From his earliest years, a knight was raised to be specially adapted for war. The whole purpose of his education was to strengthen his body and consolidate his faith. His school is the guardhouse in an army outpost, and his home is the castle that is always under attack by foreign enemies. As a vassal, he must often obey his lord's call to war against another lord. In return, he receives some of the spoils of siege or the plunder of merchants along the road. Occasionally a knight will be drafted by the king to go into a foreign war that the king decides is profitable.
Knights originally accompanied lords and kings, and qualifications for such companionship had to be officially recognized. Around 1200 AD, the Church took over the ceremony of knighting and added many religious rites and norms to the ceremony, making it nearly sacred. Young men who were to become knights first bathed, symbolizing the cleansing of the soul. Then, wearing a white tunic and a red robe, he stood or knelt before the altar for 10 hours. His armor and sword were placed on the altar. At the break of day he came before a group of knights and ladies where a great mass was being celebrated. His surety brought him before the lord and handed him his weapons and defenses one by one, adding a prayer and blessing to each one. The most crucial step in the ceremony is the tying of the spurs of the new knight. An older knight would also give the new knight a heavy blow on the neck or cheek with the edge of his palm or the blade of his sword - a blow that all knights had to take and could not retaliate against. The newly ordained knight then takes an oath that his sword will only be used for just cause, to defend the Church, to protect orphans and widows, to help the poor and the needy, and to root out evil. The whole ceremony ended with horseplay, mock duels and fighting games. The entire ceremony is very moving. Many sincere knights never forget the night they spent in front of the altar and the vows they made throughout their lives. But it was also a very expensive ceremony. So expensive that many eligible young men in the 14th century preferred to remain squires for life.
The obligation of a knight was that he had to serve when his master went to war, though in the early days of feudalism that was only forty days in a year. Of course, much of what they thought of as war back then was really nothing more than a synonym for plunder. War in the true sense of the word could only happen after the lords of one side had sent a letter of war to the other, agreeing on when and where to fight. Often, the commander's goal is not to defeat the enemy, but to burn down as many villages as possible, massacre the peasants, and cripple the other side's economy while the other lord remains in his own castle, storming about unharmed.
There is no better scenario for using cavalry in war than to have them charge at full speed into the opposing defenses. The terrified peasants, under the double threat of galloping army horses and cavalrymen in full iron armor, have no choice but to rout and run for their lives. But this kind of charge was not without danger. On uneven ground or even on swampy terrain, the effect of such a charge would be very limited, while a hidden trench could render the cavalry completely useless. The defending side, if it is composed enough, can also lay a large number of sharpened stakes in front of both sides of the line - an obstacle before which even the bravest horse would not dare to advance. If the defending side also had well-trained archery units, they could also meet the charging cavalry with their own arrows. However, the time in which archers could be effective was short, as the effective killing distance of an arrow was only about 150 yards or so, and well-made armor could withstand almost any blow other than a direct slash. For this reason, an experienced archer always aimed his fire at the enemy's mount, for once the rider was without his horse, his entire advantage became almost a disadvantage.
After the cavalry charge was over, the battle evolved into a series of white-knuckle battles. When the two armies mixed, the archers withdrew from the battlefield, leaving the fighting to the knights. The battle was won or lost based on the number of casualties, with the side with the fewer casualties taking the initiative on the battlefield. But very few knights actually died on the battlefield, as the more famous ones were held for ransom.
Until the 13th century, medieval armies were made up almost entirely of combatants, with few people specializing in support services and logistics. Soldiers had to take care of their own sustenance, as troops often fought outside their own borders. Generally, about a third of the troops are heavily armed knights - though this percentage often varies greatly depending on the situation. Some of the infantry are trained regular soldiers, but many more are peasants recruited on an ad hoc basis to cope with the war. They wear a variety of armor they find at random, usually leather armor reinforced with iron rings. They carry a wide variety of weapons and defenses: shields, bows and arrows, longswords, pikes, axes, and even clubs. The knight's equipment reflected a balance between offense and defense, and arguably between mobility and protection. The lance or spear was the traditional weapon of an equestrian unit and remains the hallmark of cavalry units to this day. A knight armed with a 10-foot-long lance with an iron head could easily knock down a heavily armed enemy at a full charge, or drive his enemy through a shield wall. But after the first blow, the spear was of little use, and the knight had to throw it away and replace it with a longsword or a battle axe. The tomahawk was still very lethal even through armor, and the chains of chain mail were often cut so far that they embedded themselves in wounds and rusted inside them, causing severe gangrene. Some knights carried spiked hammers, or just the most primitive of weapons, the club, but with so many spikes added to it that it was intimidating. When William the Conqueror and Richard the Lionheart were on the battlefield, the hammer of nails was their badge of honor.
Dressing knights in armor was a time-consuming task. As armor became heavier and more complex in design, later knights were no longer able to put it on themselves. He had to sit and let his squires help him pull up his pants - which were reinforced with iron bars - and then he had to stand and let his squires put the various parts of the armor together on himself with straps and buckles. The first thing to be put on was a close-fitting shirt, usually made of felt or cotton sewn together, with a layer of armor over it - this was the early form of chain mail. The form of the armor was actually a garment, often longer than the waist, and even longer than the knees. The armor was made of countless small iron rings riveted together, and if it was well made, it would have been pliable and flexible. Despite the fact that the lock armor is reasonably strong, it can't withstand a violent blow. Another problem was that the lock armor rusted easily. One method of removing rust at the time was to fill a leather pocket with sand soaked in vinegar and stuff the lock armor in it. Armor was continually improved and became more and more elaborate, and gradually caps, elbow pads, knee pads, and shin pads appeared to protect the head and neck. In order to protect the face, which was easily injured, the weight of the helmet was constantly increased, and the area of protection became larger and larger, and finally the whole head was protected, leaving only a few slits in front of the eyes. Of course, there was a price to pay for this powerful protection. Before putting on the helmet, the knight had to wrap his head well, otherwise he could easily concuss if he fell.
By the 14th century, plate armor replaced chain mail. Plate armor could be custom-made and was often decorated with elaborate patterns. A full suit of plate armor weighed over 60 pounds,. If the joints of the armor were properly articulated and lubricated, a man in plate armor could move more freely than a man in chain mail.
Knights' shields were generally made of several layers of sturdy planks, nailed together with nails, covered with leather, and rimmed with a ring of metal. In order to bounce off the enemy's blade, there was also generally a protrusion made of metal in the center of the shield. While infantrymen customarily had round shields, knights generally used kite-shaped shields in order to protect their legs. In order to be able to load knights in full iron armor during battles and jousting tournaments, the war horses had to be strong and powerful. Such military horses were uncommon and extremely expensive at the time, as grass was not plentiful and the average livestock was small in size. Horse breeders had to find ways to feed their horses to be tall and strong. Arabian horses were very popular, and pure white males were preferred. It was considered unchivalrous to ride a mare. In order to withstand the impacts of war, horses selected for military service had to be carefully trained for a long period of time. In addition, knights often held swords, shields, and lances on the battlefield, so they could not hold the reins with their hands, and had to control their mounts by driving them with their spurs, pressing their legs against the horse's belly, and shifting their center of gravity - all of which also required prior training.
The Crusades were a novelty in history, the first wars to be waged for an ideal - though in time, that ideal naturally lost its purity and nobility. But the crusade was still seen as a service to the Christian God, and the crusaders saw themselves as noble servants serving a divine purpose.
The Order of the Hospital was founded among the Crusaders when its purpose was to aid sick and wounded pilgrims. Volunteers who joined the Order had to take a vow to live in an ascetic manner and to be faithful to the Benedictine commandments. Their symbol was a white Maltese cross. After the capture of Jerusalem, they receive direct orders only from the Pope. Their congregation in Jerusalem could accommodate 1,000 pilgrims. Since they were responsible for the safety of the pilgrims along the way, their nature became more and more like a military organization. In later years, the headquarters of the Knights of the Hospital moved a few times, and as a result had been renamed the Knights of Rhodes and the Knights of Malta.
The Knights Templar were a group of valiant knights who bore the red cross as their symbol. The Knights Templar were founded in 1118 A.D. and were initially headquartered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which the Crusaders believed to be the site of King Solomon's Temple. The Templars were initially founded to guard the pathway to the Holy Land. But soon the Knights of the Hospital and the Templars became similar to the police, kept busy mediating the daily disputes between the Crusaders and the Saracens time. The rulers of the local Christian nations had no right to interfere with the Knights' actions; the Knights had their own castles, made their own policies, and even signed their own agreements. They had no less friction with the Christians than with the Saracens. Some members of the Order converted to Islam, and others, if not converted, were y influenced by some of its mystical rites. But their branch in France was devastated in the 14th century when Philip IV, then King of France, coveted the Templars' possessions and wanted to confiscate them. Today's Secret **** Jehovah's inherited the name of the Order, and along with it, the ancient and mystical rituals. Another order that binds itself to an ascetic code of conduct is the Teutonic Order, whose members must be Germans of noble birth.
As the continent stabilized, centralized government grew stronger, and commerce became more lucrative, the voices of militancy diminished. The institutions of society also shifted from reliance on military force to reliance on the power of law to maintain them. By the late Middle Ages, knights sadly found themselves obsolete. Increasingly, the forces that decided wars came from mercenaries, sappers and artillerymen of humble origins, who acted like rogues.
But the spirit and ideals of knighthood live on: to fight treachery; to do justice to the poor and keep the peace in their places; to shed blood for their own countrymen and, if necessary, sacrifice their lives. To this day, shades of this ideal can be seen vaguely in the traditions of French and German army officers and British public schools.
The influence of European chivalry on the development of medieval society
Over the years, the domestic historiography of the European medieval chivalry research results are very few, historians and scholars generally as a feudal hierarchy of a class to study. At present, Western scholars believe that chivalry is not only a Europe-wide mechanism, the Middle Ages is the age of chivalry, the knight class is the backbone of society, and chivalry has an influence on the whole era of chivalric culture and spirit, until the "fifteenth century, chivalry in the wake of the religion, is still a powerful ethical concepts to dominate people's minds and hearts. It was regarded as the crown of the whole social system". Therefore, the spirit of chivalric culture is not only an object of concern in the study of Western intellectual and cultural history, but also an important topic in the study of European military history.
(I)
European chivalry originated in the Frankish Kingdom of the Carolingian dynasty in the Middle Ages, and was gradually introduced to European countries. 732 Charles? Matt became the Frankish Kingdom Palace Minister, relying on the support of small and medium-sized landowners in Scythia origin of the squire soldiers, the conquest of the domestic and neighboring peoples, and then strengthened the cavalry power to defeat the powerful Arabs army. Since in the 8th century one equipped horse was equal to the value of 45 cows or 15 mares, and in the 9th century only one horse was equal to the value of 6 cows, in order to consolidate the cavalry, Charles the Hammer carried out reforms: on the one hand, he excluded small peasants from the military service, and let the nobles and rich peasants to become professional cavalrymen; on the other hand, he subdivided the land to become military cognacs to provide knights, and laid a solid foundation for the chivalric system, which became a This laid a solid foundation for chivalry and became the starting point of medieval military feudalism. Therefore, as the economic foundation of chivalry, the cognac not only made the land divided from the king to the dukes, marquises, burghers, sons, barons, knights and knights, but also made all the people who could fight for the feudal lord with horses and receive the title of knights, which included all the classes of the nobles in the wars, and even the king felt honored with the name of his own knighthood. Such as successively participated in the crusades of King Richard I (the Lionheart), Edward I, King Louis VII, King of France, IX, Philip II, Frederick I, II and so on are known as "Knights of the King" in history. 1449 King Edward III established the Knights of the Garter, as a member of the knights and knights around the round table, *** with the meal, presided over the tournament and so on, just like a high-level knights. This makes the Middle Ages a "heroic age" of knights.
Because of the medieval European countries from the barbaric social organization and the basis of the development of war, so its entire structure and social customs are military, to maintain social stability and unity of the force is the military aristocracy, the chivalric class and its chief. Therefore, to become a nobleman, one must first become a brave knight. To become a knight, one had to go through three stages of feudal chivalric education: squire (after 7 or 8 years old), squire (after 14 or 15 years old) and knight (after 21 years old). Education in the stage of the boy servant, the main child will be sent to the high power of the lord of the castle as a boy servant to do odd jobs, and from the noblewoman and her daughters to learn some of the knight etiquette and cultural knowledge, as well as singing, musical instruments, chess, eloquence and other skills. Entering the stage of squire, he became the master's attendant guard, also is the preparatory knight, mainly learns known as "knight seven skills" riding, swimming, throwing spears, swordsmanship, hunting, poetry, chess. Learning horsemanship is to skillfully maneuver the weapon on the back of a fast running horse to attack the enemy; learning to hunt is not only a recreational activity, but also a tactical exercise, in the hunt to exercise combat courage and resourcefulness; learning to recite poems is aimed at the depiction of the knight's life and spirit of the story through a number of narrative poems to get to the real life of the educational significance. As reserve knights, they also accompanied their masters in wartime and had a duty of protection. Entering the stage of knighthood, to become a true knight one must first go through the ceremony of investiture or what is known as the sword ceremony, which evolved and developed during the Middle Ages, and which was originally derived from the Germanic ceremony of granting arms, which was recorded in the ancient Roman writer Tacitus in the Chronicle of Germania. The medieval promotion ceremony is usually to choose in religious festivals, sometimes held on the battlefield. History says that Charles the Great, in order to net talent, forbade the nobility to ennoble knights, "let the squires all gather to the court, where each will receive a riding horse, a sword, a good pair of locks, a helmet, and a coat of embroidered silk. And, if desired, he will be made a knight at once."
The knighting promotion ceremony is a complex procedure and can generally be divided into three types. One is the secular type, the presiding officer is the monarch and secular nobility, the location is mostly in the palace, castle; a religious type, the presiding officer is the pope, bishop or clergy, the location is usually in the church; a mixed type of secular and religious, the presiding officer is usually the monarch or secular nobility, the clergy serve as one of the prayers of the Mass and other religious activities, the location is either in the Palace Castle, or in the church. In the whole process of the ceremony, the awarding of the sword ceremony is the most solemn, and can be regarded as the core ceremony. Candidate knights to fasting, bathing, penance, prayer oath, wearing armor helmet, mounted kick spurs, etc., and then is to accept the sword symbolizing the functions of the knight; the feudal lord with the sword on the recipient's neck or shoulder gently tapped a few times, at the same time solemn statement of the basic norms of knighthood. Finally, the new knight demonstrates his martial arts skills on the back of a galloping horse, stabbing a target with a spear and improvising a joust. Due to the promotion ceremony and its subsequent celebrations cost quite a lot of money, so there are often several knights *** with the promotion ceremony. 14 centuries after the knight promotion ceremony is gradually becoming simpler, the ruler for the expansion of the source of soldiers, so that many people who are not from the nobility through the money or war service can be awarded the title of knight. During the Hundred Years' War, the British king often knighted a large number of knights before the battle to boost morale. 1338 British and French armies faced each other at Willenforth, where a frightened hare made the front of the French army stir, and the French Earl of Hainault, thinking that the British army was on the attack, took advantage of the short period of time to hastily knighted 14 new knights, who were later nicknamed the "Knights of the Hare".
The Church attaches great importance to the knighting ceremony, and often utilizes the meaning symbolized by the ceremony to instill and penetrate Christian concepts and spirit. For example, in the 10th century, the Church listed the prayer for the knight's arms in the Book of Rituals as part of the Church's service; in the 11th century, the Church began to preach that knights were God's warriors on earth, and introduced the Mass into the ceremony of conferring the sword to firmly establish the knight's faith in God; the Church's sealing lord slapped the knight on the back with the sword, which was interpreted as: "Wake up from nightmares to keep awake and believe in Christ, and strive to obtain the high honor"; the knight then swore: "I will be a brave knight and I will live as God wants me to live". The double-edged meaning of the knight's sword in the Church's religious ideology is: on the one hand to fight against the pagans and the enemies of God, and on the other hand to protect the people and the weak. The fully-armed knights, on the other hand, were meant to be the protective walls of the Church, and they were given a religious function: "Knights of Christ fight for the Church". Similarly, the religious spirit remained the soul of the secular rite of investiture. For example, in Griffey's History of the Kings of Britain in the 12th century, the lord of a castle, in awarding a sword to a knight, said: "With the sword I have given you, God has made and ordained the highest order: the order of chivalry, which shall be without blemish." At the same time, the sword is also a symbol of justice and honor, and a knight who carries a sword with him can swear on the cross-shaped hilt at any time. When a knight died, his sword was often buried with him or hung on his tombstone, and in 1095 Pope Urban II famously said at Clermont, France, when he called for the Crusades: "The robbers of the past should now become knights". To defend the Church, to fight against unbelievers, to honor the clergy, to protect the poor from injustice, to live in peace, to give one's blood, and to be willing to give one's life for one's brother if need be". The Pax Christi movement, initiated in the south of France at the end of the 10th century and extended to the north, was a movement for the preservation of right and order under the leadership of the Church, in which the duties and beliefs of knighthood were fully embodied.
Medieval European knights were a feudal aristocracy, and the moral ethics and ideology of loyalty, honor, and bravery that they followed were a direct reflection of the feudal tradition. In the feudal system, the knight as a vassal of the great nobility, the feudal obligation decided that he must be loyal to; as the master of his own territory, he must protect the serfs dependent on him, and his feudal rights are sacrosanct. It is this kind of feudal society advocated by the moral spirit of chivalry and its feudal obligations and rights, so that in the strife, war in Europe in the Middle Ages, become the stage of history or literature interpretation of all sorts of legends and lofty image, so that people tend to ignore the dark side of knights and their system.
(2)
From the military point of view, war and competition were the main functions of knights. In the Middle Ages, a helmet, armor, sword, the left hand to manipulate the shield of the horse, the right hand to hold the spear of the heavily armed knights and their squires is a combat unit. Its charge on the battlefield, unstoppable, some people describe "a Frankish man on a horse can charge a hole in the walls of Babylon". In the medieval knight riding the battlefield is not only its must fulfill the military feudal obligations, but also its sacrosanct rights. Therefore, the medieval knight was not only the embodiment of military art, but also the strategist of military strategy and tactics. From one side, the knight must provide 40 days a year for the feudal lord military nature of service, or with the feudal lord campaign; From the other side, more knights for the protection or defense of their own rights and honor, or religious strife, the road and all kinds of disputes and so on to fight. Because in the medieval feudal political state, through the feudal private law private war to solve the conflict, seems to have been a kind of social common method. Therefore, holding a sword and fighting in private battles was a profession or a way of life for knights, as well as a way to gain honor and wealth. As a result, armed knights in medieval Europe were not only the centerpiece of army battles, but also the main guardians of feudal forested castles.
The European Middle Ages was the "Age of the Castle", and each castle was the center of a region's feudal military, political, economic, and social life, and was the basis for the formation of feudal lordship, and the defenders of the castle were knights. Some castles were even the home base of the knights. Such as Windsor Castle, King Edward III in the 14th century as the center of the knights. The rise of castles was epoch-making, as Thompson pointed out: "The rise of castles and their spread throughout Europe produced a profound change in the way of life and in the nature of civilization. They began a new age, an age of military predominance, the feudal age. In the ninth, tenth, and even eleventh centuries, that is, before the feudal system had become self-consciously powerful and developed into a consolidated polity, life was difficult and rough for all classes in society. It was only when the feudal system became an orderly one - at least as rationally administered as human government can be in any age - that life in the castle became genteel and comfortable. By that time, too, military architecture had advanced to such an extent that castles were no longer mere wooden fortifications, but spacious and even imposing stone buildings". Early European castles were still some of the defensive performance of the fortified facilities, more specifically, manor-style facilities, after the 10th century began to develop into residential castles. Medieval wars were often fought over castles, so from the 11th century onwards, castles were often built on hills to enhance defensive capabilities. It is worth noting that the castles that have survived are generally from the late Middle Ages, and most of them were remodeled in the 19th century and are not the same as the knight's castles of that time. Although there were many large and famous castles at that time, most of the knight's castles were less than 40 meters long. In 1293, for example, the castle of Burgau in Swabia, Prussia, had only 5 burgomasters, 8 guards, 2 gatekeepers and a belfry keeper. Medieval warfare centered around the fight for castles, which were the main political and military targets. Siege warfare against castles "continued to dominate military activity, while relatively few major battles took place on the battlefield". Defeated armies were allowed to take refuge within the castle walls, with the last stand being a retreat to the main tower of the castle. The castle's main fortifications consisted of moats, walls, towers, and curtain walls. The food stored in the castle was usually enough to last for a year, and a garrison of 60 men was enough to resist an enemy force 10 times its size, often being fed by the attackers rather than the besieged. Thus castles, defended by knights, were often easy to defend and difficult to attack. Methods of breaching castles were often based on the use of mechanical devices such as siege hammers, movable attack towers and crossbow cannons (stone throwers), as well as methods such as digging tunnels and then burning oil and wood to cause the top earth and stone buildings to collapse. Such as 1215 King John of England in Manchester Castle in the defense of the hundred rebel knights and guards, is to order the Chief Justice Hubert day and night to send 40 head of the fattest pigs, with lard and wood in the pit burning, so that the castle wall of the building collapsed in large sections and broke through. 1244 Albee bishop of Montserrat siege of the Castle of Montserrat Segal with a stone-throwing machine to the same point of the walls day and night to launch a heavy 40 kilograms of throwing objects, and finally struck the castle. The castle was attacked by the Albigensian bishop of Montsergue, who used a stone-throwing machine to fire 40 kilograms of projectiles at the same point of the wall day and night, finally breaking through an opening. Castle sieges and defenses were often very violent, as they were often the key to winning or losing a regional battle. Anglo-French Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), the English Red and White Rose War (1455-1485) is a classic rendition of knights and castle attack and defense, which not only recorded a series of offensive and defensive tactics in the military history of the war, but also left many heroic and tragic, sing-songy story of knights in the history of the battle.
Medieval European knights were the core of the army and the masters of the battlefield, so their weapons and equipment as well as their moral code were often the main factors affecting the war. The main weapons generally used by knights were spears and swords, while some knights used tomahawks, hammers, iron clubs, wolfsbane hammers, and so on. A knight's spear could be thrown to impale the enemy on the battlefield, and it was in this way that the French knights disrupted the English army's wall-like shield formation at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But the bow and sword was often considered inferior infantry equipment, scorned and disdained by the cavalry. Also, there was a time when the Church forbade the use of such weapons in wars between Christians. However, due to the development of feudalism in England, there was a recruitment of skilled archers to become professional soldiers, who often put iron stakes in front of the enemy to block the enemy riding, and themselves outside the stakes with a large bow and arrows that could shoot up to 250 yards to kill the horses and the enemy. During the Hundred Years' War, King Edward III of England defeated the heavily armored French knight army with 20,000 mercenaries armed with large bows, and in 1360 King John of France was defeated and taken prisoner. For centuries, the art of war had been characterized by the valor of noble knights, but the English longbowmen proved that archers were no less valuable than cavalrymen, which shook the status of knights. The French army then began to employ professional archers from Genoa and elsewhere. However, the importance of the cavalry in the military is still undeniable, "Whether on offense or defense, without it, no troops of the fifteenth century could have achieved a decisive victory on the battlefield". Even during the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry was still the mainstay of military maneuvering and charging on the battlefield.
Medieval literature has discussed how to be a knight: "I am a knight, traveling on horseback, looking for a man, armed as I am, willing to fight with me. If he can defeat me, it will enhance his reputation; if I can beat him, I will be seen as a hero and I will be honored as never before." Yet despite the fact that the Lords' knights were brave and fought each other constantly, the knights' battles on the battlefield were often not aimed at killing each other. Describing the battle of Bremule (1119), Vitelli reported that "out of 900 knights, only three were killed". At the battle of Tinchebrai (1106), King Henry I defeated all the Normans and 400 warriors were captured, but none of Henry's knights were killed. The Battle of Bouvines was one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Middle Ages, with only 170 of 1,500 knights killed. This was not only because armor and fortresses were very useful in protecting the lives of knights, but also because the tacit agreement and statutes of the knights required that captives be treated well and ransomed for a reasonable sum. Often captives were released on a promise of good faith to pay the ransom on a certain date, and few knights would break this oath. It is recorded that the French knights captured at Crissy and Poitiers during the Franco-British wars lived freely and comfortably with their English captors and shared meals and sports with their masters until they were ransomed. This monetary ransom of captured knights and nobles was done even by kings. When Richard the Lionheart of England was captured by the Austrians during the Crusades, England ransomed him with a large sum of money, and he was still remembered as a brave and heroic knight-king. King Louis IX of France had the same experience. Of course, the medieval knights in the battlefield "heroes cherish heroes", rarely kill each other another important reason, is to consider the casualties will cause serious revenge. As a result, it was the lowly infantrymen who died most often on the battlefield. Thompson once pointed out that in the Middle Ages "war made feudal lords rich by acquiring land and serfs, and it also made their knights and squires rich by acquiring booty and ransom money - it was this special interest of the aristocracy in the continuation of the wars that for centuries caused various attempts to abolish private wars to fail. --This group of unproductive men could only be used for war." In order for the knights to be an important factor in the stability of the feudal ruling order, the feudal rulers and the Church had to regulate and lead them in their spiritual values and in the energetic direction of their actions. There are three main aspects:
One of them is the frequent knight tournament. Knights jousting conference popular in Western Europe, organized by the timing is often celebrated knight promotion ceremony or royal nobility between the wedding ceremony, a king or a visit to the great nobles, as well as a variety of festivals, religious festivals and so on. A jousting conference is sometimes held for a week, the jousting arena is the city square or field open space, surrounded by beautifully decorated bleachers box for the gentleman people to watch, and there are bands playing. Knights first engaged in horseback jousting, where two riders charged at each other with spears, and after one side was knocked to the ground, both sides could continue to fight on the ground until one side begged for mercy or the host called a halt. These jousts are sometimes fought for the honor of the lady of their choice. The victor receives a prize from the magistrate or a noblewoman. The climax of the assembly was when the participating knights divided into two squads and actually fought a battle, often with blunt weapons, but casualties were common. For example, at a tournament in Neuss in 1240, 60 knights died. Meanwhile the losers were arrested as prisoners and extracted for ransom and booty. At the end of the tournament, any knight who survived was joined by the nobles in a feast of song and dance, and the victorious knight was allowed to kiss a lovely woman and to receive the praises of the psalms in the ceremony. Thus at such tournaments, "pride, honor, love, and art provided the traditional motives for contests," and the loyalty and heroism of the knights were celebrated. Monuments have been erected at the sites of some of the famous tournaments. The spirit of knightly jousting has been the source and model of heroism in medieval Europe, so much so that Richard II of England intended to join his uncles - the Dukes of Lancaster, York and Groseis - to fight against Charles IV, King of France, and his uncles the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Burgundy and the Duke of Berry. Louis of Orleans challenges King Henry IV of England. Henry V of England to France before marching on Agincourt