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

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

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That life began at an early age. William Marshal was 12 when he was sent to<br />

William de Tancarville's household, <strong>and</strong> he served as a squire for eight years before<br />

being knighted. Unfortunately his biographer chooses to gloss over these early years,<br />

presumably as they were unable to offer much glory in which he could bathe his<br />

subject, so we do not know whether de Tancarville taught the boy himself or, as is<br />

more likely, the task fell to one of the knights of his familia.<br />

Everyone knows that the knight began his training as a squire under another<br />

knight, learning his trade from the ground up. Effectively, the boy was an apprentice<br />

knight, retaining his social status <strong>and</strong> rank. In Chaucer's Canterbury 1'ale.t the squire<br />

ranks in second place in the hierarchy of pilgrims, right behind his father the knight.<br />

He is well dressed, with curled hair <strong>and</strong> embroidered gown; he is most definitely<br />

not a servant. It is true that squires were expected to share in some of the care of his<br />

knight's horses <strong>and</strong> armour <strong>and</strong> serve him at table, but these duties, <strong>and</strong> in particular<br />

the latter, were a distinction rather than a lowly duty. This is why Chaucer remarks<br />

that the squire 'carved before his father at the table' alongside his knowledge of poetry<br />

<strong>and</strong> dance <strong>and</strong> singing <strong>and</strong> rhetoric. All of this was part of his education, in which he<br />

was taught not only the practical care of his equipment <strong>and</strong> his horse, but also the<br />

social graces <strong>and</strong> arts as well as martial ones.<br />

Princes did not, in general, get sent to other courts. It was generally considered<br />

politically unsafe to send heirs away <strong>and</strong> so a series of men were employed to school the<br />

princes within their own households: nutritii, a sort of male nursemaid for their earliest<br />

years <strong>and</strong> then magittri, masters, the term being used for both the tutors who taught<br />

academic subjects <strong>and</strong> those who taught martial pursuits. William Marshal performed<br />

this role for Henry the Young King, Henry II promising, we are told, to do William much<br />

good in return for the care <strong>and</strong> instruction ol the monarch's eldest son. He remained as<br />

an adviser to the Young King after the latter's knighting <strong>and</strong>, indeed, after both of them<br />

had ceased to be juvenes, continued to provide advice <strong>and</strong> training to the Young King's<br />

household on the tournament circuit <strong>and</strong> in battle until the prince's death in 1183.<br />

Whilst most maguftri are lost to us, particularly as the term is used broadly <strong>and</strong><br />

with no distinction <strong>and</strong> they leave little evidence other than occasional payments in<br />

account rolls, we do know a fair amount about one particular group of the late 14th<br />

<strong>and</strong> 15th centuries because of the survival ol the fighting manuals that they produced.<br />

Men like Johannes Lichtenauer, Sigmund Ringeck <strong>and</strong> Hans Talhoffer, all southern<br />

German masters, <strong>and</strong> north Italians like Fiore dei Liberi <strong>and</strong> Filippo Vadi left<br />

tantalizing details of themselves in their manuscripts. Fiore, for example, tells us that<br />

he was born in the northern Italian region of Aquileia, the son of a minor nobleman,<br />

probably around 1350. He left home at an early age, with the desire to learn the martial<br />

arts. Travelling widely he studied under many masters of arms in both Italy <strong>and</strong><br />

TACTICS AND TRAINING -}=>•<br />

81

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