The knight knelt before the king, his head bowed as the flat of a sword tapped his shoulders. He rose a nobleman’s defender, sworn to protect the weak and uphold the church. But in 1379, one knight turned that sacred oath into a nightmare for a community of nuns who made the fatal mistake of trusting him. The path to knighthood was long and brutal.
Boys born into noble families were sent away at seven years old to serve as pages. They trained with mock weapons, learned to ride and care for horses, and accompanied their teachers on hunts. Those from wealthier families trained at the king’s court with the finest instructors, while boys from modest homes learned their craft at local castles from whatever knights were stationed there. In their early teens, pages became squires.
The ceremony required them to swear upon a consecrated sword that they would serve their lord faithfully. From that moment on, their days belonged to their master. They cleaned his sword, polished his armor, tended his horses, and dressed him for battle. They followed him into war, carrying spare weapons and leading extra mounts.
If a knight lost his horse in battle, his squire was there to provide another, risking his own life in the chaos of combat. The training was relentless. Knights intentionally made practice swords heavier than real weapons to build their squires’ strength. The boys studied music, dance, Latin, and their local language.
They read tomes on chivalry and were tested on their knowledge of proper conduct. They were taught to lead hunts and serve their masters at the dinner table. Many squires never made the jump to knighthood. Some failed their training and took positions in the church.
Others remained squires for life simply because they could not afford the cost of becoming a knight. Those who succeeded underwent the ceremony of dubbing. The night before, the knight-to-be bathed, shaved, and spent hours in quiet prayer with his sword resting on the chapel altar. In the morning, he knelt before a king or a fellow knight and received the tap on the shoulders that transformed him from a humble squire into a lord of the battlefield.
The code of chivalry was meant to create the perfect Christian warrior. It forbade beating priests, stealing cows, hurting women, robbing, kidnapping, and harming the innocent. The list existed because knights so frequently committed those very crimes. Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, a co-founder of the Knights Templar, publicly declared that knights served the devil rather than God and called for reform.
Nobody listened. Knights were simply too valuable on the battlefield. They formed the backbone of the cavalry, controlling their horses with nothing but their knees and feet while carrying shields, lances, and swords. Their enemies respected them.
Captured archers and infantrymen were often slaughtered on the spot, but captured knights were held in comfortable quarters and ransomed back to their own side. Between battles, knights served as bodyguards to lords, receiving land and payment for their services. Some sold their swords to whoever paid the most. Others fought in the Crusades and dedicated their lives to religious causes.
They attended mass every morning and participated in jousting tournaments for the entertainment of kings and commoners alike. They even settled legal disputes through trial by combat, fighting on behalf of the party who chose them and trusting the outcome to divine judgment. But the chivalrous image was largely a performance. Behind closed doors, many knights broke their vows.
Affairs were common, mistresses were kept in secret, and brothels operated openly in medieval towns. Knights projected honor and restraint in public while their private lives told a very different story. The history of the title reveals its true nature from the very beginning. The word knight comes from the Old English “cniht,” meaning boy, which itself descended from the German “Knecht,” meaning servant.
The rank was almost exclusively male and served the higher powers of society. Knighthood could only be bestowed by a head of state, a monarchical representative, the Pope, or another knight. It was almost always given to wealthy warriors, though rare commoners who showed extraordinary bravery in battle could be knighted as a reward for their service. During times of war, the number of knighthoods increased dramatically as kings desperately needed skilled fighters.
Noblewomen could also purchase the title for their sons, making it one of the few avenues of class mobility in the Middle Ages. For most knights, the position meant a life of privilege. But it also meant an embarrassing end. By the Late Middle Ages, cannons and gunpowder changed warfare forever.
The heavily armored knight on horseback became obsolete, outmatched by new weapons that made years of training meaningless. Eventually, knights were absorbed into professional standing armies. The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who fought in the 15th and early 16th centuries, earned the posthumous nickname “the last knight” for his courage in battle and ruthlessness in conflict. Despite their decline, knights have been immortalized in legend, most famously in the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
These tales made the knight the platonic ideal of honor and courage, a fascination that survives to this day. But the legends leave out the real men who wore the armor and swore the oaths. Sir John Arundel was one of those men. In 1379, he approached a convent with a simple request.
He and his men needed shelter for a few nights. The nuns, wanting to see the best in him, allowed the knights to stay. It was a decision they would regret for the rest of their lives. Instead of showing gratitude, Arundel and his men took advantage of their welcome.
They looted the convent, stripping it of its valuables. They kidnapped several nuns, dragging them from the place where they had sought sanctuary. Then they moved to a nearby church where a wedding had just taken place. They stormed the building and seized the newly married bride as well.
Arundel and his men gathered their prisoners and headed back out to sea. Somewhere beyond the reach of justice, they threw their hostages overboard. The nuns and the bride drowned in the cold water. The order of chivalry had promised protection for women and the innocent.
Sir John Arundel had sworn to uphold that code. Instead, he used his position to commit atrocities that would stain the history of knighthood forever. The church condemned him, but the damage was done. The nuns were dead.
The bride never saw her husband again. And a knight who was supposed to be a defender of the helpless had become their executioner.
