Knight in Europe

Definition of Knight

The lowest title of dignity. Originally a man-at-arms. It is not hereditary. Knights (in England) are of the following orders: Garter, Thistle, St. Patrick, Bath, St. Michael and St. George, Star of India, Indian Empire, Royal Victorian, British Empire and lastly Knights Bachelor.

An obsolete order is that of Knight Banneret, who, created by the King in the field, ranked after a baronet. (1)

History

Long after the military importance of knighthood had practically disappeared, what may be called its cosmopolitan character was maintained: a knight’s title was recognized in all European countries, and not only in that country in which he had received it. In modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the sovereign’s permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but further that such permission shall not authorize “the assumption of any style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a knight bachelor of the United Kingdom.” (London Gazette, December 6, 1823, and May 15, 1855) (…)

(According to) Burke: “The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any decree of scorn and cruelty. The spirit of chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the objects of the siege or campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for the more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen” (Norman Conquest, v. 482).

The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour; and if many of its 859 most brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers. Even in 13th century England more than half the population were serfs, and as such had no claim to the privileges of Magna Carta; disputes between a serf and his lord were decided in the latter’s court, although the king’s courts attempted to protect the serf’s life and limb and necessary implements of work. By French feudal law, the villein had no appeal from his lord save to God (Pierre de Fontaines, Conseil, ch. xxi. art. 8); and, though common sense and natural good feeling set bounds in most cases to the tyranny of the nobles, yet there was scarcely any injustice too gross to be possible. “How mad are they who exult when sons are born to their lords!” wrote Cardinal Jacques de Vitry early in the 13th century (Exempla, p. 64, Folk Lore Soc. 1890). (…)

After the knight’s liability to personal service in war had been modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary in the first quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour—a compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (Distraint of Knighthood, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An indirect effect of this system (Medley, English Constitutional History (2nd ed., pp. 291, 466), suggests that Edward might have deliberately calculated this degradation of the older feudal ideal) was to break down another rule of the chivalrous code—that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle birth. Being made to “ride the barriers” was the penalty for anybody who attempted to take part in a tournament without the qualification of name and arms. Guillim (Display of Heraldry, p. 66) and Nisbet (System of Heraldry, ii. 147) speak of this subject as concerning England and Scotland. See also Ashmole’s Order of the Garter, p. 284. But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great extent independently of these considerations. At almost every period there have been men of obscure and illegitimate birth who have been knighted. Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman; “for, when a king gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is requisite for the completing of that which he bestows.” By the common law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were knighted both his minority and wardship terminated. (Order of the Garter, p. 43; Nicolas, British Orders of Knighthood, i. 5.) (2)

Resources

Notes and References

1. Definition of Knight is, temporally, from A Concise Law Dictionary (1927)
2. Encyclopedia Britannica (11th Edition)

See Also

Further Reading