church and the weak – however idealistic – was under way. The church had for centuries attempted to rein in the knightly predilection to fight; now it used its influence to direct knightly aggression to its own ends in the crusades. Apart perhaps from the Third Crusade in which Richard I (the Lionheart) had been a leader, England had not notably participated in these adventures. In the 12th century, the cult of the Virgin Mary saw a great upsurge in popularity, especially in France, partly because of the writings of theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux. At the same time the south of France had spawned the troubadours, who sang of unrequited love for high-born ladies. Such sentiments slowly moved north to the slightly less sentimental trouvères, being also adapted by the minnesingers in the German lands. There also arose the great romances of literature, with the magical tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table being especially popular in England.

Thus, as the 13th century began, English knights were embracing a more civilized regime than perhaps did those who had crossed the sea with William the Conqueror in 1066. Many who had fought under William and been rewarded with estates were joined later by other men who had come over in the wake of the Conquest, eager to find new opportunities in England. Their language was generally French, the language of chivalry; English was the tongue of the conquered, yet it had persisted because of the large number of natives who continued to speak it. English nannies, servants and stewards passed it on as they communicated with their new masters on their country estates, where other French speakers would often be limited in number. Already in the 12th century, Benedictine monk and chronicler Orderic Vitalis had noticed that, among freemen, it was difficult to tell French from English in the conquered land. Essentially, as early as Stephen’s reign (1135–54), the struggles between the king and Empress Matilda had meant knights had to choose whether to base themselves and their holdings in England or Normandy; the loss of the latter to the French king in 1204 had accelerated such decisions. Growing up in England, the knights were increasingly more likely to acquire French than to have it as their first language. By the end of the century, Edward I could charge the King of France with threatening ‘to wipe out the English tongue’. As the French spoken in England began to decline in quality, the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) sealed its doom as the main tongue of English lords.

The effigy of William Longespée in Salisbury Cathedral, dated around 1230–40, is the earliest surviving English military effigy, though restored in the 19th century. Note the lace threaded through the mail links to keep the coif in place; the shape of the latter suggests a padded arming cap beneath designed for a helm. (TopFoto)

This romanticized depiction of the effigy of Sir Richard Vernon (d.1451) in Tong church, Shropshire, demonstrates the abiding interest in chivalry in the 19th century. The figure shows the transition of armour from mail to full plate and includes a richly jewelled cloth orle circling his basinet, while his head reclines on his crested jousting helm. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Despite the change in language among knights in England, their very status would form a bond between such warriors from all over Europe, men who shared the same sort of privileged existence, who understood chivalry, armour, weapons and horses, who had learned poetry, romances and good manners, had coats-of-arms and took part in tournaments. They knew they were set apart from others, yet English knighthood was not as elitist as, for example, the French equivalent. At the great battles of the 14th and 15th centuries, dismounted knights stood side by side with free-born longbowmen. Their society was dissimilar from that in German lands where initially there were still serf knights called ministeriales; it differed too from that in Italy, with its long tradition of urban centres harking back to the Roman past, where knights were more relegated to the countryside. English knights took their place in the shire courts and, during the 13th century, in the new parliament in London. Occasionally men from very different backgrounds became knights. Some individuals clever enough to obtain positions in the government or in trade, including some from free peasant backgrounds, attained enough status to be knighted. As the emphasis changed from landed to monetary wealth in the 15th century, so more people were able to enter the ranks of chivalry.

It would be wrong to suppose that England teemed with knights: compared to the population as a whole, or indeed to the other soldiers in any army, their numbers were usually small. The 5,000 of suitable rank under Henry II (1154–89) had shrunk to about 1,500 by 1300. Knights served in various ways. The feudal system had come to England with the Norman conquerors, hand in hand with the castle and knighthood. Forty days’ service to the king or lord each year, in return for land, formed one aspect of the system but some knights also served in their master’s households where necessary, being fed and sheltered by him in return for immediate service. The 13th century saw all this begin to change in England with the appearance of contracts, an answer to the problem of providing professional armies to fight abroad; during the next century this became usual.

There were plenty of opportunities to fight in order to gain ransoms and win renown. The struggle between King John and his barons, then between Henry III and Simon de Montfort, provided work for the knight during the 13th century. Henry’s son, Edward I, waged war against the Welsh, followed by the Scots. As the century turned, victories were won north of the border, but a great defeat was suffered at Bannockburn in 1314 under Edward II. When order was restored under his son, Edward III, English knights found themselves entering the Hundred Years’ War, at first winning great victories alongside their archers in France and even Spain. Gradually the French changed their strategy and the victories dried up until, following the English defeat at Castillon in 1453, English forces left France. They would return in the next century under the Tudors, with varying but frequently short-lived success. Meanwhile the knights fell upon one another at home in the Wars of the Roses, where ransoms were often forgotten as families settled old scores, only ending in 1485 when Henry Tudor took the crown after Bosworth.

Fully armed for war, the knight of 1500 was far removed from his predecessor of 1200. The interlinked mail that covered a man from head to toe was gradually replaced during the age of transition – the 14th century – so that by the dawning of the 15th century the knight in shining armour of plates had emerged, his armour designed to furnish a hard, glancing surface against arrows, weapon edges and points. Further fine-tuning of designs would see national styles develop as great centres arose to furnish harnesses of the finest quality. The sword, though now modified from a cutting weapon to one able to thrust through armour, was still the main knightly weapon and never really lost its symbolism. It was a major part of the knighting ceremony, when it was belted around the recipient. Some magnificent blades testified to many hours in the forging process.

Added to the rising cost of armour and weapons, a knight had to have his horse, the cheval, from which came ‘chivalry’. Increasingly knights owned several mounts, for riding, war and perhaps tournament, as well as pack animals and horses for squires and followers. Warhorses were specially trained and well-bred, sometimes extremely expensive animals. Even when knights dismounted for combat their horses were a necessity for the pursuit and, in peacetime, as a badge of rank. Squires or valets were needed to help a man arm, especially when plate armour was worn. The cost of maintaining all these men, animals and equipment was a serious consideration for those wishing to take up knighthood.

The idea of young men serving apprenticeships as pages, then squires, until knighthood was bestowed, was commonplace throughout Europe. Before the 13th century the status of the squire is less clear-cut; many seem to have simply been servants, while others were of noble birth and destined for knighthood. Eligible squires increasingly avoided knighthood because of the expense (not least of the knighting ceremony itself) and the burdens of duties they would be expected to perform. Only knights could lead troops, however, and the situation became so bad in England that, especially in the 13th and 14th centuries, kings forced eligible squires to be knighted, a practice called ‘distraint’. Some squires never took up the rank, though knighting before a battle, commonest in the 14th and 15th centuries, had several advantages for the recipient, namely a lack of expensive ceremony, better pay and an improved chance of being taken for ransom rather than being killed out of hand.

The adjunct to the knight, his castle, was certainly not something all could afford. A great lord might hold several, one of which would form the centre of his honour – his power base – but others had a more modest stronghold or were simply their manor house. Many knights found that war was too risky a business and preferred to live their lives more peaceably, sending others to do their service in the commutation known as ‘scutage’, first recorded in the 12th century. By contrast some men loved war as a way to make their fortune. If war and ransoms were not available in English armies, knights hired out their services elsewhere as mercenaries. England was never a noted supplier of hired soldiers, as was for example Brabant in the Low Countries, but English knights might be seen in any European hotspot. They assisted the Teutonic Knights in their struggles in Eastern Europe to Christianize the Slav peoples; others, such as Sir John Hawkwood, who became leader of the mercenary White Company in 1364, journeyed to Italy to seek their fortune in the wars between the despots. The theatres of war reeled off by Chaucer in the description of his ‘perfect’ Knight in The Canterbury Tales should be remembered.

An alternative to war was the tournament, a useful theatre for battle training. Originally thought of as potential hotbeds of revolt, once that fear receded, tournaments became increasingly magnificent. The lists, having evolved to become an enclosed arena rather than the great tracts of countryside previously allotted, would witness elaborate spectacles laid on by princes and great lords to enhance their own image. In the 12th century, at the earliest tournaments, many knights attended in hope of finding a lord or winning fortunes by capturing opponents for ransom; however, over time the spectacle increasingly became the most important part. Rich costumes and imaginative settings brought out the theatrical side of the knight; literary themes increasingly pervaded the scene, as knights entered the lists attired as legendary or mythical heroes. Together with this world of wonderment came more use of the spoken word, as speeches were made to complete the fantasy.

The age of the knight drew to a close in the 16th century, although in many ways the decline had begun at least a century earlier. The rise of large professional infantry armies, the depredations of bow, crossbow and pike, plus the advent of firearms, all signalled the end of the mounted noble as the arbiter of the battlefield. Even the castle – that most visible representation of the knight’s presence – entered its descent phase, made strategically redundant by cannon and a host of social factors. There were some final flourishes in knightly armour and chivalric culture during the Tudor period, but the knight’s heyday was over.

Yet it is notable how the medieval knight endures fairly effortlessly to this day in popular culture, appearing frequently in modern cinematic and literary presentations, albeit with varying degrees of fantasy and reality. The fusion of noble character and ferocity at arms remains, rightly or wrongly, psychologically compelling. Perhaps for our complex time, the knight represents a perfect heroic model, without jagged or jaded edges. It is largely the knight’s chivalric connotations that have imposed this filter; the rose-tinted vision often masks gritty and far from ethical behaviour on campaign, although there do appear to have been some genuinely pious warriors. What is undeniable, however, is that the medieval knight provides a unique window into a time utterly different from our own, and for that reason alone he remains compelling.