Talk:Knight

User 208's contributions: Can we integrate some of the useful & viable stuff into the main article? user:sjc

Yo, sjc, I read this book, nice synopsis by this guy. Probably needs an article in its own right dealing with late Roman military technology as a bridge between Roman military and dark age knighthood. DarkStar

Yeah, it's a pity JHK's not about, she'd have a fair idea how to address this. user:sjc

Addendum(Knighthood for Dummies) Hey, I'm not an Historian, just a history buff, but a few years ago I read a book entitled "Arthur, The Last Roman Champion Of Britain" in which it was suggested that the legend of Arthur was based on an actual person. In this book it was reported that while the Romans were still occupying Britain as a Provence two technological changes created revelutionary changes in how the Legions operated.

The first was the introduction of steel as what we would now call a strategic material. Steel was/is not only better than bronze for making weapons, it also allowed for the making of body armour at a practical weight in the form of a chain mail shirt.

Chain mail armour is, however, a lot heavier than the leather body armour that had previously been worn by the average Roman soldier. The result was that if the soldiers wore the chainmail they couldn't march more than about ten miles a day, even on good roads. Traditionally the Legions averaged about twenty miles a day, and could be force marched almost twice that distance, and built a stockade for themselves at the end of the day. They could march farther if they loaded the armour onto carts, but that left them vulnerable to ambush on the way. So the introduction of chain mail significantly increased their strategic response time.

Then, near the Danube, some Romans observed the use of the stirup by some mounted archers, barbarian mercenaries that were in thier employ. The combination of the new armour with the stirup created what came to be called cataphracti (which in latin means something like "The Armoured Ones"). They put chain mail on the riders, it is likely on the horses as well. I've never heard this suggested, but it had been a couple of centuries since the invasion of Gaul, so they would have had access to the horses that lived wild in the dense forrests of western Europe. These horses were larger than those otherwise available to the Romans and would have been able to bare the load. (If you want to see what I'm refering to here, just rent the movie "Ladyhawk" and get a load of Rutger Haur's mount.)

Rome's Grand Strategy had by this time changed from expansionist in nature into an effort to simply maintain it's borders. The new heavily armoured infantry was broken up into smaller units and distributed along the frontier in fortified outposts. All such infantry in a given provence came under the administrative control of a military leader called a Dux. At a central location in the Provence a rapid response force of cataphracti, heavy cavalry, would be ready to respond to any incursions accross the border. This force was under the command of an officer who's title escapes my memory, but I recall it sounded a lot like the later medieval title of Count.

If barbarians raided accross the border and laid siege to one of the outposts, or if the outposts heard of an incursion nearby, a mesage could be sent by fast horse which would bring the heavy cavalry in short order. Even a handfull of cataphacti would be sufficient to break the formation of a large body of infantry and once their formation was broken the cavalry could start in to cutting them up one at a time. Hard work, but rewarding. Given that the barbarians would not have had the same kind of military discipline we associate with the Legions it is reasonable to assume that charismatic leadership on the barabarian side might have rallied it's infantry to reform and make second, or even a third stand against the Romans. It is also reasonable to assume that the cataphracti would note who it was that was jumping up and down, and yelling things like, "To me! To me, my brothers!" ect., and make a concerted effort to end his life in a magnificent way that would inspire his kin to write a song about his heroic death. To sum up, the Romans switched from mobile infantry that could stalk an enemy like a predator to a set up that vaguely resembles the defensive squad of an American Football team, a "defensive line" of strong slow or stationary units with fast, mobile units acting as "linebackers" in the form of the cataphracti

All this happened shortly before the last Roman Legion left Britain to plant their own man on the Imperial throne. They succeeded, but were destroyed in battle by another legion with the same idea less than a year later.

My speculation is that when they left they took most of the armour and all of the swords with them.

"The female equivalent is a Dame." - This is mentioned twice in the article. Which one should we get rid of?

---

hi! my name is natalie, and i am a student at newark high school; i will be inputting information from the research paper.

Hi, Natalie! Welcome to Wikipedia! You may want to create a login name for yourself so that all of your edits to the encyclopedia will tagged as coming from you rather than from an anonynmous IP address. The FAQ also contains a lot of good information about how to use and edit Wikipedia.

Atlant 15:28, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wives of knights - source?

Wives of knights, however, are entitled to the honorific "Lady" before their husband's surname. Thus Sir Paul McCartney's wife is Lady McCartney, not Lady Paul McCartney or Lady Heather McCartney.

Can someone provide a source for this? I find it strange that she should be Lady McCartney, just as if her husband were Lord McCartney... -- Jao 10:30, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Debrett's Correct Form, 2002 edition, page 79: "The wife of a knight is known as "Lady" followed by her surname, and she is addressed as is the wife of a baronet ... She should never be styled Lady Edith Brown, unless the daughter of a Duke, Marquess or Earl."

The Times Style Guide: "The wife of Sir John Fenchurch is simply Lady Fenchurch (together, Sir John and Lady Fenchurch) ... Again, to repeat this essential point, no wife of a baronet or knight takes her Christian name in her title unless she is the daughter of a duke, a marquess or an earl." (their emphasis)

Proteus (Talk) 12:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Proteus. -- Jao 18:58, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Persian Knight

• If you do not want to use the word "knight" for the Persian figure in the caption of the image, then you must change the definition of a Knight to be specifically reserved for a European warrior. And if so, you must cite your source for that definition. Otherwise, the Persian warrior completely fits the description of a Knight specified in the article. I'd like to remind you that the Kermanshah area was heavily Hellenized, therefore there are even reliefs of Hercules in the same area. Therefore it wouldnt be erroneous to use the word "knight" for the figure in Kermanshah.

No, I do not need to change the standard connotations of "knight" at all. But if you think that any armored mounted fighter is a knight, then so is a samurai— and the concept collapses in confusion. Translating the Roman class of equites as "knightly class" led to historical confusion, so during the last century "equestrian" has been the usual, and less misleading, translation. The image of a Roman knight is a medieval one. The image of a Hellenistic knight is a novelty.

• We are not sure the Persian Knight is Khosrow II for sure. Some sources say that, but there are valid disputes about that. Therefore lets just suffice to the term "Sassanide".

"Sassanid" at least. (After thirty years of "Sassanian" it's been hard for me to switch.)

• Do you know of an earlier relief of a Knight anywhere? If so, please provide indication. This Persian Knight predates any European one by several centuries. Unless you know of a Roman relief of a Knight somewhere perhaps?--Zereshk 06:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reliefs of armored cataphracts will doubtless turn up if you Google "Cataphract" on Image mode, I'm sure. By your definition, wouldn't the armored cavalry on Trajan's Column do perfectly well as "knights"?

If this is your personal project, I won't intrude. I'm removing this from my Watchlist. I merely thought the two images needed id'ing...--Wetman 08:54, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Persian Knight 2

No, I do not need to change the standard connotations of "knight" at all. But if you think that any armored mounted fighter is a knight, then so is a samurai— and the concept collapses in confusion.

Well, confusion is what the article leads to with the current definitions; it seems to me that by your reasoning, a Knight is merely a European warrior. Otherwise, the Persian warrior is almost identical in appearance to the generally perceived image of a Knight. The Samurai does not carry a lance sitting on a horse. He carries katanas and is generaly perceived by himself, without his horse. I think the differences are quite obvious: This Persian warrior is far more similar to a Knight than a Samurai or a soldier depicted on the Trajan column.

"Sassanid" at least. (After thirty years of "Sassanian" it's been hard for me to switch.)

Sassanid is good. Im used to Sassanian myself too.

Reliefs of armored cataphracts will doubtless turn up if you Google "Cataphract" on Image mode, I'm sure.

Even the wikipedia Cataphract you mention, speaks of the Sassanids and Parthians and Iran.

If this is your personal project, I won't intrude. I'm removing this from my Watchlist. I merely thought the two images needed id'ing...

This is not my personal project. Im just trying to add. When I first saw the Persian warrior relief, I was so shocked by the similarities of it to the popular image of a Knight, that I began questioning what I had learnt from my sassanid-Byzantine-Roman history. If you think the physical appearance is merely not enough to qualify the mounted Persian warrior as a Knight, and that there must be more to it, then we can retract the image from the article. But we then have to mention that a Knight is conventionally a warrior of European tradition.

I could have said the relief of the mounted Persian warrior (by itself) was from somewhere in Greece or Turkey, and (if you had not seen the image before), you would have easily accepted it as a "Knight". Wouldnt you agree?--Zereshk 14:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)