My confusion on Men at Arms, and Knights.

[Aiden of Oreland]

Maybe a knight  is considered a man at arms?

[Ian]

Maybe a knight  is considered a man at arms?

Yes Sir Aiden, all knights are considered men-at-arms.

[Sir James A]

So was Sir John Hawkwood not a knight?  You kind of jumped on the one category (condottierri) where we undoubtedly know there were knights being contracted by the Italian city-states.

I thought we were going for general blanket statements? Condottieri would likely be men at arms, but not likely to be knights. I'm sure there were some who were knights.

[Ian]

I'll just quote myself from the first page since that seems to have been ignored :

Condotierri don't really confuse the issue, because among the condotierri there were acknowledged knights, and there were non-noble men-at-arms as well.  Sir John Hawkwood for example was a knight, and he's one of the most famous condotierri.  A lot of English knights during the lull in the war with France sold their services in the Free Companies to the Italian wars of the late 14th century.  So, all condotierri are men-at-arms, some condotierri are knights.

[Sir James A]

I'll just quote myself from the first page since that seems to have been ignored :

Condotierri don't really confuse the issue, because among the condotierri there were acknowledged knights, and there were non-noble men-at-arms as well.  Sir John Hawkwood for example was a knight, and he's one of the most famous condotierri.  A lot of English knights during the lull in the war with France sold their services in the Free Companies to the Italian wars of the late 14th century.  So, all condotierri are men-at-arms, some condotierri are knights.

Ah, indeed, sorry about that, I missed it. Conversation went to space-ninjas and robots, and I glossed over it after that.

[Aiden of Oreland]

Maybe a knight  is considered a man at arms?

Yes Sir Aiden, all knights are considered men-at-arms.

im so proud of myself.

[Sir Patrick]

Back in the day, Terry Gilliam used to do series on the "History" channel called Medieval Lives. The "Knight" episode featured John Hawkwood. Not a nice guy!  You can find it pretty easily on YouTube.

ADDED:  Check out "1066" by David Howart for some good background on Huscarls.

[Lord Dane]

Maybe a knight  is considered a man at arms?

Yes Sir Aiden, all knights are considered men-at-arms.

Just like all pages are considered "Squire lackeys" or "boys-with-arms" (to carry all my tourney gear around). 

[Sir Wolf]

their italian... of course there are no real knights hahaha jk jk

[Sir James A]

Back in the day, Terry Gilliam used to do series on the "History" channel called Medieval Lives. The "Knight" episode featured John Hawkwood. Not a nice guy!  You can find it pretty easily on YouTube.

ADDED:  Check out "1066" by David Howart for some good background on Huscarls.

Ah! I have 7 or 8 episodes of that but haven't seen it yet. I think I need to do so. Thanks!

[Sir Nate]

Back in the day, Terry Gilliam used to do series on the "History" channel called Medieval Lives. The "Knight" episode featured John Hawkwood. Not a nice guy!  You can find it pretty easily on YouTube.

ADDED:  Check out "1066" by David Howart for some good background on Huscarls.

Ah! I have 7 or 8 episodes of that but haven't seen it yet. I think I need to do so. Thanks!

Isn't terry Gilliam The animator for Monty python?
I know terry jones did a show like that.

[Sir Edward]

Isn't terry Gilliam The animator for Monty python?
I know terry jones did a show like that.

Yep, that's right.

Terry Jones did some sort of history show, and the episode he did on knights was an attempt to debunk the romanticized notion of a "knight in shining armor", but he went too far in the other direction. There were several flaws in his arguments, including somewhat misconstruing a quote from the Chretien de Troyes' version of the Lancelot story. But he was certainly correct that there were some downright awful knights in history.

[Sir Nate]

Isn't terry Gilliam The animator for Monty python?
I know terry jones did a show like that.

Yep, that's right.

Terry Jones did some sort of history show, and the episode he did on knights was an attempt to debunk the romanticized notion of a "knight in shining armor", but he went too far in the other direction. There were several flaws in his arguments, including somewhat misconstruing a quote from the Chretien de Troyes' version of the Lancelot story. But he was certainly correct that there were some downright awful knights in history.

Ya, he was good as that old man in holy grail.
In the show many of his animations were really bizarre. I'm sure he may have been.
Ya I watched terry jones do a bit on gladiators and it was kinda boring.
Felt more like I was watching terry jones than learn anything.
They are all so old now.
(John Cleese is doing a voice in elder scrolls online)

[Sir Douglas]

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives is what it's called. He also wrote a companion book to it. It's been a while since I watched it, but if I remember correctly, it's like just about anything else concerning history: there's a lot of good information there, but you can't just automatically accept everything at face value. You have to sort of look at it with a discerning eye.

[Thorsteinn]

Huscarls on the other hand, as house-hold retainers may or may not be analogous to a knight, since the concept of knighthood didn't really exist yet.  They're definitely a man-at-arms.  But I can't answer whether or not a huscarl is analogous to Medieval Knighthood.  They'rekind of like 'knights' in service to a lord (the Jarl), but it was an entirely different culture, so it's hard to apply the same labels.

It's definitely an interesting question.  What do you think Sean?

Sorry for the lateness...

Well you do have to define a Knight and if there are such things as Knight-analogue's. I could see a Huscarl as a Knight-analogue as they were often well off, well equipped, & well trained.

How would you see the Varangian Guard for the first 200 or so years?