Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

the survival of a number of great helms sporting holes drilled lor brackets suggests that
there would have been very many more helmets hanging over tombs in parish
churches across Western Europe.
It is often argued that war for the medieval knight was a game in which he risked
his fortune and his harness and little else. Encased in steel and facing an opponent
who sought his capture rather than his death, the knight was unlikely to be killed.
This was not the case. As we have seen, the weapons that the knight wielded were
carefully designed not just to incapacitate or wound but to kill, and kill efficiently.
Even the finest armour could not stop every blow and death was an ever-present risk.
It was one which the ethos by which the knight conducted himself — chivalry — taught
him to accept. As we shall see, it also emphasized, alongside restraint and mercy
for one's fellow knights, a love and desire for violence and bloodshed. Chivalry was,
after all, a warrior's code.
CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE -J*
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