knight in the name of God and St. George, to guard loyally faith and jus-
tice, to sustain just quarrels loyally with all your power, and to protect the
church, widows, and orphans.”
Late Classic Knighthood (1430/50–1600/25)
In the years following 1430, knighthood was finally detached from its tra-
ditional military role and converted into a mere dignity, whose sole pur-
poses were to honor recipients and to bestow a minimal rank within the hi-
erarchy of the nobility. The clearest signs of this change were the removal
of the distinction in the pay scale traditionally maintained between knights
and squires, the complete merger of the two ranks in military contexts into
the single status of man-at-arms, and the gradual replacement of the
knightly status of banneret with the new military office of captain. These
changes were accompanied by the completion (by 1500) of the process by
which the knighting ritual was reduced to the collée—renamed the acco-
lade—and by a tendency in some countries for the eldest sons of knights to
assume that title on attaining adulthood, without benefit of any form of
dubbing. This did not happen in the British kingdoms, but it was wide-
spread on the continent.
Nevertheless, throughout this phase all kings and princes, and proba-
bly the majority of barons, continued to seek knighthood for at least their
eldest son at the age of majority, and other men of noble birth continued
to undergo the traditional training and to fight as heavy cavalrymen wear-
ing armor encasing their whole bodies. Rather than surrender the status of
knight, indeed, the lesser nobles of some kingdoms began to treat it as a
hereditary dignity that could be assumed at majority without any ceremony
at all. Furthermore, the joust in its growing variety of forms remained the
most important form of noble sport (though many of the type called the
pas d’armes[French; passage of arms] were little more than allegorical
plays), and different types of armor (often with interchangeable pieces)
were created for each of its many forms. The armorers of this period—now
concentrated in northern Italy (especially Milan) and Germany (especially
Augsburg)—continued to produce armors of ever higher technical sophis-
tication and finish, and even developed a series of different forms of helmet
derived both from the great basinet (the sallet, barbut, armet, and close-hel-
met) and from the great helm (the barred and grilled helms) to suit differ-
ent tastes and purposes. Finally, the code and mythology of chivalry re-
mained powerful forces in many kingdoms to the end of the period. Thus,
although their military role was steadily reduced through the rise of newer
forms of both infantry and cavalry, the knights of this period retained most
of their prestige. Knighthood remained an idealized status central to the
contemporary definition of nobility until at least 1550.
Knights 283