Fascinating Facts About Knights
From the Knights of the Round Table to Game of Thrones, our culture has no shortage of stories about knights, so it's strange how little we really know about them. We know they wore armor and fought in wars and tournaments . . . but what else did they do? What were their lives like?
The Arbalest Knights
The Arbalest Knights were the supreme force on the battlefield for centuries and it was starting to look as if no one could ever replace them. Ironically, their end was brought about by a very simple invention called the arbalest. The arbalest, invented in the 12th century, was a kind of super crossbow. It was made of steel, so it could endure much higher tension than ordinary bows and produce greater force. An arbalest was accurate up to 300 meters (984 feet), relatively quick to reload, and easy to operate. Its bolts could pierce armor. Suddenly, the mighty knight with all his combat skills, fancy armor, and a lifetime of training was nothing more than an easy target for a guy who had been learning to shoot for a couple of weeks. A skilled arbalestier could drop two knights a minute, yet stay safely out of reach. Although knights called arbalests unchivalrous, it was clear that their time as the alpha males of the battlefield was over, especially since gunpowder weapons were invented soon afterwards.
Spiral Staircases
Many medieval castles featured cleverly designed spiral staircases between the floors. They were usually located next to the castle wall (in a tower, the staircase usually ran along the outer wall and the rooms were constructed in the space in the middle). They might seem like a clever way to save space, but actually spiral staircases were invented for warfare. If an enemy army invaded the castle, their knights had an extremely difficult time walking up the narrow, curving staircase while fighting. The design also gave the defenders a bonus advantage. Medieval spiral staircases were designed so that they wound clockwise going up. That meant the invading knights had to advance with their left side to the front, which was a serious problem because pretty much all knights wielded their swords with their right hands.
Money Matters
Being a knight was extremely expensive. The armor, the weapons, the horse, and the servants all cost an obscene amount of money, on top of normal living expenses. Still, as skillful horseback fighters, knights were a vital part of any army, so the ruler had to provide them with the means to support themselves. The solution to this problem was knight-service, a system in which the ruler gave his knights a plot of land-and, in effect, the people living on said land-in a pact called a knight's fee or "fief." The knight was a tenant of the lord, with rights to rule over his fiefdom as he saw fit. In exchange, the lord could summon the knight and his men to fight in his army.
Virtues Of Chivalry
Chivalry was an overall system of proper knightly conduct. Its borders were loosely defined and often extended beyond the battlefield and into everyday behavior. The codes of conduct and etiquette were extremely strict, but their essence could be condensed into the vows a knight made during his dubbing ceremony. A knight should never traffic with traitors. He should never give evil counsel to a lady (regardless of her marital status) and should always treat her with respect and defend her against any danger. What's more, he must take part in fasts and abstinences, attend daily Mass and make offerings to the Church. The last of those vows was obviously inserted into the ceremony by the Church themselves. When they started preaching for the First Crusade in the 11th Century, they devised a cunning plan to get knights on board with their mission. The Church introduced its own code of chivalry, a code of conduct all knights were to follow. Unsurprisingly, it revolved largely around doing what the Church said and upholding Christianity. Although chivalrous behavior was common at social events, not many knights kept to chivalrous ideals when they entered battle. Instead, most opted to butcher and pillage as much as they wanted. They were soldiers and practical men, after all-they weren't going to risk getting killed because their opponent might be less chivalrous than them.
The Origins Of Knighthood
Knights were always associated with horses-their armored warhorses, known as destriers, were massive and trained for battle. Because of that, it's believed that the concept of knighthood comes from ancient horse troops. Knights are though to have originated way back in the heyday of the Roman Empire. The ancient Romans had an elite equestrian order known as the Ordo Equestris. Although the Ordo Equestris can't be conclusively linked to knights, scholars note that they shared many similarities with knights of the Middle Ages-they were lesser nobility who fought on horseback and commanded considerable respect. When Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks in the ninth century, combined a similar mounted nobleman class with the concept of feudalism, knighthood was born.
Armour
No knight would dream of entering the battlefield without his suit of armor. The armour had to be tailor-made (since the garments were made of metal and other inflexible materials, it was essential that they fit as well as possible). It got sturdier and sturdier over time-originally knights' armor was a collection of padded garments and chainmail. As technology progressed, plate armour and finally full plate armour (the full knights' armour seen in most movies) entered the knight's wardrobe. Full plate armour was complex and weighed around 50 pounds. It could deflect blows from most medieval weapons. The quality and impressiveness of the armour was not only a life-saver but also a status symbol-the better the armor was, the more important the knight was thought to be.
Jousting And Hastilude
Jousting wasn't just something knights did in between wars. In fact, when jousting developed into the sports-like event popular culture depicts it as, there weren't many wars to fight. Jousting began as an exercise in medieval combat tactics. However, when the crusades ended and knights had no more wars to fight, jousting quickly became a hastilude, the medieval name for a combat- themed sport. Popular hastilude events included the pas d'armes (passage of arms), in which a knight had to fight his way through a group of challengers, and melee, in which a group of knights were divided into two teams that fought each other on foot. Surprisingly, jousting was seldom the main event-usually the melee was