the road to knighthood
TRANSCRIPT
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The Road to Knighthood
First stepa PageAt the age of 7, a son of a medieval nobleman or knight
would be sent as a page, to become a knight at a lords
castle. A page would learn horsemanship, archery and
swordsmanship. Pages were often taught how to read and
write. They were also taught other languages like French or
Latin. They were expected to show good manners in the
lords house. Pages learned basic lancing techniques, such
as the balance and skills required in mounted combat,
which is fighting while on a horse. Other physical skills
taught were; swimming, throwing the javelin, throwing
stones, climbing, archery and wrestling. Pages often
trained on dummies called quintains, which were basically
represented as a human. They used sacks of sand as well.
Danny Martin and Gabe Mata
From a Squire to a KnightThe next step of a page was to become a squire, which
usually started around the age of 10. The squire was the
knights assistant. A squires training revolved around
fitness, strength and skills with weapons. Individual
training did not take up the majority of training of squires.
They trained mainly in teams. A squires lance skills had to
become perfected during this training. A lance is a long
weapon with a metal point that was used by knights in
An example of a Quintain Various Lances
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All of tThese steps were very important as a squire because
they must succeed in these tasks in order to become a
knight. Many wooden weapons were used in training.
Fighting with real weapons was often strictly supervised.
Again, knights in training had to know how to fight as a
team of horsemen. Squires also had to learn about strategy
during siege warfare, which was a special operation where
knights work as a team to capture or defend something.
They had to become familiar with the weapons used in thistype of warfare.
Squires would do several chores for knights. They
would take care of his horse, clean the stables, polish his
armor and maintain his weapons. He would also need to
learn chivalric codes. These codes were things like bravery,
honesty, and loyalty. They had to fight fairly when in battle.
Around the age of 21 a squire would be dubbed a
knight. The night before the dubbing the squire would fast
and pray for a while. During this time, his sword would be
blessed by a chaplain. The next day, family and friendscame for the celebration. The squire would kneel before a
knight or a lord, and they would lightly touch him on both
shoulders with the blessed sword, and say, I dub thee Sir
Knight. The new knight would then kiss the hilt of the
sword and accept it. After the ceremony, there was usually a
feast where everyone would celebrate the new knight.
From a Squire to aKnight
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/knighthood-training.htmhttp://www.medieval-life.net/knight_training.htm
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Renfair_quintain.jpg http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/knight-8.gif