Knight
It's around the year 600 CE in Western Europe, a period that ain't called the Dark Age for nuthin'. Rome has fallen, society is crumbling, small tribes are warring with one another, and a bunch of Germanic barbarians are fighting over the scraps. Then something comes in and changes the game: A while back some clever bastards in China figured out that it is much easier to ride a horse if you have small loops on strings hanging off the sides of your saddle to put your feet in. This idea became popular and slowly moved its way across Eurasia and then arrived in Europe by means of the Avars.
This meant that it was a lot harder to get knocked off your horse by your enemy, or swing your dumb ass off, and that you could crash into enemies with a lance, smashing shield walls, unlike earlier cavalry which could just scout, attack the rear and chase down people who were running away. A few armored guys on horseback with stirrups armed with spears and swords could break an army of hundreds and they could get from point A to point B quicker. The guys who figured this out first took over, all with the blessing of the Church so they could conquer troublesome pagans. When they took over, each cavalryman was given an area of farmland and farmers on it. They had to cough up a section of their harvests every year as protection money so their masters could afford their horses, armor, swords and a few goons on foot for backup. Europe was taken over by these equine riding motorcycle gangs which came to be called knightly orders.
These guys were the greatest thing in Europe's arsenal for nearly a thousand hundred years before being weakened by Italian pike formations, another chinese import and the idea of a professional and standardized standing army which gradually put an end to the age of knights. Then, in the 19th century and after the French revolution, Romanticists who wanted to defend the old order of things against upstart ideas about "democracy" and suchlike began looking to the past with rose coloured glasses and forgot about the shitty quality of that period and instead saw dashing knights in shining armor (a phrase that originally meant "The New guy who has never been through battle" FYI).
Misconceptions
In modern parlence, knight is the catch-all term for some posh bloke who fought on horseback with decent armour and weapons. But the term 'knight' refers to the social rank of the man, not the way he fought. A medieval Lord would be far, far, more important than a knight, but both would fight in a similar manner, i.e. the traditional "knight".
However.
What we are actually referring to is a Men at Arms -- a better equipped class of soldier. Through patronage or personal wealth, these blokes were kitted out with decent weaponry and armour (to varying degrees). They usually had a horse, otherwise they'd just be a better equipped form of infantry. They were usually of better social standing than their comrades serving in a Lord's (or Knight's) retinue as archers or foot soldiers, although that would vary from men who their overlord might socialise with to a degree, to a better off commoner like a merchant, or they might just be some smelly oik with an aptitude for combat kitted out at his Lordship's expense.
So what have we learnt? That Knights usually fight as men at arms, but most men at arms were not Knights. But most people will know what you're on about if you keep referring to donkey-wallopers as knights. M'kay?
See also
- Bretonnia: A nation in Warhammer Fantasy based around these fuckers.
- Samurai: The Eastern version.
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