February 25, 2009 • 20 mins
The knights of medieval Europe are often associated with a code of behavior known as chivalry -- but what were these knights actually like? Learn more about the reality behind the popular image of knights in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and got into the podcast.
I'm editor Kandis Kipson, going by staff writer Jane mcgarrath. Again,
it's I think chivalry is alive and well, and we
have the knights of Middle Age and medieval Europe to
(00:24):
think for that. That's right. And uh, I guess when
we're young we think about I guess the little girls
at least think about meeting knights in shining armor. And
we don't really know a lot except for, you know,
the little we get in history class about what actual
nights in the Middle Ages were like and whether or
not their armor was in fact shiny. And after doing
a little bit of research, I'm inclined to think it
(00:46):
may have been, you know, buffed and polished, but I
don't think it was that shiny. Yeah, probably not if
they were busy in battle and didn't get to clean
it that often. They kind a lot going on again,
they've got their squires short. But I think we're getting
ahead of ourselves. So nights, it's not just the staff
of literature. They were real medieval warriors and they began
their military training very young and the word night actually
(01:08):
comes from the Anglish Saxon term for boy and knighthood,
and the system of becoming a night actually began under
the feudal system which was established by Charlemagne in the
eighth century. That's right, and knights, especially early on but
later not necessarily. They they had land that they held
from the lords would sort of lease to them, and
(01:29):
they were responsible for In order to get dubbed a knight,
usually you were the son of a night or a lord,
and so they weren't necessarily nobility per se, but they
were pretty respected, especially when we talk about the code
of chivalry that we will in a second, just the
idea that they were respected people. And you know, if
you ever read Cannbury Tales like most people do in
(01:49):
high school, the prologue actually lists the night first because
he was so respected, right, And part of the reason
for that was that it was not a position that
you inherited. It was something that you had to work for.
And just to give you a little bit of background
on knighthood and the reason that nights were so important,
um during Charlemagne's reign, essentially there was a bunch of
(02:11):
land and after the Roman Empire fell. Western Europe essentially
had no countries and no real organization, just huge parcels
of land, and there was a lot of fighting every territories,
but there was nothing really productive in place to control
them and and to really ration it out and to
give order and to create agricultural mainstays. And so Charlemagne
(02:34):
instituted feudalism, and he had this patch of land that
sort of went from northern Spain to Italy and then
France and Germany and Poland, and he would dole out
portions of land to nobles and in exchange they would
agree to be loyal to him and to offer him protection.
Or he could give land to nights in exchange for
their military service. And nights who lived on land really
(02:56):
had a good deal going whether they lived on land
owned by the king or buy a noble and exchange
for food, clothing, and shelter. They would, you know, provide
military service when it was necessary. And they also protected
the surfs who are underneath them as well as the
men who were over them in the Sars War im
part of because these were the people who were growing
the food that fed them. So in lieu of having
(03:18):
an actual centralized government, This was a pretty good system
and everyone was taken care of, So knighthood was important,
and you really did feel like you were part of
a bigger structure and that you were important to your
your your land or your fife. That's right, and knights
actually made up pretty well. Um. I guess we're you're
gonna talk about that later with the terms in terms
of the Knights templar. But actually one thing that it
(03:39):
struck me was that even though Knights are known as
professional warriors, there was this thing called scootage where Um
knights could actually send out others to do their fighting
for them. I guess they were just too happy back
in Europe with their lands that they were running and
making a pretty good living at. But if you want
to go back to um where boys, how boys became
(04:00):
a nights. It actually started about the age of seven. Beforehand,
they would be raised by their moms in the household,
but by the age of seven they officially became a page.
They would learn horsemanship, reading, writing, religion, even falconry, which
was popular at the time. Yes, and they got their
hunting skills. They got all their schooling skills down and
I was sort of cute I'm sure it wasn't exactly
(04:20):
cute back then, but it's cute to me to read
about it. They would use wooden swords and lances to
practice combats. It isn't that just kind of adorable, little page,
little cute little page boy haircut out there with his
wooden sword a big strong night one day. I think
it's sweet. Anyway, Once they turned fourteen, the page became
an esquire or squire, and um, in order to mark
(04:41):
this passage, there was a religious ceremony and he would
take a consecrated sword and he would promise to use
it for honorable purposes. And this is all very sword
in the stone to me, you know, I can see
this happening, little warts and taking his sword from the stone,
and the squire is actually on such a literary geek.
But the squire is actually the second one I believe
died in the Canary Tales prologue, and she gets it
(05:02):
goes to show how UM using this this system of
the page to the squire of the night is. It
was very respected, yeah, and and very much instilled and
the common mentality and how people conceived of the order
of their lands. So the squire had a couple of
different types of positions that he could fill during his
training and Um, in addition to these positions, he was
(05:25):
learning social etiquette and behavior as well as martial arts
and um, there are I've got to tell you guys
about these positions because they just they tickled me. A
couple in particular. There is a squire of body who
was a personal servant to a night or a lady.
The Squire of the chamber also the chamberlain was another
name for that, and he attended to the rooms in
(05:45):
a castle. This is one of my favorite. The table
or carving squire was in charge of carving meat and
waiting on banquet tables. So really sort of aware, that's
what it sounds like. Yeah, I kind of reminds me
for of the fraternity hazing sort of situations. Yes, I'll
have to ask Steward about that one later. Um. Squire
of wines who managed the wine cellar not a bad position.
(06:08):
Um at least, may the say Squire of pantry who
stocked the pantry, managed supplies for the home, Squire of
Arms who maintained armor and weapons, And the Squire of
Honor who helped in ceremonies and feasts, and if you're
like me, you're thinking that some sound a little bit
more prestigious than others. So I'm wondering, honestly, if there
was some sort of ranking system or depending on how
well they performed just pages that determined whether they got
(06:31):
to be a squire of body or or a meat squire. Yeah,
that's true, although I think no matter what position you
were at, you were kind of can't wait until you
turned twenty one. And uh, at the time, it wasn't
about alcohol, but about being dubbed a knight. This was
about the time that you would sometimes actually if squires,
if there was a war going on, they went to
go fight, they would serve their um their night in battle,
(06:53):
and if they did something particularly heroic, they could be
actually dubbed on on the battlefield. But usually, uh, once
a night turned twenty one, back at home, they would,
uh they would be dubbed officially in sort of this
elaborate ceremony. You know. It often accompanied another big ceremony
like a wedding or even I think Christmas or Easter
(07:13):
feast day. Yeah, and so um it would be a
major part of it. And uh, you can tell by
the fact that they had these this ritual they went
through the night. Before the boy would go have a
ritual bath, they would have an all night prayer vigil.
And then the next day when they went to go
get dubbed, they would have to swear this oath where
they were devoted to the Church, they were loyal to
(07:35):
their lord, they defended a lady, etcetera, etcetera, and some
of these other ETCeteras. Again, I just it's just so
fun reading about night history. You know, whether you are
a meat squire or whatever. Parts of this oath were
really humorous, or at least to me today. They had
to um in addition to defending ladies and being loyal
to their lords and to the church, they had to
(07:55):
be brave. They had to promise that they were going
to take off their armor only when they were sleeping
on They would vow never to avoid danger because they
were afraid. They had to be on time, which is
just good sent to really. And another one is that
whenever the Night returned home, he would have to share
and tell about his escapades and talk about being a
literary geek. That's got the wheels in my mind turning.
(08:17):
I was like, huh, well, I wonder if this is
why the you know, oral tradition of of Nights stories
is so alive, and wow, there must have been a
lot of Nights stories going around if you were required
to tell someone about it. Yeah, And another one I
found interesting actually in the little details, was that if
a Night was taken prisoner, he would have to surrender
peaceably after he was really taken, and he wouldn't be
allowed to fight his captors again until he got their permission,
(08:39):
which I found really interesting. You would expect, you know,
if you were taken prisoner, that you would try your
best to fight your way out of it. So there's
an interesting code that this, oh, this oath that they
had to take, and you can imagine if every single
Night is good enough to uphold the code, then things
must have been you know, pretty sivels around there, and
people wanted to have you know, been really proper and
kind of one in one another at it seems like
(09:01):
every now and then there's there's a bad apple that
gets through, and bad Nights must have come along and
done things like stalling another's armor or challenged him to
a duel, and it was sort of two on one
instead of you know, one on one as the action
was supposed to be. So yeah, and it's interesting, I mean,
most people associate this whole oath with what is now
known as chivalry. I mean, if you don't sort of
(09:23):
just talk about how opening up a car door is chivalrous,
But actually the term originally originally came back to just
meaning good horsemanship, which I found really interesting. Another source
I found said that it meant just playing tenure of
land at all, and that sort of made sense to
me in terms of the word gentleman, which you know,
has a similar evolution and how we think of it
(09:45):
think of it today. You know, gentlemen are people who
open doors for ladies, but back then, uh, gentleman was
just sort of someone who owned lander property. So it's
just interesting to look at the evolution of what these
terms mean today and what they meant back then. Definitely,
I think that the anymalogy of of the world um
definitely sheds light on what the knights did and how
the tradition continues today, even though there weren't exactly medieval
(10:07):
warriors prancing around modern day England. But at this point
the knight was officially called a sir and he could
own land and hire his own soldiers. And you may
be wondering, well, what did a knight do when there
weren't any battles to fight in, And the answer is
pretty simple. They participated in tournaments, said that their skills
didn't go to waste, and it's right. And um, one
(10:27):
of my favorite I think is jails. Oh yeah, definitely.
I'm from Maryland. The case he didn't know and jaelsting
is actually our official sport. I don't know how that happened,
but but it's very bizarre, but I mean, I love
it and jousting. If you've ever seen something like a
night's sale, obviously, uh with heath Ledger, it was sort
of always it was a one on one thing where
knights would go up against each other mounted on horses
(10:49):
and they would basically rush at each other with long,
dull headed lances, and so they would keep them out
in front of them so that they would try to
hit the other person as they went by, and you
win about through about three lances, and you would get
points based on if you broke your lance on the
other person where it hit, etcetera. And after three lances
they would get off and start fighting if they wanted
(11:11):
to with swords actually, and the Church I guess was
okay with jausting because it was not quite as dangerous
as another popular tournament, and that was the melee, and
that was sort of a free for all battle. Imagine
a really big group of nights and um, you're in
this big huddle of nights and you eyeball a competitor.
You choose one other person, you start fighting wance. You
(11:32):
defeat that person and he's down, either he's down dead
or he's down passed out. You move on to the
next person. So it's a one on one fight, but
in the context of a larger group and the premises
last man standing winds and the Church really did not
like this one makes a lot of people really did die,
and I just you know, for the sake of entertainment,
just seemed rather controversial. So and also, you know, from
(11:53):
my modern perspective, it doesn't seem very shivalrous to us
perform like this in front of a lady you were
trying to impress by killing other people. That's alas I
have an anachronistic point of years, so I could see
that although um, one advantage to fighting these games is
that you couldn't make a lot of money. That was
one motivation that they had, in addition to like getting
honor and practicing your skills. But they could actually get
(12:14):
money by the fact, at least in jousting, when someone lost,
they had to turn over their horse and their armor
to the winner, and they could buy back those things
from the winner. And so the if you were a
common winner you were good at jousting, you could make
a good load of money. And that was good years
because all of your nightly accouterments were rather expensive, particularly armor.
(12:36):
And when armor originated, it was back in ancient room
and they actually used leather, and leather was very expensive
to use, you know, as a full body protective covering,
but it was malleable, so it was really cool because
you could shape that and then you boil it and
water oil and it hardens in place, and you've got
something that very resistant to all sorts of points and
tips and piercings coming at you. And um, so the
(12:58):
middle aged nights use leather's armor, and then I continue
to evolve into um chain mail, for instance, that was
another Roman idea originally, and these were small interwoven steel
rings and there were two predominant types. One was butted mail,
where the rings were really really close together, and the
other was riveted mail, where the rings were actually connected
with rivets. And this was chaper than armor, but unlike
(13:20):
armor and leather armor, it was really vulnerable to piercings
and it was pretty heavy too. And it's funny slip
back at part of the training for becoming a night
was that you would practice walking around wearing chain mail,
so you're gladdy. You get used to the way, sort
of like today, I think that there's some military personnel
who trained with their backpacks on their gear, or you know,
if you're going to hike the Appalachian Trail, you probabice
(13:42):
walking around with your packs. You get used to the weights. Yeah,
that makes sense. And it's interesting to see how armor
changes as um weapons change as they advance, because you know,
you look at whate sorry, leather and um chain mail
like you're saying canvas, and they are you know, they
do protect against cuts and scrapes. But when you know,
people started developing crossbows, for instance, this would not protect
(14:03):
them and so they had to start turning to more
solid metal pieces of armor. And so you know, these
solid metal pieces. They're so difficult. Sometimes they heard that
they weighed up to sixty pounds. They were super hot. Uh,
they would often take an hour to put on. Need
help to do that. On top of it, as weapons
advanced even further, you see, uh the introduction of gunpowder.
(14:25):
They finally made its way from from Asia to Europe.
And once that was introduced, it was like, what's the
point anymore? Imer point? But the funny thing about armor
too is that it really didn't protect your entire body,
so you had to wear chain me all, especially in
places like your under arms and where your joints came together,
like your knees, so that you had some protection there
because the plates didn't fit that tightly. And contrary to
(14:48):
popular belief, it wasn't too hard to move around in
Like you weren't stiff, it was just really heavy. That
would have been the challenge. I can see that. And
so nights continued to serve you out throughout the Middle
Ages and throughout medieval Europe, you know, under the feudal system.
And then they actually served um a more I guess
national or international relay since Europe at this point was
(15:11):
breaking apart into different nations. Purpose and that was protecting
pilgrims who were traveling to the Holy Land during the
Crusade and caring for sick pilgrims and um. These are
are groups like the Knights Templar and the Knights hospital
Ers and the Teutonic Knights. These still exist today as
cherishable societies. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the most beloved
(15:33):
orders of Knights was actually the Templars candas mentioned, and
this is one unlike the others, that doesn't exist today,
And it wasn't really interesting story because they were beloved
at the time. Give you some background on it. They
were founded about the eleven hundreds, like you said, to
protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land at the time. Um,
And if you listen to our Crusades podcast you know
more about why they're doing that. So what was interesting
(15:54):
about this order in other orders like it, was that
it was both a military uh sort of purpose and
they were religious men. It was basically religious order where
they were monks and they were supposed to live a
modest life, and they didn't always do that. They they,
like other orders, got proud and greedy, and so there's
lots of controversy around them. All the time, but this
(16:14):
particular order got accused in the early fourteenth century. I
believe of um lots of abuses in terms of UM,
both monetary abuses like they were mishandling charity that they got, etcetera, etcetera,
but people who are also upset that they were heretics,
that they weren't holding mass correctly, that they were actually
(16:34):
worshiping idols, and there was homosexual behavior going on between
them as well, which the Church would not have liked.
So at this time, it was actually the king, King
Philip the fourth of France who really had um had
his eye out on on them and wanted them to
be taken out and um. Recent documents released by the
Vatican actually a couple of years ago, it's very interesting
(16:55):
show that the Pope at the time actually absolved them
of their charges and didn't he didn't believe that they
were heretics. But the King Philip of France UM supposedly
owed them a lot of money, and that's really why
they wanted him. They wanted he wanted the whole order gone,
and so they were tried, they were tortured, and they're
eventually burned at the stake. And it's really sad, mysterious story. Yeah,
(17:17):
that is. It's really haunting, especially if you think about
all the hard work that goes into becoming a knight
and you know how you do Valie to uphold this oath.
And I'm sure that once you sort of developed into
your own separate order of Night, you have an entirely
different code of ethics that you're also upholdings, and so so
it seems like you would have to be really committed
to uphold all of these principles. And I'm sure it
must have been very hard on the group when they
(17:38):
were when they were taken apart, and you know, even
harder when they were executed. But that's another point. So today,
um if you're not a member of one of the
charity groups that originated in these different orders of Nights,
you might be able to attain night hud by two
different means, one of which is a martial arts achievement.
And almost like if you were to practice crowd or
(18:00):
another form of martial arts that originated in um Asia,
you'd be given different colors of belts for the level
of martial arts that that you attain, and the same
is true in different schools around England where um and
around other parts of Europe to where you can earn
recognition for demonstrations and you may be asked to perform
a different affairs and festivals to show your prowess. And
(18:23):
the other way you can become a night is a
member of Royalty bestows that honor upon you. And it's
so fun to see the different people who come up
for nighthood, be they oh, gosh, someone who's made a
contribution to the business world, or the political world, or
the music world, like Sir Elton John and I think
he's my favorite nighte if I can say, gosh, I'm
(18:49):
gonna stick up for Alton with little kicky sunglasses and
carrying gosh. I just love him so. And they're a
member of the Order of the Garter, which I found
really interesting that this was one of the original orders.
It was established at least in thirteen forty six. Uh,
you might be wondering whether called the Order of the Garter.
It is an interesting name and one source I found
said that the theory is that Edward the Third, who
(19:11):
started the Order, was really interested in the Arthur's round
Table and that whole legend. He wanted to revive it
and he chose a name because of embarrassing incident where
Edward was at a party and he was dancing with
a girl and the girl actually lost her garter and
fell on the floor, and in order to quell the
sort of embarrassment, he put it on his leg and
he said, shame to him who thinks evil of it.
(19:33):
So this sort of idea, you know, don't think evil
of others. Um, he was really proud of and that's
why he named it the Order of the Garter. How
about that? That's the sweet story. I like that. So
clearly there are a lot of different tales and legends
surrounding the Order of Knights, and many more nights specifically
for you to learn about, so be sure to read
all about knights and castles and maybe even article on
(19:56):
dragons on how stuff works dot com. For more on
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email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and got into the podcast.
I'm editor Kandis Kipson, going by staff writer Jane mcgarrath. Again,
it's I think chivalry is alive and well, and we
have the knights of Middle Age and medieval Europe to
(00:24):
think for that. That's right. And uh, I guess when
we're young we think about I guess the little girls
at least think about meeting knights in shining armor. And
we don't really know a lot except for, you know,
the little we get in history class about what actual
nights in the Middle Ages were like and whether or
not their armor was in fact shiny. And after doing
a little bit of research, I'm inclined to think it
(00:46):
may have been, you know, buffed and polished, but I
don't think it was that shiny. Yeah, probably not if
they were busy in battle and didn't get to clean
it that often. They kind a lot going on again,
they've got their squires short. But I think we're getting
ahead of ourselves. So nights, it's not just the staff
of literature. They were real medieval warriors and they began
their military training very young and the word night actually
(01:08):
comes from the Anglish Saxon term for boy and knighthood,
and the system of becoming a night actually began under
the feudal system which was established by Charlemagne in the
eighth century. That's right, and knights, especially early on but
later not necessarily. They they had land that they held
from the lords would sort of lease to them, and
(01:29):
they were responsible for In order to get dubbed a knight,
usually you were the son of a night or a lord,
and so they weren't necessarily nobility per se, but they
were pretty respected, especially when we talk about the code
of chivalry that we will in a second, just the
idea that they were respected people. And you know, if
you ever read Cannbury Tales like most people do in
(01:49):
high school, the prologue actually lists the night first because
he was so respected, right, And part of the reason
for that was that it was not a position that
you inherited. It was something that you had to work for.
And just to give you a little bit of background
on knighthood and the reason that nights were so important,
um during Charlemagne's reign, essentially there was a bunch of
(02:11):
land and after the Roman Empire fell. Western Europe essentially
had no countries and no real organization, just huge parcels
of land, and there was a lot of fighting every territories,
but there was nothing really productive in place to control
them and and to really ration it out and to
give order and to create agricultural mainstays. And so Charlemagne
(02:34):
instituted feudalism, and he had this patch of land that
sort of went from northern Spain to Italy and then
France and Germany and Poland, and he would dole out
portions of land to nobles and in exchange they would
agree to be loyal to him and to offer him protection.
Or he could give land to nights in exchange for
their military service. And nights who lived on land really
(02:56):
had a good deal going whether they lived on land
owned by the king or buy a noble and exchange
for food, clothing, and shelter. They would, you know, provide
military service when it was necessary. And they also protected
the surfs who are underneath them as well as the
men who were over them in the Sars War im
part of because these were the people who were growing
the food that fed them. So in lieu of having
(03:18):
an actual centralized government, This was a pretty good system
and everyone was taken care of, So knighthood was important,
and you really did feel like you were part of
a bigger structure and that you were important to your
your your land or your fife. That's right, and knights
actually made up pretty well. Um. I guess we're you're
gonna talk about that later with the terms in terms
of the Knights templar. But actually one thing that it
(03:39):
struck me was that even though Knights are known as
professional warriors, there was this thing called scootage where Um
knights could actually send out others to do their fighting
for them. I guess they were just too happy back
in Europe with their lands that they were running and
making a pretty good living at. But if you want
to go back to um where boys, how boys became
(04:00):
a nights. It actually started about the age of seven. Beforehand,
they would be raised by their moms in the household,
but by the age of seven they officially became a page.
They would learn horsemanship, reading, writing, religion, even falconry, which
was popular at the time. Yes, and they got their
hunting skills. They got all their schooling skills down and
I was sort of cute I'm sure it wasn't exactly
(04:20):
cute back then, but it's cute to me to read
about it. They would use wooden swords and lances to
practice combats. It isn't that just kind of adorable, little page,
little cute little page boy haircut out there with his
wooden sword a big strong night one day. I think
it's sweet. Anyway, Once they turned fourteen, the page became
an esquire or squire, and um, in order to mark
(04:41):
this passage, there was a religious ceremony and he would
take a consecrated sword and he would promise to use
it for honorable purposes. And this is all very sword
in the stone to me, you know, I can see
this happening, little warts and taking his sword from the stone,
and the squire is actually on such a literary geek.
But the squire is actually the second one I believe
died in the Canary Tales prologue, and she gets it
(05:02):
goes to show how UM using this this system of
the page to the squire of the night is. It
was very respected, yeah, and and very much instilled and
the common mentality and how people conceived of the order
of their lands. So the squire had a couple of
different types of positions that he could fill during his
training and Um, in addition to these positions, he was
(05:25):
learning social etiquette and behavior as well as martial arts
and um, there are I've got to tell you guys
about these positions because they just they tickled me. A
couple in particular. There is a squire of body who
was a personal servant to a night or a lady.
The Squire of the chamber also the chamberlain was another
name for that, and he attended to the rooms in
(05:45):
a castle. This is one of my favorite. The table
or carving squire was in charge of carving meat and
waiting on banquet tables. So really sort of aware, that's
what it sounds like. Yeah, I kind of reminds me
for of the fraternity hazing sort of situations. Yes, I'll
have to ask Steward about that one later. Um. Squire
of wines who managed the wine cellar not a bad position.
(06:08):
Um at least, may the say Squire of pantry who
stocked the pantry, managed supplies for the home, Squire of
Arms who maintained armor and weapons, And the Squire of
Honor who helped in ceremonies and feasts, and if you're
like me, you're thinking that some sound a little bit
more prestigious than others. So I'm wondering, honestly, if there
was some sort of ranking system or depending on how
well they performed just pages that determined whether they got
(06:31):
to be a squire of body or or a meat squire. Yeah,
that's true, although I think no matter what position you
were at, you were kind of can't wait until you
turned twenty one. And uh, at the time, it wasn't
about alcohol, but about being dubbed a knight. This was
about the time that you would sometimes actually if squires,
if there was a war going on, they went to
go fight, they would serve their um their night in battle,
(06:53):
and if they did something particularly heroic, they could be
actually dubbed on on the battlefield. But usually, uh, once
a night turned twenty one, back at home, they would,
uh they would be dubbed officially in sort of this
elaborate ceremony. You know. It often accompanied another big ceremony
like a wedding or even I think Christmas or Easter
(07:13):
feast day. Yeah, and so um it would be a
major part of it. And uh, you can tell by
the fact that they had these this ritual they went
through the night. Before the boy would go have a
ritual bath, they would have an all night prayer vigil.
And then the next day when they went to go
get dubbed, they would have to swear this oath where
they were devoted to the Church, they were loyal to
(07:35):
their lord, they defended a lady, etcetera, etcetera, and some
of these other ETCeteras. Again, I just it's just so
fun reading about night history. You know, whether you are
a meat squire or whatever. Parts of this oath were
really humorous, or at least to me today. They had
to um in addition to defending ladies and being loyal
to their lords and to the church, they had to
(07:55):
be brave. They had to promise that they were going
to take off their armor only when they were sleeping
on They would vow never to avoid danger because they
were afraid. They had to be on time, which is
just good sent to really. And another one is that
whenever the Night returned home, he would have to share
and tell about his escapades and talk about being a
literary geek. That's got the wheels in my mind turning.
(08:17):
I was like, huh, well, I wonder if this is
why the you know, oral tradition of of Nights stories
is so alive, and wow, there must have been a
lot of Nights stories going around if you were required
to tell someone about it. Yeah, And another one I
found interesting actually in the little details, was that if
a Night was taken prisoner, he would have to surrender
peaceably after he was really taken, and he wouldn't be
allowed to fight his captors again until he got their permission,
(08:39):
which I found really interesting. You would expect, you know,
if you were taken prisoner, that you would try your
best to fight your way out of it. So there's
an interesting code that this, oh, this oath that they
had to take, and you can imagine if every single
Night is good enough to uphold the code, then things
must have been you know, pretty sivels around there, and
people wanted to have you know, been really proper and
kind of one in one another at it seems like
(09:01):
every now and then there's there's a bad apple that
gets through, and bad Nights must have come along and
done things like stalling another's armor or challenged him to
a duel, and it was sort of two on one
instead of you know, one on one as the action
was supposed to be. So yeah, and it's interesting, I mean,
most people associate this whole oath with what is now
known as chivalry. I mean, if you don't sort of
(09:23):
just talk about how opening up a car door is chivalrous,
But actually the term originally originally came back to just
meaning good horsemanship, which I found really interesting. Another source
I found said that it meant just playing tenure of
land at all, and that sort of made sense to
me in terms of the word gentleman, which you know,
has a similar evolution and how we think of it
(09:45):
think of it today. You know, gentlemen are people who
open doors for ladies, but back then, uh, gentleman was
just sort of someone who owned lander property. So it's
just interesting to look at the evolution of what these
terms mean today and what they meant back then. Definitely,
I think that the anymalogy of of the world um
definitely sheds light on what the knights did and how
the tradition continues today, even though there weren't exactly medieval
(10:07):
warriors prancing around modern day England. But at this point
the knight was officially called a sir and he could
own land and hire his own soldiers. And you may
be wondering, well, what did a knight do when there
weren't any battles to fight in, And the answer is
pretty simple. They participated in tournaments, said that their skills
didn't go to waste, and it's right. And um, one
(10:27):
of my favorite I think is jails. Oh yeah, definitely.
I'm from Maryland. The case he didn't know and jaelsting
is actually our official sport. I don't know how that happened,
but but it's very bizarre, but I mean, I love
it and jousting. If you've ever seen something like a
night's sale, obviously, uh with heath Ledger, it was sort
of always it was a one on one thing where
knights would go up against each other mounted on horses
(10:49):
and they would basically rush at each other with long,
dull headed lances, and so they would keep them out
in front of them so that they would try to
hit the other person as they went by, and you
win about through about three lances, and you would get
points based on if you broke your lance on the
other person where it hit, etcetera. And after three lances
they would get off and start fighting if they wanted
(11:11):
to with swords actually, and the Church I guess was
okay with jausting because it was not quite as dangerous
as another popular tournament, and that was the melee, and
that was sort of a free for all battle. Imagine
a really big group of nights and um, you're in
this big huddle of nights and you eyeball a competitor.
You choose one other person, you start fighting wance. You
(11:32):
defeat that person and he's down, either he's down dead
or he's down passed out. You move on to the
next person. So it's a one on one fight, but
in the context of a larger group and the premises
last man standing winds and the Church really did not
like this one makes a lot of people really did die,
and I just you know, for the sake of entertainment,
just seemed rather controversial. So and also, you know, from
(11:53):
my modern perspective, it doesn't seem very shivalrous to us
perform like this in front of a lady you were
trying to impress by killing other people. That's alas I
have an anachronistic point of years, so I could see
that although um, one advantage to fighting these games is
that you couldn't make a lot of money. That was
one motivation that they had, in addition to like getting
honor and practicing your skills. But they could actually get
(12:14):
money by the fact, at least in jousting, when someone lost,
they had to turn over their horse and their armor
to the winner, and they could buy back those things
from the winner. And so the if you were a
common winner you were good at jousting, you could make
a good load of money. And that was good years
because all of your nightly accouterments were rather expensive, particularly armor.
(12:36):
And when armor originated, it was back in ancient room
and they actually used leather, and leather was very expensive
to use, you know, as a full body protective covering,
but it was malleable, so it was really cool because
you could shape that and then you boil it and
water oil and it hardens in place, and you've got
something that very resistant to all sorts of points and
tips and piercings coming at you. And um, so the
(12:58):
middle aged nights use leather's armor, and then I continue
to evolve into um chain mail, for instance, that was
another Roman idea originally, and these were small interwoven steel
rings and there were two predominant types. One was butted mail,
where the rings were really really close together, and the
other was riveted mail, where the rings were actually connected
with rivets. And this was chaper than armor, but unlike
(13:20):
armor and leather armor, it was really vulnerable to piercings
and it was pretty heavy too. And it's funny slip
back at part of the training for becoming a night
was that you would practice walking around wearing chain mail,
so you're gladdy. You get used to the way, sort
of like today, I think that there's some military personnel
who trained with their backpacks on their gear, or you know,
if you're going to hike the Appalachian Trail, you probabice
(13:42):
walking around with your packs. You get used to the weights. Yeah,
that makes sense. And it's interesting to see how armor
changes as um weapons change as they advance, because you know,
you look at whate sorry, leather and um chain mail
like you're saying canvas, and they are you know, they
do protect against cuts and scrapes. But when you know,
people started developing crossbows, for instance, this would not protect
(14:03):
them and so they had to start turning to more
solid metal pieces of armor. And so you know, these
solid metal pieces. They're so difficult. Sometimes they heard that
they weighed up to sixty pounds. They were super hot. Uh,
they would often take an hour to put on. Need
help to do that. On top of it, as weapons
advanced even further, you see, uh the introduction of gunpowder.
(14:25):
They finally made its way from from Asia to Europe.
And once that was introduced, it was like, what's the
point anymore? Imer point? But the funny thing about armor
too is that it really didn't protect your entire body,
so you had to wear chain me all, especially in
places like your under arms and where your joints came together,
like your knees, so that you had some protection there
because the plates didn't fit that tightly. And contrary to
(14:48):
popular belief, it wasn't too hard to move around in
Like you weren't stiff, it was just really heavy. That
would have been the challenge. I can see that. And
so nights continued to serve you out throughout the Middle
Ages and throughout medieval Europe, you know, under the feudal system.
And then they actually served um a more I guess
national or international relay since Europe at this point was
(15:11):
breaking apart into different nations. Purpose and that was protecting
pilgrims who were traveling to the Holy Land during the
Crusade and caring for sick pilgrims and um. These are
are groups like the Knights Templar and the Knights hospital
Ers and the Teutonic Knights. These still exist today as
cherishable societies. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the most beloved
(15:33):
orders of Knights was actually the Templars candas mentioned, and
this is one unlike the others, that doesn't exist today,
And it wasn't really interesting story because they were beloved
at the time. Give you some background on it. They
were founded about the eleven hundreds, like you said, to
protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land at the time. Um,
And if you listen to our Crusades podcast you know
more about why they're doing that. So what was interesting
(15:54):
about this order in other orders like it, was that
it was both a military uh sort of purpose and
they were religious men. It was basically religious order where
they were monks and they were supposed to live a
modest life, and they didn't always do that. They they,
like other orders, got proud and greedy, and so there's
lots of controversy around them. All the time, but this
(16:14):
particular order got accused in the early fourteenth century. I
believe of um lots of abuses in terms of UM,
both monetary abuses like they were mishandling charity that they got, etcetera, etcetera,
but people who are also upset that they were heretics,
that they weren't holding mass correctly, that they were actually
(16:34):
worshiping idols, and there was homosexual behavior going on between
them as well, which the Church would not have liked.
So at this time, it was actually the king, King
Philip the fourth of France who really had um had
his eye out on on them and wanted them to
be taken out and um. Recent documents released by the
Vatican actually a couple of years ago, it's very interesting
(16:55):
show that the Pope at the time actually absolved them
of their charges and didn't he didn't believe that they
were heretics. But the King Philip of France UM supposedly
owed them a lot of money, and that's really why
they wanted him. They wanted he wanted the whole order gone,
and so they were tried, they were tortured, and they're
eventually burned at the stake. And it's really sad, mysterious story. Yeah,
(17:17):
that is. It's really haunting, especially if you think about
all the hard work that goes into becoming a knight
and you know how you do Valie to uphold this oath.
And I'm sure that once you sort of developed into
your own separate order of Night, you have an entirely
different code of ethics that you're also upholdings, and so so
it seems like you would have to be really committed
to uphold all of these principles. And I'm sure it
must have been very hard on the group when they
(17:38):
were when they were taken apart, and you know, even
harder when they were executed. But that's another point. So today,
um if you're not a member of one of the
charity groups that originated in these different orders of Nights,
you might be able to attain night hud by two
different means, one of which is a martial arts achievement.
And almost like if you were to practice crowd or
(18:00):
another form of martial arts that originated in um Asia,
you'd be given different colors of belts for the level
of martial arts that that you attain, and the same
is true in different schools around England where um and
around other parts of Europe to where you can earn
recognition for demonstrations and you may be asked to perform
a different affairs and festivals to show your prowess. And
(18:23):
the other way you can become a night is a
member of Royalty bestows that honor upon you. And it's
so fun to see the different people who come up
for nighthood, be they oh, gosh, someone who's made a
contribution to the business world, or the political world, or
the music world, like Sir Elton John and I think
he's my favorite nighte if I can say, gosh, I'm
(18:49):
gonna stick up for Alton with little kicky sunglasses and
carrying gosh. I just love him so. And they're a
member of the Order of the Garter, which I found
really interesting that this was one of the original orders.
It was established at least in thirteen forty six. Uh,
you might be wondering whether called the Order of the Garter.
It is an interesting name and one source I found
said that the theory is that Edward the Third, who
(19:11):
started the Order, was really interested in the Arthur's round
Table and that whole legend. He wanted to revive it
and he chose a name because of embarrassing incident where
Edward was at a party and he was dancing with
a girl and the girl actually lost her garter and
fell on the floor, and in order to quell the
sort of embarrassment, he put it on his leg and
he said, shame to him who thinks evil of it.
(19:33):
So this sort of idea, you know, don't think evil
of others. Um, he was really proud of and that's
why he named it the Order of the Garter. How
about that? That's the sweet story. I like that. So
clearly there are a lot of different tales and legends
surrounding the Order of Knights, and many more nights specifically
for you to learn about, so be sure to read
all about knights and castles and maybe even article on
(19:56):
dragons on how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. Let us know what you think, Send an
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