d his sins to a priest, attended Mass, received communion, heard a sermon on the moral, religious, social and military duties of a knight, and solemnly promised to fulfill them. He then advanced to the altar with a sword hanging from his neck; the priest removed the sword, blessed it, and replaced it upon his neck. The candidate turned to the seated lord from whom he sought knighthood, and was met with a stern question: "For what purpose do you desire to enter the order? If to be rich, to take your ease, and be held in honor without doing honor to knighthood, you are unworthy of it, and would be to the order of knighthood what the simoniacal clerk is to the prelacy." The candidate was prepared with a reassuring reply. Knights or ladies then clothed him in knightly array of hauberk, cuirass or breastplate, armlets, gauntlets (armored gloves), sword and spurs. (Gold spurs were the sign of a knight, silver spurs of a squire; to "win his spurs"--of gold--meant to attain to knighthood). The lord, rising, gave him the accolade (i.e., on the neck)--three blows with the flat of the sword on the neck or shoulder, and sometimes a slap on the cheek, as symbols of the last affronts that he might accept without fighting back; and "dubbed" him with the formula, "In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George I make thee a knight." The new knight received a lance, a helmet and a horse; he adjusted his helmet, leaped upon his horse, brandished his lance, flourished his sword, rode out from the church, distributed gifts to his attendants, and gave a feast for his friends (Bennett 1361),
The knight was now privileged to risk his life in tournaments that would train him still further in skill, endurance and bravery. Begun in the tenth century, the tournament flourished above all in France, and sublimated some part of the passions and energies that disordered feudal life. It might be proclaimed through a herald, by a king or a great lord, to ...