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"A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under thc blow of his adrersary and have [been] thrown to thegrtmnd wenty times. Thus will he

be able to face real war with the hope of oictory."

One might extend that to say thus would he be able to face real life with the hope of success in it. And, 200 years later,

Chaucer, writing of the "Squier," describes him thus:

" Weil cowde he sitte on hors and faire ryde, juste and eke daunce, and wel portray and write.

Curteys he was, lowly and serviceable.

And carf before hys fader at the table."

The ideał knight was not just a tough fighter, forever laying about him with sword or axe, but a polite, useful and capable member of society. An aspirant to knighthood must, as Chaucer says, ride and joust well, and dance well too. We are not so familiar with the idea that he must write well, and I don't think that when Chaucer says "and well portray and write" he means that a sąuire should be able to draw. It probably means that he should be able to form his lctters well and write sense.

Courteous he had to be, as any knightly person must, for cour-tesy was the very foundation of Chivalry and of polite society.

In the Middle Ages, the word meant far morę than it does now, covering every aspect ofgracious living and behaviour. "Lowly and serviceable" means that he must be modest, quiet, and well-mannered, tactful and soft-spoken to all, and competent to per-form all sorts of jobs, sonie purely domestic. Serving at table was one of the most important duties of page and squire; when a page was promoted to carve a joint, he was really getting on.

From the age of seven, when a well-born boy was taken from the care of his mother and her women, he w'as trained to do thcse things, but first and foremost, he had it dinned into him that service to others, no matter how messy, lowly, irksome or dangerous, was always to be the mainspring of his life. He began his fighting training too, at seven years old. That's why medieval warriors were able to do things in their armour and with their wcapons which seem alrnost impossible from a modern viewpoint. A squire or aspiring knight who couldn't vault from the ground into his saddle without touching the stirrup, with all his armour on, would be considered as very poor materiał.

In their earliest days in the 12th and 13th centuries, tourna-ments, for sonie warriors, were a wav of life. Thcre were always numbers of poor landless knights, either younger sons who had no part in their father's estates or professional warriors who had won no fief of their own or had in sonie way lost or forfeited or been dispossessed of what they had. To such Knights "Errant,"

Figurę 90. Sword of c. 1300-1350. This shows clearly thc sharply-pointed thrusting blade with a stiff_> diamond-shaped section. BL: 74.5cm. Photo courteśy of the Trustees of thc Wallace Collection, London.