What is a knight?
A knight is a soldier mounted on horseback. In the Middle Ages, Knights fought in many battles such as the Crusades.
Who was a knight?
Young, rich men were usually knights. In order to become a knight, they had to buy a lot of things like horses, along with training. This is why people like nobles were usually knights.
How did you become a knight?
There were many steps in becoming a knight like being a page, then a squire, then fighting your first battle.
Page
At the age of seven, a young, rich boy became a page. He went to a castle to begin his training. The ladies of the castle tought the pages how to sing and dance. They also told stories to pages. Pages also learned how to polish and fix the knight’s armour.
Squire
At the age of fourteen to fiffteen years old, a page became a squire. Since squires had to become big and strong, they usually fought each other. This became popular among the squires. Another popular sport was charging with a lance at a quintain. A quintain is a dummy that looks like a knight. This tought squires accuracy.
First Battle
At seventeen years old, a squire fought in his first battle. If he proved himself worthy, the squire would become a knight in a ceremony called dubbing. At a dubbing ceremony. the squire swears his loyalty to his lord or king. If the squire saved his baron during the battle, the dubbing ceremony was performed on the battle field.
The Code of Chivalry
The Code of Chivalry is rules that a knight had to follow in order to be an “ideal knight”. For example, a knight had to be a ruthless fighter, yet be fond of poetry and music. A knight also had to have a manly appearance. Loving a lady from afar was also a good quality, along with being a good Christian. Since there were so many rules, the “ideal knight” didn’t really exist.
Armour
There were many changes in armour through the middle ages. For example, in the 1100, armour used to be made mostly of chainmail (circular, metal rings). By about 1420, metal plates covered the whole body.
Tournaments and Jousting
Tournaments were used to train knights for battle. These tournaments usually took place in a field just outside of a castle. Earlier in the Middle Ages, tournaments used to be two groups of knights charging at each other. The last team standing won. Since this was to dangerous, popes tried to ban the sport for over 100 years. Then, there was the joust. Instead of two groups of knights charging at each other, only two people charged at each other. This resulted in less deaths of knights and horses, but the sport was still dangerous.
Here are two people jousting.
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This is what I learned about knights…
