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

BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: THE KNIGHT IN MEDIEVAL SOCIETY -•
those not actively involved might be able to watch from purpose-built terraces.
Like the tournament, hunting was part game, part training and part social ritual. The
romances echo this sense of the hunt as a social occasion. Erec andEnide begins with
King Arthur's desire to re-establish the tradition of the hunt for the White Stag as part
of the celebrations of Easter, whilst in the three days' hunting of Lord Bertilak in
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at another festival, this time Christmas, it is the size
of the retinue and the number of servants who accompany them that is emphasized.
The tale of Gawain, like many others, focuses in great detail on the hunt itself, from
the initial tracking to the ritualized butchery of the quarry. Just as in their treatment
of battle and warfare, those writing tales for the ears of the nobility and knights chose
their subjects carefully based on what their audience would want to focus upon. The
hunt, like all the many other social and cultural aspects of the knight's life, was not a
simple and practical matter, but intrinsically tied up with his desire and need to display
his status.
Even off the battlefield that status was bound up with the knight's martial calling.
Developing skill on the hunt was seen as developing skill for the battlefield, and
prowess accrued in both. Even if it was first and foremost a place of comfort and ease,
the knight's dwelling had to have the appearance of a fortress. The symbols that were
developed to identify him on the battlefield spread and did the same in his home and
in the chapels and churches he had built, and the gravitas and dignity of his political
and judicial functions came from those warranted him by his chivalric ethos and the
sword he carried into battle. Whilst not always dominant on the battlefield, nor always
the social elite off it, the knight was a social and military force that dominated the
middle ages. What is left to be asked is, where did he go?
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