Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard
Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard
Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard
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service. Beowulf gave arms <strong>and</strong> armour to the men who became his retainers. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
may be something of this act in the depiction of William the Bastard <strong>and</strong> Harold in the<br />
Bayeux Tapestry: William places a helmet on Harold's head beneath the legend<br />
Hie Willelm dedit Haroido urnia: 'Here William gives Harold arms.' <strong>The</strong> delivery of<br />
weapons was also a rite of passage marking a youth 's coming of age, <strong>and</strong> an ancient<br />
one recorded as a custom of the Germanic tribes by the second-century Roman<br />
historian Tacitus.<br />
Both these aspects of conferring weapons <strong>and</strong> armour were present within the act<br />
of 'dubbing' the knight. To some extent the young squire began his adult life at his<br />
knighting (although the tironej — the young knights without ties of l<strong>and</strong> or marriage —<br />
were still seen as young <strong>and</strong> boisterous). <strong>The</strong> importance placed on who performed the<br />
actual ceremony <strong>and</strong> the desire to be knighted by a man of status <strong>and</strong> prowess added<br />
an element of submission <strong>and</strong> deference to the proceedings. Even if there was no<br />
formal act of homage between the lord conveying knighthood <strong>and</strong> the recipient, it<br />
helped to reinforce the ties between noble houses. Similarly, the mass knightings of the<br />
14th century drew knights together through the shared ritual. Often these groups<br />
formed famdiae, especially if they were knighted alongside a prince or young<br />
nobleman, such as the Black Prince, who was knighted with a number of his household<br />
<strong>and</strong> friends at the onset of the Crecy campaign. By their close association with the<br />
prince, it also enhanced their social st<strong>and</strong>ing.<br />
It was such royal ceremonies that saw the introduction of courtliness <strong>and</strong> pageantry<br />
into the proceedings. <strong>The</strong> mass knightings enhanced the gr<strong>and</strong>eur of the occasion,<br />
which became as much a political statement as a rite of passage.<br />
CHIVALRY: THE KNIGHTLY CODE -