Knight

This is the English term and is derived from the Anglo-saxon for Cniht which means servant or household retainer. This was in the early centuries of knights. In later centuries, after the 12th, the term knight became more associated with chivalry.

The retainer of a feudal lord who owed military service for his fief, usually the service of one fully equipped, mounted warrior. They were the medieval equivalent of modern day battle tanks. Traditionally, knights aspired to the ideals of prowess, loyalty, generosity and courtesy.

A soldier trained in armed combat and sworn fealty to a king, lord or duke. More extensive information about knights: The Knight Medieval

The formal title of knight, the word deriving from the Anglo-Saxon Cniht, that described the office arising out of the warrior of the 11th century into a class of the lower nobility charged with fighting for the liege lord and maintaining lordship over the demense, managing it and defending the people in exchange for scutage from the property that supported him. Originally a purely martial description from the Latin miles, the definition of what it meant to be a knight changed as the influences of an increasingly formal court and activist church added expectations to the behavior of real knights. Throughout the medieval period, the role of the knight was changing, stretched between the conflicting demands of lady, court, church and battlefield. But the ideal of chivalry, the virtues to which a knight was to aspire, remain a powerful evocation of the best of Western culture, and this power remains today, giving strength to the modern tournament societies and the knights who today strive to hone their martial skills and practice ethical conduct. See also THE BOOK OF THE TOURNAMENT or Chronique: The Journal of Chivalry \#5.