Nobility and Titles -Knights of the Middle Ages, and, Barons, Margrave

- The Middle Ages: in the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery [The Birth of an Idea]. The phrase “Middle Ages” tells us more about the Renaissance that followed it than it does about the era itself. Starting around the 14th century, European thinkers, writers and artists began to look back and celebrate the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Accordingly, they dismissed the period after the fall of Rome as a “Middle” or even “Dark” age in which no scientific accomplishments had been made, no great art produced, no great leaders born. The people of the Middle Ages had squandered the advancements of their predecessors, this argument went, and mired themselves instead in what 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbon called “barbarism and religion.”

Knights of the Middle Ages

[a] http://www.ducksters. Middle Ages - History of the Medieval Knight -Website for Kids

    What was a knight?

There were three main types of soldiers during the Middle Ages: foot soldiers, archers, and knights. The knights were heavily armored soldiers who rode on horseback. Only the wealthiest nobles could afford to be a knight. They needed very expensive armor, weapons, and a powerful war horse. [b] a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the Monarch or country, especially in a military capacity. Historically, in Europe, knighthood has been conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as a fighter for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings and food from serfs. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback.

The First Knights

The first knights of the Middle Ages fought for Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, in the 700s. In order to fight battles across his large empire, Charlemagne began to use soldiers on horseback. These soldiers became a very important part of his army.

    Charlemagne began to award his best knights with land called "benefices". In return for the land, the knights agreed to fight for the king whenever he called. This practice caught on through much of Europe and became standard practice for many kings for the next 700 years. If you were a son born into the family of a knight, you generally became a knight as well.

Interesting Facts about Knights from the Middle Ages

• Knights often fought for the rights to pillage. They could become quite rich with the loot they gained from ransacking a city or town.
• By the end of the Middle Ages, many knights paid the king money instead of fighting. Then the king would use that money to pay soldiers to fight. This payment was called shield money.
• The word "knight" comes from an Old English word meaning "servant".
• The knights of religious orders often made a pledge to God of poverty and chastity.
• Today, knighthoods are awarded by kings and queens to people for their achievements. It is considered an honor. Famous people who have been knighted in recent years include U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Singer Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and movie director Alfred Hitchcock.

Orders of Knights

Some knights decided to pledge themselves to defending the Christian faith. They formed orders that fought in the Crusades. These orders were called military orders. Here are three of the most famous military orders:

• The Knights Templar - The Knights Templar were established in the 1100s. They wore white mantles with red crosses and were famous fighters during the Crusades. Their headquarters was in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The knights refused to retreat in battle and were often the first to lead the charge. In the Battle of Montgisard, 500 Knights of the Templar led a small force of just a few thousand men in victory over 26,000 Muslim soldiers.
• The Knights Hospitaller - The Knights Hospitaller were founded in 1023. They were formed to protect poor and sick pilgrims in the Holy Land. During the Crusades they defended the Holy Land from the Muslims. These knights wore black clothing with a white cross. After the fall of Jerusalem they moved to the island of Rhodes and to Malta.
• The Teutonic Knights - The Teutonic Knights were German knights that were once part of the Hospitallers. They wore black clothing with a white cross on the shoulder. After fighting in the Crusades, the Teutonic Knights began a conquest of Prussia. They became very powerful until they were defeated in 1410 by the Polish at the Battle of Tannenberg.

There were also orders of chivalry. These orders were meant to imitate the military orders, but were formed after the Crusades. One of the most famous of these orders is the Order of the Garter. It was founded by King Edward III of England in 1348 and is considered one of the highest orders of knighthood in the United Kingdom.

End of the Knight

By the end of the Middle Ages, the knight was no longer an important part of the army. This was for two main reasons. One reason was that many countries had formed their own standing armies. They paid soldiers to train and fight. They no longer needed lords to come fight as knights. The other reason was a change in warfare. Battle tactics and new weapons such as longbows and firearms made the heavy armor the knights wore cumbersome and useless. This made it much easier to arm a soldier and pay for a standing army. [b] the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior.

    [b] Since the early modern period, the title of knight is purely honorific, usually bestowed by a monarch, as in the British honours system, often for non-military service to the country. The modern female equivalent is Dame.

    Historically, the ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, especially the Matter of Britain and Matter of France, the former based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur ("The Death of Arthur"), written in 1485, was important in defining the ideal of chivalry which is essential to the modern concept of the knight as an elite warrior sworn to uphold the values of faith, loyalty,courage, and honour. Furthermore, Geoffroi de Charny's "Book of Chivalry" expounded upon the importance of Christian faith in every area of a Knight's life. During the Renaissance, the genre of chivalric romance became popular in literature, growing ever more idealistic and eventually giving rise to a new form of realism in literature popularised by Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. This novel explored the ideals of knighthood and their incongruity with the reality of Cervantes' world. In the late medieval period, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many nations.

[c] https://en.wikipedia.-Knights of William the Conqueror -Castles, forests, and nobles

Tower of London, the White Tower

 As part of his efforts to secure England, William ordered many castles, keeps, and mottes built -among them the central keep of the Tower of London, the White Tower, These fortifications allowed Normans to retreat into safety when threatened with rebellion and allowed garrisons to be protected while they occupied the countryside. The early castles were simple earth and timber constructions, later replaced with stone structures.

    At first, most of the newly settled Normans kept household knights and did not settle their retainers with fiefs of their own, but gradually these household knights came to be granted lands of their own, a process known as subinfeudation. William also required his newly created magnates to contribute fixed quotas of knights towards not only military campaigns but also castle garrisons. This method of organising the military forces was a departure from the pre-Conquest English practice of basing military service on territorial units such as the hide.

    William took over an English government that was more complex than the Norman system. England was divided into shires or counties, which were further divided into either hundreds or wapentakes. Each shire was administered by a royal official called a sheriff, who roughly had the same status as a Norman viscount. A sheriff was responsible for royal justice and collecting royal revenue. To oversee his expanded domain, William was forced to travel even more than he had as duke. He crossed back and forth between the continent and England at least 19 times between 1067 and his death. William spent most of his time in England between the Battle of Hastings and 1072, and after that he spent the majority of his time in Normandy. Government was still centred on William's household; when he was in one part of his realms, decisions would be made for other parts of his domains and transmitted through a communication system that made use of letters and other documents. William also appointed deputies who could make decisions while he was absent, especially if the absence was expected to be lengthy. Usually this was a member of William's close family – frequently his half-brother Odo or his wife Matilda. Sometimes deputies were appointed to deal with specific issues

    William continued the collection of danegeld, a land tax. This was an advantage for William, as it was the only universal tax collected by western European rulers during this period. It was an annual tax based on the value of landholdings, and it could be collected at differing rates. Most years saw the rate of two shillings per hide, but in crises, it could be increased to as much as six shillings per hide....

William of Normandy aka William the Conqueror is covered in the Blog Post: [1] Woodhull, Americans of Royal Descent… William as the 1st King of England used a system referred to as a feudal barony or barony by tenure; the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king’s feudal court, the precursor of parliament… in order to maintain their title of Baron and their estates they were required to become Knights and serve on parliament; they were ”on call” to fight for the King whenever he needed them.

    Ancestors who are known by the title, Knight: Thomas Parr (1404); Nicholas Woodhull (1482); Fulk Woodhull (1530).



Barons: https://en.wikipedia. In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam (Latin for "by barony") under which the landholder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The duties owed by and the privileges granted to feudal barons cannot now be defined exactly, but they involved the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king's feudal court, the precursor of parliament.

    If the estate-in-land held by barony contained a significant castle as its caput [the central settlement in an Anglo-Saxon multiple estate; the capital or seat of the barony] and if it was especially large – consisting of more than about 20 knight's fees (each loosely equivalent to a manor) – then it was termed an "honour".

Note: William of Normandy aka William the Conqueror is covered in the Blog Post: [1] Woodhull, Americans of Royal Descent… English feudal barony…

Domesday Book: https://en.wikipedia.-It was the responsibility of the Baron (the Baron de Wahull as he was known at this date) to provide the guards for the castle of Rockingham in Northamptonshire, in common with the Baron of Warden in Northamptonshire and Peterborough Abbey.

Parishes Odell - Wahull: http://www.british-history.

    To the barony of Wahull was attached the liability to provide castle-guard of Rockingham in Northants. That castle was constructed by command of William the Conqueror some time previous to the Survey… In 1278 Odell, as part of the barony, contributed one knight's service towards the castle-guard, and Thomas de Wahull, who died in 1304, was declared to hold the manor 'in chief by barony doing service of a knight's fee yielding yearly to the Castle-guard of Rockingham 69s. at Michaelmas for the king's use.' In 1349 John de Wahull held his Bedfordshire property and Pattishall (Northants) for two knights' fees and £9 yearly towards the ward of Rockingham. Other references to this charge of £9 occur during the 15th century, and when in 1613 Sir Richard Chetwood made his claim to this barony, he mentions in support of it 'nine pounds per annum, being the Antient Fee of the Castle guard of Rockingham continually paid into the Exchequer, and is at this day.

    The descent of the barony of Wahull is as follows: Walter the Fleming, the Domesday holder, was followed by his son Walter, whose son Simon flourished in the reign of Stephen (1135–54), and who together with his wife Sibyl and his eldest son Walter is found presenting Langford Church to the Knights Templars...

Margrave aka Marquis: https://en.wikipedia. -originally the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defense of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or of a kingdom. Because the territorial integrity of the borders was most importaint to the nation's security, the vassal, whether count or lord, whose lands were on the "march" of the kingdom or empire was apt to be appointed margrave, given greater responsibility for securing the border. The greater exposure of a border province to military invasion mandated that the margrave be provided with military forces and autonomy of action (political, strategic, tactical) greater than was accorded other lords of the realm. Moreover, a margrave might expand his sovereign's realm by conquering additional territory, sometimes more than he might retain as a personal domain, thus allowing him to endow his vassals with lands and resources in return for loyalty; the consequent wealth and power might allow the establishment of a de facto independent princedom.

Margrave Ancestors: Baldwin I “Iron Arm” Margrave of Flanders (837); Baldwin II “The Bald” Margrave of Flanders (864); His sons: Arnulf I, Count of Flanders; Adelolf Count of Boulogne

Baldwins covered in Blog Post: Noble Family, House of Flanders, Counts of Flanders and Counts of Boulogne.

References and Resources:

[a] http://www.ducksters. Middle Ages - History of the Medieval Knight -Website for Kids

[b] https://en.wikipedia. -Knight.
[c] https://en.wikipedia.-Knights of William the Conqueror.

*Future Research, Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.-British Nobility [refers to the noble families of the United Kingdom], Gentry Styles and Titles https://en.wikipedia. -Margrave. Royal, noble and chivalric ranks: Emperor, King, Archduke, Grand Duke/Grand Prince, Prince, Duke, Sovereign Prince, Margrave, Count/Earl, Viscount, Baron, Baronet/Hereditary Knight, Knight, Esquire, Gentleman

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