Miles in Armis Strenuus: The Knight at War

Abstract

Warwas more important to medieval knights than to many of their historians. They have been more concerned to debate shifts in the social status and numbers of knights, than to examine their military role. Varied scenarios of knights rising in social status, gaining a more powerful political voice as they became wealthier, and of declining knights, increasingly aggrieved at their failure to maintain their position in society, have vied one with another. Military obligation has, of course, proved to be a battlefield on paper for many historians, but debate on this has not always been informed by awareness of the muddy realities of war. It would be reasonable to suppose that major transformations in the social position of English knights were a response to, or at least a reflection of, changes in their military functions. Yet the only link that is commonly made is the assumption that changes in the social position of English knights were in some measure the result of the rising costs of the military equipment they needed to possess.

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