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

ill-educated and uncultured individual interested only in battle and stories of battle,
this was far from the truth. A basic knowledge of Latin was probably possessed by the
vast majority, if only because of their attendance of Mass at church, and a knowledge
of some Latin would have been essential for a knight in the performance ot his judicial
function. Similarly the ability to read and write in the vernacular (and in England that
meant both French and English) was also essential.
When John of Salisbury writes that it was not necessary for a knight to make
a declaration at the ceremony of his dubbing because 'who would require such a
profession of a man who is illiterate, and who ought to be trained for arms rather than
for letters?', he does not mean that the knight was unable to read and write. Instead
to be litteratud in a medieval context was to be versed in classical Latin literature, to
be a scholar. A medieval 'illiterate' might not be classically trained but that did not
mean that he was ignorant or ill educated. Throughout this book many of our key
sources have been the writings of the knights themselves: Joinville and Villehardouin's
crusader narratives, Jean le Bel's account of the Weardale campaign, the poems of
Bertrand du Born or the German Minnedanger, or Geoffrey de Charny and his Book
of Chivalry. All are works showing a fine degree of literacy and erudition (even if
Bertrand s poems do often emphasize the cruder and more bloodthirsty aspects of the
knightly character).
Whilst not all knights would have been capable of such literary achievements their
interest in reading went further than the need to be able to comprehend a writ or
compile a manorial account. John Trevisa wrote an English translation of Ralph
Higden's Latin history the Polyehronicon in 1387, doing so (Trevisa tells us) because
his patron, Thomas Lord Berkeley, knew some Latin but not enough to read the
original in full. The knight and nobleman both collected books and read them.
Most of the early vernacular narratives were tales with a distinctive epic character,
emphasizing their role as entertainment, and reflecting the tastes of their readership.
Wace 's two 12th-century works detailing the origins of the Duchy of Normandy and
the kingdom of Britain, the Roman de Ron and Roman de Brut, are both replete with
martial detail which would engage a knightly audience. William Marshal's biography,
although drawn from sources close to the earl, including his son William and his long-
time squire John of Earley, is written in the style of a ehandon de gedte, literally a 'song
of deeds', and clearly meant to entertain as well as to praise its subject. The similarity
with epic and romance tales is unsurprising. They were all part of a longer tradition
of story-telling and although they were now written down, their reading was done
aloud as a group activity.
The other works that the nobility collected reflect their broader cultural
interests. As well as the expected works on chivalry and heraldry, religious works