The Knight in Medieval England, 1000-1400

The most important idea that I found in this excellent study was how few knights there actually were in England. Normal histories suggest that the knight was the most powerful and important figure in medieval England after the king. But Coss reviews the data and suggests that there were only 4,000 to 5,000 knights between 1066 and 1181.The following century the number of knights dropped to about 2000. By 1308 there were perhaps only 1,100 knights in England and by 1430 there were less than 200. This decline in the numbers of knights was the reverse of the population. Cicra 1066 there were about 1,500,000 people in Wales and England. By 1300 the population had increased to 3,750,000, but the number of knights had dropped from 5,000 to 1,000. While population dropped after the Black Death by about one third to 2,500,000 in 1400, the number of knights dropped by four fifths to 200. This decline in the number of knigts reveals the crisis of knighthood in England. With rising prosperity, the middle class came to usurp the powers of the knights, while at the same time, they refused to take up the arms of the knights. Between 1000 and 1400, knighthood dwindled away in England. For a detailed description of this change, read Coss' book.

The author is an academic specialist in English medieval social history, with a special interest in knighthood and the gentry, and this volume is best read as a pair with his subsequent _The Lady in Medieval England_ (1998). While few knights in the medieval period became aristocrats, all noblemen were knights, at least in theory. Beginning with the Conquest and the introduction of the feudal system, they were the ruling class by virtue of arms, though Coss also examines the Saxon roots of some aspects of knighthood. He also considers in some detail the relationship of the knight first to gentility and then to lordship, showing how the characteristics of knighthood were changed in the process. The book's only fault, in fact, is the lack of subject headings in the index.