ABSTRACT
The Marshal and his class had ways of alluding to their reason for existence. On surviving impressions of the Marshal's seal, he appears represented, as do almost all of his lay contemporaries, garbed as a knight on horseback. The common image of aristocracy in the late twelfth century was a military one. Since William the Conqueror had his new seal cut after conquering England, it had been thought increasingly suitable for a great man or ruler to be depicted as a horse-soldier. Some seals and all tomb-effigies preserve this more pacific and judicial aristocratic image until the Marshal's time. It was partly through people such as William Marshal that knighthood became of itself a quality of nobility. There is no doubt that the Marshal hired other troops on occasion. Infantry too would have been available for hire, but the sources are simply not there to tell us what use the Marshal made of them.
