Stuff You Should Know - How Knights Work

Episode Date: October 8, 2010

In medieval times, knights were warriors with specialized skills, extensive training and their own code. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of medieval knights and finish up with a look at the modern institution of knighthood. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryan is rubbing his hair out across from me. That makes this Stuff You Should Know featuring Chuck rubbing his hair. I thought you said rubbing his hair out. Out.

How do you do that? What does that mean? It was flat against your skull and now it's standing. Okay, sure. Our colloquialisms cause some problems sometimes. Every now and then. Yeah, you all right? Yeah, I'm good. You done vomiting? Yeah. 24 hours, dude. Yeah. Like to the minute, almost. I'm glad this table keeps us as far apart as... Oh, I couldn't. I don't think I could projectile over here. Oh, I thought you meant get you sick. You mean vomit on you? Both. I'm kind of afraid of both. Neither one will happen. I'm good. So, Chuck, I'm glad you're good. Thank you. I was looking all over for something to lead in with this. I considered talking about the paladin class character I created when I played Dungeons and

Dragons as a kid. Okay. Nah. Nah. I don't remember his name, so it's kind of stupid. Right. Right. I searched news for nights and I found that in Crestview, Florida, the nights overpowered the hobos in volleyball. Oh, really? Yeah. But it made for a pretty good title, nights overpowered hobos. Sure. And that was about it. That's the best I got. There's nothing going on with nights really these days except the occasional CBS news article about somebody getting an honorary title. Yeah, some musician or actor. Oh, I guess there's other people, but they get all the press. Yeah, definitely. So, there's not a lot going on with nights, but I can tell you something. If this were the 13th or 14th century... We wouldn't be recording a podcast.

No, but there'd be news about nights all over the place. Oh, yeah. Sure. Everywhere. They would carve in wood. So, let's go back to this. Let's talk about nights. What happened to them? Where did they go? Where did they come from? What did they do in between? Let's get to the meat of this, shall we? Yeah, sure. Take it, Chuck. Oh, Josh. I'm going to go ahead and start with what was going on back then after the fall of the Roman Empire. So, chronologically, it is a... We'll start at the beginning. Okay. As far as nights are concerned. We're talking about Western Europe. Yeah. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was sort of a sort of a lawless mess. Yeah, it was chaos. Of an area. No defined countries. No defined

governments. No laws that anyone was, you know, abiding by. Right. It was awful. But people were still managing an existence. Yeah, I'm sure. It was just often threatened by violence. Yeah, like if I see something that I want, I will take it. Yes. By force. Including your dog. Those are the good old days. Or that keg of beer. Right. And because of this, it was a little bit hard to control. So, if you were, let's say, Charlemagne and you had a lot of this land, right, you might want to do something, might want to impose some sort of restriction or a body to kind of rule or take care of things. Perhaps a geopolitical system. Yeah, without it being a government. Well, it was a government, a form of government. It's also a form of economics to feudalism,

right? Yeah, feudalism. Right. So, Charlemagne, Charlemagne. Sort of Charlemagne. That was the original name. Right. And then he's like, oh, that's just too vain. Let's call it feudalism. Charlemagne was a Frankish king, right? Yeah. And he had just a bunch of land, I guess, that he conquered or he just said, hey, this is mine. This land is my land. Not this land is your land. Right, exactly. And he, since he lacked a central government, he said, hey, you're a buddy of mine. You're an ally. I trust you. Your dad and I fought in the war together. Here's some land. It's yours. But you owe me big time for that land. Oh, yes. And this is the basis of feudalism. One person doles out land, the king, the ruler, doles out land to the secondary

ruling class nobility. And that's their land. And in return, they pay for the land through military service generally. Yeah, protection, basically. And then one rung down below nobility is the serf or peasant class. Yeah. And they're attached to the land. They're essentially slaves. Yeah, they got the short end of the stick. They definitely did. So they pay for their land that the nobility doled out to them. So it's subdivided even further by giving there the noblemen that they serve or vassal, I believe they're also called food or crops or goods, right? Yeah. So that's how they paid for their land. But they were really they didn't have much of a choice. No, right. And the feudalism worked because Charlemagne is what he's able to keep all of this land by giving it

to his friends, the feasts who are going to Yeah, that's the land, right? Yeah, who are going to protect it against foreign invaders because it's theirs. But really, it's Charlemagne's. Well, yeah. And then the vassals, the Knights, they wanted to protect the serfs because they wanted to, you know, the Knights made most of their dough from what I could see by their land ownership and farming. And we'll get into the other ways they made money too. But they wanted to protect their dudes so they could, you know, prosper. Well, not only that, a knight could make money by serving in the stead or the service of the noble person that is paying them. Yeah, because you had that you you paid for your land through military service either directly by yourself or by paying

somebody else to do it for you or by producing land. And the feudal system did away with the middle class and common the commons common land. Yeah, it just did away with it because Charlemagne was like this is mine. Right. And you work for me now. And it's sort of yours, but it's really kind of mine. But in return, there was that social contract, which led to basically trading freedom for protection. Yeah, which is the basis of government today. Yeah, think about it. So the knights were born out of that, right, Chuck? Yes, sir, pretty much it. Well, what it did too was with feudalism, you could it gave you in a time of chaos, it gave you a path like a career path almost in a way that you could advance in life if you wanted to. Yeah, because part of feudalism

was the land grant, right, was bestowed. It was passed down through the family line. And they just decided to do that. There was no ever any part of feudalism where it's like, well, we're going to set it up like, yeah, sure, kind of evolved. Right. So a landowner could pass it to his oldest son, but he may have more than one son. And the other son's like, I want to be rich too. So I'm going to go become a knight. Yes, exactly. Right. And knights were not, you weren't born into knighthood. You were born into being ultimately a page and then later on a squire, but you had to earn your knighthood for sure. Right, yeah. Yeah, if your dad was a knight, you were automatically a page. But poor people could also conceivably become pages themselves.

It's ledger. Right? Yes. Apparently, I didn't even see a night's tale. You didn't? No, did you? It was just weird anachronism. Well, yeah, because they had modern music, right? It's the golden years and everything, and it was weird, but it was a pretty cool movie. Paul Bettany was in it. I like that guy. Some other guy who you'd recognize who was Steve the pirate in dodgeball. Yeah, I know that guy. He was in it. And then this other dude, and then that other guy. Yeah. And that girl. RIP Heath Ledger, by the way. Oh, yeah, really? That was a big one. Yeah. So like we said, you were automatically a page and basically up until the age of about seven, you were just sort of doted on by the women at the castle, taking care of

your cheeks were pinched. Exactly. And then when you became seven, they moved you to another house with another lord, and you were all of a sudden a page and you were taught how to hunt and sort of the beginnings of being taught how to fight. You were schooled by the monks, and you know, schooled as in reading and writing. Right. They schooled you. Right. Although they may have done that too. Sure. And that's basically where they got their start in this whole quest to become a knight. Yeah. And you were saying that at about age seven, you were conscripted or given to another house. And usually it was a friend of the family or a relative who was a knight. Yeah, sure. And that was about age seven. So that's where the word knight comes from. It's an old Anglo-Saxon word

nicked, I believe, for boy. Yeah, I didn't know how to pronounce it. There's a lot of letters in there that aren't being said. C-N-I-H-T, knit. Yes, weird. Knit. That's Chaucer. Sure. And also, Chuck, I found out in researching this article that the German word for knight is ritter, which is literally rider. So the name of the TV show Knight Rider was redundant. Interesting. Rider, rider. Yeah. Or knight, knight. And the Germans love Hasselhoff. It all makes sense. Wow. That's crazy. All right. So after age seven, the kid became a page. And basically, the page was the little gopher for the knight's house, right? In addition to being trained, he also just basically did whatever he was supposed to do. And then around the time he turned 14, he was eligible to become an Esquire or Squire. Yeah.

And his responsibilities and training became much more specific, right? Yeah. I mean, you were really a houseboy at this point. There's a lot of work that went into like 14 years of work. Or I get the feeling from page to Squire was a little more learning. Right. But then from Squire to knight was when the rubber meets the road. Yes. Although it was not. It was time to get serious. That was not rubber or roads. But you know what I mean. There were trails. Trails. Yeah. That's where the hoof met the trail. How's that? So they became a Squire at 14 and that's, they had a little ceremony, a religious ceremony where you get your sword, which is a pretty big deal at the time, I'm sure. And you basically become a houseboy. Each Squire had a different job specific to the castle.

Can you guess which Squire I would have wanted to be? Well, here, let's go through them and let's see if maybe, I wish we could do instant voting. But say in your heads, people out there listening, what you think Josh would have been. You have a Squire of the body and that was the personal servant. I get the feeling they were probably the most trusted. Squire of the chamber and they attended to the rooms that was sort of like, I guess, the maid. That's the worst Squire, shall I? The housekeeper. The carving, the carving Squire or table Squire carved the meat at the banquet tables, which at catering companies nowadays, the like the most stoned dude is the table Squire. Also known as the protector of the roast beef. Yes, protector of

the roast beef. The Squire of the wines managed the wine cellar. That'd be a good gig. Squire of the pantry took care of the food and make sure the pantry was stocked with canned goods and peanut butter and all that good stuff that knights love to eat. Yes. Squire of the arms, of course, maintain the armament and the swords and all that kind of stuff. And the Squire of honor assisted the Lord in ceremonies and feasts. So which one are you? I think that anybody who's listened to us more than once or twice could tell you I would like to be the Squire of the wines. Squire of the wines. I'd probably be the Squire of the pantry because I'm into cooking and stuff. Well, like you and I would be like, hey man, I'll slide you one of these if you slide me some of

that. Give me a bottle of that wine. I'll give you some roast beef. Or maybe I'd be the carving dude. That's cool. At the carving station. Right. Kind of nice. Or if they had an omelet station, I'd like to do that. The Squire of the omelet station. Nice Chuck. So from hanging out at these feasts and carving the roast beef and making the omelets and tending the wine, the Squire was also being indoctrinated into a higher lifestyle. Learned how to carry himself in situations like feasts and festivals and all this stuff, right? They learned how to be really awful and drink too much to excess and pillage basically. Pretty much. It wasn't as lofty as it seems, I would imagine. No, it's been, knighthood I guess we should probably say has been

romanticized almost entirely through literature that actually originated in the 13th century, I believe. Oh, really? It like while this is going on, they started to romanticize it. Sure. Kind of like Billy the Kid stories that were read by the youngsters and East in the 19th century. And the little serial books. Sure. Alright, so what you're doing is you're learning all these things like you said, learning how to be a bad person. Actually, that's not true. You don't want to offend the knights today. Elton John will have your head. But they also learned, they started to do a little bit more training in the martial arts of knightdom, like how to handle and ride horses. How to strike someone over the head with a heavy

hammer. Yeah, with a heavy hammer. They started wearing the chainmail to get used to like walking around and that kind of stuff and all the weight. And I looked this up Chuck, chainmail and plate mail weight about the same 40 to 50 pounds, which seems like a lot, but it's about half of what the average foot soldier in the US Army today carries. Really? An average rifleman carries about 91 pounds of gear. Yeah, but did the knights carry stuff in addition to just the armament? No, they had squires. Oh, well. Another duty of the squire was when the knight went into battle. Yeah. Or tournament. Right, but in battle specifically, he went with him. And if the knight fell, he was expected to basically aid and protect the knight as he got up. Yeah. And actually,

we should just, since you mentioned that, we should go and point out that you could become an instant knight on the battlefield. And I get the impression that if you saved your knight's bacon, you might have a good chance of just being knighted right there on the battlefield. Right. A knight was bestowed with the ability to invest knighthood into a squire under circumstances like that. But for the most part, they followed a process where once you turned about 21, if you'd proven yourself a decent squire, if you weren't just completely fat from being a squire of the pantry, your liver had given out from being the squire of the wine, you could become a knight, right? And usually this took place during an event,

like a larger event, like the Christmas or Easter feast. Yeah, weddings. Yeah, nobleman's wedding or festival or something like that. Yeah. And you could be bestowed knighthood by other knights, kings, nobles, clergy. And I get the impression that the most favorite way, if your father was a knight, he might do the double tap, not the double tap of the SWAT teams and the Delta Force, but the sword on either side of the head, a double tap on the shoulder. So the squire would sit up for a knight praying. And when he was finally knighted, he would take an oath that usually included several points, right? Yeah. Defending a lady is a big one. Speaking only the truth, being loyal to his Lord, that's a huge part of the feudal system. Yeah.

Being devoted to the church, that was also, that came to be a huge part of being a knight. Yeah, with the crusades. Yeah. Defending the poor, being charitable, defending the helpless, being brave, and then getting into more specific rules too, right? These crack me up a little bit. Like fighting only one person at a time. Yeah. Never avoiding a dangerous path out of fear. See, I would have failed that one. I would have been like, that path looks a lot safer to me, so let's go that way. Yes. That seems like a smart thing to do, not a cowardly thing. Right. That's just me. But if you framed it like that, you could be like, well, I didn't avoid that path out of fear.

I avoided it because it's out of intelligence. Yes, exactly. Never taking off your armor during a quest except to sleep. That would be such a drag. It would be. Can you imagine like you get back after the battle and you're kicking it around the campfire? And all you want to do is take off your armor and relax? Yeah. But then the guy who does, next to you, takes an arrow and is back and you're like, man, I'm glad I kept my armor on. While you're beating someone shed in with a war hammer. Yeah. That's what you're thinking. There's also, this one kind of got me because I would just want to go to sleep. And if I didn't feel like talking, I wouldn't want to talk. But apparently one of the oaths

that a knight took was to, upon returning from a quest or a journey or a battle or something, he would entertain the person he was conscripted to with his stories. See, I'd be great at that part. You definitely would. I just feel like I don't feel like doing this. I'm not going to do this. We should call this one why Chuck and Josh would be horrible knights. I think you'd be a good knight. Oh, really? Sure. I'd be a good pantry tender and that's about it. What was the last one there? The one that if he was taken prisoner, he would give up arms and horse to the opponent

and never fight the opponent again without the opponent's consent. Yeah, that's, I wouldn't want to fight that opponent again if they beat me down. You wouldn't want like... Revenge? No way. See, that's why I'd be a bad knight. Chuck, revenge makes the world go round. Yeah, you're right. Who are you to buck that trend? That's true. And once you were indoctrinated, you would get your sword, like I said,

and then you would also finally get your armor and your horse and right away, they would kind of throw you into things in the form of demonstrating your abilities. Not on the battlefield. No, you'd kind of hop on a horse. I imagine this to be like some like hormone up kid who's like, yeah man, watch this and he's like starts beating up on like other little kids who are still squires. With their wooden swords. In front of everybody, yeah, except now he's got a real sword. And also Chuck, we should say those oaths that the knight took basically made up the code of

chivalry, which was established basically because knights were the only ones who were armed, who were capable of battling on horseback and could just completely wreak havoc anywhere they wanted to. So the code of chivalry, especially defending the poor in the weak. So they didn't kill the poor in the weak. Right, or take their stuff or whatever. So this code of chivalry was intended to keep these comparatively powerful people from just doing whatever they wanted. That was ideal. It didn't always work out like knights also generally pillaged and plundered and took whatever they wanted and ignored the chivalric code.

Yes, which it comes from the French word, Josh, chivalry. Which means chivalry in French. Skills to handle a horse is actually what it means. Yeah, and originally that's what knights were, just like remember the samurai. They were originally horsemen. A lot of commonalities between these two actually. Very, yeah, they both went the way of the dinosaur because of gunpowder, which we'll get to. There's the spoiler. But you can also, you can make the case that the fall of the Roman Empire, feudalism,

and the invention of the stirrup all allowed knighthood to develop. The stirrup showed up in the 8th century and it allowed stability while you're staying on a horse and lancing somebody. Well, imagine with all the armor and everything too, it probably helped to get up on the horse to begin with. But that was pretty much like if you could fight somebody on a horse, you were a knight before all of this tradition was dressed alongside of knighthood. A mounted soldier is essentially what a knight was. Yes. Should we talk about weapons?

Well, yeah, I just mentioned the lance, right? Yeah, the lance was basically like a spear earlier on. Right. And then later on, it developed the handguard and a metal tip on the end of it. And that was, you know, if you're on a mounted horse, you wanted something long so you could engage in battle without getting down from the horse. Sure. Then they had their sword, double edged, carbon, what kind?

Carbon steel? Yeah, but usually light on the carbon steel. Oh, light on the carbon steel. Heavy on the ketchup. Right. And they had the crossguard hilt and the pommel, which, you know, you've all seen Excalibur, it's that classic looking sword, very large, I would imagine pretty heavy. Yeah. I never picked one up.

And they, you know, depending on how much money you had, determine how fancy your sword was. Yeah, it could have like a prayer inscribed in it or your name. Or yeah, it found, please return to Josh Clark. Can you see it like pinned to like your plate mail, your gauntlet? Yeah, exactly. And so the sword and the lance were the two main weapons, right? Yeah, you've talked about the Warhammer a couple of times.

I imagine that's probably what you would have liked. Did you look up the Warhammer on Google Images? Ah, yeah. So it's like, they're not as big. It's not like Thor's Warhammer. No. It's like a tack hammer. Yeah.

With the pointed, like the rounded curved pointed end on one side and then a hammer on the other. And I just imagine like some guy in some sort of mail just beating somebody's head in with this thing. I doubt if it was pretty. That's what the European martial arts amounted to, like death through blunt instruments. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. They had Axis, which also could slice you up. And the Mace, the middle, it wasn't the Mace, the middle ball on the end of the chain.

That's the, I think a Mace isn't on a chain. Oh, it's just on the- I think the morning star is on the chain. Right, there you go. If my Paladin training serves me, I think the morning star is on the chain and Mace is a pointed ball. Just on the end of a stick. Stick. Wow.

They thought that, they did think though that, although they did use archers in war, the Knights kind of, a lot of them thought that was a little bit cowardly to shoot something from a distance. Yeah, because there was no hand-to-hand combat. Yeah. Like get down here and fight me like a man. Exactly. One at a time. One at a time.

And that's about it on the weapons front. You would get some privileges though once you became a Knight that not everyone got, like owning land and being called Sir. And that was it. I can't, was it? No, you were, because you own land, and I don't think it was necessarily because you're a Knight, but because you own land, you dispense justice locally. Right. Right?

Somebody stole someone's dog. Sure. You'd be like, I'm going to cut this dog in half and you can both have it. And the true owner would be like, no, no, no, don't cut the dog in half. He can have the whole dog. And you'd be like, it's your dog. And now I will cut him in half. And there's the Knightly Justice.

Right, yeah. And then you just beat the other guys heading with the Warhammer. You could pack heat in church. You were allowed to carry your sword to church. Yeah. Apparently not everyone could do that. No. You would get a seat at the high table at Feast with the Lords and Royals.

And you could wear your armor in battle because you could afford it. Right. And you also were expected to lead soldiers into battle like an officer today. Sure. Chuck, let's talk about wartime for a second. OK. One of the things that shaped the European Knights were the Crusades, right? Yeah, I don't know a ton about the Crusades, but we're going to do probably a full podcast on that at some point.

I agree. But school me. Just very briefly, the first Crusade took place in 1096 and it was based on a sermon by the Pope in 1095 that basically said, the Muslims have Jerusalem and we need to go get it back. Right. And I think the Europeans are considered to have won or been successful on the first Crusade. And then the Muslims overran Jerusalem again in their view took it back because it was an equally holy land, right? Right.

After that, so for the next 200 years there were Crusades, Crusades, Crusades. I think there were several. Yes, it's more than two. Definitely. And over time, orders of knights developed out of these Crusades. Right. And they also, this is the time when religiousness was attached to knighthood. So swimming in oath to the church, being a Christian defender of Christianity, all of this became attached to knighthood about this time.

And it was about this time also, not coincidentally, that knighthood became romanticized as well so that they had popular support. Yeah, they were pious. They were defending your freedom. Exactly. Defending God. So I think the stirrup feudalism and the Crusades are what really shaped knighthood in Europe, I would say. Isn't it crazy how Christians and Muslims all this time have been going at each other? Yeah.

I don't see that changing anytime soon. That's why we have to do one on Crusades. Yeah. Josh, let's talk about peacetime. Okay. You want to? Yeah. During peacetime, they would have tournaments, much like you would see at medieval times restaurants these days.

Have you ever been to one of those? No. I haven't either. In fact, the only thing I know about them is from the Cable Guy movie. Same here, actually. Yeah. Jeanine Graffalo was the waitress, the medieval waitress. I don't remember that part.

She was really funny. She had a, what was her line about, they asked for a fork or something and she said, there were no forks in medieval times, so there are no forks at medieval times. And so Matthew Broderick had to eat with his hands. That sounds familiar. That's because you've seen the movie. During peacetime, Josh, they would have these tournaments and it was a big, it was like the NFL football of the day.

It was like the NFL and World Cup put together. Imagine how boring your life would be during this time and then all of a sudden, there's some knights beating the tar out of each other in the Castle Keep. That's huge. And a melee. That's like life changing. You'd probably tell your grandchildren about that and they'd be like, shut up. We've heard this story 800 times.

You're 32 years old. Blah, blah, blah. You just go ahead and die. I mentioned melees, 32. You're an ancient human being. Have you ever seen the Mr. Show little clip where it's like, questions, questions, questions. Modern man can think of three questions and set in like a medieval village. So classic.

I briefly mentioned the word melee and that was actually a real thing. It wasn't just like a free-for-all. Well, it was a free-for-all, but that's where the word came from. The knights would gather out in the middle of the Keep and sort of reenact what a real battle would be like. And a judge or a marshal would say, let it begin. And you would start fighting each other one at a time until there was only one of you left standing. And that's why it was popular.

Blood sport. Sure. And these things were for spectators. You could also make some cash off of them. If you won, especially in the joust, if you won a joust, you got the other guy's armor, extremely expensive, and horse, extremely expensive. And horse's armor, perhaps. Sure.

And the guy would be like, well, here you go. I'm a knight, so you're a knight, too. And you just beat me in the joust. Here's my stuff. And the guy who was taking it would say, you know, I have a really good idea. I've got some extra armor I'm never going to use here. I need to unload. You are virtually naked.

Well, let me just sell it back to you. But that's my armor. And it'd be like, yes, pal, you have to buy it back because I'll kill you if you don't. Yeah. But so if you did that a few times, you just made a bunch of money in one tournament. Unless you're losing. You could also lose your fortune if you were a bad jouster. Sure.

I would try to improve my jousting skills for sure. You could also lose your life if you were King Henry II of France. Yeah, he died, but he got a spear through the little visor, right? Like right through the eye hole. Yeah. And during a joust, Josh, it's hard to say, you would charge each other on a horse, obviously. You've probably seen this before with your joust out.

What I did not know is what you're trying to do. I always thought you were just trying to knock them off. You're trying to break your lance on their body. Well, you won if you knocked them off, but you could also win through points by breaking a lance or just even making contact. But I'm under the impression you got more points if you broke your lance. Well, and you get more points according to which body part you break it on. Like if you break it on a dude's head, I would say that's probably more points.

Yes. Although back then, maybe that was in poor form. Maybe it was penalized, who knows. I don't know. This is a culture where, again, the martial arts consist of beating other people to death with blunt instruments. And you were talking about making a ton of money. There was a famous knight called Ulrich von Liechtenstein.

And he's the one who Heath Ledger's character imposters. Pretended to be? Yes. Yes. In that movie. And he's a legendary knight who apparently was pretty good at jousting. He actually wrote an autobiography. Really?

Yeah. It's in the source. In Middle English? Yeah. That must have been a fun read. I think it's translated into late English. Old English with an E-800. Oldie?

Yeah. Emily's parents used to live in one of those neighborhoods where it's all, you know, old English. Nottingham Forest. Yeah. Or Wood Forest. Their street was Crown Point, but we called it Crowny Pointy because it was obviously at ease. Yeah.

And I always call Avondale Estates. Ye Olde, Avondale Estates. Yeah. Did you know there is no word ye. The Y-E is still pronounced the. Really? Yeah. So when I say ye old, I'm just a moron.

There's no such thing. Wow. Yeah. And ye old moron. But again, Chuck, I think one of the things that we've done with this show is prove that if you can get your point across, that's correct. Oh, okay. Gotcha.

Let's talk about armor. Okay. Chainmail. Well, first they had leather. Yeah, which is barbed from the Romans. Yes. And leather was pretty good for like a sword swipe. Yeah.

It protected against cutting blows. Yeah. But if you were going to be run through, you're in trouble. Exactly. And the same with chainmail. Chainmail was good and would protect you even more from a slice, but still a big joust or a or a lance jousting you, puncturing you, a big sword, your chainmail's probably not going to work out that well either.

And it says in this article that that was also barbed from the Romans. Untrue. Chainmail was developed by Celts in Eastern Europe as far back as the third century. Does it say that in here? No. Okay. And then if you had some serious dough, you would get the plate armor, which if you've ever seen like the knight standing in the corner, not the real knight.

The suit of armor. Yeah, the suit of armor. That's exactly what it is. They protected you a lot more from a puncture wound, but still wasn't a hundred percent. And where you're really vulnerable was in the gussets. Where like in your armpits in the places where your joints would meet. Yeah. Where you had chainmail underneath.

Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you. They were chainmail and the plated armor. So does that equal what a modern-day soldier would wear? I read that chainmail and platemail weighed about the same, 40 to 50 pounds. So then I guess if you were wearing both would be 80 to 100 pounds of armor. Right. Yeah.

And apparently they could move around pretty, pretty well in these. It's not like in the funny movies when you see them like on the ground riding about because they can't get up. Right. Apparently you can move okay. Not like if you were wearing nothing at all, because that's when you can really move when you're naked. Right.

But you could get up off the ground. You could mount a horse, but that doesn't do anything if you've got a gun pointing at you, does it? No, it doesn't. And actually, I can't remember the show, but it's one of the shows where one ancient warrior battles another ancient warrior. Yeah. And things called battles of the ancient warriors.

Something like, there's like five of them in there. Yeah, there's a few. There was, I saw a pirate versus knight. Right. I would say a knight would win. No. Oh, because they had gunpowder. Yes.

That's exactly right. If that pirate had just had his sword, he would have been totally screwed. But he had gunpowder. Yeah. And this is a really good point that gunpowder made knight's obsolete. Sure. Actually, by the way, in the pirate versus knight battle, at the end the pirate gets the knight down, pulls his visor up and shoots him in the face and that's that.

Yeah, it's really graphic. Did they reenact these? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, they battle. I gotta see that. But the gunpowder brought about the end of the military martial knights. Yeah.

Because number one, there was no more, like you couldn't make armor that was going to defend against firearms. Right. And that was a huge hallmark, a characteristic of a knight, the ability to wear armor and fight on a horse. Not everybody could do that. Right. And that same specialization became obsolete by gunpowder because I can just shoot you

with a gun. Right. You go ahead and study for 14 years your little sword play and protect the wine and I'll just shoot you in the face because I'm a pirate. Sure. So that was the end of knighthood. Much the same way that firearms brought about the end of the samurai in Japan as well. They were just sort of like Asian knights in a way.

Yes. Yes. Chuck. Yes, George. You want to talk about a few orders of knights? Knight's Templar. Do you know how many emails we would get if we just hadn't talked about the knight's Templar?

I'm so sick of the knight's Templar. I am too. This whole Dan Brown stuff. I know. Yes, there was a whole group of knights and they were associated with the devil but they actually have like this plundered, this treasure. Yeah. I hate it.

It's so played out. So that's the knight's Templar. There was also the knight's hospitalers and also called the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital and they cared for the sick pilgrims which is what they do today. Right and the Templar and the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital both and Teutonic Knights all developed to protect pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land during the Crusades. Remember we said the Crusades really shape knights. Yeah.

Order of the Garter. Yeah. King Edward III of England established this in the 1300s and they were an elite group of knights that are still around today and their royalty and appointed by the sovereign of Great Britain. Yes and originally there were women in the Order of the Garter and that went away for many centuries and then in 1987 Queen Elizabeth said we're going to get the gals back in this. Bring in the ladies. Exactly and Order of the Garter weren't the only female knights, right?

Yeah, what was the other one? There was a bunch from let's see 1358 to 1488 there were women in the Order of the Garter in the Order of the Star of India. That was another order of knights. Yeah, we talked about that in the Masons didn't we? No, that's the Order of the Eastern Star. God, I don't get this confused. Well, they're pretty close.

In 1861 a woman with one of the coolest names of all time, Nawab Bagham. It sounds like Barbara Walters is pronouncing it. Yeah. Nawab Bagham was inducted in 1861. Order of the Hatchet? Yes. Sounded like it sounds like probably the meanest female knights would be the Order of the Hatchet. Yes.

And they protected the they defended the Spanish town of Tortosa from the Moors. And so they said, you know what, you did a pretty good job. We're going to make you the Order of the Hatchet. And unfortunately that original group was the only Order of the Hatchet. They didn't survive beyond that. And then the Order of St. John's of the Hospital also had female knights known as nuns. Warrior nuns. Warrior nuns.

You don't see that in the movies. And then there wasn't a lot going on with knights for a couple of centuries until a little guy with stubby fingers stopped doing cocaine and straightened up his life. A man named Elton John was knighted in 1998, right? As we like to say here in Atlanta, some time Atlanta resident or part time Atlanta resident. Right. Boy, when he moved here that just Southerners loved that. That was huge.

Yeah. Elton John. He's the toast of the town, isn't he? He still is. I never see him around. I don't know. Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bono. Are we calling him Bono?

Was that not his name? I thought it was Bono. Is it? One of the two. Just kidding. Bono is, I think what's his real name? Paul Hewson, I think. I think that's right.

Is it? I think so. I don't think they called him Sir Bono. I never even imagined him with a real name. Yeah, I think Paul. Bono Vox was what he was. It's a full name and it means good voice. Oh, okay.

Yeah. He was a little full of himself back when he was a kid in Ireland. In Ireland. And the edge, what's his name? Tommy Edge. He has a real name too. He wasn't born the edge. He was married as the edge though.

Was he really? Yeah, I remember when he got married. I don't know if like in the ceremony, but in all of the spread, it was like the edge and Mrs. Edge. I think his name's Dave something, but I wonder if those guys ever feel silly now. It's Dave Couillet, that's his name. I wonder if they ever feel silly if Edge ever goes. I don't know, being like 60 and being called the edge. I thought of that when I was 18, it was kind of cool back then.

That would be the equivalent of those stupid Jersey Shore kids. Jersey Shore kids with all their dumb names. Yeah, I can't believe that they're, I can't believe the Jersey Shore. I've never seen it. I can't believe that in 2010, the Jersey Shore is one of the most popular shows on television. I've never seen it. I refuse. Just take like a minute and watch a clip on YouTube.

You'll get everything you need to know. They won't be knighted anytime soon. And who else? Well, you get, if you're a female knight, you're a dame. Yeah, like Dame Judy Dench. Yep. You want to hear some more? Sure.

Surprising ones? Oh, yeah. Steven Spielberg? Really? Bill Gates? Scotty Pippen? No. No.

He's an honorary member of the Eastern Star. Okay. Bill Gates, Ted Kennedy, got one right before he died. Right. Rudy Giuliani. Really? Who, by the way, I learned has a Blackwater-esque security company now. That's how he's making his money.

Called Rudy's Gang? They're fighting the drug war down in Mexico. Really? Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize that, but yeah. Pele, Colin Powell. Really?

Robert Mugabe. Really? The president of Zimbabwe, whose knighthood was rescinded in 2008. What for? Just being a horrible dictator. Yeah, sure. And then Mussolini was also a knight starting in 1923, and his was rescinded in 1940. And then Bob Hope.

Yeah, that makes sense. Honorary knight. Wow. Wow. So we could actually be knights. I thought you had to be, you know, not from the, not American. If you're American, you can be knighted, but you're not titled Sir. So it wasn't Sir Bob Hope? No.

Just Bob. It's, yeah, Bob. Gotcha. Just Bob. Or the edge. That's what he wanted anyway. Chuck, this was a long one. Do we have any listener mail, anything like that?

Let's do a quick announcement for our trivia event, and then we have a few Facebook questions. Okay. Well, I guess let's get the trivia announcement event. Go ahead. Music started. Chuck, on October 13, 2010, A.D., there will be an event unlike any other, except for one that we held in New York in June. This is the quick version. Well, October 13th, 6 p.m. doors open.

We finally have a time, dude. Yeah, it was like we'd surmised. At five seasons brewery, we're having our trivia event. West side. Doors open at six. West side. Yes. Where, what, Marietta and Howell Mill.

Sort of near there, for sure. It's like right there. That was it. From 6, 6 p.m., the doors open. 7 p.m., we're starting trivia. John Hodgman, the editor of the Onion Joe Randazzo and the creator of Aquatine Hunger Force. Dave Willis will all be playing with us, playing Triv with us. Yeah.

That's going to be awesome. Anybody who wants to come can play. I believe Scout Mob, right? They're going to have like some sort of coupon or like half off drink something. Yeah, they've jumped on the bandwagon here and we're promoting each other. And that's going down. October 13th, the night before, at the Drunken Unicorn on Ponce the Daily on Avenue, the kind of unofficial house band for stuff you should know that Henry Clay people will be playing.

Starting at what time? It's a later show. I would get there by like, you know, nine. They probably won't go on about 11. Hopefully John and Joe will be there too. Hopefully. We can't promise that. Two huge days in the Southeast.

October 12th, Tuesday, Henry Clay people. October 13th, a Wednesday, our Triv event. Thursday, who knows? We'll all be in Guadalajara by then. I just saw the guys too this past weekend. Cool. They came through town not playing a gig, but we cooked out and played music. And it was awesome.

It was awesome. It was a good time. Did you use your guitar picks? No, I didn't. Actually, I just kind of watched while they played. How many keys can we get to? I don't know. I didn't know what we were doing.

This is Facebook stuff. So we have a Facebook page, facebook.com slash stuff you should know, by the way. Yes, please like it because that is good for us around here. Yeah. We get a penny for every person that likes us. I was going to say Nicole. Daniel S says, why doesn't Jerry ever talk? Daniel, Jerry talks all the time.

You have no idea. Endlessly. She just doesn't do it on the show. Aaron Hagen says, do you and Emily ever hang out together? Yes, they do when Chuck and I hang out together. But we have forbade them from seeing each other unless we're present. We don't want them talking or coming up with anything to use against us, right? Emily loves Yumi.

Well, Yumi loves Emily. Really? Yeah. That's good. Like you would tell me. Actually, she thinks Emily's a real jerk. Yeah. Yumi can't stand Emily.

Katina Franklin, sweetie says, what was your best Halloween costume ever? I was a Harry Krishna one year and that went over pretty well. I like shaved my head and had the ponytail and a little tambourine and literature and everything. Real literature? Did you get your hands on some Harry Christian literature? No, I just printed some out. What about you? When I was in elementary school, my mom made an upside down clown costume.

So for my shoulders where the legs sticking out, in between my legs, my actual legs was the head. And then it looked like a clown walking on his hands. It was pretty awesome, actually. That is awesome. Kristen Keeler says, you cover a lot of topics that are outside your area of expertise. What do you personally know a lot about? I know a lot about music and movies and filmmaking and camping and hiking and personal defense systems. Excellent.

What about you? I didn't hear the question I was reading the next one. What do you know a lot about personally, expertise-wise? Oh, weird. You know a lot about politics. I guess, but I mean, how's that? What do you know a lot about? Expertise.

What am I an expert in? I guess, throwing stars. Okay. It's about it. Throwing stars. The Joe Moore says, I saw Pavement last night in Central Park. It was truly memorable. Guys, what is your best concert experience ever?

Look at a top five. Wow. Public Enemy in 1991 at the Masquerade. Nice. Unbelievable cross-cultural experience. The London Philharmonic did Beethoven's Night at Carnegie Hall. Okay. The Full Choir with Ode to Joy.

Wow. Unbelievable. Two Lollapalooza experiences. The first one with Jane's Addiction. Oh, yeah. That was immense. Yeah. And then the second one, the Beastie Poise was just out of control.

It was so good. Yeah. Bonnie Prince Billy last year, which I know you hate. Yeah. And Leave on Helm. I saw Leave on Helm last year and it was just classic. He's the, was the drummer and part-time singer for the band. My favorite group.

Oh, the band, the band. Yeah. I got you. What about you? What's your favorite? Best stage show I ever saw in my entire life was Peter Gabriel. Oh, I bet. In the, I guess, early 90s.

God, that would have been good. I guess all around best show I ever saw would have been Alternate down in Florida when I was a little rave kid. Uh-huh. And then, let's see, there has to be at least one other. Did you have a pacifier? Yes. It had Mickey Mouse on it.

Oh, God. Yeah, I was definitely one of those rave kids. I was so glad I'm just old enough to have been too old for the rave culture. Yeah. Yeah, you just missed it. I saw the big leg jeans and the pacifiers and just didn't get it. Oh, and probably my first concert ever, Hall & Oats, with Till Tuesday opening for them. Poor Till Tuesday got boot off stage.

Really? Yeah. But Hall & Oats came out and they were backed by G.E. Smith and the starting out live band, including the guy who wears like the floor-length mink coats and plays the sax. Yeah. Like, they were the band and they played everything. So that was a good one too. I was like, hey, I like concerts.

I'm going to start going to them. Yeah, Amy Mann is still terrific. Sure. And she's buddies with Paul Tompkins. I did not know that. I believe so. Awesome. The part of the whole Largo scene.

Is there anything else? You got anything else? Nah. Nah? Nah. All right, that's it. That's it. If you want to ask us a question, Chuck asks for them intermittently on Facebook.

That's facebook.com slash stuff you should know. Or you can just send us a plain old fashioned email at StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

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