ABSTRACT
Background Chivalry, says historian Malcolm Vale, was ‘the sentiment of honour in its medieval guise’.1 It was, more precisely, the code of conduct of knights – the heavily armed and armoured mounted warriors who dominated the military landscape between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries AD. Various factors had led to their dominance. Among other things, the introduction of the stirrup into Europe in the eighth century had given horsemen greater stability, while later advances in metallurgy also improved both weapons and armour, giving knights a hitherto unattainable level of protection.2 A group of knights acting in concert constituted a formidable fighting force.
