vided with support in the form of benefices or protofiefs in the form of
manorial land with limited rights over peasant tenants. As a mark of their
newly enhanced status, some knights (probably the newly landed ones) be-
gan to adopt miles(Latin; soldier/knight) as a social title in legal documents.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of knights everywhere remained land-
less, and continued to be supported either as vassals in lordly households or
as mercenaries—an even more demeaning condition. The prestige of the
knightage seems to have remained low, and clerics generally seem to have
seen them as little better than hired thugs who would not hesitate to mur-
der priests and rape nuns if the occasion presented itself. It is likely that a
military code associated with knighthood had begun to emerge: a code de-
manding that the true knight display at all times the key virtues of courage,
prowess (or a perfect command of the martial arts as they pertained to his
status), and loyalty to his seignior (for whom he should be prepared to die
if necessary). Gradually the code would also impose requirements as to how
one should treat fellow knights on the field of battle and would establish
rules governing such matters as ransom and the division of spoils. Through-
out the preclassic phase, however, observance of this code was probably re-
stricted to the knights who were vassals, as it was represented in Old French
and related dialects by the word vassalage,in the sense of “vassalic virtue,”
rather than chevalerie(chivalry) in the sense of “knightly virtue.”
The classic tactics of the knight were finally introduced and largely
perfected in the middle subphase of this period (ca. 1050–ca. 1100), which
culminated in the First Crusade and the conquest of Syria-Palestine by an
army of knights from all over Latin Europe. This subphase also saw the
adoption of the name and status of knight by growing numbers of noble-
men in northern France and the conversion of an older rite of manhood
into a rite of initiation into knighthood.
The massed charge with couched lance, unknown before 1050 and
still not general in 1085 (when the Bayeux “Tapestry” was embroidered),
was almost certainly introduced and generalized in this subphase. In addi-
tion, a new form of military sport was probably invented to give the ca-
ballarii practice in it: the mock battle fought between two very large teams
of knights that came to be called the tournament. Both the tactic and the
sport were probably in northern France shortly after 1050 and gradually
became more accepted throughout the kingdom and neighboring regions
(though the tournament was increasingly condemned by the Church au-
thorities as a dangerous and destructive pastime).
Perhaps at least partly because the new tactic required them to prac-
tice more frequently in the company of their vassals, noble princes and
castellans began in this subphase to equate their own military status of
warrior (traditionally represented by words meaning “hero”) with the sta-268 Knights