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

FOR NEARLY HALF A MILLENNIUM THE KNIGHT WAS A DOMINANT
force in warfare and society, his culture pervading almost
every aspect of the medieval world. By 1600 that dominance
had gone. The knight had vanished from the battlefield, whilst his
social role was indistinguishable from many of the 'middling sort'who
had not the same distinction. What had happened to cause this change,
and where had the knight gone?
In social terms the disappearance ol the knight has been connected to two
interconnected factors; the blurring ol the distinction between the knight and what
English historians generally term 'the gentry ', and the increasing separation of the
idea of nobility from military service.
The non-knightly had always served in war, taking the role of what commentators
of the 13th century called equitej chu,tu decundae -'second-class cavalry'. Although
they were described by a variety of different terms, such as derjand {servient equitand
in Latin), damoideau or dcutiferud (ecuyer in French), they are all similar in form. It is
generally agreed that they differed from the knights only in terms of their social rank
and the expense and quality of their equipment, and that even the latter might not be
all that different. By the latter half of the 14th century the distinction had all but
disappeared and knight and squire could all be considered under the martial catch-all
'man-at-arms'. The English crown from Edward III onwards indented tor no one but
men-at-arms or archers; all other distinctions had disappeared.
In England, and to a certain extent elsewhere in Europe, the increased intensity ot
warfare and the greater demands for manpower offered opportunities for a greater
number of this 'squire' class to play a role in war. The gentry became actively involved
in war, and were vital in its success. The remarkable victories of Edward Ill's reign in
particular, brought them financial rewards which they then invested in land. Just as
the knight of the 12th century had acquired dignity and status through the profession
of arms, so now the gentry started to demand the same. They had, after all, been taking
the same risks on the same battlefields; why should they not also share in the status
and privileges afforded those with the title of knight?
The squires began to adopt all of the trappings of knighthood and, in the same way
that the knights' adoption of seals and their own individualized coats of arms had been
opposed by the magnates in the 12th and early 13th centuries, those above them tried
to restrict their behaviour. In a writ of 1417, produced as he readied for a campaign
in France, Henry V instructed an inspection of all heraldic arms on the grounds that