Medieval list of the world’s foremost warriors, designed, with ecumenical symmetry, to honor the three groups felt to have contributed most to the rise of the West. In his preface to Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte D’Arthur (1485), for example, William Caxton wrote: “For it is notoirly known through the universal world that there have been nine worthy and the best that ever were, that is to wit, three Paynims [pagans], three Jews and three Christian men.”
The Nine were: Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joshua, King David, Judas Maccabaeus (Jewish warrior prince who routed the Hellenistic Syrians), King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon (leader of the First Crusade).