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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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FOR NEARLY HALF A MILLENNIUM THE KNIGHT WAS A DOMINANT<br />

force in warfare <strong>and</strong> society, his culture pervading almost<br />

every aspect of the medieval world. By 1600 that dominance<br />

had gone. <strong>The</strong> knight had vanished from the battlefield, whilst his<br />

social role was indistinguishable from many of the 'middling sort'who<br />

had not the same distinction. What had happened to cause this change,<br />

<strong>and</strong> where had the knight gone?<br />

In social terms the disappearance ol the knight has been connected to two<br />

interconnected factors; the blurring ol the distinction between the knight <strong>and</strong> what<br />

English historians generally term 'the gentry ', <strong>and</strong> the increasing separation of the<br />

idea of nobility from military service.<br />

<strong>The</strong> non-knightly had always served in war, taking the role of what commentators<br />

of the 13th century called equitej chu,tu decundae -'second-class cavalry'. Although<br />

they were described by a variety of different terms, such as derj<strong>and</strong> {servient equit<strong>and</strong><br />

in Latin), damoideau or dcutiferud (ecuyer in French), they are all similar in form. It is<br />

generally agreed that they differed from the knights only in terms of their social rank<br />

<strong>and</strong> the expense <strong>and</strong> quality of their equipment, <strong>and</strong> that even the latter might not be<br />

all that different. By the latter half of the 14th century the distinction had all but<br />

disappeared <strong>and</strong> knight <strong>and</strong> squire could all be considered under the martial catch-all<br />

'man-at-arms'. <strong>The</strong> English crown from Edward III onwards indented tor no one but<br />

men-at-arms or archers; all other distinctions had disappeared.<br />

In Engl<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> to a certain extent elsewhere in Europe, the increased intensity ot<br />

warfare <strong>and</strong> the greater dem<strong>and</strong>s for manpower offered opportunities for a greater<br />

number of this 'squire' class to play a role in war. <strong>The</strong> gentry became actively involved<br />

in war, <strong>and</strong> were vital in its success. <strong>The</strong> remarkable victories of Edward Ill's reign in<br />

particular, brought them financial rewards which they then invested in l<strong>and</strong>. Just as<br />

the knight of the 12th century had acquired dignity <strong>and</strong> status through the profession<br />

of arms, so now the gentry started to dem<strong>and</strong> the same. <strong>The</strong>y had, after all, been taking<br />

the same risks on the same battlefields; why should they not also share in the status<br />

<strong>and</strong> privileges afforded those with the title of knight?<br />

<strong>The</strong> squires began to adopt all of the trappings of knighthood <strong>and</strong>, in the same way<br />

that the knights' adoption of seals <strong>and</strong> their own individualized coats of arms had been<br />

opposed by the magnates in the 12th <strong>and</strong> early 13th centuries, those above them tried<br />

to restrict their behaviour. In a writ of 1417, produced as he readied for a campaign<br />

in France, Henry V instructed an inspection of all heraldic arms on the grounds that

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