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

That life began at an early age. William Marshal was 12 when he was sent to
William de Tancarville's household, and he served as a squire for eight years before
being knighted. Unfortunately his biographer chooses to gloss over these early years,
presumably as they were unable to offer much glory in which he could bathe his
subject, so we do not know whether de Tancarville taught the boy himself or, as is
more likely, the task fell to one of the knights of his familia.
Everyone knows that the knight began his training as a squire under another
knight, learning his trade from the ground up. Effectively, the boy was an apprentice
knight, retaining his social status and rank. In Chaucer's Canterbury 1'ale.t the squire
ranks in second place in the hierarchy of pilgrims, right behind his father the knight.
He is well dressed, with curled hair and embroidered gown; he is most definitely
not a servant. It is true that squires were expected to share in some of the care of his
knight's horses and armour and serve him at table, but these duties, and in particular
the latter, were a distinction rather than a lowly duty. This is why Chaucer remarks
that the squire 'carved before his father at the table' alongside his knowledge of poetry
and dance and singing and rhetoric. All of this was part of his education, in which he
was taught not only the practical care of his equipment and his horse, but also the
social graces and arts as well as martial ones.
Princes did not, in general, get sent to other courts. It was generally considered
politically unsafe to send heirs away and so a series of men were employed to school the
princes within their own households: nutritii, a sort of male nursemaid for their earliest
years and then magittri, masters, the term being used for both the tutors who taught
academic subjects and those who taught martial pursuits. William Marshal performed
this role for Henry the Young King, Henry II promising, we are told, to do William much
good in return for the care and instruction ol the monarch's eldest son. He remained as
an adviser to the Young King after the latter's knighting and, indeed, after both of them
had ceased to be juvenes, continued to provide advice and training to the Young King's
household on the tournament circuit and in battle until the prince's death in 1183.
Whilst most maguftri are lost to us, particularly as the term is used broadly and
with no distinction and they leave little evidence other than occasional payments in
account rolls, we do know a fair amount about one particular group of the late 14th
and 15th centuries because of the survival ol the fighting manuals that they produced.
Men like Johannes Lichtenauer, Sigmund Ringeck and Hans Talhoffer, all southern
German masters, and north Italians like Fiore dei Liberi and Filippo Vadi left
tantalizing details of themselves in their manuscripts. Fiore, for example, tells us that
he was born in the northern Italian region of Aquileia, the son of a minor nobleman,
probably around 1350. He left home at an early age, with the desire to learn the martial
arts. Travelling widely he studied under many masters of arms in both Italy and
TACTICS AND TRAINING -}=>•
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