Medieval Diesel

Ancient Rome had a military horseman class, but in the so-called Dark Ages or Migration Period in Late Antiquity, knights didn’t quite exist yet. The nearest equivalent would be members of a king’s comitatus like in Merovingian Gaul for instance (6th and 7th centuries).

These burly men of the comitatus, chosen for their loyalty and heroic feats, slept in the gift-giving hall with their lord. They received military equipment, horses, and gold rings as payment for their service. An example are the warriors who followed Alboin the Lombard King.

It wasn’t until the Carolingian Period (8th and 9th centuries) that the medieval knights we know and love would rise to the occasion. Charlemagne, in return for military service, would grant his warriors fiefs, or plots of land that they could grow wealthy from.

The fiefs they were given came with peasants and livestock and would create residual revenue so long as they were well maintained.

Knights also had private jurisdiction on their fiefs. This meant their word was law, and very rarely would crimes committed on their manor make it all the way to the royal or ecclesiastical courts.

At first, these fiefs were mostly granted under hariot which meant that once the knight died his fief would go back to the king’s ownership. And to receive fiefs and be dubbed a knight, brave men would swear an oath of allegiance to be summoned for battle when needed.

In 1184, Emperor Frederick I's sons would receive the first-recorded accolade ceremony to be made knights, with the tapping of the sword on the shoulders.

The coming-of-age ceremony was extensive. When you earned your title and were given a weapon, it was a momentous event because you'd been training as a squire for this since you were a boy.

By the High Middle Ages, new systems of vassalage were developed. Fiefs would no longer be granted to knights under hariot but would rather get passed down to the knight’s eldest son after death. This is primogeniture, and it led to the creation of a noble aristocracy.

However rich a knight was from his manor's revenues, however, he was rarely on the battlefield. In the Early and High Middle Ages, you might on average live through two to five wars in a lifetime. Still, the majority of knights would more often be seen managing routine affairs.

When a war did arise he would be summoned and so would a great deal of his own resources like additional men-at-arms. Depending on the oath he made to his lord or king, a knight could only be summoned so many times and was only obliged to bring so much support along with him.

"Knight errants" are famous from the songs but they're fictional constructs mainly. A real knight with serious business to take care of would have a much larger retinue than Don Quixote's lack-wit squire.

Often a knight would have more than one estate to take care of, and trusting stewards to do everything without checking on them was a bad idea. Stewards could turn corrupt and you wouldn’t want your own garrison stealing from your coffers when you weren’t in residence.

By the Late Middle Ages, when warfare was more prevalent, a knight might be as powerful as a minor king had been in the Early Middle Ages, holding vast forests and competing with bishops and cardinals for resources.

By the 1400s you can imagine seeing a knight on the road as being quite the display, as pages and squires nipped at his spurs. Travel was a great opportunity to teach squires tricks of the trade.

Knights, being of noble birth thanks to the primogeniture we mentioned, were generally well educated. They would have knowledge of everything from healing herbs and heraldry to literature and mapping, not to mention business and commerce.

Many knights would have secondary roles like being sheriff or justices of the peace. They'd perform duties like keeping fairs. Maintaining their own land was sometimes the easy side of their work, as they would be busy with all kinds of other regal and/or seasonal business.

We often like to think of a knight as someone on a horse wearing armor. When they weren't training, though, you could also expect them to be dressed exquisitely in colorful clothing.

Soon wealthy city merchants, whom were technically not nobility, were able to use their wealth and influence to gain prominent titles and dominate local governance. Merchants could even buy "letters of nobility" during financial crises, and pay their way into knighthood.

All this goes to show that knights were more than just armored men riding horses into battle, even if they started out as bodyguards in Late Antiquity. By the High Middle Ages, they were noble men with many duties. They were clever business men, educated, and well-dressed.

What else would you like to know about medieval knights? Let me know how I did. If you enjoyed this, please consider reposting! Follow @TimothyEveland for more medieval content.