Identity of the Medieval Knight
When we think of the identity of the medieval knight, the picture of the archetypical knight in shining armor comes to ones mind. We tend to think that the knight’s role in society was that of the character that came to everyone’s rescue. The knight was not always the embodiment of the hero. Yet when we think of the knight, we think of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. ... We have nothing telling us that the knight’s identity was not always this way. ... The knight’s identity changed in three ways, his position in society, his role on the battlefield, and his set of internal values. The identity and motivation of the knight during the beginning of the crusades was that of doing one’s duty, while starting around 1180, the knight’s motivation was more that of chivalry, honor, and fulfilling the expectations of society.# Thus the identity of the medieval knight was different towards the end of the crusades and remains the identity that we connect with him today. Throughout the middle ages, the definition of a knight was that of a warrior that fought on horseback. ... Being a knight was not something that just anyone would do. According to Keen, a knight was, A man of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of a heavy cavalryman, and who has been through certain rituals that make him what he is…# Knights often were put into training as pages at the young age of seven. ... A squire could become a knight when he was 21 years old and with this he became what was called a noble.# A knight was expected to train his son in the art of knighthood which included not just military skill, but in chivalry. ... The knight and the idea of chivalry, as we know, were not ideas that really evolved to what we know them as today until the late twelfth century. Stephen Turnbull, describes the medieval knight as the “romantic ideal” and many other sources would also say just that.# Much of being a knight was wrapped up in being chivalrous and honoring traditions in the high middle ages. Chivalry was not an aspect of the knight that existed all along as one might suspect, but rather it was an aspect of his identity that came about at the end of the twelfth century. As Patterson explains, early on the identity of the knight was associated only with the “professional military occupation…[with] none of the ethical and ideological associations we have come to identify with chivalry.”# Before what we know today as chivalry, the word meant only the knight’s skills on horseback and as a warrior. ... Therefore there was less need for a knight to fight on foot. At this point he says that the image of the knight blended into what was more like the officer’s image. ... The knight was respected and embodied the social and political ideals of his regime. Usamah Ibn-Munqidh shows us the possibility that the knight may have existed as a respected identity even before 1180. Usamah, a knight himself, gives good accounts of his life, experiences, and opinions during the early part of the twelfth century. In his writings he tells us what a good knight was at that time in the Muslim culture, “a perfect man, generous, courageous, good in writing and learned; the troops felt special inclination toward him on account of his generosity.