30 March 2021
When we think of a knight, we typically think of a warrior of the noble class, fighting on horseback and in armor. Also, we associate a knight with ideals of chivalry and courtly love. But that was not always the case—if it ever really was in regard to chivalry and courtly love. Knight is also odd because of how it’s pronounced. Along with other words beginning with <kn> such as knave, knot, and knife, the <k> is not pronounced. Again, this was not always so. In both Old and Middle English, the word was pronounced with an initial /k/ sound. We’re not quite sure when the initial /k/ stopped being pronounced, but it was probably in the fifteenth century. That pronunciation is needed for the meter of Middle English poetry, such as that by Chaucer, writing in the late fourteenth century, but by the Early Modern era that pronunciation is gone from poetry.
Surprisingly, in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the Frenchman (played by John Cleese) taunts King Arthur and his knights by pronouncing the word as /k.nɪg.əts/, he is actually pronouncing the initial phoneme much like someone from the medieval era would (although the /g/ is inaccurate); the scene may be absurd, but the pronunciation isn’t.
Knight can be traced back to Old English, where it originally meant boy. This sense can be seen in the poem Beowulf. In this extract, lines 1216–20, Wealhtheow, the wife of King Hrothgar, is speaking to Beowulf. She rewards him for ridding them of the monstrous Grendel and charges him to look after her two young sons, as their aged father will likely die before they reach their majority and can claim the throne for themselves. The passage contrasts the boys (cnihtum) with Beowulf, the young man or warrior (hyse):
Bruc ðisses beages, Beowulf leofa,
hyse, mid hæle, ond þisses hrægles neot,
þeod-gestreona, ond geþeoh tela,
cen þec mid cræfte, ond þyssum cnyhtum wes
lara liðe. Ic þe þæs lean geman.
(Enjoy this ring in health, dear Beowulf, young warrior, and make use of this garment, these people’s-treasures, and prosper well, and let them proclaim that you have strength, and teach these boys kindly. I will take care to reward you for this.)
The Old English cniht could also mean a young man, servant, or disciple. But in later use, it would also come to mean soldier, being used to translate the Latin miles. A similar semantic pattern, that of child to soldier, can be seen in infantry. Ælfric of Eynsham, who was probably the greatest prose stylist of the Old English period, would use it in just this way in a letter to the nobleman Sigeweard, written toward the end of the tenth century. Here Ælfric is translating from the Vulgate Bible, Romans 13.4:
Bellatores sindon þe ure burga healdað & eac urne eard, wið þone sigendne here feohtende mid wæmnum, swa swa Paulus sæde. se þeoda lareow, on his lareowdome: Non sine causa portat miles gladium, & cetera, “Ne byrð na se cniht butan intingan his swurd. He ys Godes þen þe sylfum to þearfe on ðam yfelum wyrcendum to wræce gesett.”
(Bellatores are those who defend our cities and our land, against the force of armies fighting with arms, just as Paul, the teacher of the people, said in his doctrine: Non sine causa portat miles gladium, & cetera, “The soldier [i.e., cniht] does not bear his sword without cause. He is God’s servant who in his own service delivers vengeance on evil doers.”
And a bit later, we see the cniht used to refer to a warrior of the noble class, a thane. From the Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1086:
Þriwa he bær his cynehelm ælce geare swa oft swa he wæs on Englelande: on Eastron he hine bær on Winceastre, on Pentecosten on Westmynstre, on midewintre on Gleaweceastre. & þænne wæron mid him ealle þa rice men ofer eall Englaland: arcebiscopas & leodbiscopas, abbodas & eorlas, þegnas & cnihtas.
He wore his crown three times each year he was in England: At Easter he wore it at Winchester, on Pentecost at Westminster, at midwinter in Gloucester, and then were with him all the men in authority from all over England: archbishops and diocesan bishops, abbots and earls, thanes, and knights.
The sense of cniht or knight meaning a child would fall out of use in the thirteenth century, but the senses of a servant, soldier, and noble warrior would continue through to end of the Middle English period. The other senses would fall away in the Early Modern period, leaving only the sense of a warrior of the noble class.
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