Life as a knight

Adult life as a knight divided into two typical stages. In the first, the young man was a member of another man’s household; later, he would have his own manor or castle to govern.

In the first stage, he had few possessions and generally slept in a dormitory-like way, perhaps even in the Great Hall on its dining benches. In the early medieval period (cf. Beowulf), chests along the walls held pillows and blankets for turning the hall into a bedroom. His day job was to practice for war, including going with his lord out hunting; boar hunting was excellent war practice. At other times, he drilled in tournament skills. When his lord went to a tournament, he went along and participated. He could not marry, having no home to settle a wife in, and he saw few women who weren’t married. It was quite acceptable for him to have a crush on the lady of the house, as long as whatever he did about it remained sentimental and/or private.

Knights who were not attached to a lord’s household were knights errant, and they were very much at loose ends. Some even resorted to taking up a station at one end of a bridge and challenging other knights to fight them or pay. The rules of chivalry developed as a way to control the behavior of young men like this. Knights errant tried to catch a great lord’s attention in battle so that they could get into a stable household and begin their career climb. (Obviously, the Crusades were splendid for such landless youths.)

In mid life, the knight hoped to be granted a manor to live in and govern. If he could, he inherited it from his own father. If not, it was given to him by the king when some vacancy came up (that is, the owner was an enemy whose land was captured, or he died without heirs and his land reverted back to the king—or something like this). The knight could then marry and join his peers in governing the land. He would be generally known as a baron, unless his birth or appointment raised him to Marquis, Earl, Count or Duke. In the cycle of the knighthood lifestyle, a successful knight was appointed to enough land that its rents supported him in gathering his own household of knights and boys in training.

When the knight grew old, he often became more religious. He began giving away some of what he had won as endowments to chapels and monasteries, to win prayers for his soul. In some cases, if he were old, alone and sick, he might resign his posts and go into a monastery as to a nursing home.

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