Service · Honour · Sacred Oath
Knighthood & Chivalry
The knight is the only figure in the hierarchy who earns rank rather than inheriting it — who is made, not born. The sword on the shoulder, the oath of fealty, the code that governed conduct on the battlefield and in the court: a system that transformed the mounted warrior into a spiritual ideal that shaped Western civilisation.
Non-hereditary
Dies with holder
Baronet
Hereditary knighthood
Oldest order
Garter · 1348
The Making of a Knight
Knighthood began as a purely military institution. In the early medieval period, the knight was simply a mounted warrior — a heavy cavalryman whose horse, armour and weapons required substantial resources to maintain. Lords granted land to knights in exchange for military service; knights owed their lords a specified number of days per year in the field. The relationship was practical, economic and violent.
Over the 11th and 12th centuries, under the influence of the Church and the ideal of crusading warfare, knighthood was transformed from a military rank into a moral and spiritual vocation. The Church seized on the mounted warrior class and attempted to redirect their violence — to consecrate it, to give it rules, to channel the energy of armed men into something that served Christian civilisation. The result was chivalry: a code that governed not just how knights fought but how they lived, loved, worshipped and died.
The knighting ceremony — the dubbing — reflected this transformation. What had been a simple practical investiture (receiving armour and weapons) became a ritual with religious dimensions: a night of prayer and vigil, a bath of purification, a Mass, an oath before God, and the symbolic blow of the sword on the shoulder. The knight was not merely equipped for war — he was consecrated to a particular vision of what war should be for.
I
The Vigil
The night before dubbing, the knight-candidate kept an all-night vigil in the chapel — alone, in prayer, his armour laid on the altar. The vigil was a liminal period, a threshold between his old life as a squire and his new life as a knight. No sleep, no food, no company — only prayer and the darkness.
II
The Bath
A ritual bath of purification — the candidate was bathed by older knights, symbolically washing away his former self. The Order of the Bath preserves this tradition in its very name. The bath preceded the donning of white garments — purity, readiness, new identity.
III
The Mass & Blessing of Arms
A Mass was celebrated, during which the candidate's sword was blessed on the altar. The priest prayed that the sword would be used for justice, the defence of the weak and the Church's protection. The weapon was consecrated — made holy in its intended purpose.
IV
The Oath
The candidate swore his oath of knighthood — to defend the Church, to protect the weak and poor, to honour women, to fight the infidel, to serve his lord faithfully. The oath was sworn on the Gospels or a relic. Breaking it was not merely dishonourable — it was sacrilege.
V
The Dubbing
The lord or king struck the candidate on the shoulder with the flat of a sword — the accolade. "I dub thee knight." The blow was the only blow a knight was expected to receive without striking back. In modern ceremonies, the sovereign touches both shoulders with the sword; the candidate rises as Sir or Dame.
VI
The Investiture
The new knight was dressed in his spurs — the defining symbol of knighthood — and received his sword, shield and lance. In later ceremonial knighthoods, the appropriate order's insignia are presented: the star, the collar, the badge, the ribbon. The visible signs of invisible membership.
The Code of Chivalry
No single definitive code of chivalry was ever written down — what we call "the chivalric code" is a synthesis of values extracted from medieval romances, manuals of knighthood, ecclesiastical decrees and the actual practice of tournament and warfare. But certain virtues appear consistently across all the sources, constituting something recognisable as a coherent ideal.
Prowess
The foundation — physical and martial excellence. A knight who could not fight was no knight. Prowess meant skill with weapons, courage in battle and the willingness to test one's worth against worthy opponents.
Loyalty
Absolute fidelity to one's lord, one's sworn word and one's God. The knight who broke his oath destroyed his identity. Loyalty was the social glue that made feudalism function — without it the entire system collapsed.
Courtesy
Refined behaviour toward all — especially women and social superiors. Courtesy was not mere politeness but a form of respect for the social order that made civilised life possible. The word "courteous" derives from "court."
Generosity
Liberality with wealth, hospitality to guests, gifts to dependants. The hoarding of wealth was contemptible — nobility demonstrated itself through giving. The great lords competed in generosity as much as in warfare.
Mercy
The obligation to spare a defeated enemy who yielded, to protect the prisoner, to respect the rules of ransom. Mercy distinguished the knight from the mere brigand — and was economically sensible, since ransom payments were substantial.
Honour
The overarching value that contained all the others — a knight's reputation for living by the code. Honour was a social fact as much as a personal one: it existed in the eyes of one's peers. Its loss was catastrophic.
Franchise
Frankness, openness, freedom of spirit. The knight should be free from deception, dissimulation and cowardice. What he said, he meant; what he promised, he performed. The opposite of the courtly schemer.
Piety
Service to God as the ultimate lord above all earthly lords. The knight's sword was consecrated; his violence was meant to serve divine ends. The crusading ideal was chivalry's most extreme expression of piety — and its most violent.
The Great Chivalric Orders
From the 14th century onward, monarchs across Europe founded formal orders of knighthood — exclusive brotherhoods with their own statutes, insignia, chapels and ceremonies. These orders were simultaneously marks of royal favour, instruments of political alliance and expressions of the chivalric ideal in its most elaborate form.
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" — Shame on him who thinks evil of it
The oldest and highest order of British chivalry — founded by Edward III, supposedly after he picked up a garter that had fallen from a lady's leg at a ball and, to spare her embarrassment, placed it on his own knee with the words that became the motto. Whether or not the story is true, it captures something essential about the Order: its founding in an act of courtesy and royal dignity. Limited to the sovereign, the Prince of Wales and 24 companion knights, the Garter is the most exclusive honour in Britain. Its chapel is St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Installation ceremonies have taken place there for nearly 700 years.
"Nemo me impune lacessit" — No one provokes me with impunity
Scotland's equivalent of the Garter — the highest order of Scottish chivalry, limited to 16 knights and ladies in addition to the sovereign. The thistle, Scotland's national emblem, reflects the Order's specifically Scottish identity. Its chapel is in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. Though formally refounded by James VII, the Order claims ancient origins in the reign of Achaius, a semi-legendary early Scottish king. The motto — "Nemo me impune lacessit," sometimes rendered colloquially as "Wha daur meddle wi' me?" — captures the particular directness of Scottish national identity.
"Tria iuncta in uno" — Three joined in one
The third-ranking British order — its name preserving the memory of the ritual bath that preceded medieval knighting ceremonies. Founded formally in 1725 but claiming precedents stretching back to Henry IV, the Order has three classes (Knight/Dame Grand Cross, Knight/Dame Commander, Companion) and is awarded primarily for distinguished service to the Crown in the military or civil service. The "three joined in one" of its motto refers to England, Scotland and France — the three kingdoms to which medieval English monarchs laid claim. Its chapel is Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
"For God and the Empire"
The most numerous and democratic of the British orders — created during the First World War to reward civilians and military personnel for services to the war effort, and now the order through which most British knighthoods are awarded. Unlike the ancient orders limited to a handful of members, the OBE has hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. Its five classes run from Knight/Dame Grand Cross (GBE) through Knight/Dame Commander (KBE/DBE) — which confer the title Sir or Dame — to Commander (CBE), Officer (OBE) and Member (MBE). The MBE in particular has become the "people's honour," awarded to nurses, teachers, community workers and the quietly extraordinary.
The Baronetcy — Hereditary Knighthood
The Baronetcy occupies a curious position between knighthood and the peerage — it is hereditary (passing from father to eldest son) but does not confer a seat in the House of Lords. Created by James I in 1611 as a means of raising funds (the initial fee was £1,095 — three years' pay for a knight), the Baronetcy is technically the lowest hereditary title in the British system, sitting above a knight but below a baron. Baronets use the title "Sir" like knights, but their wives are styled "Lady" and the title passes to the heir.
The creation of Baronetcies was explicitly commercial — James I needed money and sold the title directly. This transactional origin has somewhat diminished the dignity of the rank in the public imagination; P.G. Wodehouse's fictional baronets are usually comic figures. But Baronetcies include some distinguished holders — Isaac Newton was a knight (not a baronet), while Francis Bacon was Baron Verulam. The title remains in use today, though new creations have become very rare.
The Esoteric Dimension
The chivalric orders have always carried an esoteric dimension that sits alongside their official ceremonial functions. The ritual of dubbing — with its vigil, bath, oath and consecration — is structurally identical to initiation rituals in mystery traditions across the world: the separation from ordinary life, the liminal night, the symbolic death and rebirth, the assumption of a new identity and new obligations. The knight who rose from his knighting was not the same person who had knelt — the ritual had changed him, at least in theory.
The most explicitly esoteric of the military orders was the Knights Templar — founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, dissolved in 1312 under charges of heresy that have never been fully resolved. The Templars accumulated enormous wealth, pioneered early banking, built a network of preceptories across Europe and were eventually destroyed by a coalition of the French king and the papacy. The charges against them — idol worship, denial of Christ, obscene initiation rituals — were probably largely fabricated under torture. But the Templars' wealth, their secrecy, their international network and their dramatic suppression made them irresistible to later esoteric tradition, which adopted them as precursors of Freemasonry, guardians of the Holy Grail and keepers of forbidden knowledge.
"The knights, by their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, were monks as much as soldiers — and the combination of monastic discipline with military prowess created something the medieval world had never seen before."
— Standard historical assessment of the military orders