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The Road to Knighthood

First stepa PageAt the age of 7, a son of a medieval nobleman or knight

would be sent as a page, to become a knight at a lords

castle. A page would learn horsemanship, archery and

swordsmanship. Pages were often taught how to read and

write. They were also taught other languages like French or

Latin. They were expected to show good manners in the

lords house. Pages learned basic lancing techniques, such

as the balance and skills required in mounted combat,

which is fighting while on a horse. Other physical skills

taught were; swimming, throwing the javelin, throwing

stones, climbing, archery and wrestling. Pages often

trained on dummies called quintains, which were basically

represented as a human. They used sacks of sand as well.

Danny Martin and Gabe Mata

From a Squire to a KnightThe next step of a page was to become a squire, which

usually started around the age of 10. The squire was the

knights assistant. A squires training revolved around

fitness, strength and skills with weapons. Individual

training did not take up the majority of training of squires.

They trained mainly in teams. A squires lance skills had to

become perfected during this training. A lance is a long

weapon with a metal point that was used by knights in

An example of a Quintain Various Lances

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All of tThese steps were very important as a squire because

they must succeed in these tasks in order to become a

knight. Many wooden weapons were used in training.

Fighting with real weapons was often strictly supervised.

Again, knights in training had to know how to fight as a

team of horsemen. Squires also had to learn about strategy

during siege warfare, which was a special operation where

knights work as a team to capture or defend something.

They had to become familiar with the weapons used in thistype of warfare.

Squires would do several chores for knights. They

would take care of his horse, clean the stables, polish his

armor and maintain his weapons. He would also need to

learn chivalric codes. These codes were things like bravery,

honesty, and loyalty. They had to fight fairly when in battle.

Around the age of 21 a squire would be dubbed a

knight. The night before the dubbing the squire would fast

and pray for a while. During this time, his sword would be

blessed by a chaplain. The next day, family and friendscame for the celebration. The squire would kneel before a

knight or a lord, and they would lightly touch him on both

shoulders with the blessed sword, and say, I dub thee Sir

Knight. The new knight would then kiss the hilt of the

sword and accept it. After the ceremony, there was usually a

feast where everyone would celebrate the new knight.

From a Squire to aKnight

http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/knighthood-training.htmhttp://www.medieval-life.net/knight_training.htm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Renfair_quintain.jpg http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/knight-8.gif