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

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