The Age of Chivalry

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The Age of Chivalry

A chivalrous knight was a very different sort of man from the proud, unruly, land-grabbing, brutal warriors who seemed to have been only too common in the Middle Ages. Warriors could or could not turn into chivalrous knights. Chivalry was a game of make-believe, a fashionable game that the ruling classes played when they were not busy quarrelling and scheming for more land, following their lords to war, or trying to squeeze more out of the peasants and merchants who lived on their land. These people were either "bold bad barons" or they were "very perfect gentle knights." They were probably a mixture of both. In this essay it will prove that chivalry did exist and played a part in a knight's training.

The age of the knights were often called the age of chivalry. Chivalry came from the old French word chevalerie, which meant, "Horse soldiering." Over time, the term came to mean a code of behavior or sets of rules in which a knight was expected to follow and live by. To understand the code of chivalry, the steps a person must take in preparation in becoming a knight have to be look upon. A young boy training for knighthood usually left home around the age of seven. He was sent to a castle of an overload or relative since it was the only logical place for a boy to learn all the required knight skills. There he went through more than one stage of training. The first stage to knighthood was becoming a page where code of chivalry was taught.

A page usually trained in the home of a knight or nobleman as mentioned before. There he went through a bloody battle, testing his strength and power through daily exercise. His exercises would be consisted of running, wrestling, learning how to wield lance, spear and sword. He was taught by follow knights or nobleman how to slash and parry strokes using a blunted sword. He also learns to ride and how to vault onto a bareback horse. During this stage of training the most difficult and tedious part was courtesy. A page was an errand boy too, and he had to learn to serve other knights and nobles. There was a belief that this was one of the key elements in becoming a good knight.

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