60 Fun Facts About Knights

'Knight' sounds noble, but its Old English ancestor, cniht, first named which humbler figure?

A servant: cniht meant a boy or attendant, and its German cousin Knecht still means a servant. Only around 1100 did the English word come to mean a lord's armed follower, and later a title of honour.

Under which ruler are the first knights generally said to have appeared, in the 8th century?

Charlemagne's Frankish armies leaned on mounted warriors, and he rewarded the best with grants of land called benefices. Land in exchange for fighting on call stayed the knight's bargain for centuries.

Which piece of riding gear did historian Lynn White Jr. claim in 1962 had created the feudal knight?

The stirrup, White argued, let a lancer ride home a charge without being thrown, and so made the armoured knight possible. Historians have fought over the idea ever since, in what is known as the Great Stirrup Controversy.

What was the medieval Latin word for a knight?

Miles meant an ordinary soldier, usually on foot, to the Romans, and it gives us the word military. Medieval scribes reused it for the mounted knight at the top of the fighting order.

Which Spanish word for a gentleman began, like the French chevalier, by meaning a horseman?

Caballero, like chevalier and chivalry, goes back to caballus, Latin slang for a nag or pack-horse that pushed aside the classical equus. A stable word ended up naming the gentleman.

From about the age of seven, a noble boy began his training for knighthood under which title?

Page was the first rung: from about seven a boy waited on his lord and lady in hall, followed the hunt and learned the rudiments of arms. Every great household doubled as a school for future knights.

The word squire comes from the Latin scutarius, the man who carried a knight's what?

Shield-bearer is the literal sense: scutarius, from scutum, reached English through Old French as esquire and then squire. Esquire later drifted into a courtesy title for gentlemen who never saw a battlefield.

How many days of military service a year did a knight typically owe for his fief?

40 days was the customary limit, fine for a summer campaign but hopeless for a long siege or a crusade. Kings increasingly took a cash payment instead and hired soldiers who would stay.

A medieval knight who led his own company to war under a square flag was called a knight what?

Banneret: he flew a square banner, while an ordinary knight carried a pointed or forked pennon. Later the rank became an honour, conferred on the battlefield for distinguished service.

The dubbing ceremony that made a man a knight is known by what name?

The accolade survives: the kneeling subject is still touched on each shoulder with the flat of a sword. Only in the 19th century did the word stretch to mean any award or praise.

The colée, a rough French forerunner of the dubbing tap, was a hard blow to which part of the body?

The neck took a real blow from the hand or fist, by some accounts so that the new knight would never forget the day. In time the cuff softened into a light touch of the sword blade.

What did a would-be knight typically do the night before his knighting?

Keep a vigil after a ritual bath: the candidate washed, then prayed in the chapel through the night. He was dubbed the next day, often as part of a wider celebration such as a royal wedding.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows William of Normandy giving arms to which future king?

Harold receives arms from William after campaigning beside him in Brittany, a scene often read as a knighting, then swears an oath on holy relics. About two years later the pair fought for England's crown at Hastings.

What was the name of the prized war horse ridden by knights in battle and jousts?

Destrier was the top of a knight's stable, a war horse kept for battle and the joust. For everyday travel he rode a gentler palfrey, and his baggage went on a sumpter, or pack horse.

A squire who proved himself in battle was said to have won his what, the gilded badge of a knight?

Spurs of gilt marked a knight by the early 1200s, so winning them meant earning knighthood by a brave deed. At English ceremonies the royal cook warned he would hack them off any knight who broke the code.

Despite their towering screen image, bone studies suggest most medieval English war horses were about the size of what?

A pony is the closer picture: an Exeter-led study of English horse bones found most stood under 14.2 hands, about 4 ft 10 in. Size was not everything: huge sums went on breeding them, and armies needed mounts for long-range raids too.

Jousting sounds violent, but the Latin verb behind it, iuxtare, simply meant what?

To come together, or meet, is all iuxtare meant: it grew from iuxta, 'close beside', the root of juxtapose. In early use a joust was any arranged single combat, not only the charge with lances.

The death of which French king in a 1559 tournament accident helped end jousting in France?

Henry II was struck in the eye by a splinter from the shattered lance of Gabriel de Montgomery, captain of his Scottish Guard, and died ten days later. The joust had been staged to celebrate a peace treaty with Spain.

In jousting, what was the 'tilt' that probably gave tilting its name?

A barrier between the two riders, first a hung cloth and later a wooden fence. Tilt was a Middle English word for a cloth covering or awning, the likely reason the fence and then the sport took the name.

What usually happened to a knight defeated in a tournament melee?

He gave his horse and armour to the winner, a costly loss when a knight's gear was worth a small fortune. Skilled fighters could make a career of the tournament circuit.

To stamp out tournaments, the Church denied what to any knight killed in one?

A Christian burial was what the Second Lateran Council of 1139 refused to any knight killed in a tournament. Its complaint was the needless deaths, yet a dying knight could still confess and take communion.

Which English king lifted his father's ban on tournaments but made knights buy a licence to hold one?

Richard I allowed tournaments only under royal licence and charged knights a fee to take part. Kings were wary because so many armed knights gathered in one place could easily turn from sport to disorder or revolt.

A pas d'armes involved a knight doing what?

Holding a bridge and challenging passers-by was the whole game: any knight who wanted to cross had to joust first. In 1434 Suero de Quiñones and his companions held a bridge on the Camino de Santiago, vowing to break 300 lances.

What was a captured knight customarily held for, unlike common foot soldiers who were often slaughtered?

Ransom made a captured knight worth a fortune alive and nothing dead, so men of rank were kept in reasonable comfort until the money arrived. Common foot soldiers carried no such price and were often killed instead.

Which weapon remained the symbol of a knight's status even as better armour made it less effective in battle?

The sword was blessed by a priest and used to dub its owner, so it stood for his rank long after improved armour began to shrug off its cuts. Against a heavily armoured opponent a mace or war hammer did far more damage.

The long tapering tail of the Norman kite shield is thought to have protected which part of a mounted knight?

His left knee and leg sat behind the shield's long point as he rode, a side that a round shield left exposed. Made famous by the Normans, the kite later shrank into the flat-topped shield familiar from heraldry.

Until the mid-14th century, what was a knight's main form of body defence?

Mail armour, a shirt of thousands of riveted iron rings, was flexible and turned sword cuts but was weak against a lance point or an arrow. From the 14th century steel plates were added piece by piece until they covered the body.

The aketon, a quilted jacket worn under a knight's ring armour, probably takes its name from the Arabic for which stuffing?

Cotton is al-qutn in Arabic, a word thought to have passed through Spanish and French to become aketon. The quilted padding cushioned blows that ring armour spread but could not stop, and kept the metal from chafing.

The interlinked-ring armour worn by early knights is commonly credited to which people?

The oldest surviving pieces, from the 3rd century BC, were found in Slovakia and Romania.

Films wrongly show armoured knights needing which device to get into the saddle?

A crane was never needed: battle plate weighed 20 to 25 kg, less than a modern infantryman carries, with the load spread over the whole body. A man in full armour could mount his horse without help.

Which two regions led Europe in armour-making techniques?

Northern Italy and southern Germany, above all Milan, Augsburg and Nuremberg, sold armour all over Europe. When Henry VIII wanted a royal workshop of his own at Greenwich, he had to import his craftsmen from abroad.

The flat-topped, fully enclosing helmet of the 13th century is known as what?

Great helm was a steel cylinder that covered the whole head. The price of that protection was seeing through a narrow slit and breathing through a few small holes.

The snouted hounskull visor is named after a hound, but its modern English nickname likens it to which animal?

Pig is the modern nickname: the helmet is now called a pig-faced bascinet, while its older German name meant hound's hood. The long muzzle turned blows aside and had room for more breathing holes.

What were the caparisons that knights' horses wore from the 12th century?

Cloth coverings like a surcoat, caparisons were soon embroidered with the rider's coat of arms so that a crowd could tell who he was. Thickly padded ones also gave the horse some protection.

Which Holy Roman Emperor is often called 'the last knight'?

Maximilian I poured effort into the joust: about a dozen forms of it were devised in his day, one with a spring-loaded shield that flew off when struck. He died in 1519, as guns were ending the armoured knight's reign.

The 1477 Battle of Nancy showed pikemen could beat heavy cavalry, when the Swiss defeated whom?

Charles the Bold, the last great Duke of Burgundy, was cut down in the rout and his mutilated body lay unfound for days. It was his third defeat by the Swiss in under a year, and proof that pikemen could stop armoured cavalry.

Which tournament champion, regent for the boy king Henry III, was eulogised as the best knight who ever lived?

William Marshal was about 70 when, as regent, he led the young king's army in person and won the battle of Lincoln in 1217. The tribute came from Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury.

When King Stephen threatened to hang a rebel's young hostage son, the father replied that he still had what?

A hammer and anvil, he said, with which to forge more and better sons. Stephen could not bring himself to hang the boy, who grew up to be regent of England.

Minnesinger Ulrich von Liechtenstein claimed to have jousted from Venice to Vienna dressed as whom?

Venus, goddess of love, was his disguise on a jousting tour meant to win a lady, who spurned him all the same. Heath Ledger's jouster in the film A Knight's Tale borrows the real Ulrich's name.

The Chevalier de Bayard is remembered as the knight 'without fear and beyond' what?

Reproach ends the French tag sans peur et sans reproche. He is said to have defended a bridge over the Garigliano alone against hundreds of enemy troops, a feat that led Pope Julius II to try in vain to hire him.

How was Bayard, the model of old-fashioned chivalry, killed in 1524?

By an arquebus ball, which struck him as he guarded the French rear at the crossing of the River Sesia in Italy. The man famed for feats with lance and sword was killed by one of the new handguns.

The Knights Templar were founded in Jerusalem around 1119 to do what job?

To protect pilgrims on the roads, Hugh de Payns and a handful of French knights took monks' vows in Jerusalem, where travellers were being attacked by raiders. Only later did the order grow into a crusading army.

Philip IV of France had the Templars arrested at dawn on Friday 13 October 1307 on what charge?

Heresy was the charge, and the knights were tortured into false confessions before the order was dissolved in 1312. Some trace Friday the 13th's unlucky name to that dawn raid, though the link is murky.

What annual rent did Charles V ask of the Hospitallers when he gave them Malta in 1530?

A single Maltese falcon, presented each year to the emperor's viceroy in Sicily, was the whole rent for the islands. The knights stayed until Napoleon seized Malta in 1798 on his way to Egypt.

The Teutonic Knights wore white surcoats bearing a cross of what colour?

Black on white marked a Teutonic Knight. The Templars wore white too, but their cross was red, so the colour told you which order was riding at you.

Britain's most senior order of knighthood, the Order of the Garter, was founded by which king?

Edward III founded it around 1348, and legend says the motto was his retort when a dance partner's garter slipped and courtiers sniggered. He picked it up and said: shame on him who thinks evil of it.

Each Knight of the Garter hangs a banner above a personal stall in the chapel of which castle?

Windsor Castle's St George's Chapel is the order's home. A knight's banner comes down when he dies, but his small brass stall plate stays on the wall for good, alongside those of knights from centuries ago.

A British knight given a knighthood without membership of any order is called a Knight what?

Bachelor knights are the oldest kind of British knight, dating to the 13th century, yet they rank below the knights of every order. In English the word meant a young knight before it meant an unmarried man.

Which part of a British knight's name must always come straight after 'Sir'?

His given name must follow, so a knighted John Smith is Sir John or Sir John Smith but never Sir Smith. The title is a worn-down form of sire and has gone before knights' names since the Middle Ages.

In the Arthurian prose cycles, which knight, the purest of them all, completes the quest for the Holy Grail?

Galahad was invented in the 13th century to replace Perceval as the Grail hero. He was made the son of Lancelot so that a quest driven by heavenly love could outshine one driven by love for Guinevere.

In the earliest telling, why did King Arthur have his Round Table made round?

So nobody sat at its head: the poet Wace, who first described the table in 1155, says each of Arthur's barons refused a lower place than the rest. A table with no head ended the quarrel.

Which Renaissance book famously mocked the code of chivalry as unrealistic idealism?

Don Quixote is an ageing gentleman who reads so many romances of chivalry that he rides out as a knight himself and charges windmills he takes for giants. Cervantes wrote it as a parody of those romances.

Which 1819 Walter Scott novel follows a disinherited Saxon knight home from the Crusades to win a tournament in disguise?

Ivanhoe comes home disowned by his father, jousts under a false name and is helped by an outlaw called Locksley, who turns out to be Robin Hood. The first printing alone ran to 10,000 copies.

A woman given a knight's rank in the Order of the British Empire takes which title?

Dame became the official match for Sir only in 1917, when the newly founded order gave women the same ranks as men. Before that the word had long been the title of a knight's wife.

What is the German and Austrian equivalent title of a hereditary knight?

Ritter comes from the Middle High German for rider, and holders wore it inside their names: the real Captain von Trapp of The Sound of Music bore it as Georg Ritter von Trapp.

Which country's Order of the Elephant was founded in its current form by King Christian V in 1693?

Denmark keeps it as its highest honour, worn almost only by royalty and heads of state, with the physicist Niels Bohr among the very few commoners admitted. Its gold collar is a chain of elephants and towers.

Founded by a Burgundian duke in 1430, the Order of the Golden Fleece is today bestowed by the king of which country?

Spain got it by inheritance. Philip the Good of Burgundy founded the order in 1430 to mark his own wedding, and it passed through his granddaughter's marriage to the Habsburgs, who later sat on the Spanish throne.

Which caste of slave soldiers seized Egypt's throne in 1250 and later drove the last crusader knights from the Holy Land?

Mamluks were named from the Arabic for owned: sultans bought them as soldiers until the soldiers took the throne for themselves. They routed the Mongols too.

As an honorary British knight, what may the American Bill Gates do?

Put KBE after his name: that is all an honorary knighthood allows. Sir goes only with a full knighthood, kept for citizens of the monarch's own realms, so Gates, honoured in 2005, is still Mr Gates.

At Agincourt in 1415, a far larger French army of armoured knights was broken by English soldiers armed mainly with what?

Longbows thinned the French as they struggled across a ploughed field that rain had turned to mud, and sharpened stakes stopped their horses. Then the archers dropped their bows and joined the fight hand to hand.