MEDIEVAL KNIGHT PAGE SERIES

By the 12th century the mass battle of the knights, which came to be called the melee, was preceded by a series of more controlled single combats called jousts, or tilts. Church officials, who looked at the tournaments as homicides being committed for sport, forced the knights to modify the tournaments. Captured knights had to pay ransom to secure their freedom.ĭespite the safety measures, men were often killed in tournaments. Competitors used blunted weapons, and safety zones were roped off where knights could put on or repair their armor. The knights would form into two groups and charge each other in a free-for-all combat. Tournaments at first differed little from actual battles. The earliest ones were arranged by knights during times of peace as a means of keeping war-ready and fending off boredom. A squire might also learn to train falcons for falconry, a favorite medieval sport, and on winter days might learn the popular court games of chess, checkers and backgammon.Ī tournament, or tourney, was a competition in the use of battle skills. The master would train the squire in the arts of warfare. The squire would wait on and serve his master and fight alongside him in battle. For five or six years he acted as valet to his lord or knight, whom he called Master. A page recieves his education.Īt the age of 15 or 16 the boy became a squire (from Old French escuier, meaning shield bearer). To learn humility and obedience, he ran errands for the ladies and served at meals. From the chaplain he took lessons in religion. The ladies in the castle instructed him in music and dancing. He learned to ride and hunt, and was taught reading, writing and arithmetic. For seven or eight years, the boy served in a castle as a page.

When a boy who had been selected to be trained as a knight was seven or eight, his father sent him to live in a castle of a lord, usually a noble to whom the father owned fealty, or allegiance.

Medieval knight page