Talk:Knight/Archive 1

message: Addendum(Knighthood for Dummies)
Hey, I'm not an Historian, just a history buff, but a few years ago I read a book entitled "Arthur, The Last Roman Champion Of Britain" in which it was suggested that the legend of Arthur was based on an actual person.  In this book it was reported that while the Romans were still occupying Britain as a Provence two technological changes created revelutionary changes in how the Legions operated.  
The first was the introduction of steel as what we would now call a strategic material.  Steel was/is not only better than bronze for making weapons, it also allowed for the making of body armour at a practical weight in the form of a chain mail shirt.  
Chain mail armour is, however, a lot heavier than the leather body armour that had previously been worn by the average Roman soldier.  The result was that if the soldiers wore the chainmail they couldn't march more than about ten miles a day, even on good roads.  Traditionally the Legions averaged about twenty miles a day, and could be force marched almost twice that distance, and built a stockade for themselves at the end of the day.  They could march farther if they loaded the armour onto carts, but that left them vulnerable to ambush on the way.  So the introduction of chain mail significantly increased their strategic response time.
Then, near the Danube, some Romans observed the use of the stirup by some mounted archers, barbarian mercenaries that were in thier employ.  The combination of the new armour with the stirup created what came to be called cataphracti (which in latin means something like "The Armoured Ones").  They put chain mail on the riders, it is likely on the horses as well.  I've never heard this suggested, but it had been a couple of centuries since the invasion of Gaul, so they would have had access to the horses that lived wild in the dense forrests of western Europe.  These horses were larger than those otherwise available to the Romans and would have been able to bare the load.  (If you want to see what I'm refering to here, just rent the movie "Ladyhawk" and get a load of Rutger Haur's mount.)
Rome's Grand Strategy had by this time changed from expansionist in nature into an effort to simply maintain it's borders.  The new heavily armoured infantry was broken up into smaller units and distributed along the frontier in fortified outposts. All such infantry in a given provence came under the administrative control of a military leader called a Dux.  At a central location in the Provence a rapid response force of cataphracti, heavy cavalry, would be ready to respond to any incursions accross the border.  This force was under the command of an officer who's title escapes my memory, but I recall it sounded a lot like the later medieval title of Count.
If barbarians raided accross the border and laid siege to one of the outposts, or if the outposts heard of an incursion nearby, a mesage could be sent by fast horse which would bring the heavy cavalry in short order.  Even a handfull of cataphacti would be sufficient to break the formation of a large body of infantry and once their formation was broken the cavalry could start in to cutting them up one at a time.  Hard work, but rewarding.  Given that the barbarians would not have had the same kind of military discipline we associate with the Legions it is reasonable to assume that charismatic leadership on the barabarian side might have rallied it's infantry to reform and make second, or even a third stand against the Romans.  It is also reasonable to assume that the cataphracti would note who it was that was jumping up and down, and yelling things like, "To me! To me, my brothers!" ect.,  and make a concerted effort to end his life in a magnificent way that would inspire his kin to write a song about his heroic death.  To sum up, the Romans switched from mobile infantry that could stalk an enemy like a predator to a set up that vaguely resembles the defensive squad of an American Football team, a "defensive line" of strong slow or stationary units with fast, mobile units acting as "linebackers" in the form of the cataphracti
All this happened shortly before the last Roman Legion left Britain to plant their own man on the Imperial throne.  They succeeded, but were destroyed in battle by another legion with the same idea less than a year later.
My speculation is that when they left they took most of the armour and all of the swords with them.
:A few comments on the above. Cavalry in Gaul wore chain mail already, thus so did the calalry alae of the roman army. This did not mean that they had heavy horses. The cataphracti wore scale  armour, which was heavy, true, but still did not necessarily require draft horses of the sort one sees in films about mediaeval knights.
:Steel, or iron, was in use long before the time you suggest. The 'average roman soldier' wore steel lorica segmentata' armor made of strips of steel - they marched in this, and dug palisades in it as is shown on Trajan's column.
:'The barbarians' actually made up all of Romes cavalry, and were highly trained. The Roman equestrian class had stopped being a citizen cavalry by the mid Republic. First other Latin tribes, then Gauls, Germans and finally Pannonians, Syrians, Sarmatians were used as cavalry. 
:The stirrup was not used until the early middle ages.- However, it is often found in films, which has little to do with historical accuracy and a lot to do with insurance costs for actors if they ride without stirrups. The Gaulish saddle, adopted by the Romans, had four horns to hold the rider in position. --Nantonos 20:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Armored cavalry

message: "The female equivalent is a Dame."
- This is mentioned twice in the article.  Which one should we get rid of?
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hi! my name is natalie, and i am a student at newark high school; i will be inputting information from the research paper.
:Hi, Natalie! Welcome to Wikipedia! You may want to create a login name for yourself so that all of your edits to the encyclopedia will tagged as coming from you rather than from an anonynmous IP address. The FAQ also contains a lot of good information about how to use and edit Wikipedia.
:Atlant 15:28, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc

message: ::No, I do not need to change the standard connotations of "knight" at all. But if you think that any armored mounted fighter is a knight, then so is a samurai— and the concept collapses in confusion. 
Well, confusion is what the article leads to with the current definitions; it seems to me that by your reasoning, a Knight is merely a European warrior. Otherwise, the Persian warrior is almost identical in appearance to the generally perceived image of a Knight. The Samurai does not carry a lance sitting on a horse. He carries katanas and is generaly perceived by himself, without his horse. I think the differences are quite obvious: This Persian warrior is far more similar to a Knight than a Samurai or a soldier depicted on the Trajan column. 
::"Sassanid" at least. (After thirty years of "Sassanian" it's been hard for me to switch.)
Sassanid is good. Im used to Sassanian myself too.
::Reliefs of armored cataphracts will doubtless turn up if you Google "Cataphract" on Image mode, I'm sure. 
Even the wikipedia Cataphract you mention, speaks of the Sassanids and Parthians and Iran. 
 
::If this is your personal project, I won't intrude. I'm removing this from my Watchlist. I merely thought the two images needed id'ing...
This is not my personal project. Im just trying to add. When I first saw the Persian warrior relief, I was so shocked by the similarities of it to the popular image of a Knight, that I began questioning what I had learnt from my sassanid-Byzantine-Roman history. If you think the physical appearance is merely not enough to qualify the mounted Persian warrior as a Knight, and that there must be more to it, then we can retract the image from the article. But we then have to mention that a Knight is conventionally a warrior of European tradition.
I could have said the relief  of the mounted Persian warrior (by itself) was from somewhere in Greece or Turkey, and (if you had not seen the image before), you would have easily accepted it as a "Knight". Wouldnt you agree?--Zereshk 14:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Persian Knight 2

message: A knight is not perforce a nobleman, at least not in England.  Only barons (i.e. those who held directly of the King) were considered Noble.  This was true in Anglo-Saxon times, and is made clear by the large jump in weregeld.  Later, when the Commons were included in parliament, it was basically the knights who were formed the large part of the Commons.  See Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law for a cogent discussion of the matter.  Many of the source documents in Stephenson and Marcham, Sources of English Constitutional History are also illuminating.  Robert A West 14:15, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All knights are commoners unless they have been ennobled. They are also not "aristocracy" as suggested here. Kittybrewster 23:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Knights Bachelor are commoners 

message: I believe the section Chivalric orders contains fabulations. If I were to add "Order of Crescent Rouge, founded by Jean Mark II of Bourbon in 1423," would it be deleted?--Ezeu 09:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No refusals, so I guess that means consent - hence the section "Chivalric orders" goes.--Ezeu 09:59, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chivalric orders 

message: Does anyone know? Xaqua 05:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the correct way to address Sir Elton John's partner to whom he is now married? 

message: I've added the  suggestion as this modern-day use of the title is unlike the Middle Age use addressed by most of the article. A new Knight (honorific) article would mention the Middle Age origins of the term and link to Knight. What do people think?
Thanks, David Kernow 13:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what the links in the Table of Contents are for. Septentrionalis 04:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Are the responsibilities and commission bestowed on modern knights the same as in mediaeval times? If not, I suggest that there has been more than a change in the usage of the title. But I don't know. Regards, David Kernow 06:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been a continuous evolution, which the present text vastly oversimplfies. Tudor knights, whose chief responsibility was paying scutage, weren't the same as the knights of the Black Prince, any more than they were the same as Sir Alec Gielgud. Septentrionalis 06:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: With all due respect, we cannot, nor should  not leave out any mentions of the origin of what would be the future knight.  We already have a brief mention of its roots in a seperate section in this article that is only one paragraph.  It absolutely should not be moved from there. Furthermore, the ``Spahs`` of Persia were noblemen who held higher status in society and many myths were originated around them.  The similarities are eerily. Zmmz 23:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The roots of the types of armor and weapons worn by armored cavalry (not limited to knights, as noted above) would be better and more thoroughly explored in my proposed article on "Heavy Armored Cavalry." Robert A.West (Talk) 02:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split Knight (honorific) 

message: I'm moving this paragraph here for discussion because it has too many problems for a simple rewrite:
:"The concept, together with the notion of chivalry came to full bloom during the Hundred Years' War. The 'dubbing' of a knight at this time became a highly compex ritual. During the same period, however, the importance of heavy cavalry was reduced by improved pikemen and longbow tactics.  This was a bitter lesson for the nobility, learned throughout the 14th century at battles like those of Crécy, Bannockburn and Laupen, so that during the 14th century, heavy cavalry began to be replaced with light cavalry.  The "knights in shining armour" of the 15th and 16th centuries, by that time in full plate armour, were mostly confined to the jousting grounds, and the romantic Pas d'Armes. The chess piece was named in this period, around 1440. Via the transitional Cuirassiers of the 16th century, cavalry again became dominant in light, unarmoured form, in the 17th century, and not usually associated with knighthood."
Some of this information is valid, but a great deal of it is suspect and it's completely unsourced.  Among other things, fifteenth century knights were certainly not confined to the jousting grounds.  Fails to mention changing cavalry weapons and firearms.  This overplays the longbow: during the same period the weapon was in decline outside the British Isles.  French tactics changed in the latter part of the war and delivered a crushing blow to the longbow corps at the Battle of Patay in 1429. Durova 17:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you read one point other than the author intended: he intended to claim that plate was confined to the jousting grounds, which is my  understannding . Of course, this is a sign that clarification is needed. It is preferable to repair and source unsourced text than remove it; but I think the original writer of this is long gone.  Septentrionalis 18:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is, of course, completely incorrect.  Plate reached its apogee during the 15-16th centuries, in attempts to protect the man at arms from longbow and, later, arquebus fire.  Plate was also used for jousting, but plate became more prominent in the early 16th century than ever before, and was immensely heavy due to its extreme thickness (in order to make it "shot-proof").Larry Dunn 02:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I am the author of this (except for the part I just struck out). What do you mean "Fails to mention changing cavalry weapons and firearms"?? The mention of Cuirassiers does precisely that, information now lost from the article with your removal. Yes, the role of the longbow is often overplayed. That's why we have pike and longbow tactics. It was the pikemen rendered heavy cavalry obsolete. No, they didn't just disband their mounted troops after Laupen, please do mention the battle of Patay as an example, but don't just delete an entirely valid paragraph without replacement. sheesh. The "institution" section was now lacking discussion of the main period this article is dealing with. dab (ᛏ) 09:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed paragraph 

message: Please note that the word Equite was current in Medieval Latin as a word for "Knight" (in the sense of horseman) and not simply revived during the Renaissance. At the very least, it can be found being used in William of Tyre's Chronicon during the Twelfth Century. It's also worth noting that by the Middle Ages, the Latin word Miles had come to have connotations of service (in the sense of service to the state), making "Knecht" (in the sense of Servant) a reasonable translation from Latin into English.
:I will read Wm. of Tyre; if this is correct, it is probably an example of the occasional mediaeval writer, like John of Salisbury, who attempted to write Ciceronian Latin with more or less success. If I seem skeptical, one reason is that the singular of equites is eques. Septentrionalis 04:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He uses eques frequently, but he calls (the man who was to be made) Baldwin I of Jerusalem, egregius miles (in the taking of Nicaea, at which he is clearly mounted). See also here. Septentrionalis 16:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

text: The change began before Cervantes; a century or two earlier, Don Quixote would not have been funny. Septentrionalis 15:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Equite 

message: History of knight → Knight – Rationale: Knight was moved to "History of knight" in a very bizarre move by brand-new user. Not discussed on talk page, only reason given in edit summary is "study" (whatever that's supposed to mean). (copied from the entry on the WP:RM page)
Normally it would be proper to ask for other Wikipedians' input on a requested move, but this one is pretty clear-cut.  This is more of a notice that things are being taken care of than a request for comments on it, but if you have any constructive remarks then feel free to add them here. --Icarus 03:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speedy move -- The move is fairly clueless and renders the previously-useful  a link to nowhere. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Speedy move. Agreed. Clueless newbieism. Choess 07:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move