How Knights Work

In medieval times, knights were warriors with specialized skills, extensive training and their own code. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of medieval knights and finish up with a look at the modern institution of knighthood.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Brian is

(00:20):
rubbing his hair out across from me. That makes this
Stuff you Should Know featuring Chuck rubbing his hair I
thought you said rubbing his hair out out? How do
you do that? What does that mean against your skull?
And now it's standing. Sorry, our colloquialism just cause problems
sometimes on then Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I'm good. You've

(00:43):
done vomiting four hours, dude? Yeah, like, I'm like to
the minute almost. I'm glad. This table is what keeps
us as far apart as I couldn't. I don't think
I could projectile over here. Oh I thought you might
get you sick. You mean, vomit on you both, I'm
kind of afraid of both. Neither one will happen. I'm good,

(01:04):
So Chuck, I'm glad, you're good. Thank you. I was
looking all over for something to lead in with this.
I considered talking about the Paladin class character I created
when I played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. Um.
I don't remember his name, so it's kind of stupid, right, Um.
I searched news for nights and I found that in

(01:25):
Crest View, Florida, the Nights overpowered the Hobos and volleyball. Yeah,
but it's made for a pretty good title, Nights overpower Hobos. Um,
And that was about it. That's the best I got.
There's nothing going on with nights really these days except
the occasional CBS news article about somebody getting an honorary

(01:48):
titles a musician or actor. This is well, I guess
there's other people, but they got the press. Yeah, definitely. Um.
So there's not a lot going on with nights. But
I can tell you something. If this were or fourteenth century,
we wouldn't be recording a podcast, no, but we would.
There'd be news about nights all over the place, everywhere

(02:10):
they Yeah, so let's go back to this. Let's talk
about nights. What happened to them? Where did they go,
where did they come from, what did they do in between?
Let's get to the meat of this. Shall we take it? Chuck,
oh Josh, I'm gonna go ahead and start with what
was going on? Back then after the fall of the

(02:30):
Roman Empire. So chronologically it is a we'll start at
the beginning as far as nights are concerned. Uh, we're
talking about Western Europe. After the fall the Roman Empire.
It was sort of a sort of a lawless mess.
It was chaos of an area, no defined countries, no
defined governments, no laws that anyone was you know, abiding by.

(02:53):
People were still managing in existence. It was just often
threatened by violence. Yeah, like if I see something that
I want, I would take it by force, including your dog.
Those are the good old days, or that keg of beer. Right. Uh.
And because of this, it was a little bit hard
to control. So if you were let's say Charlemagne and

(03:15):
you had a lot of this land, right, you might
want to do something. I might want to impose some
sort of restriction or a body to kind of rule
or take care of things. Perhaps the geopolitical system. Yeah,
without it being a government. Well, it was a government.
It's a form of government. It's also a form of
economics to feudalism, right, yeah, feudalism. Right. So Charlotte is

(03:38):
um here or Charlemagne Charlomi is m Charlot. That was
the original name and then he's like, oh, that's just
too vain. Let's call it um. Charlemagne was a Frankish king,
right and he um, he had just a bunch of land.
I guess that he conquered or he just said, hey,
this is mine. This land is my land, not this

(03:58):
land is your land, right uh. And he since he
lacked the central government, he said, hey, you're a buddy
of mine, you're an ally. I trust you. You're dead
and I fought in the war together. Um, here's some land.
It's yours, but you owe me big time for that land.
And this is the basis of feudalism. One person dolls outland,

(04:18):
the king, the ruler dolls outland to the secondary ruling class, nobility,
and that's their land, and in return they pay for
the land through military service generally protection basically. And then
one rung down below nobility is the surf or or
peasant class, and they're attached to the land. They're essentially slaves.

(04:43):
They got the short end of the stick, they definitely did. So. Um,
they pay for their land that the nobilities doled out
to them. So it's subdivided even further by giving their
the nobleman that they serve or vassal I believe they're
also called um food or crops or goods. Right, yeah,

(05:04):
so that's how they paid for their land. But they
were really they didn't have much of a choice, right,
And uh, the funderalism worked because Charlemagne is what He's
able to keep all of this land by giving it
to his friends, the fists, who are going to yeah
that's the land, right, who are going to protect it
against foreign invaders because it's theirs, but really it's Charlottaagne's. Well, yeah,

(05:27):
and then the vassals, the knights, they wanted to protect
the serfs because they wanted to you know, the the
knights made most of their dough from what I could
see by their land ownership and farming, and we'll get
into other ways they made money too, but they wanted
to protect their dudes so they could, you know, prosper well.
Not only that a knight could make money by serving

(05:50):
in the stead or the service of the noble person
that is paying them, because you had to. You you
paid for your land through military was either directly by
yourself or by paying somebody else to do it for you,
or by producing land and the feudal system did away
with um, the middle class and common the commons, common land.

(06:13):
It just did away with it. Because Charlotte Magne was like,
this is mine and you work for me now and
it's sort of yours, but it's really kind of mine.
But in return there was that social contract which um
led to basically trading freedom for protection, which is the
basis of government today. Think about it. So the Nights

(06:35):
were born out of that, right, Chuck, Yes, sir, pretty much. Um. Well,
what it did too was with feudalism, you could it
gave you in a time of chaos. It gave you
a path like a career path almost in a way
that you could advance in life if you wanted to. Yeah,
because part of feudalism was the land grant um was bestowed,

(06:58):
it was passed down through the family lawn, and they
just decided to do that. There was no over any
part of feudalism where it's like, well we're going to
set it up like this kind of evolved so a
landowner could pass it to his oldest son, but he
may have more than one son, and the other sons
like I want to be rich too, so I'm gonna
go become a night, Yes, exactly right, and nights were not. Uh,

(07:19):
you weren't born into knighthood. You were born into being
ultimately a a page and then later on a squire.
But you had to earn your knighthood for right. Yeah.
Um yeah, if you if your dad was a night,
you were automatically a page. But poor people could also
conceivably become pages themselves, right, Yes, apparently I didn't even

(07:43):
see A Night's Tale. You didn't know, did you. It
was this weird anachronism years and everything, and it was
it was weird, but it was pretty cool movie. Paul
Bettany was in it. Um, I like that some other
guy who you'd recognize who was Steve the Pirate um Dodgeball. Yeah,
I know that guy, he was in it, and then

(08:03):
this other dude and then that another guy. Yeah, and
that girl r I p Heath Ledger by the way.
Oh yeah, really that's a big one. Uh. So, like
we said, you were, you're automatically a page and basically
up until the age of about seven, you were just
sort of doated on by the women at the castle
taking care of exactly. And then when you became seven,

(08:26):
they moved you to another house with another lord, and
you were all of a sudden a page and you
were taught how to hunt and um, sort of the
beginnings of being taught how to fight. You were schooled
by the monks. Uh in you know school does in
reading and writing, not they schooled you, although they may
have done that, dude. Sure and uh that's basically where

(08:47):
they got their their start in this whole quest to
become a knight. Yeah, and you were saying that at
about age seven you were conscripted or given to another
house and usually it was a friend of the family
or a relative who was a knight. Um, and that
was about age seven. So that's where the word night
comes from. It's an old Anglo Saxon word nicked, I

(09:08):
believe for boy you didn't know how to pronounce. There's
a lot of letters in it's being said C N
I H T knit yes, weird Nit that's chaucer. Sure,
um and also chuck. I found out in researching this
article that the German word for night is writtter, which
is literally writer. So the name of the TV show

(09:29):
night Writer was redundant interesting writer writer or night night
and the Germans love Hasselhoff. It all makes sense, that's crazy, alright.
So after age seven, the kid became a page, and
basically the page was the little gopher for the knight's house. Right.

(09:50):
In addition to being trained, he also just basically did
whatever he was supposed to do. And then around the
time he turned fourteen, he was eligible to become an
esquire or squire, and his responsibilities and training became much
more specific. Right, Yeah, I mean you were really a
houseboy at this point. There's a lot of work that
went into like fourteen years of of work, or I

(10:12):
get the feeling. From from page to squire was a
little more learning, but then from squire to night was
when the rubber meets the road. Yes it was not
Rubbert or Rhodes, but you know what I mean, there
were trails, trails. That's where the hoof met the trail.
How's that? So they became a squire at fourteen, and
that's um. They had a little ceremony, a religious ceremony

(10:36):
where you get your sword, which is pretty big deal
at the time, I'm sure, Um, and you basically become
a houseboy there. Each squire had a different job specific
to the castle. Can you guess which squire I would
have wanted to be. Well, here, let's go through him
and let's see if maybe I wish we could do
instant voting. But say in your heads, people out there listening,

(10:57):
what you think Josh would have been. You have a
squire of the boy and that was the personal servant.
I get the feeling. They were probably probably the most
trusted uh squire of the chamber. And they attended to
the rooms. That was sort of like I guess the maid.
That's that's the worst squire job. The housekeeper, the carving.
The carving squire or table squire carved the meat at

(11:19):
the banquet tables, which at catering companies nowadays, the like
the most stoned dude is the table squire, also known
as the protector of the roast beef, Yes, protector of
the roast beef. The squire of the wines managed the
wine seller. They'd be a good gig. Squire of the
pantry took care of the food and make sure the
pantry was stocked with canned goods and peanut butter and

(11:41):
all the good stuff that knights loved to eat. Uh
Squire the arms, of course, maintained the armament and the
swords and all that kind of stuff in the Squire
of Honor assisted the Lord and ceremonies and feasts. Which
one are you? I think that anybody who's listened to
us more than once or twice could tell you. I
would like to be the fire of the wines, Squire
the wines. I'd probably be the squire of the pantry,

(12:03):
because I'm into cooking and stuff well like you, and
I would be like, hey, man, I'll slide you one
of these, if some of that, give me a bottle
of that wine, I'll give you some roast beef. Or
maybe i'd be the carving dude that's cool at the
carving station kind or if they had an omelet station,
I'd like to do that, the squire of the omelet stage.

(12:24):
Nice chuck so um. From hanging out with the at
these feasts and carving the roast beef and making the
omelets and tending the wine that the the squire was
also being indoctrinated into um, a higher lifestyle, learn how
to how to carry himself in in in situations like
feasts and um festivals and all this stuff. Right, they

(12:48):
learned how to be really awful and drink too much
to excess and pillage. Basically pretty much. It wasn't as
as you know, lofty as it seems I would imagine. No,
it's been um night who it? I guess we should
probably say has been romanticized almost entirely through literature that
big time actually originated in the thirteenth century, I believe it,

(13:09):
like Whillace is going on, they started to romanticize kind
of like Billy the Kids stories that were read by
the youngsters and east in the nineteenth century, the little
serial books. Alright, so what you're doing is you're you're
learning all these things, like you said, learning how to
be a bad person. Actually that's not true. Do you
don't want to offend the knights in the nights? Elton
John will have your head. But they also learned they

(13:32):
started to do a little bit more training in the
martial arts of of night dum um, like how to
handle and ride horses? How does strike someone over the
head with a heavy hammer? Yeah, with a heavy hammer.
They started wearing the chainmail to get used to like
walking around and that kind of stuff and all the
weight um and I looked this up, chuck um chainmail
and plainmail weighed about the same pounds, which seems like

(13:55):
a lot, but it's about half of what the average
foot soldier in the U. S. Army today carries. An
average rifleman carries about nine pounds of gear. Yeah, but
did the Knights carry stuff in addition to just know
they had squires? Another another duty of the squire was
when the night went into battle um or tournament, he right,

(14:19):
but in battle specifically he went with him, and if
the night fell, he was expected to to basically aid
and protect the night as he got up. And actually,
we should just since you mentioned that, we should go
ahead and point out that you could become an instant
night on the battlefield. And I get the impression that
if you saved your night's bacon, you might have a

(14:41):
good chance of just being knighted right there on the battlefield. Right,
A night was bestowed with the the ability to invest
knighthood into a squire under circumstances like that. But for
the most part they followed a um a process right
where once you turned about twenty one, if you'd proven
yourself a decent square fire, if you weren't just completely

(15:02):
you know, fat from being inspired the panther, your your
liver given out from being the squire of the wine
right right, Um, you could become a night right and
usually this took place during an event like a larger
event like the Christmas or Easter feast. Yeah, a nobleman's
wedding or festival or something like that. Yeah, and you
could be bestowed knighthood by other nights, kings, nobles, clergy.

(15:27):
And I get the impression that the most favorite way
if your father was a knight, he might do the
do the double tap, not the double tap of the
swat teams and the delta force, but the sword on
either side of the head tap on the shoulder. So
this the the squire would would sit up for a
night praying right and Um. When he was finally knighted,

(15:52):
he would take an oath that usually included several points right. Um.
Defending a lady, it's a big one, speaking only the truth. Um.
Being loyal to his lord. That's a huge part of
the feudal system. Um. Being devoted to the church. That
was also that came to be a huge part of
being a night with the crusades. Yeah, Um, defending the poor,

(16:16):
being charitable, defending the helpless, being brave, and then getting
more specific rules to at least cracked me up a
little bit, like um, fighting only one person at a time,
never avoiding a dangerous path out of fear. See, I
would have failed that one. It would have been like,
that path looks a lot safer to me, so let's
go that way. That seems like a smart thing to do,

(16:37):
not a cowardly thing. Right. That's just me. But if you,
if you framed it like that, you could be like, well,
I didn't avoid that path out of fear. I avoided
it because out of intelligence, Yes, exactly. Um. Never taking
off your armor during a quest except to sleep, I
would that'd be such a drag. It would be. Can
you imagine, Like you get back after the battle and
you're kicking it around the campfire and all you want

(16:59):
to do is take off your armor and relax. But
then the guy who does next to you takes an
arrow in his back and you're like, man, I'm glad
I kept my armor on while you're beating someone in
with the war hammer. That's what you're thinking. Um. There's
also this one kind of got me because I would
just want to go to sleep, and if I didn't
feel like talking. I wouldn't want to talk. But apparently

(17:23):
one of the oaths that a night took was to um.
Upon returning from a quest or a journey, or a
battle or something, he would entertain his the person he
was um conscripted to with with his stories. See, i'd
be great at that part. You definitely would. We should.
I just I'd just be like, I don't feel like
doing this, so I'm gonna I'm not gonna do this.

(17:44):
We should call this one why Chuck and Josh would
be horrible nights? I think you'd be a good night.
Oh really sure, I'd be a good uh pantry tender.
And that's about it? What was it? What was the
last one? There? The one that uh, if he was
taking prisoner, he would give up arms and horse to
the opponent and never fight the opponent again without the

(18:04):
opponent's consent. Yeah, that's I wouldn't want to fight that
opponent again if they beat me down. You wouldn't want, like, See,
that's why i'd be a bad night. Check. Revenge makes
the world go around you. Who are you to buck
that trend? That's true, And once you were indoctrinated, you
would get your sword, like I said, and then you
would also finally get your armor and your horse, and

(18:27):
right away they would kind of throw you into things
in the form of demonstrating your abilities. Not on the battlefield, no,
you you kind of hop on a horse. I imagine
this to be like, um, you know, some like hormoned
up kid. It's like, yeah, man, watch this, and it's
like starts beating up on like other little kids who

(18:49):
are still squires, you know that in front of everybody. Yeah,
except now he's got a real sword. Um. And also, chuck,
we should say those oaths that the night took yeah,
um basically made up the code of Chivalry, which was
established um basically because knights were the only ones who
were armed, who were capable of, um, you know, battling

(19:13):
on horseback and could just completely reek havoc any anywhere
they wanted to. So the code of chivalry, especially defending
the poor in the week. They didn't kill the poor
in the week, right, or take their stuff or whatever.
So this code of Chivalry was intended to keep these um,
comparatively powerful people from just doing whatever they wanted. That

(19:36):
was ideal, it didn't always work out. Like knights also
generally pillaged and plundered and took whatever they wanted and
ignored the chivalric code, which it comes from the French
were josh chevalry, which means chivalry. Skills to handle a
horse is actually what it means. Yeah, and originally that's

(19:57):
what knights were, just like remember the samurai, they were
originally horsemen. Um, a lot of commonalities between these two.
Actually they Yeah, they both went the way of the
dinosaur because of gunpowder, which we'll get to. Um, there's
a spoiler, but you can you can also you can
make the case that, um, the fall of the Roman Empire, feudalism,
and the invention of the stirrup all allowed knighthood to develop.

(20:21):
The stirrup showed up in the eighth century, and it
allowed stability while you're staying on a horse and lancing somebody. Well,
and imagine with all the armor and everything too. It
probably helped to get up on the horse to begin with.
But that was pretty much like if you could, if
you could fight somebody on a horse, you were a knight.
Before all of this tradition was dressed alongside of knighthood,

(20:43):
the mounted soldiers. Essentially what a knight was should we
talk about weapons? Well, yeah, I just mentioned the lance, right. Yeah.
The lance was basically like a spear earlier on, and
then later on it developed the the handguard, the in
a metal tip on the end of it, and that
was you know, if you were on a mounted horse,

(21:05):
you wanted something long so you could engage in battle
without getting down from the horse. Then they had their
sword double edged carbon Uh what kind of carbon steel? Yeah,
but usually light on the carbon steel. Light on the
carbon steel, heavy on the ketchup. Uh. And they had
the cross guard, hilt and the pommel, which you know

(21:25):
you've all seen excalibirds, that classic looking sword, very large,
I would imagine, pretty heavy. I never picked one up,
and they you know, depending on how much money you
had determined how fancy your sword was. Yeah, it could
have like a prayer inscribed to nature or your name. Yeah,
found returned to Josh Clark. Can't you see it? Like

(21:46):
pinned to like your your plate mail, your gauntlet. Um
and and uh so the sword in the lance where
the two main weapons, right, Yeah, you've talked about the
warhammer a couple of times. I imagine that's probably what
you would have liked. Did you look out the war
hammer on Google Images. Yeah, so it's like they're not
as big. It's not like Thor's war hammer. It's like

(22:07):
a tack hammer with the um pointed like the rounded
curve pointed end on one side and then a hammer
on the other. And I just imagine like some guy
in in some sort of male just beating somebody's head
in with this. I doubt if it was pretty That's
what the European martial arts amounted to, Like death through
blunt instruments, Yeah, pretty much. Um, they had access which

(22:31):
also could slice you up. And the mace the metal Uh,
it wouldn't then mace the metal ball on the end
of the chain. That's I think a mace isn't on
a chain. Morning star is on the chain. If if
my paladin training serves me, I think the morning Star
is on the chain. Mace is a pointed ball, just

(22:54):
stick stick. They thought that. They did think though that. Um,
although they did use archers in war, the Knights kind
of a lot of them thought that was a little
bit coward leadership. Something from a distance. Yeah, because there
was no hand in hand combat. Yeah, like get down
here and find me like a man. Exactly one at
a time, one at a time, and that's about it.
On the weapons front. Uh. You would get some privileges

(23:17):
though once you became a knight that not everyone got,
like owning land and being called sir, and that was it.
I can you were because you own land, and I
don't think it was necessarily because you're a night, but
because you own land, you dispense justice locally, right, right,
somebody stole someone's dog, you'd be like, I'm gonna cut

(23:38):
this dog in half and you can both have it.
And the true owner would be like, no, no, don't
cut the dog in half. He can have the whole dog,
and you'd be like, it's your dog. Was justice, right, yeah,
and then you just beat the other guy's head in
with the warhammer. You could pack heat and church. You
were allowed to carry your sword to church. Apparently not
everyone could do that. No, you would get a seat

(24:00):
at the high table at feasts with the lords and royals,
and you could wear your armor in battle because you
could afford it, right, And you also were expected to
lead soldiers into battle like an officer today. Um, chuck,
let's talk about wartime for a second. One of the
things that shaped the European nights where the crusades, Right,

(24:23):
I don't know a ton about the crusades, but we're
gonna do probably a full podcast on that at some point,
I agree, But just just very briefly, the first crusade
took place in ten ninety six, and it was based
on a sermon by the Pope in that basically said,
the Muslims have Jerusalem and we need to go get
it back. And I think the Europeans are considered to

(24:44):
have one or been successful in the first crusade. And
then the Muslims over overran Jerusalem again. Uh, in their
in their view, took it back because it was an
equally holy land, right. Um. After that, so for the
next two years, there were crusades, crusades, crusades, I think
they were. There were several, yes, right, it's more than two,

(25:06):
there definitely, And um. Over time, orders of knights developed
out of these crusades. Uh. And they also this is
this is the time when religiousness was attached to knighthood,
so sweating an oath to the church, um, being a Christian,
defender of Christianity, all of this became attached to knighthood

(25:29):
about this time, and It was about this time also,
not coincidentally, that knighthood became romanticized as well, so that
they had popular support. Yeah. This they were pious. They
were defending your freedom, exactly, defending God. So the So
if I think the stirrup, feudalism and the Crusades are
what really shaped knighthood in in Europe, I would say,

(25:53):
isn't it crazy how Christians and Muslims all this time,
all this time had been going at each other. I
don't think that changed any times. So that's why we
have to do one on crustates. Yeah, Joshulet's talk about peacetime.
Okay you want to. Yeah, during peacetime they would have
tournaments much like you would see at medieval times restaurants
these days. Have you ever been to one of those? No?

(26:15):
I haven't either, you know. In fact, the only time.
The thing I know about him is from the Cable
Guy movie same here. Actually, yeah, Genny Garfolo is the
the waitress, the medieval waitress. I don't remember that. She
was really funny. She had what was her line about
they asked for a fork or something, and she said
there were no forks in medieval times, so there are

(26:37):
no forks at medieval times and so Matthew Broderick had
to eat with his hands. It sounds familiar, that's because
you've seen the movie. Uh. During peace time, Josh would
have these tournaments and it was a big It was
like the NFL football of the day. It was like
the NFL and World Cup put together. Imagine how boring
your life would be during this time. And then all

(26:59):
of a there's some knights being in the tar out
of each other in the castle keep. Yeah, that's huge,
and melee, that's like life changing. You'd probably tell your
grandchildren about that and they'd be like, shut up, We've
heard this story eight hundred times. Just go ahead and die.

(27:20):
I mentioned Malee's two you're an ancient human being. Have
you ever seen um the Mr Show little clip where
it's like m questions, questions, questions. Modern man can think
of three questions instead in like a medieval village, so classic.
I briefly mentioned the word melee, and that was actually

(27:42):
a real thing. It wasn't just like a free for all. Well,
it was a free for all, but that's where the
word came from. The knights would would gather out in
the middle of the keep, and sort of reenact what
a real battle would be like. And judge or Marshall
would say let it begin, and you would start fight
each other one at a time until that was only
one of you left standing, right, And that's why it

(28:05):
was popular blood sport. Sure, and these things were for
for spectators. You could also make some cash off of
them if you won, especially in the joust. If you
want to joust, you got the other guy's armor extremely
expensive and horse extremely horses armor, perhaps, sure, and um,

(28:26):
the guy would be like, well, here you go. I'm
a knight, so you're a knight too, and you just
beat me in the joust. Here's my stuff. And the
guy who was taking it would say, you know, I
have a really good idea. I've got some extra armor
I'm never going to use here unless you are virtually naked.
Let me just sell it back to you. But that's
my armor. And it'd be like t s hell, you

(28:49):
have to buy it back because I'll kill you if
you don't. But so if you did that a few times,
you just made a bunch of money in one tournament.
Unless you're losing. You can also lose your fortune if
you're a bad jouster, I would be I would try
to improve my jousting skills. For sure. You could also
lose your life if you were King Henry the Second
of France. Yeah he died, but he got a spear

(29:11):
through the little visor right like right through the eyehole
and during a joust. Josh, it's hard to say you
would charge each other on a horse. Obviously you've probably
seen this before with your joust out. What I did
not know is what you're trying to do. I always
thought you were just trying to knock them off. You're
trying to break your lance on their body. Well, you

(29:35):
won if you knocked him off, but you they You
could also win through points by breaking a lance or
just even making contact. But I'm under the impression you've
got more points if you broke your lance. Well, and
you get more points according to which body part you
break it on, like if you break it on a
dude's head, I would say that's probably more points. Although
back then maybe that was in poor formed, maybe that

(29:55):
was penalty penalized. Who notes, I don't know. This is
a culture where again the more scial arts are consist
of beating other people. A death of blunt instruments and
you were talking about making a ton of money. That
was a famous night called Ulrich von Liechtenstein. And he's
the one who Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger's character im Posts

(30:16):
pretended to be yes yes in that movie. And he's
a legendary knight who apparently was pretty good at jousting.
He actually wrote an autobiography. Really. Yeah, it's in the
source in Middle English. Yeah, that must have been a
fun read. I think it's translated into Late English Old
English with an eight oldie. Yeah. Emily's parents used to

(30:40):
live on in one of those neighborhoods where it's all
you know, the English, Nottingham Force. Their street was Crown Point,
but we called it Crowny Point because it was obviously
at ease. And I always call evandale Estates e oldie
avandala Estates. Did you know there is no word ye
the y e still pronounced the really, so when I

(31:04):
say ye old, I'm just did moron. There's no such thing. Yeah,
but again, Chuck, I think one of the things that
we've done with this show is proved that if you
can get your point across, that's correct. Okay, gotcha, let's
talk about armor. Okay, chain mail, Well, first it had leather, yeah,

(31:25):
which is barbed from the Romans. Yes, and leather was
pretty good for like a sword swipe. Yeah, it protected
against cutting blows, but if you were going to be
running through, you're in trouble exactly. And the same with chainmail.
Chainmail was was good and would protect you even more
from a slice, but still a big joust or a

(31:45):
or atlance jousting you puncturing you a big sword, your
your chain mail probably not gonna work out that well either.
And it says in this article that that was also
barbed from the Romans. Untrue. Chain mail was developed by
Celts in Eastern Europe as far back as the third
time tree. Does it say that in here? No? Okay? Uh?
And then if you had some serious dough you would

(32:06):
get the plate armor, which uh, if you've ever seen
like the nights standing in the corner, not the real Yeah,
the suit of armor, that's exactly what it is. Um.
They protected you a lot more from a puncture wound,
but still wasn't And where you're really vulnerable was in
the gussets where like in your armpits and the places

(32:27):
where your joints would meet where you had chainmail underneath.
That's what I was gonna ask you. They were chainmail
and the plated armor. So does that equal what a
modern day soldier would I read that chainmail and plate
mail weighed about the same fortounds, So then I guess
if you were wearing both a be eighty to a
hundred pounds of armor. Right. And apparently they could move

(32:47):
around pretty pretty well in these It's not like in
the funny movies when you see them like on the
ground writing about because they can't get up. Apparently you
can move, Okay, not like if you were wearing nothing
at all, because that's when you can really move when
you're naked, right, But you could get up off the ground.
You could mount a horse, but that doesn't do anything

(33:09):
if you got a gun pointing out you, does it? No,
it doesn't. And actually, um, I can't remember the show,
but it's one of the shows where one ancient warrior
battles another ancient warrior and it was called Battles of
the Ancient Warriors something. There's like five of them in there. Yeah,
there's a few. Um there there was I saw a
pirate versus Night right, I would say a night would

(33:33):
win because they had gunpowder. Yes, that's exactly right. If
that pirate had just had his sword, he would have
been totally screwed, but he had gunpowder. And this is
a really good point that um, gunpowder made Night's obsolete. Actually,
and by the way, in the Pirate versus Night battle

(33:54):
at the end, the pirate gets the Night down, pulls
his visor up and shoots him in the faces. It's
really graphic. Did they reenact these Yeah, yeah, they battle.
I got to see that. Um. But the the gunpowder
brought about the end of the military martial knights because
number one, there was no more like you couldn't make

(34:16):
armor that was that was going to defend against firearms.
And that was a huge hallmark of characteristic of a
night the ability to wear armor and fight on a horse.
Not everybody could do that, And that same specialization became
obsolete by gunpowder because I can just shoot you with
the gun. You go ahead and study for fourteen years
your little sword, play and protect the wine, and I'll

(34:38):
just shoot you in the face because I'm a pirate.
So that was the end of knighthood, much the same
way that firearms brought about the end of the Samurai
in Japan as well. They were just sort of like
Asian Nights in a way. Yes, yes, uh, chuck, yes,
you want to talk about a few orders of Nights
Nights Templar. Do you know how many emails we would
get if we just hadn't talked about the Knights Templar.

(35:01):
I'm so sick of the Knights Templar. I am too,
this whole Dan Brown stuff. Yes, there was a whole
group of Knights, and they were associated with the devil,
but they actually have like this plundered this treasure. I
hate it, it's so played out. So that's the Knights Templar.
That was also of the Knights Hospitallers and uh also

(35:26):
called the Knights of St John of the Hospital, and
they cared for the sick pilgrims, which is what they
do today right in the Templar and the Knights of
St John of the Hospital Um both and Teutonic Knights
all developed to protect pilgrims on the way to the
Holy Land during the Crusades. Remember we said the Crusades
really shaped Nights Um Order of the Garter. Yeah. King

(35:49):
Edward the Third of England established this and the hundreds,
and they were an elite group of knights that are
still around today and their royalty and a point by
the Sovereign of Great Britain. Yes, And originally there were
um women in the Order of the Garter. Uh. And
that went away for many centuries, and then in seven

(36:11):
Queen Elizabeth said we're gonna get the gals back in
this exactly. And um Order of the Garter weren't the
only female knights, right, Yeah, what was the other one?
There was a bunch um from let's see thirty fourteen
there were women in the Order of the Garter. Um,

(36:31):
in the Order of the Star of India. There was
another order of knights, didn't we Oh no, that's the
Order of the Eastern Star. God do we get those confused? Um, well,
they're pretty close the In eighteen sixty one, a woman
with one of the coolest names of all time, nawab
Begam It sounds like Barbara Walters is pronouncing nawab Begham,

(36:55):
was inducted in eighteen sixty one. Um Order of the Hatchet. Yes,
sounded like it sounds like probably the meanest female knights
to be the Order of the Hatchet. And they protected
the h They defended the Spanish down with Tortosa from
the moors. And so they said, you know what, you
did a pretty good job. We're gonna make you the

(37:15):
Order of the Hatchet. And unfortunately that original group was
the only Order of the Hatchet. They didn't survive beyond that.
And then, um, the Order of St. John's of the
Hospital also had female knights known as nuns. Warrior nuns,
warrior nuns. You don't see that in the movies. And
then there wasn't a lot going on with knights for

(37:36):
a couple of centuries until a little guy with stubby
fingers stopped doing cocaine and straightened up his life. A
man named Elton John was knighted in as we like
to say here in Atlanta. Sometime Atlanta resident or part
time Atlanta resident. Boy when he moved here. That just Southerners. Yeah,

(37:58):
he's the toast of the town, wouldn't he still? I'd
never see him around? I don't know, Uh, Paul McCartney,
Mick Jagger, Bono? Are we calling him Bono? Is that
not his name? I thought it was Bono? Is it
one of the two. I'm just kidding. Bono is is
I think what's his real name, Paul Houston. I think

(38:19):
I think that's right, is it? I think so. I
don't think they called him imagined him within a real name, Yeah,
named Paul Bono. Vox was what he was his a
full name and it means a good voice. Yeah, he's
a little full of himself back when he was a
kid in Ireland. In Ireland. Uh and um, the Edge,
what's his name, Tommy Edge? He has, he has a

(38:43):
real name to He wasn't born in the Edge. He
was married as the Edge though. Yeah, I remember when
he got married. I don't know if like in the ceremony,
but in all of the spread it was like the
Edge and Mrs Edge. I think his name is Dave something.
But I wonder if those guys ever felt silly now
it's um Dave Coolier that's his name, is it. I
wonder if they ever feel silly like sixty called the

(39:06):
Edge and Edge. I thought of that when I was eighteen.
It was kind of cool back then. That would be
the equivalent of those stupid Jersey Shore kids with all
their dumb names. Yeah, I can't believe that there. I
can't believe the Jersey Shore can't believe that in two
thousand ten, The Jersey Shore is one of the most
popular shows on television. I've never seen it. Just just

(39:29):
take like a minute and really watch a clip on YouTube.
You'll get everything you need to know. They won't be
night at anytime soon. Uh? And who else? Well you
get if you're a female n you're a dame, Yeah,
like Dame Judy Dench. You want to hear some more
surprising ones? Oh yeah, Steven Spielberg really, Bill Gates, Scottie Pippen, No, no,

(39:49):
he's he's an honorary member of the Eastern Star Bill Gates.
Ted Kennedy got one right before he died. Rudy Giuliani
really who? By the way, I learned UM has a
Blackwater esque security company. Now that's how he's making his money.
They're fighting the drug war down in Mexico. Yeah. Wow,

(40:13):
I didn't realize that, but yeah, Pale Colin Powell really.
Robert Mugabe, the president Zimbabwe whose knighthood was rescinded in
two thousand eight just being a horrible dictator. Um. And
then Mussolini was also a night starting in n and

(40:33):
his rescinded in ninety and then Bob Hope. Yeah, that
makes sense. Honorary night. Wow, so we could actually be nights.
I thought you had to be uh, you know, not
from the not American. If you're American, you can be knighted.
But you're not titled sir h So when it wasn't
sir Bob Hope, No, just Bob, It's yeah Bob, just

(40:58):
Bob or what he wanted. Anyway, Chuck, this is a
long one. Do we have any listener mail anything like that? Uh,
let's do a quick announcement for our trivia event, and
then we have a few Facebook questions. Well, um, I
guess let's get the trivia announcement. Music started mm hmm Chuck.
On October two thousand ten, eight d there will be

(41:23):
an event unlike any other except for one that we
held in New York in June. This is a quick version.
October six pm, doors open. We finally have a time, dude. Yeah,
it was likely surmised at five Seasons Brewery. We're having
our trivia event. Doors opened at six West Side. Yes,
where what Mariette and Howell Mill. It's like right there.

(41:47):
Um from six six pm. The doors opened seven pm.
We're starting trivia John Hodgeman, UM, the editor of The Onion,
Joe Randazzo and the creator of Aquitine Hunger Force day
willis we'll all be playing with us, playing trip with us. Yeah. Uh,
that's gonna be awesome. Anybody who wants to come can play.

(42:07):
I believe um scout mob right, They're going to have
like some sort of coupon or like half off drink
something they can get jumped on the bandwagon here and there.
We're promoting each other. And that's going down October the
night before at the Drunken Unicorn on Punts the Daily
on Avenue UM the kind of unofficial house band for stuff.

(42:30):
You should know that Henry Clay People will be playing
starting at what time it's a it's a later show. UM.
I would get there by like you know, nine. They
probably won't gone about eleven, so hopefully John and Joe
will be there too. Hopefully we can't promise that. Two
huge days in the Southeast October twelve Tuesday, Henry Clay People,
October Wednesday, our trip of It Thursday. Who knows, will

(42:52):
all be in Guadalajara by then. I just saw the
guys too this past weekend. Cool it came through town,
not playing a gig, but we cooked out and played
music and it's all that was awesome. It's good time.
Did you use your guitar picks? No? I didn't, Actually,
I just kind of watched while they played. Um, how
many kid these can we get to? I don't know.

(43:13):
I didn't know what you were doing. This. This is
Facebook stuff. So we have a Facebook page, Facebook dot
com slash stuff. You should know. By the way, Yes,
please like it because that that is good for us
around here. Yeah, get a penny for every person that
likes us. I was gonna say. Nicol Daniel s says,
why doesn't Jerry ever talk? Daniel, Jerry talks all the time.

(43:37):
You have no idea endlessly, she just doesn't do it.
On the show, Aaron Hagen says, do you me and
Emily ever hang out together? Yes, they do, Wayne, Chuck
and I hang out together, but we have forbade them
from seeing each other unless we don't want them talking
or coming up with anything to use against this. Right.
Emily loves Umi? Well, Umi loves Emily really. Yeah, that's good.

(43:59):
Uh like this you would tell me? Actually? She thinks
I like real jerk. Yeah, you can't stand uh. Katina
Franklin Sweetie says, what was your best Halloween costume ever?
I was a Harry Krishna one year and that went
over pretty well. I like shave my head and had
the ponytail and little tambourine and literature and everything, real literature.

(44:20):
Did you get your hands on some hardy Christina litterus? No,
I just printed some mountain What about you? Um? When
I was in elementary school, my mom made an upside
down clown costumes. So from my shoulders where the legs
sticking up in between my legs, my actual legs was
the head, and then it looked like a clown walking
on his hands. It was pretty awesome. Actually, that is awesome. Uh.

(44:43):
Kristin Keeler says, you cover a lot of topics that
are outside your area of expertise. What you personally know
a lot about? I know a lot about music and
movies and filmmaking and camping and hiking and personal defenses
him excellence. What about you? I didn't hear the questions

(45:04):
what do you know a lot about? Personally expertise wise? Oh? Weird? Um? Um?
You know a lot about politics, I guess, but I
mean how is that? What do you know a lot
of expertise? What am I an expert in? I guess
throwing stars, throwing stars the Joe Moore says, I saw

(45:25):
Pavement last night in Central Park. It was truly memorable. Guys.
What is your best concert experience ever? At a top
five Wow, public Enemy and at the Masquerade unbelievable cross
cultural experience. The London Philharmonic did baetom It's night that
Carnegie Hall, the full choir, Oh de joy, unbelievable um

(45:50):
to Lallapaloos experience is the first one of Jane's addiction
that was immense, and then the second one the Beastie
plays was just out of control, so good. Yeah, Bonnie
Prince Billy last year, which I know you hate and
leave on helm I sa'll leave on Helming last year
and I was just He's the was the drummer and

(46:11):
part time singer for the band my favorite group, Oh
the band, the band? Yeah? I got you? What about you?
What's your favorite stage show I ever saw in my
entire life? Was Peter Gabriel in the I guess early
nineties that would have been good. Um, I guess all
around best show I ever saw would have been alternate

(46:32):
down in Florida when I was a little brave kid.
And then, let's see, there has to be at least
one other. Did you have a pacifier? Yes, they had
Mickey Mouse on it. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely one
of those grave kids. I was so glad. I'm just
old enough to have been too old for the rave culture. Yeah. Yeah,
you just saw the big leg jeans and the past

(46:52):
fires and I just didn't get it. Oh and probably
my first concert ever, Haul of Notes, with Until Tuesday
opening form Poor Till Tuesday got Buddolf stage. Really yeah. Um,
But Hall of Notes came out and they were backed
by g Smith and started out band including the guy
who wears like the floor length mink coats and plays
the sacks like they were the band, and they played everything.

(47:14):
So that was a good one too. I was like, hey,
I like concerts. I'm gonna start going to him. Yeah.
Amy Man is still terrific. Sure, and she's buddies with
Paul Tompkins. I did not know, I believe, so awesome
part of the whole Largo scene. Is there anything else
You've got anything else? Yeah? All right, that's it. That's it.
If you want to ask us a question, Chuck asks

(47:36):
for them intermittently on Facebook. That's uh, Facebook dot com
slash stuff you should Know, Or you can just send
us a plain old fashioned email at stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on

(47:58):
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