Something Awful This article was linked to in an article on SomethingAwful com today expect vandalism Organization The intro suggests that this article would do well divided into Etymology already a separate section the Technology of heavy cavalry and the Social status which survives The exact status of knighthood and its relationship to nobility was somewhat different in Great Britain and on the Continent we may want to divide again Comments Blind reversions Undiscussed reversions such as this one are deprecated If Mr Dunn would care to discuss the article this is the place to do it Extensive reworkings of the sections and text are also deprecated which is what JCScaliger has done prompting the reversions he complains of It does not help that the reworking substantially weakens the text of the article and inserts inaccurate information It s hardly surprising that this user did not recieve any discussion when he added none himself while initially attempting to rework the article I doubt that reverting to a statement that connects squire with eques adds much to the course of human knowledge either A civil editor would stay off the revert button A civil user does not accuse others of something he first did himself Enough Both of you are clearly knowledgeable on the subject and agree that this article needs help Bickering about each other s behavior is not helpful Might I suggest collaboratively drawing up an outline down to about paragraph level on the talk page before moving things around further This will probably be an easier way to work out disagreements than doing the moving on the article page itself Onward I have made a collection of minor revisions I would appreciate these being left alone whatever else is done I will also collect and consolidate the several paragraphs which talk about the social effects of the expense of knighthood Ministeriales The assertion that ministeriales were always unfree or are equivalent to servile knights appears to be a confusion Language failed to make any clear distinction between these forms of service so long as they were not included in the honourable category of knightly obligations Artisans domestic servants messengers estate managers bailiffs in the lord s immediate circle these were all comprised under a single head The Latin of the charters an international language usually called them ministeriales in French they were known as sergents in German Dienstm nner Bloch p 337 emphasis added There were servile and unservile ministeriales and until the thirteenth century there were serf knights p 338 341 I am therefore restoring the paragraphs summarizing this and marking them disputed also Bloch incorrectly interprets the word ministerialis There were no unservile German ministeriales Read Benjamin Arnold German Knighthood 1050 1300 pages 17 18 I t is clear that the type of German knight regularly called ministerialis in the Latin sources was being enfoeffed on a large schale in the eleventh century The rules by which German lords controlled their retinues of knightly ministeriales resembe those relating to the vassalage of knights in France But they differed from the French type in one important re