What's a knight?

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So -- pretty much what the title says. What is a knight? When I ask this, I mean both in historical terms and, moreso, in terms of fantasy literature and role-playing games. For the latter, what sort of mindset, philosophy, set of beliefs, etc. define knighthood? Is a knight by definition a hero in shining armor, or is the idea of, say, an anti-hero in black armor, a legitimate label? How do we as modern-day people, and not even necessarily as players of fantasy games, perceive the knight and similar types?

I realize this seems a rather bizarre question, but please indulge me. (Chevalier, I expect you to post.)

 

I understand...by understand I mean, making up on the spot ...a knight to be someone bestowed with a position of power (although that might not be the best way to put it), hence making it perfectly legitamit to have an "evil knight", he would have simply been bestowed his power through some evil means.

In RL, I guess a knight is someone who is Knighted by the monarch for some deed to the nation...or for being popular

Historically, I think knights were nobility who either paid for the title, or were genuinly given it by the monarch...they were relied upon to gather the kings forces when needed...they were land owners in their spare time whilst not fighting.

I think thats an ok explanation, although I'm sure someone (Chev ) will put me in my place

 

Sean Connery.

 

Historically, a knight is a man who holds land from his lord in exchange for military service. That's the core of it.

However, knights weren't the only people getting land so they would provide military service. And many people who didn't get their lands in exchange for military service were still obliged to provide it. Some even served mounted.

Depending on the system, knights were either considered nobles or not. In continental Europe, they were nobles of a low rank (that is, if you were a knight but didn't have any big title to your name). In England it wasn't clear, but they had a narrow and strange definition of nobility (and hugely inconsistent )... however, knights were above peasants and burghers on the feudal ladder and had coats of arms and all, so pretty much the same as everywhere in practice. You could make a knight of a peasant for merit on battlefield, though, so while it tended to be hereditary, it wasn't hermetically closed. Note that lords and princes and kings were also knights. In that social class, being knighted (receiving the accolade -- the tapping on the shoulder with a sword) was sort of like coming of legal age. In some societies, there was a knightly class comprising all knights and their families, of which lords and kings were the top, although the simple knight was still between his lord and the peasants and burghers. At any rate, you were either a knight or an ecclesiastic if you were a noble. Except those societies where big merchant families were also nobles.

And don't confuse historical mediaeval knights with knightly titles in England from 16th century on. Those were an honorary distinction and mostly a social thing. In some other countries, it even became an hereditary title. In Poland, all male nobles of age were called knights, especially if they served in the military.

At the moment, if someone has a knightly title or is otherwise styled a knight, it's an hereditary title (French, German etc) or a reward for being such a good citizen (the UK and that's probably it) or an order. Even republics call people who receive an order a knight. It's practically just a medal, but orders still maintain the pretence of orders of knighthood. Especially in Britain. I suppose most guys in the UK who have "sir" to their name and aren't baronets, are members of such orders (Garter, Thistle, Bath, British Empire etc) rather than people who have received just knighthood.

Also, some elite warriors or special, war and mounted service related social classes from other cultures, are translated as knights, such as the Roman equites. To become an equite, you needed 400K sesterces and once you hit it, you served in cavalry units and voted together with other equites rather than the commoners. You were more marriagable with the nobles, as well. You didn't lose your status for not having 400K anymore, at least not in the times of Octavian August and later.

In a fantasy campaign, you can more or less make it up, I guess, depending what kind of social structure you're going to emulate. If you want a merchant republic, you could make knights of elite soldiers from good enough families, simple as it is. If you have some sort of alliance between the nobles and the bourgeois in place, there would still be all the romantic fiction but you would only really need to be rich enough and have done something great and/or serve in the military as an officer or maybe elite cavalryman. In a classic feudal society, you would be given land in exchange for military service for your lord, either as a peasant or freeholder (for bravery on the battlefield), upon which you would become a petty noble, your sons would be expected to become knights in the future. Knights or clerics or even just freeholders but they wouldn't be peasants or expected to work. If your family is good enough (e.g. your father was a knight), it's sort of
your right to become a knight, especially if you were a page and squire before. You may be expected to do something big or show some bravery on that occasion but not always. Or you could make up a system like in ancient Rome. Or make your knights after samurais... Whoever is between the peasants and burghers, and the lords, and fights for his lord (preferably from horseback). Well, if he's just a knight. The condition of being a knight means you're a noble warrior of rank, so kings and lords are knighted too and they are knights themselves. Consequently, your chivalric player's lord would be a knight himself, as well. And the king above them all would be one, as well.

Edit: Forgot to add that in a fantasy campaign, being knighted could open some new opportunities romantic NPCs wise. It wouldn't be normal or welcome but even a simple knight should be legally able to marry whomever (laws would sooner restrict his ability to marry a peasant or burgher than the king's own daughter ). Similarly, a knight's daughter wouldn't be regarded as an inferior being by a potent lord or prince. Maybe not so rich and powerful and therefore not so desirable, but still from the same broad class.

[ January 29, 2006, 19:17: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Well, I certainly cannot add to chev's excellent description of the "historical knight". However, I think we would be remiss if we did not bring of the legend of King Arthur when discussing the romantic version of the knight, with dictates of chivalry honor, and romanticism. I would especially recommend the book, "Shores of Avalon". It to me is an exhaustive and definitive source on the legend of King Arthur.

 

If you care, you could do a little search on wiki on Arthurian legends. It took me a night once but it was a nice read.

 

A knight is what the word says, a menial. More exactly, a menial on a horse. Knecht->knight
Horse being the other defining atribute.
They can also be farmer sons whose dady bought them a horse.
Enough money to own a horse and its upkeep or a sponsor are therefore required for proper knighthood.

Knights usually died by having their abdominal appendix cut to bleeed them.

 

Iago -- you certainly have heard a much different definition than I have. Many in my family were knighted -- starting at the Battle of Hastings and continuing until my ancestors immigrated to the US. Knighthood is earned, not obtained by owning a horse.

A knight is simply an honored person. An individual was knighted for doing a great deed -- usually on the field of battle. This was the Medal of Honor of olden times and carried the same mystique. People naturally look up to such a person and the honor wasn't given lightly. After becoming knighted a person was expected to live a higher standard.

As such, the knight should be completely loyal to his/her liege. Courage should be a fundamental character trait. The knight should never do anything which would bring embarrassment to their liege.

 

The term "knight" originally applied to Norman cavalrymen. It simply meant a man who fought from horseback. It later gained status, being the lowest rank of nobility, one step under baronet, and came with land, and a duty to fight for their lord. The tenets of chivalry didn't arise for some time. The rank of knight could most commonly be earned through heredity, a feat of arms, by purchasing sufficient land, or by being chosen as a squire to a knight as a boy. The number of knights in Britain began to decline around the fifteenth century, by the War of the Roses, there were less than sixty knights in England, most of whom were too old to fight. Currently, the rank of knight is an honour tied to awards such as the CBE, OBE etc.

Regarding Arthur, if you take Malory's writings, you can see what was held to be the ideal of knights and chivalry in the fifteenth century. Bear in mind that this is innaccurate regarding the actual time period when Arthur would have existed, since this was 500 years prior to the word "knight" being used.

 

Well, only the uppermost grades of those orders. Knight Commanders and Knights Grands Cross. Well, anything with knight in name.

@T2Bruno: Correct, but the practice was that in certain families young males were just made to earn it or it was presumed earned upon the completion of training as a squire. Especially in the continental system. It was a bit different from the English one. For example, in Poland it was sort of hard to be an unknighted male petty noble. Perhaps if you were a scholar or something (or, naturally, a cleric). No one would marry you or anything. Still, it didn't lose the sense of both a reward and an obligation. In England, there were many more sub-classes of low nobility (plus the whole semantic thing with gentlemen and noblemen), so there were probably no more than 60 families where it would be an absolute imperative to get knighted and perhaps a couple times more families where it was normally expected. On the continent, everyone armigerous was a noble and entitled to be knighted on completion of standard procedures, as well as having the ordinary ability to be given feuds and high offices (e.g. the French state of being an ecuyer entitles one to be given knighthood and/or feudal titles and estates... a burgher or peasant is out of the normal circulation because of not being an ecuyer).

Feel like swapping some tales, by the way?

 

Your definition is certainly not wrong. Yet it's a different development. An ex-post romatication/idealisation of knighthood after the actual disappearance of knights. Happened everywhere and is a story of its own and its own right. Chivarly and prince charming have their own ring to them.

Yet, middle-ages, in the knight period -> money for a horse and a rider- result:Knight. First, it was about economical advancement -> people were rich enough to get a horse, then the went to find a dude that would occupy them as vasall, give them a title and keep them as one of his knights (menial/servant/serf) (But menial/Servant/serf with a horse!)

And a horse is the 1323 equivalent to a 2006 BMW.

That's what the name says in the different languages.

English -> Knight -> servant/menial (Knecht) (on a horse)
German -> Ritter -> version of "reiter"= rider
French -> chevalier -> version of rider (cavalier)
(Same in Spanish and Italian -> Berlusconi is a cavalliere.)


chivalry -> How about "the manners of a rider"?

And the word robber-knight tells everything about the end of knighthood. Economical change in the 14th century took away the knights livelyhood. The small land-owners became the victims of inflation and the worthlessnes of the tithe. The "citizen" came around and drove the knight into bankruptcy and in the woods to starve or try a second career as ganster.

 

Sorry, Iago, but burghers were typically richer than petty nobles in most contintental systems and they still didn't get knighted. Even if they actually owned horses and could own armour. They were simply banned from knighthood as early as in the early 12th century. For example, one of the founding fathers of the Templar order was a burgher by name of Peter of Orleans. He was admitted as a knighted specifically because the divine knighthood differed from the secular knighthood. Heck, even wealthier peasants were rich enough to buy a horse and serve as knights. The imperative was to be given land by means of a knightly charter. To hold land by the knightly right, so called. It was only early and before knighthood really formed that all classes could make it.

You could make knights of peasants if you really insisted, even supplying all the shiny metal stuff to them at your expense, but they wouldn't be overly respectable. It was already hard in high middle ages to be knighted on the battlefield if you weren't a noble.

Knecht is servant but that means you serve. There was nothing ignoble in serving your liege as a mounted warrior (and by this I don't mean a horse archer or light cavalry warrior -- although those were regarded as honourable for commoners).

The etymological link with riding is overrated. Even in ancient Rome, people who had the right to serve mounted (equites) were actually given a public horse for their service and they were more than just enough rich to equip themselves as equestrians. They had almost half the wealth required to be eligible to become a senator.

Besides, knighthood carries with it a certain notion of lordship. The franco-Norman "sir" thing predates knighthood and it's an equivalent of addressing someone as "sir" or "my lord" today out of respect (it's a valid equivalent of the Latin dominus in some cases). The Polish equivalent is one for knight and lord (it's actually same for mister or master, as well, so you have to rely on instict ).

The thing with knights not automatically being nobles springs probably from the fact that if you were to knight a peasant, yourself being a simple knight (not a mighty duke or something), his nobility would be universally questioned or even ridiculed, why they couldn't really deny him knighthood. So I guess he would have to be admitted wherever knights go and all but no one would give a daughter to him or invite him for dinner or something.

[ January 30, 2006, 23:16: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Well, that's the point that citizens/burghers were richer than knights or nobility in general. Because of the changes in the late middle-ages, knights died out because they were driven from their land by economical change. The same economical change that enabled to cities to grow and take over the land. Knights usually were evicted from their land and ended up as robbers in the woods.

This means that the citizens took over the land of the lower nobility, usually because the knights had to take loans to get food on their table as the tithe (part of their title) was constantly devalued by-inflation and obviously, could never pay back the money they owed.

Rule changed from a feudal-land based system to a city-oligarchy. The citziens took over the power and control, forming the typical late middle-age city state. There was no place no more for knights.

Besides, burgher -> Spiessburgher -> burgher with pikes -> Knights were mass slaughtered by burgher armies. They were not only economically disadvantaged, knights armies were regularly ploughed down by burgers and their "Landknechte" -> Landknecht -> "knight" on foot(Land).

But you state it yourself. The concept in the earlier days of the middle-ages was -> Get rich to be a rich farmer -> get a horse -> Be a knight -> get (more) land and get titled.

Knighthood was a career for the sons of rich farmers (as the feudal system still worked).

Further, the burgher (citizen) <-> nobility antoginism that you mention with the exclusion of burghers in some orders is a closely related chapter. The nobility had done it's duty around 1200 and the nobility could go. The rise of the city meant the demise of the landlord.

The connex with the roman equites and knight is: New-rich parvenus. Former poor(er) people that happened to get rich enough to buy themselves horses, because they seized the new opportunites that empire and commerce yielded them. Equites were a neu social-strata of people ascending. No more plebs, yet never to be patricians. Like knights and in German -> equites (rider) are often translated (for simplicity sake) as "Ritter" -> Knights.

And the horse is important! There are to kinds of people, those on horses and those who walk. The horse is until the 20th century one of the most important animals. It kept being important in everdy transportation, as status symbol and as weapon in the warfare. No army without horses, as horses are is one of the most freightening weapons known to man. Or at least was.

Webster online:

 

What country are you talking about? That doesn't match any of the major European ones. A lot died in England in the wars of the Roses (there were 59 peers in Henry VII's first parliament and English peers were less prestigious than French -- anyone baron or higher qualified) and England & France in the Hundred Years War. The remaining families eligible for knighthood either started using an hereditary title (as in Germany or France and, as a descriptive denominator/courtesy title, Poland), or simply gave up on having their sons knighted (mostly lower nobility in France, England, Spain and the like), concentrating on just being landowners. Their lands didn't grow and something had to be done with younger sons, the property shrunk where there was no majorate (i.e. where not everything went to the eldest son), but the scenario you describe is exaggerated and sounds like fantasy.

Only where citizens were actually entitled to own such land. Otherwise it had to be sold to another noble. The debts were mostly results of unable to adapt to new circumstances and/or tone down the luxurious spending.

In Holland maybe. France remained feudal as did Spain. In England, there was a compromise by which the two classes basically merged with the exception of peers who were a separate class from the lower nobility before, anyway. Knighthood became an award for deeds of war or for reaching a certain status (although in the latter case it was normally either a grant of coat-of-arms or a peerage title). You only really had city oligarchies in Holland, North Italy and certain German states (especially Protestant ones).

Only if said farmers were actually petty nobles who had to work on their land, or if there was a desperate need for knights or if reward for bravery on the field of battle was the case. The most a farmer could get was to have his son become the knight's squire. And yes, that son would be knighted on completion of his service... though not always. Lower class squires weren't always knighted. Sons of rich farmers typically served as mounted aides to the knight (mounted archers or crossbowmen, perhaps light cavalry) but not guys with the girdle and spurs.

Knighthood was much as the status of being of legal age. If you were a noble and not a man of the church, you had to be knighted. For a member of the lower classes, such an admission would be social advancement. Knights had coats of arms and banners (pennon in case of ordinary knights, square banner of their own under which they could lead other people for bannerets), therefore they were armigers, i.e. lower nobility if not having a bigger title. Oh, and in the German and French system, knight is a title of nobility, while in the English one it's debatable whether it's gentry or nobility (depends on the criteria), although the English gentry is normally understood as an equivalent of continental nobility (with the exception that on the continent it was less easy for not-having-to-work-on-their-own commoners to penetrate into).

That's only true of Italian states and not even all of them, although the date you mention indeed marks the increase in the increase, so to say, as cities started to flourish. But nobility wasn't really obsolete so early as then. Let alone defeated. So far as knights go, gunpowder was probably more meaningful than social changes.

Equites were far richer than it took to buy a horse and the horse was public, anyway. The point is they served on horseback and it was their entitlement (the top sub-class of the lower class is usually the most dangerous potential enemy, so if you give that group something to satisfy its ambitions, you have the who class pacified... for a time). They were to become nobles so soon as their property rose from 400K to 1M plus it was a good idea to have at least three ancestors who have held a public office if you were claiming the status. The condition of being a patrician was obsolete. Nobiles recruited from both the plebs (as the equites did) and patricians and their legal status was the same (many of the marks of that status were shared with the equites, such as a golden ring on the finger and statues of ancestors in the courtyard). Being patrician only mattered if you wanted to obtain certain specific priestly dignities. Cato was an example of such a nobilis who wasn't a patrician. I'm not sure what happened to patricians who didn't make it to 1M, but Octavian's ancestors were reported to have been an old patrician family before losing wealth and finally acquiring the status of equites during the life of Julius Caesar. In the later period of the Western Empire, patricius was a court dignity usually held by one person. Otherwise, it was obsolete. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire kept conferring the rank of patricius on certain people (such as powerful members of potentially threatening Slavic tribes) at least in the initial period.

BTW, if you translate knights into Latin, that's typically eques or miles (which typically simply means soldiers but especially the derivative militia often refers to the knights of the land in Latin but not in English). In Poland, the word for all nobles, from a petty noble actually working on his land to a powerful magnate was "szlachic" (yeah, from German geschlecht), which is a translation of noble (noble as an adjective is "szlachetny"). However, in Latin, some lower and middle nobles sometimes styled themselves "equites" rather than "nobiles".

Not really. Rich folks travelled in carriages. Horses were preferred by some nobles for the show-off value. Richer peasant farmers could and did still ride and weren't thus made nobles. Cavalry vs infantry choice was often a matter if you could ride or not, even if cavalry was indeed more prestigious. Heck, it's considered posh to be able to ride even nowadays.

[ January 31, 2006, 21:57: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

It's what comes after kday.

 

Can't believe I laughed at that.

 

Wow. That's a lot of historical... stuff. But what about the image of the knight (or similar types -- perhaps the D&D paladin? the Jedi?) in modern culture and fantasy literature, movies, etc.?

 

Varied, often based on legends... perhaps the romantic ideas and perceptions from the first half of the 19th century.

However, there is a badass realistic trend. Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur... don't think they show the same old idealised picture. Actually, romantic books don't, either, and I think the bad knights outnumber the good ones even there. At any rate, it's more about literature and generally art than history.

If you want an overview of literary trends, you'll need a literature geek. I've read a damn lot of fantasy, but I'm a history geek, not a literature one. So, sorry. I'll just drop you a hint that if you're looking for some inspiration for knights in a D&D campaign, you could read some Eddings (knights honourable if not so orthodox, and somewhat heroic but far from naive icons). Lawhead and/or Gemmel would be good for Arthurian legends, although you won't find the word "knight" in those books.

 

No. In the late middle ages, nobility is dying out. Hand in hand with the demise of the feudal system. The feudal system is replaced by a concentration/centralization of power by cities. Or, like you added, other nobles. There's a rise of noble houses that "buy" other nobles "out" and get their land. The process is the same, in some places the cities take over, in others other nobles. Like the Habsburgs, for example.

The feudal system never survived its corruption through the implementation of heredity. Heritdity contracticts the very core of the feudal system, that is administration based by on military rank. And military rank achieved by performance and not inherited. But that's just a sideline. In any case, there is a difference of the feudal system that was established in the early middle ages and the system that was in place in renaissance times. Many things have changed and the aristocracy of 1400 had nothing in common with the aristocracy of 800. There's an eternity in between.

Anyway, after 1200, nobles die out like flies. To the profit of cities or other nobles, that grap the control over the their rights and lands.

Knights then becomae a plague of the land. There is a whole bunch of (imperial (german-roman-holy-blah-bla))law-making and petions by the common people to get rid of ever feuding, robbing and plundering knights.

The debts were results of the relative poverty of nobles compared to commoners and citizens. After 1200, the dark ages were ending and commerce flourishing. No way to keep up with a silk merchant or a craftsman when your main income consists of a 100 hens and 4 cows per year.

Social changes were important. And Pikes. Knights were completely defenceless against pikes and they were mass-slaughtered and ploughed in various battles, like Morgarten 1315, where a complete army of knights was just simply wiped out.

 

The crossbow was also a deadly weapon, and at one point, it was almost outlawed in the UK, as a commoner with no combat experience could easily kill a well trained knight.

BTW its strange that King Arthur is typically shown as English, and Merlin was never called a 'Druid'.