--- title: 5 Shocking Things About Knights description: "Ask the average person what a knight was, and chances are you'll get a response with all the clichés; armour, chivalry, serving a lord, and perhaps some mention of tournaments. But what if we told you that knights were also brutal soldiers trained from childhood to kill, and that some spent as much time violently feuding one another as they did actually serving a kingdom?\n\nWell, all of the above is true, at least to some extent. As always, the reality of history is far more complicated than has been taught by popular media, and what a knight was and how that knight behaved varied greatly depending on the era of the medieval period we're talking about.\n\nSo what was a real knight? Were they all really bound by codes of chivalry? Were they truly committed to fighting for truth and justice in an age of violence and barbarism? Let's take a look at a few rather shocking truths about knights, and paint a much clearer picture of reality versus romanticised fantasy.\n\n## Knights Were Trained To Kill Before Puberty\n\nOnce the class of knight had been well established, around the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century, it became customary for the son of a knight to train, be anointed a knight himself, and eventually enter into a term of service with a lord, otherwise known as becoming that lord's vassal. A newly anointed knight, a particularly skilful one, also had a chance of being given a fief by a lord looking to secure service, a fief being plot of land a knight was allowed to work and earn money from.\n\nBut, what tends to get overlooked is that a knight's value originally came from being an elite military unit. Knights were simply heavy cavalrymen, with the term knight itself being nothing more than a military denotation. This denotation would change as the medieval period progressed, but we'll get more into that later. For now keep in mind that it was the most professional, fiercest knights that were sought out by lords, meaning that relentless training was a necessity. The son of a knight was expected to train from the age of 7 through to the age of 21, and you can bet that elite medieval military standards were ruthless.\n\nAt age 7 the boy was sent off to the lord of the lands household, given the title of page, and immediately thrust into a heavy fitness regime. It wasn't all physical though, with the page also expected to excel in basic academic studies, including the Code of Chivalry. Between academics and fitness, a page was also sent off to participate in extended hunting outings with falconers and huntsmen.\n\nAfter the introductory period, a page was then assigned to an established knight as a servant, taking over duties such as cleaning armour, caring for horses and handling baggage. It wasn't uncommon for a page to even be taken on knightly expeditions, meaning that the boy, not yet having hit puberty, was likely to come face to face with violence, and even death. Older pages would start receiving training with weapons, get general tutelage on combat and warfare, and eventually graduate from page to squire at the age of 14.\n\nA new squire was, first and foremost, given his own sword and armour in a religious ceremony, after which the real training could start; namely the notoriously difficult seven points of agilities. The seven agilities were a physical training regime designed to truly chisel a boy into a versatile athlete, involving the mastering of activities like fencing, wrestling, long jumping, bow shooting, climbing, swimming, riding, and even dancing. If this doesn't sound overwhelming enough, keep in mind that all of the above had to be done while wearing full armour.\n\nAt some point during all of this, a squire would also have to be desensitised to violence in accordance with his future job. As such, squires, still just teenagers, were sometimes required to systematically slaughter livestock with a sword, most commonly pigs. The gruesome task familiarised the boy with the sounds of screaming, the sight of gore, and the smell of freshly spilled blood.\n\nWhen a squire turned 21, he was then eligible to be knighted and could, depending on his performance, enter into the service of a lord. The goal always was to be awarded a fief, but only a few of squires ever caught the attention of particularly wealthy lords. Knighting usually happened on Easter or Christmas, and in an elaborate ceremony the squire swore an oath to a lord who would in turn touch a sword to each of the squire's shoulders.\n\n## Chivalry Was A Very Flexible Concept\n\nNow, all this talk of brutal training regimes and children being chiselled into fighters may be a bit surprising. Wasn't there an Age of Chivalry? Weren't knights brave, courteous men that defended the weak, stood for justice and treated ladies with respect?\n\nAs it turns out, how knights behaved, and whether a true Age of Chivalry ever really existed is a highly speculative topic. Our modern perception of knights comes predominantly from Renaissance era books like *Le Mort d'Arthur*, *The Death of Arthur*, which worshipped the dignified King Arthur and his valorous Knights of the Round Table. But the content of such books was drawn from chivalric romances rather than historical records, so it's perhaps best to say that *Le Morte d'Arthur* was as accurate in depicting knights as dime store westerns were in depicting cowboys.\n\nThis isn't to say there wasn't a Code of Chivalry, because there certainly was. In that regard, however, it's important to understand the intention of the code, and appreciate that it changed dramatically throughout the medieval period.\n\nGoing way back, the words \"chivalry\" and \"cavalry\" have a very close relationship. Chivalry comes from the Old French term *chevalerie*, which roughly translates to \"horse soldier.\" The earliest true knights, anointed under the Frankish King Charlemagne between 768 and 774, were nothing more than elite cavalrymen. Charlemagne rewarded his fiercest cavalrymen with land as a means to secure their loyalty, and in doing so a new warrior class was created destined to become wealthy and influential in their own right.\n\nThe key here is that the elite cavalrymen were given a code of conduct to aspire to, which in the early days simply involved following orders and performing professionally. But as the reverence and prestige heaped on cavalrymen grew, so the code of cavalry also evolved, soon including additions such as how to behave towards lower ranking soldiers.\n\nTime passed and the warrior class of knights grew ever wealthier and more influential, so it wasn't long before the sons of knights, the pages and squires we were just talking about, were taught also how to act in the presence of a lord and other nobles, as well as how to treat noble ladies, and lower social classes.\n\nHistorian Léon Gautier in his 1884 book *La Chevalerie* summed up the chivalric code, with his key points including:\n\n> \"Thou shalt defend the Church and believe all that it teaches...\n>\n> Thou shalt respect the weak, and defend them…\n>\n> Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy…\n>\n> Thou shalt never lie and always be true to thine word…\n>\n> Thou shalt be generous...\n>\n> Thou shalt be the champion of the Right and the Good...\"\n\nTo be clear; no such list ever existed in the medieval period. Gautier took information from multiple medieval and renaissance texts and boiled them down into what he felt were the key chivalric aspirations. More to the point, and much more controversially, it's also very debatable as to whether knights paid any attention to these teachings at all. Or at least, as to whether they observed the code of chivalry when not in the presence of nobles that could hold them accountable for their behaviour.\n\nThe idea that there was ever an Age of Chivalry at all, generally said to be the 11th and 12th centuries, has also been called into question, notably by late 1700s Swiss historian and economist Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Sismondi argued that the Age of Chivalry exists only due to the romanticised writings of the renaissance era, saying:\n\n> \"The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical. It is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed. It is always represented as distant from us both in time and place, and whilst the contemporary historians give us a clear, detailed, and complete account of the vices of the court and the great, of the ferocity or corruption of the nobles, and of the servility of the people, we are astonished to find the poets, after a long lapse of time, adorning the very same ages with the most splendid fictions of grace, virtue, and loyalty.\"\n\n## Knights Probably Caused More Violence Than They Resolved\n\nYou're probably familiar with the legendary tourneys, or tournaments that were regularly held throughout much of the medieval period. Tourneys were, as is often depicted in movies, highly popular, potentially very lucrative spectator sports that pitted knight against knight. The events included free-for-all battles where the last knight standing won, or most famously the jousting duels that saw men flung from their horses. Losing knights were required to give up their horse to the winner, and adding insult to injury, also had to pay a 'ransom' to the winner for sparing their life.\n\nAs you can imagine, violent feuds were a common highlight of these events, and getting killed by a rival, either over the course of the tourney or as an act of revenge, was fairly common.\n\nThe petty violence that characterised later tourneys wasn't, of course, the original intent. The sports had originally been introduced in the mid-1100s as a way for knights to demonstrate their skills to prospective lords, and to keep fighting wits sharp for the ongoing crusades. But the social role of knights was already changing, and as the knight and nobility classes became increasingly intertwined, trivial in-fighting became ever more frequent. Most distressing is that feuds sometimes spilled over from the tourneys into the outside world, resulting in knights clashing in fatal duels, and sometimes entire regions being provoked into riots. In extreme cases a feud could even escalate into a full-scale conflict, erupting in knights and nobles raiding one another's fiefs and burning one another's property.\n\nNot surprisingly, the church quickly took a firm stance against tourneys, calling the events \"inventions of the devil\" that served only to lure young men into fighting one another, as opposed to the common foreign enemy of the Muslims. The clergy went so far as to forbid those who were killed at tourneys from being buried on holy ground, which was a pretty extreme punishment at that time.\n\nKing Henry II, ruling between 1154 and 1189, was finally pressured into banning the events. Though his decision didn't last long, with his son Richard the Lionheart soon lifting the ban in 1194. From that point on tourneys were strictly regulated, though remained popular through the crusades until being halted for good in the 1620s.\n\nSpeaking of the crusades, it's often suggested that Pope Urban II launched the campaigns partially as a way to distract nobles and knights from fighting one another. In-fighting had been rampant even before the tourneys, and the church intended that knights and nobles put aside petty feuds and join forces against the Muslims. Urban II said:\n\n> \"Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.\"\n\nAs the lengthily age of the crusades arrived, taking place between 1099 and 1291, the clergy took the opportunity to try and bring order to the class of knights, attempt to reform it into something closely tied to religion. This gave us the now popular cliché of a holy knight; a knight that saw himself as acting in accordance with the word of God. Various chivalric orders were born, all directly under the church, and the Code of Chivalry become strongly associated with Christian ideals. Some of the first chivalric orders include the Knights Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, and the now iconic Knights Templar.\n\n## Knights Only Worked 40 Days A Year\n\nWith all this talk of rigorous training and fighting in the crusades, it may surprise you to learn that knights were only required to work 40 days a year. Add to this that a knight was also often a landowner, and that a knight's lord was expected to provide essentials to that knight when the time called for it, including lodging, food, training, equipment and horses.\n\nThis seems like a pretty ridiculous arrangement, but it happens to be absolutely true. Does this mean, however, that knights were some of the most overvalued, over compensated military units in history?\n\nLeading up to the crusades, it's true that knights only owed 40 days of service to a lord annually, though the arrangement only applied during times of peace. A knight could also be called to extended periods of service as needed, keeping in mind that serious injury and death was a very real possibility. Also keep in mind that some vassal knights were land owners and therefore taxable by their lord, so it wasn't as if they were sitting around simply being a drain on the economy. More to the point, it was even acceptable for a knight to pay a *scutage*, or a tax that excused them from service for that year.\n\nThe 40 days arrangement was seen as mostly agreeable until around the middle of the 13th century, with knights that did meet their 40 day obligation patrolling the kingdom, acting as a bodyguard in a lord's castle, or serving in some other appropriate way. However, the agreement began to fall apart as the class of knight evolved, and as it became increasingly more common for military campaigns to extend out into foreign lands. This new type of campaign, most prominently the crusades, demanded military service for months or even years, and so knights were far less likely to willingly get involved. Needless to say, it was also during the time of the crusades that the presence of knights in full-scale battles began to decrease.\n\nFor context, knights had initially made up the core of medieval armies, up to 20% to 30%, but as the crusades arrived and drew on, only around 10% of an army was true knights. By 1380 the presence of knights in armies dropped to around 6%, and knights rarely even engaged in battle personally. The knight class was steadily relegated more to the role of an officer, with actual armies mostly made up of peasants, men-at-arms and mercenaries. Men-at-arms were the real heavy cavalry in the mid to late medieval periods, with cavalry knights fast become a rarity.\n\n## Knights Co-Existed With Guns And (Possibly) Invented The Term Bulletproof\n\nThere is a perception that the medieval era came to a screeching halt the moment that firearms first appeared in 14th century Europe, with gunpowder ushering in the sweeping changes of the Renaissance. To an extent this is true, and gunpowder did indeed closely parallel armoured knights vanishing from battlefields. But it was a much more gradual shift than most assume, with the complicated transition allowing armoured knights and firearms to exist in the same era at the same time. There is, in fact, even a popular speculation that knights gave birth to the term \"bulletproof.\"\n\nThe remaining military knights were being peppered by bullets for the first time, and after enjoying centuries of semi-protection from arrows and crossbow bolts, now had to deal with the reality that bullets were far more dangerous than either. So, naturally, knights began to seek out reliable blacksmiths who could make armour strong enough to withstand musket balls, and contrary to popular belief, medieval armour could indeed resist early firearms; at least some of the time.\n\nIt's said that as proof to their clients that their armour could stop a bullet, a blacksmith would fire a shot into the armour, thus providing \"proof.\" This ritual supposedly became so common that armour on display today, showing distinctive dimples, is pointed at as a leftover from a blacksmith firing a \"bulletproof\" shot into the chest plate.\n\nSome historians dispute this bulletproof story, but either way, the real point is that armoured knights and firearms did coexist.\n\nSo then, if it wasn't gunpowder that officially made knights obsolete, what was it that transitioned the world from medieval warfare into the next era? Well, as we've already alluded to, by the time firearms became common traditional warrior knights barely existed regardless.\n\nThe term knight had become more an indication of social standing over the course of the 12th century, referring to a noble or land holder rather than a military unit. To try make sense of these social changes, a distinction began to be drawn between *milites gregarii*, a non-noble cavalryman, and *milites nobiles*, true knights. The late-12th century also saw the knight and noble classes officially merge, further diluting the true warrior into a measure of status.\n\nWhat it all really came down to, however, was simply a matter of cost and convenience. As said, knights rarely engaged in battle themselves anymore, and even in the role of strategist and tactician no longer had a particularly good reputation. The later failed crusades had demonstrated that knight-led armies could easily be defeated, and by units perceived as far less prestigious.\n\nIt therefore became cheaper and more economical to hire already organised, war ready mercenaries, or, by the mid-16th century, to fund and maintain a dedicated standing army. Traditional knighthood disintegrated over the 14th and 15th centuries, with Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I, 1459 – 1519, often referred to as the \"last knight.\"\n\nBut, lest we forget knights and knighthood still exist to this day, even if just as an honorific. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Order of Saint Lazarus are all still alive and well, largely focused on charity. It's also still possible to be knighted by the British Royal Family for making significant contributions in a given field, with some of those most recently knighted including composer John Williams, actor Stephen Fry, and football manager Gareth Southgate.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Knights were elite soldiers trained from age 7 to kill, involving rigorous physical and combat training.\n- The concept of chivalry was flexible and evolved over time, with its true practice debated among historians.\n- Knights often engaged in violent feuds and tournaments, sometimes causing more conflict than resolution.\n- Knights were required to serve only 40 days a year, but this changed with the demands of the crusades.\n- Knights coexisted with early firearms, and some armor could resist musket balls.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### At what age did a knight's training begin?\n\nA knight's training began at the age of 7.\n\n### What was the role of a page in a knight's training?\n\nA page was a young boy sent to the lord's household to undergo a heavy fitness regime, academic studies, and hunting outings.\n\n### What were the seven points of agilities in a squire's training?\n\nThe seven points of agilities included fencing, wrestling, long jumping, bow shooting, climbing, swimming, riding, and dancing, all performed while wearing full armour.\n\n### How did the concept of chivalry evolve over time?\n\nChivalry evolved from a code of conduct for elite cavalrymen to include behaviour towards lower-ranking soldiers, nobles, and ladies, as well as aspirations like defending the Church and respecting the weak.\n\n### What were tournaments, and how did they contribute to violence among knights?\n\nTournaments were popular spectator sports where knights competed in battles and jousting duels. They often led to violent feuds, revenge killings, and even full-scale conflicts.\n\n### How many days a year were knights required to work for their lord?\n\nKnights were required to work 40 days a year for their lord, though this could extend during times of war or conflict.\n\n### How did the role of knights change during the crusades?\n\nDuring the crusades, the role of knights shifted from being the core of medieval armies to more of an officer role, with actual armies mostly made up of peasants, men-at-arms, and mercenaries.\n\n### Did knights coexist with firearms, and what is the term 'bulletproof' associated with?\n\nYes, knights coexisted with firearms. The term 'bulletproof' is speculated to have originated from blacksmiths firing shots into armour to prove its strength.\n\n### What led to the decline of traditional knighthood?\n\nThe decline of traditional knighthood was due to the increasing cost and inconvenience of maintaining knights, the rise of mercenaries, and the failure of knight-led armies in later crusades.\n\n### Do knights and knighthood still exist today?\n\nYes, knights and knighthood still exist today, primarily as honorific titles and in charitable orders like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: 5 Shocking Things About Knights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2EFwFA2kpQ)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-shocking-things-about-knights.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-shocking-things-about-knights datePublished: 2026-06-25 dateModified: 2026-06-25 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/c2EFwFA2kpQ/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: cd37418de4d96d996969027bb32caf887528681ae7992f3883d56fd7ef8635f0 tokens: 5386 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-shocking-things-about-knights.md.summary.md --- Ask the average person what a knight was, and chances are you'll get a response with all the clichés; armour, chivalry, serving a lord, and perhaps some mention of tournaments. But what if we told you that knights were also brutal soldiers trained from childhood to kill, and that some spent as much time violently feuding one another as they did actually serving a kingdom? Well, all of the above is true, at least to some extent. As always, the reality of history is far more complicated than has been taught by popular media, and what a knight was and how that knight behaved varied greatly depending on the era of the medieval period we're talking about. So what was a real knight? Were they all really bound by codes of chivalry? Were they truly committed to fighting for truth and justice in an age of violence and barbarism? Let's take a look at a few rather shocking truths about knights, and paint a much clearer picture of reality versus romanticised fantasy. ## Knights Were Trained To Kill Before Puberty Once the class of knight had been well established, around the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century, it became customary for the son of a knight to train, be anointed a knight himself, and eventually enter into a term of service with a lord, otherwise known as becoming that lord's vassal. A newly anointed knight, a particularly skilful one, also had a chance of being given a fief by a lord looking to secure service, a fief being plot of land a knight was allowed to work and earn money from. But, what tends to get overlooked is that a knight's value originally came from being an elite military unit. Knights were simply heavy cavalrymen, with the term knight itself being nothing more than a military denotation. This denotation would change as the medieval period progressed, but we'll get more into that later. For now keep in mind that it was the most professional, fiercest knights that were sought out by lords, meaning that relentless training was a necessity. The son of a knight was expected to train from the age of 7 through to the age of 21, and you can bet that elite medieval military standards were ruthless. At age 7 the boy was sent off to the lord of the lands household, given the title of page, and immediately thrust into a heavy fitness regime. It wasn't all physical though, with the page also expected to excel in basic academic studies, including the Code of Chivalry. Between academics and fitness, a page was also sent off to participate in extended hunting outings with falconers and huntsmen. After the introductory period, a page was then assigned to an established knight as a servant, taking over duties such as cleaning armour, caring for horses and handling baggage. It wasn't uncommon for a page to even be taken on knightly expeditions, meaning that the boy, not yet having hit puberty, was likely to come face to face with violence, and even death. Older pages would start receiving training with weapons, get general tutelage on combat and warfare, and eventually graduate from page to squire at the age of 14. A new squire was, first and foremost, given his own sword and armour in a religious ceremony, after which the real training could start; namely the notoriously difficult seven points of agilities. The seven agilities were a physical training regime designed to truly chisel a boy into a versatile athlete, involving the mastering of activities like fencing, wrestling, long jumping, bow shooting, climbing, swimming, riding, and even dancing. If this doesn't sound overwhelming enough, keep in mind that all of the above had to be done while wearing full armour. At some point during all of this, a squire would also have to be desensitised to violence in accordance with his future job. As such, squires, still just teenagers, were sometimes required to systematically slaughter livestock with a sword, most commonly pigs. The gruesome task familiarised the boy with the sounds of screaming, the sight of gore, and the smell of freshly spilled blood. When a squire turned 21, he was then eligible to be knighted and could, depending on his performance, enter into the service of a lord. The goal always was to be awarded a fief, but only a few of squires ever caught the attention of particularly wealthy lords. Knighting usually happened on Easter or Christmas, and in an elaborate ceremony the squire swore an oath to a lord who would in turn touch a sword to each of the squire's shoulders. ## Chivalry Was A Very Flexible Concept Now, all this talk of brutal training regimes and children being chiselled into fighters may be a bit surprising. Wasn't there an Age of Chivalry? Weren't knights brave, courteous men that defended the weak, stood for justice and treated ladies with respect? As it turns out, how knights behaved, and whether a true Age of Chivalry ever really existed is a highly speculative topic. Our modern perception of knights comes predominantly from Renaissance era books like *Le Mort d'Arthur*, *The Death of Arthur*, which worshipped the dignified King Arthur and his valorous Knights of the Round Table. But the content of such books was drawn from chivalric romances rather than historical records, so it's perhaps best to say that *Le Morte d'Arthur* was as accurate in depicting knights as dime store westerns were in depicting cowboys. This isn't to say there wasn't a Code of Chivalry, because there certainly was. In that regard, however, it's important to understand the intention of the code, and appreciate that it changed dramatically throughout the medieval period. Going way back, the words "chivalry" and "cavalry" have a very close relationship. Chivalry comes from the Old French term *chevalerie*, which roughly translates to "horse soldier." The earliest true knights, anointed under the Frankish King Charlemagne between 768 and 774, were nothing more than elite cavalrymen. Charlemagne rewarded his fiercest cavalrymen with land as a means to secure their loyalty, and in doing so a new warrior class was created destined to become wealthy and influential in their own right. The key here is that the elite cavalrymen were given a code of conduct to aspire to, which in the early days simply involved following orders and performing professionally. But as the reverence and prestige heaped on cavalrymen grew, so the code of cavalry also evolved, soon including additions such as how to behave towards lower ranking soldiers. Time passed and the warrior class of knights grew ever wealthier and more influential, so it wasn't long before the sons of knights, the pages and squires we were just talking about, were taught also how to act in the presence of a lord and other nobles, as well as how to treat noble ladies, and lower social classes. Historian Léon Gautier in his 1884 book *La Chevalerie* summed up the chivalric code, with his key points including: > "Thou shalt defend the Church and believe all that it teaches... > > Thou shalt respect the weak, and defend them… > > Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy… > > Thou shalt never lie and always be true to thine word… > > Thou shalt be generous... > > Thou shalt be the champion of the Right and the Good..." To be clear; no such list ever existed in the medieval period. Gautier took information from multiple medieval and renaissance texts and boiled them down into what he felt were the key chivalric aspirations. More to the point, and much more controversially, it's also very debatable as to whether knights paid any attention to these teachings at all. Or at least, as to whether they observed the code of chivalry when not in the presence of nobles that could hold them accountable for their behaviour. The idea that there was ever an Age of Chivalry at all, generally said to be the 11th and 12th centuries, has also been called into question, notably by late 1700s Swiss historian and economist Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Sismondi argued that the Age of Chivalry exists only due to the romanticised writings of the renaissance era, saying: > "The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical. It is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed. It is always represented as distant from us both in time and place, and whilst the contemporary historians give us a clear, detailed, and complete account of the vices of the court and the great, of the ferocity or corruption of the nobles, and of the servility of the people, we are astonished to find the poets, after a long lapse of time, adorning the very same ages with the most splendid fictions of grace, virtue, and loyalty." ## Knights Probably Caused More Violence Than They Resolved You're probably familiar with the legendary tourneys, or tournaments that were regularly held throughout much of the medieval period. Tourneys were, as is often depicted in movies, highly popular, potentially very lucrative spectator sports that pitted knight against knight. The events included free-for-all battles where the last knight standing won, or most famously the jousting duels that saw men flung from their horses. Losing knights were required to give up their horse to the winner, and adding insult to injury, also had to pay a 'ransom' to the winner for sparing their life. As you can imagine, violent feuds were a common highlight of these events, and getting killed by a rival, either over the course of the tourney or as an act of revenge, was fairly common. The petty violence that characterised later tourneys wasn't, of course, the original intent. The sports had originally been introduced in the mid-1100s as a way for knights to demonstrate their skills to prospective lords, and to keep fighting wits sharp for the ongoing crusades. But the social role of knights was already changing, and as the knight and nobility classes became increasingly intertwined, trivial in-fighting became ever more frequent. Most distressing is that feuds sometimes spilled over from the tourneys into the outside world, resulting in knights clashing in fatal duels, and sometimes entire regions being provoked into riots. In extreme cases a feud could even escalate into a full-scale conflict, erupting in knights and nobles raiding one another's fiefs and burning one another's property. Not surprisingly, the church quickly took a firm stance against tourneys, calling the events "inventions of the devil" that served only to lure young men into fighting one another, as opposed to the common foreign enemy of the Muslims. The clergy went so far as to forbid those who were killed at tourneys from being buried on holy ground, which was a pretty extreme punishment at that time. King Henry II, ruling between 1154 and 1189, was finally pressured into banning the events. Though his decision didn't last long, with his son Richard the Lionheart soon lifting the ban in 1194. From that point on tourneys were strictly regulated, though remained popular through the crusades until being halted for good in the 1620s. Speaking of the crusades, it's often suggested that Pope Urban II launched the campaigns partially as a way to distract nobles and knights from fighting one another. In-fighting had been rampant even before the tourneys, and the church intended that knights and nobles put aside petty feuds and join forces against the Muslims. Urban II said: > "Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves." As the lengthily age of the crusades arrived, taking place between 1099 and 1291, the clergy took the opportunity to try and bring order to the class of knights, attempt to reform it into something closely tied to religion. This gave us the now popular cliché of a holy knight; a knight that saw himself as acting in accordance with the word of God. Various chivalric orders were born, all directly under the church, and the Code of Chivalry become strongly associated with Christian ideals. Some of the first chivalric orders include the Knights Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, and the now iconic Knights Templar. ## Knights Only Worked 40 Days A Year With all this talk of rigorous training and fighting in the crusades, it may surprise you to learn that knights were only required to work 40 days a year. Add to this that a knight was also often a landowner, and that a knight's lord was expected to provide essentials to that knight when the time called for it, including lodging, food, training, equipment and horses. This seems like a pretty ridiculous arrangement, but it happens to be absolutely true. Does this mean, however, that knights were some of the most overvalued, over compensated military units in history? Leading up to the crusades, it's true that knights only owed 40 days of service to a lord annually, though the arrangement only applied during times of peace. A knight could also be called to extended periods of service as needed, keeping in mind that serious injury and death was a very real possibility. Also keep in mind that some vassal knights were land owners and therefore taxable by their lord, so it wasn't as if they were sitting around simply being a drain on the economy. More to the point, it was even acceptable for a knight to pay a *scutage*, or a tax that excused them from service for that year. The 40 days arrangement was seen as mostly agreeable until around the middle of the 13th century, with knights that did meet their 40 day obligation patrolling the kingdom, acting as a bodyguard in a lord's castle, or serving in some other appropriate way. However, the agreement began to fall apart as the class of knight evolved, and as it became increasingly more common for military campaigns to extend out into foreign lands. This new type of campaign, most prominently the crusades, demanded military service for months or even years, and so knights were far less likely to willingly get involved. Needless to say, it was also during the time of the crusades that the presence of knights in full-scale battles began to decrease. For context, knights had initially made up the core of medieval armies, up to 20% to 30%, but as the crusades arrived and drew on, only around 10% of an army was true knights. By 1380 the presence of knights in armies dropped to around 6%, and knights rarely even engaged in battle personally. The knight class was steadily relegated more to the role of an officer, with actual armies mostly made up of peasants, men-at-arms and mercenaries. Men-at-arms were the real heavy cavalry in the mid to late medieval periods, with cavalry knights fast become a rarity. ## Knights Co-Existed With Guns And (Possibly) Invented The Term Bulletproof There is a perception that the medieval era came to a screeching halt the moment that firearms first appeared in 14th century Europe, with gunpowder ushering in the sweeping changes of the Renaissance. To an extent this is true, and gunpowder did indeed closely parallel armoured knights vanishing from battlefields. But it was a much more gradual shift than most assume, with the complicated transition allowing armoured knights and firearms to exist in the same era at the same time. There is, in fact, even a popular speculation that knights gave birth to the term "bulletproof." The remaining military knights were being peppered by bullets for the first time, and after enjoying centuries of semi-protection from arrows and crossbow bolts, now had to deal with the reality that bullets were far more dangerous than either. So, naturally, knights began to seek out reliable blacksmiths who could make armour strong enough to withstand musket balls, and contrary to popular belief, medieval armour could indeed resist early firearms; at least some of the time. It's said that as proof to their clients that their armour could stop a bullet, a blacksmith would fire a shot into the armour, thus providing "proof." This ritual supposedly became so common that armour on display today, showing distinctive dimples, is pointed at as a leftover from a blacksmith firing a "bulletproof" shot into the chest plate. Some historians dispute this bulletproof story, but either way, the real point is that armoured knights and firearms did coexist. So then, if it wasn't gunpowder that officially made knights obsolete, what was it that transitioned the world from medieval warfare into the next era? Well, as we've already alluded to, by the time firearms became common traditional warrior knights barely existed regardless. The term knight had become more an indication of social standing over the course of the 12th century, referring to a noble or land holder rather than a military unit. To try make sense of these social changes, a distinction began to be drawn between *milites gregarii*, a non-noble cavalryman, and *milites nobiles*, true knights. The late-12th century also saw the knight and noble classes officially merge, further diluting the true warrior into a measure of status. What it all really came down to, however, was simply a matter of cost and convenience. As said, knights rarely engaged in battle themselves anymore, and even in the role of strategist and tactician no longer had a particularly good reputation. The later failed crusades had demonstrated that knight-led armies could easily be defeated, and by units perceived as far less prestigious. It therefore became cheaper and more economical to hire already organised, war ready mercenaries, or, by the mid-16th century, to fund and maintain a dedicated standing army. Traditional knighthood disintegrated over the 14th and 15th centuries, with Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I, 1459 – 1519, often referred to as the "last knight." But, lest we forget knights and knighthood still exist to this day, even if just as an honorific. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Order of Saint Lazarus are all still alive and well, largely focused on charity. It's also still possible to be knighted by the British Royal Family for making significant contributions in a given field, with some of those most recently knighted including composer John Williams, actor Stephen Fry, and football manager Gareth Southgate. ## Key Takeaways - Knights were elite soldiers trained from age 7 to kill, involving rigorous physical and combat training. - The concept of chivalry was flexible and evolved over time, with its true practice debated among historians. - Knights often engaged in violent feuds and tournaments, sometimes causing more conflict than resolution. - Knights were required to serve only 40 days a year, but this changed with the demands of the crusades. - Knights coexisted with early firearms, and some armor could resist musket balls. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### At what age did a knight's training begin? A knight's training began at the age of 7. ### What was the role of a page in a knight's training? A page was a young boy sent to the lord's household to undergo a heavy fitness regime, academic studies, and hunting outings. ### What were the seven points of agilities in a squire's training? The seven points of agilities included fencing, wrestling, long jumping, bow shooting, climbing, swimming, riding, and dancing, all performed while wearing full armour. ### How did the concept of chivalry evolve over time? Chivalry evolved from a code of conduct for elite cavalrymen to include behaviour towards lower-ranking soldiers, nobles, and ladies, as well as aspirations like defending the Church and respecting the weak. ### What were tournaments, and how did they contribute to violence among knights? Tournaments were popular spectator sports where knights competed in battles and jousting duels. They often led to violent feuds, revenge killings, and even full-scale conflicts. ### How many days a year were knights required to work for their lord? Knights were required to work 40 days a year for their lord, though this could extend during times of war or conflict. ### How did the role of knights change during the crusades? During the crusades, the role of knights shifted from being the core of medieval armies to more of an officer role, with actual armies mostly made up of peasants, men-at-arms, and mercenaries. ### Did knights coexist with firearms, and what is the term 'bulletproof' associated with? Yes, knights coexisted with firearms. The term 'bulletproof' is speculated to have originated from blacksmiths firing shots into armour to prove its strength. ### What led to the decline of traditional knighthood? The decline of traditional knighthood was due to the increasing cost and inconvenience of maintaining knights, the rise of mercenaries, and the failure of knight-led armies in later crusades. ### Do knights and knighthood still exist today? Yes, knights and knighthood still exist today, primarily as honorific titles and in charitable orders like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: 5 Shocking Things About Knights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2EFwFA2kpQ) ## Related Coverage