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Medival Times
Miss Stemmers Webpage
Topics
Knights, Castles, Churches
Knights
Knighthood Training
Knighthood training began when a boy was only eight or nine years old. They practiced archery, fencing, horsemanship and other skills. At age fifteen the boy went to a castle of a friend or relative to begin formal traing as a page. He was taught battle techiques, how to care for horse, hunting and falconry, and gentlemanly behavior. A age eighteen the page became a squire. He was allowed to wear silver spurs and go into battles with the knight who had trained him. He served as a bodyguard and carried his master's armour and shield.Once the squire proved himself worthy he would be made an offical knight. Some squires never became knights. Alot of squires became knights at age 21. The squires became a knight in a simple ceremony. The squire knelt before his lord, the lord tapped him on the shoulder with the blade of his sword and said "I Dub Thee Knight." The new knight would receive a number of gifts including a pair of golden spurs. Only knight could wear the golden spurs.There would be a nightlong vigil in the castle Church, a ritual bath at dawn, mass and breakfast with friends and family, and clothing in white vesture. Knighthood was conferred by a gentle blow on the neck or shoulder with the flat of a sword, sometimes with much ceremony. The "dubbing" would take place in public accompanied by fanfares, festivals and music. Knights could also be created in the field of battle without any fanfare or ceremony.
The prospects of a knight were: marriage to a wealthy heiress, inheritance of lands, and service to a noble as a high official. A knight's wages were 8d a day and he would be expected to serve for 40 days a year. Sometimes, this service would be as castle guard in a castle.
Knightly Code and Status
When he was judged ready (generally between the ages of 18 and 21) the squire was knighted in a religious ceremony after spending the night guarding his armour before a church altar. He had to swear to the knightly code which asked him to "protect the weak, defenseless, and helpless, and fight for the general welfare of all." This code was rarely lived up to, but it remained the standard for chivalry and proper behaviour amongst the nobility for centuries. In theory the squire could be knighted on the battlefield for exceptional valour, but this event was much rarer than Hollywood would have us believe.
ARMOUR
Till the begining of the fourteenth century the protective armour was the chain mail. It was made of 250,000 to 300,000 seperate pieces of steel. These pieces were shaped into rings and sewn into a leather jacket called a jerkin. After the invention of the longbow the armour became thicker and heavier. This type of armour eventually developed into the full plate armour. The chain mail was still worn under the full plate armour and by the people who could not afford the very expensive full plate armour. While the full plate armour was better it was also alot more complex. A knight who wore the full plate armour had to have two people to dress him instead of one. There was a disadvantage to the full plate armour it was heavy, in fact it was so heavy that some knight had a hard time moving in it. Some even died in this heavy armour from suffocation or extreme exhastion.
There were many piece to the fully plated armour:
History of the Chain Mail
Mail (commonly if somewhat incorrectly known as "Chainmail" today) consists of small metal rings put together in a pattern to form a mesh. Although mail could be punctured by a spear, shorn by the blow from a heavy axe or sword, or the body beneath pummeled by blunt weapons, it was still an effective and popular defense. It was quite effective against arrows and weakly slung bolts from crossbows; (longbows and the more powerful steel-armed crossbows could burst the rings with their projectiles). In preventing wounds which broke the skin, it increased the warrior's chance for survival after being wounded. Medieval physicians could usually set broken bones, but when it came to preventing infection they were woefully inadequate. Thus the mail was weak in defending against wounds which could be more easily mended but strong against those to which the soldier was most vulnerable.
Weapons for Use on Castles
There were a number of different weapons used to attack castles including:
Weapons Used for Hand-to-Hand Combat
Knight and Foot Soldiers fought one-on-one. Knight fought in full plated armour while Foot Soldiers fought with little protection.They used a variety of weapon including:
Castles
The prospects of a knight were: marriage to a wealthy heiress, inheritance of lands, and service to a noble as a high official. A knight's wages were 8d a day and he would be expected to serve for 40 days a year. Sometimes, this service would be as castle guard in a castle.
Undoubtedly, being a knight could reap great benefits, but it could also be dangerous. Some knights inherited, built, or were given powerful castles. Others lost their lives.
Here are some knights and the castles they built:
Knights Castle they Owned Sir John Cornwall Ampthil Sir Ralph Eure Ayton Sir Edward Dalyngrygge Bodiam Sir de Broughton Broughton Sir John Fastolf Caistor Sir John de Cobham Cooling Sir Richard Croft Croft Sir Richard Abberbury Donnington Sir Thomas Hungerford Farleigh Hunger Ford Sir William de Prouze Gidleigh Sir Roger Fiennes Herstmonceux
Sir William Hylton Hylton Sir William de Leybourne Leyborne
Churches
The Belief of the Medieval People
The Medieval European Church played a much greater role in Medieval England than the modern day church does today.In medival Europe, the Church dominated everyone's life. A medieval people-be they village peasants or towns people-believed that God, Heaven and Hell all existed. Starting at the very earlest ages, the people were taught that the only way they could get to Heavenwas if the Roman Catholic Church let them. Everybody would have been terrified of Hell and the people would have been told sheer horrors awaiting for them in Hell in the weekly services they attended.
The Medieval Church's Control
The control the Church had over the people was total. Peasants worked for free on Church land, could have been better spent working on their own plots of land producing food for their families.The peasants paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church, this tax was called tithes. Tithes could be paid in money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little money, they almost always had had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals etc.This usually caused alot of hardships as seeds for example would be needed to feed a family the following year. What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithes barn; alot of stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. A failure to pay tithes,so the peasants were told by the church, would lead to their souls going to Hell after they had died.
The Wealth of the Church
Tithes are one of the reasons why the Church was so wealthy. One of the reasons Henry VIII wanted to reform the Church was to get a hold of the Catholic Church's money. People were too scared not to pay tithes despite the difficulies it meant for them.
You also had to pay for baptisms (if you were not baptised you could not go to Heaven when you died), marriages (there were no couples living together in Medieval times as the Church taught that this equaled sin) and burials - you had to be buried on holy land if your soul was to get to heaven. Whichever way you looked, the Church received money.
The Church also did not have to pay taxes. This saved them a vast sum of money and made it far more wealthy than any king of England at this time. The sheer wealth of the Church is best shown in its buildings : cathedrals, churches and monasteries.
In Medieval England, peasants lived in cruck houses. These were filthy, usually no more than two rooms, with a wooden frame covered with wattle and daub (a mixture of mud, straw and manure). No cruck houses exist now - most simply collapsed after a while as they were so poorly built. However, there are many Medieval churches around. The way they were built and have lasted for centuries, is an indication of how well they were built and the money the Church had to invest in these building.
Location of the Medieval Churches
Important cities would have cathedrals in them. The most famous cathedrals were at Canterbury and York. After the death of Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral became a center for pilgrimage and the city grew more and more wealthy. So did the Church. Cathedrals were vast. They are big by our standards today, but in Medieval England they were bigger than all buildings including royal palaces. Their sheer size meant that people would see them from miles around, and remind them of the huge power of the Catholic Church in Medieval England.
Honour of Working on a Church
To work on the building of a cathedral was a great honour. Those who did the skilled work had to belong to a guild. They would have used just the most basic of tools and less than strong scaffolding to do the ceilings. However, if you were killed in an accident while working in a cathedral or a church, you were guaranteed a place in Heaven - or so the workers were told.
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Last UpDate 12/18/2004 12:25 P.M., E.S.T.
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