England, Lombard Italy, and Visigothic Spain—this ceremony appears to have remained a simple one through the ninth and tenth centuries. As for the eleventh, one may note the following passages: William of Malmesbury (d. 1142 cir.) speaks of William of Normandy receiving the insignia of knighthood (militiae insignia) from the King of France as soon as his years permitted.[1] Henry of Huntington (d. 1155) says that this same William the Conqueror, in the nineteenth year of his reign, invested his younger son Henry with the arms of manhood (virilibus induit armis); while another chronicler says that Prince Henry: "sumpsit arma in Pentecostem"—a festival at which it was customary to make knights. And again, Ordericus Vitalis says of the armour-bearer of Duke William that after five years' service he was by that same duke regularly invested with his arms and made a knight (decenter est armis adornatus et miles effectus).
These short references[2] do not indicate the nature of the ceremony. But one notes the use of the Latin words miles and militia as meaning knight and knighthood. Like so many other classical words, miles took various meanings in the Middle Ages. But it came commonly to signify knight, chevalier, or ritter.[3] And whatever other meanings militia and militare retained or acquired, they signified knighthood and the performance of its duties. Frequently they suggested the relationship of vassal to a lord: and in this sense miles meant one who held a fief under the obligation to do knightly service in return.
But how did this word miles (which in classical Latin meant a soldier and sometimes specifically a foot-soldier as contrasted with an eques) come to mean a knight? It was first applied to the warriors of the various Teutonic peoples, who for the most part fought on foot. But the wars with the Saracens in the eighth century appear to have made clear the need of a large and efficient corps of horse. From the time of Charles Martel the warrior class began to fight
