knight

knight, now a title of honour bestowed for a variety of services, as in the British system of nobility and peerage, but originally in the European Middle Ages a formally professed cavalryman.

The first medieval knights were professional cavalry warriors, some of whom were vassals holding lands as fiefs from the lords in whose armies they served, while others were not enfeoffed with land. (See also knight service.) The process of entering knighthood often became formalized. A youth destined for the profession of arms might from the age of 7 or so serve his father as a page before joining the household of his father’s suzerain, perhaps at the age of 12, for more advanced instruction not only in military subjects but also in the ways of the world. During this period of his apprenticeship he would be known as a damoiseau (literally “lordling”), or varlet, or valet (German: Knappe), until he followed his patron on a campaign as his shield bearer, écuyer, or esquire, or as the bearer of his weapons (armiger). When he was adjudged proficient and the money was forthcoming for the purchase of his knightly equipment, he would be dubbed knight. The ceremonial of dubbing varied considerably: it might be highly elaborate on a great feast day or on a royal occasion; or it could be simply performed on the battlefield; and the dubbing knight might use any appropriate formula that he liked. A common element, however, was the use of the flat of a sword blade for a touch on the shoulder—i.e., the accolade of knighthood as it survives in modern times.

As knighthood evolved, a Christian ideal of knightly behaviour and chivalry came to be accepted, involving respect for the church, protection of the poor and the weak, loyalty to one’s feudal or military superiors, and preservation of personal honour.

(Read Sir Walter Scott’s 1824 Britannica essay on chivalry.)

The nearest that the ideal ever came to realization, however, was in the Crusades, which, from the end of the 11th century, brought the knights of Christian Europe together in a common enterprise under the auspices of the church. Knights dubbed at Christ’s tomb were known as knights of the Holy Sepulchre. During the Crusades the first orders of knights came into being: the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem (later the Knights of Malta), the Order of the Temple of Solomon (Templars), and, rather later, the Order of St. Lazarus, which had a special duty of protecting leper hospitals. These were truly international and of an expressly religious nature both in their purpose and in their form, with celibacy for their members and a hierarchical structure (grand master; “pillars” of lands, or provincial masters; grand priors; commanders; knights) resembling that of the church itself. But it was not long before their religious aim gave place to political activity as the orders grew in numbers and in wealth.

At the same time, crusading orders with a rather more national bias came into being. In Spain, for the struggle against the Muslims there or for the protection of pilgrims, the Orders of Calatrava and of Alcántara and Santiago (St. James) were founded in Castile between 1156 and 1171; Portugal had the Order of Avís, founded about the same time; but Aragon’s Order of Montesa (1317) and Portugal’s Order of Christ were not founded until after the dissolution of the Templars. The greatest order of German knights was the Teutonic Order. These “national” crusading orders followed a course of worldly aggrandizement like that of the international orders; but the crusades in Europe that they undertook, no less than the international enterprises in Palestine, would long attract individual knights from abroad or from outside their ranks.

Between the end of the 11th century and the middle of the 13th, a change took place in the relationship of knighthood to feudalism. The feudal host, whose knights were enfeoffed landholders obliged to give 40 days’ service per year normally, had been adequate for defense and for service within a kingdom; but it was scarcely appropriate for the now more frequent long-distance expeditions of the time, whether crusades or sustained invasions such as those launched in the Anglo-French wars. The result was twofold: on the one hand, the kings often resorted to distraint of knighthood, that is, to compelling holders of land above a certain value to come and be dubbed knights; on the other hand, the armies came to be composed more and more largely of mercenary soldiers, with the knights, who had once formed the main body of the combatants, reduced to a minority—as it were to a class of officers.

The gradual demise of the Crusades, the disastrous defeats of knightly armies by foot soldiers and bowmen, the development of artillery, the steady erosion of feudalism by the royal power in favour of centralized monarchy—all these factors spelled the disintegration of traditional knighthood in the 14th and 15th centuries. Knighthood lost its martial purpose and, by the 16th century, had been reduced to an honorific status that sovereigns could bestow as they pleased. It became a fashion of modish elegance for the sophisticated nobles of a prince’s entourage.

A great number of secular knightly orders were established from the late Middle Ages onward: for example (to name but a few), The Most Noble Order of the Garter, Order of the Golden Fleece, The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, The Most Ancient Most Noble Order of the Thistle, and The Most Honourable Order of the Bath. These honours were reserved for persons of the highest distinction in the nobility or in government service or, more generally, for persons distinguished in various professions and arts. In the United Kingdom, knighthood is today the only title still conferred by a ceremony in which sovereign and subject both take part personally. In its modern form the subject kneels and the sovereign touches him or her with a drawn sword (usually a sword of state) first on the right shoulder, then on the left. The male knight uses the prefix Sir before his personal name; the female knight the prefix Dame.

See also Bath, The Most Honourable Order of the; British Empire, The Most Excellent Order of the; Chrysanthemum, Order of the; Companions of Honour, Order of the; Garter, The Most Noble Order of the; Golden Fleece, Order of the; Knights of Malta; Legion of Honour, Order of the; Merit, Order of; Paulownia Sun, Order of the; Pour le Mérite; Rising Sun, Order of the; Royal Victorian Order; Saint Michael and Saint George, The Most Distinguished Order of; Templar; Thistle, The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the.