Chivalry: The art of being a knight

See if you can read this description of a perfect knight from a guide to chivalry written in 1408: A steyght hed, a large brest, gret sholders, wel shapen arms – long and bygge, wel made long handes of grete bones, small bely, bygge thyes, leggis steght. Can you think of any sportsmen (or women!) today who might make a good knight?

How did someone become a knight? A knight had to come from a noble household The training to become a knight began when a boy was just 7 years old, when he would leave home and go to become a page boy in the house of another noble family. During this time, he would be educated. What subjects and what skills do you think he would have learned?

Becoming a squire At the age of 14, the boy’s ordinary lessons would end. He would now spend all his time training to be a good knight. This involved learning to use weapons, to ride a horse well and to become fit. He would wrestle, hunt, swim and play fighting games with other squires.

The Making of a Knight On completing his training, the squire would go through a special ceremony to become a knight.

What do you think is happening here?

How do you think the knight would feel at this point?

What does ‘chivalry’ mean? Have you ever been told to behave like a ‘lady’ or a ‘gentleman’? This idea of good behavior has been passed down to us from the Middle Ages. The word ‘chivalry’ comes from the French word chevalerie, meaning ‘horsemanship’. But by the 10th century it had come to mean a code of conduct for knights – a way of controlling their violence and making them behave properly.

What was a knight expected to do? Think back to Japan’s Feudal System. Knights were land owners – their land was given to them by the king a reward for fighting in the king’s army. In return for the land, the knight had both to spend 40 days serving in the army and to find more men to fight for the king. He had also to provide his own horse and weapons.

What if there were no wars? The knight was a trained fighter. As a page and as a squire, he had been prepared to spend his life fighting. His problem was what to do when there were no wars. Life in a cold, damp castle could be pretty dull. How do you think knights solved this problem?

Tournaments They held fake battles! These were like real battles, but the knights were not trying to kill each other so they used blunt weapons. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t dangerous! At one German tournament, 60 knights were killed. Many were trampled to death.

The new tournaments By the 13th century, tournaments had become much safer. They were now carefully managed by a ‘marshal’ and became more of a sporting and social event for the nobility. Medieval kings were very fond of tournaments – they used them to show off their wealth and sometimes their own sporting ability. There were often feasts and dancing in the evenings.

Jousting A modern recreation of a medieval joust As part of the new tournaments, a sport was developed called jousting. In a joust, two knights rode straight at each other. Each held a lance that was about 3 metres long. The lance was used to try to knock the other knight off his horse.

Changing ideas about knights Knights had originally been noblemen, who did their duty to their king and their country, and fought for their religious beliefs. But over time, more and more men became knights who just wanted to fight and to make money quickly. The age of the ‘chivalrous’ or gentlemanly knight was over.