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| Knights were expected to provide additional troops. They were land owners and as such were expected to raise numbers of soldiers from the amongst the men who owed them fealty. They equipped and trained them as they saw fit. Thus a knight's retinue would probably include a number of archers, conscripted peasants given weapons and a week of training, and men-at-arms. Men-at-arms were more expensive to equip and maintain being better armoured and armed than the smelly peasants and foot soldiers, and often mounted on warhorses to fulfill cavalry roles if there weren't enough knights as horses were fucking expensive, were not that easy to replace; so better to have someone else put his horse on the line instead of yours. A well-off knight might, for a campaign, bring with him 40 men at arms and 200 mixed archers and conscripted peasants. However, a Knight ''would also be'' a man-at-arms because a Knighthood is ''not a military rank''.
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| The bloke in the shiny armour on the horse with the lance, that bloke is a man-at-arms. He might also be a Knight. He might be a Lord instead. He might be a member of the gentry, aspiring to raise his status (by the late Middle Ages / early modern period the gentry emerge as a social class, i.e. not some smelly commoner, but not even a minor noble. This happens broadly across europe because as nation-states evolve, they create increasing amounts of bureaucracy. Jobs that are too important [and need an education to do] to allow Gerald the Peasant to do it, but beneath the nobles, who are otherwise preoccupied with more important stuff). That man-at-arms might also, however, be a commoner in his Lord's retinue acting as a professional soldier or a mercenary.
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| TL/DR: Men-at-Arms are a type of medieval soldier. Better equipped and armoured than their archer and footsoldier bretheren (i.e. your levvies, billmen, militia, spearmen and the like), they often fought on horseback. A Knight is a person of a certain social status. Because status brought wealth, he would almost invariably fight as a really well equipped man-at-arms.
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| [[category:History]]
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