How Knights Work

And now it's standing. Sorry, our colloquialism just cause problems sometimes on then Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I'm good. You've done vomiting four hours, dude? Yeah, like, I'm like to the minute almost. I'm glad. This table is what keeps us as far apart as I couldn't. I don't think I could projectile over here. Oh I thought you might 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. Um. I don't remember his name, so it's kind of stupid, right, Um. I searched news for nights and I found that in Crest View, Florida, the Nights overpowered the Hobos and volleyball. Yeah, but it's made for a pretty good title, Nights overpower Hobos. Um,

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 titles a musician or actor. This is well, I guess there's other people, but they got the press. Yeah, definitely. Um. So there's not a lot going on with nights. But I can tell you something. If this were or fourteenth century, we wouldn't be recording a podcast, no, but we would.

There'd be news about nights all over the place, everywhere they Yeah, 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 take it? Chuck, oh Josh, I'm gonna 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 as far as nights are concerned. Uh, we're

talking about Western Europe. After the fall the Roman Empire. It was sort of a sort of a lawless mess. It was chaos of an area, no defined countries, no defined governments, no laws that anyone was you know, abiding by. People were still managing in existence. It was just often threatened by violence. Yeah, like if I see something that I want, I would take it by force, including your dog. Those are the good old days, or that keg of beer. Right. Uh. 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. I might want to impose some sort of restriction or a body to kind of rule or take care of things. Perhaps the geopolitical system. Yeah, without it being a government. Well, it was a government. It's a form of government. It's also a form of economics to feudalism, right, yeah, feudalism. Right. So Charlotte is

um here or Charlemagne Charlomi is m Charlot. That was the original name and then he's like, oh, that's just too vain. Let's call it um. Charlemagne was a Frankish king, right and he um, 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 uh. And he since he lacked the central government, he said, hey, you're a buddy of mine, you're an ally. I trust you. You're dead

and I fought in the war together. Um, here's some land. It's yours, but you owe me big time for that land. And this is the basis of feudalism. One person dolls outland, the king, the ruler dolls outland to the secondary ruling class, nobility, and that's their land, and in return they pay for the land through military service generally protection basically. And then one rung down below nobility is the surf or or peasant class, and they're attached to the land. They're essentially slaves.

They got the short end of the stick, they definitely did. So. Um, they pay for their land that the nobilities doled out to them. So it's subdivided even further by giving their the nobleman that they serve or vassal I believe they're also called um 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, right, And uh, the funderalism worked because Charlemagne is what He's able to keep all of this land by giving it to his friends, the fists, who are going to yeah that's the land, right, who are going to protect it

against foreign invaders because it's theirs, but really it's Charlottaagne's. Well, yeah, and then the vassals, the knights, they wanted to protect the serfs because they wanted to you know, the the knights made most of their dough from what I could see by their land ownership and farming, and we'll get into 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, because you had to. You you paid for your land through military was 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 um, the middle class and common the commons, common land.

It just did away with it. Because Charlotte Magne was like, this is mine 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 um led to basically trading freedom for protection, which is the basis of government today. Think about it. So the Nights were born out of that, right, Chuck, Yes, sir, pretty much. Um. 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 um was bestowed, it was passed down through the family lawn, and they

just decided to do that. There was no over any part of feudalism where it's like, well we're going to set it up like this kind of evolved so a landowner could pass it to his oldest son, but he may have more than one son, and the other sons like I want to be rich too, so I'm gonna go become a night, Yes, exactly right, and nights were not. Uh, you weren't born into knighthood. You were born into being ultimately a a page and then later on a squire.

But you had to earn your knighthood for right. Yeah. Um yeah, if you if your dad was a night, you were automatically a page. But poor people could also conceivably become pages themselves, right, Yes, apparently I didn't even see A Night's Tale. You didn't know, did you. It was this weird anachronism years and everything, and it was it was weird, but it was pretty cool movie. Paul Bettany was in it. Um, I like that some other

guy who you'd recognize who was Steve the Pirate um Dodgeball. Yeah, I know that guy, he was in it, and then this other dude and then that another guy. Yeah, and that girl r I p Heath Ledger by the way. Oh yeah, really that's a big one. Uh. So, like we said, you were, you're automatically a page and basically up until the age of about seven, you were just sort of doated on by the women at the castle

taking care of 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 um, sort of the beginnings of being taught how to fight. You were schooled by the monks. Uh in you know school does in reading and writing, not they schooled you, although they may have done that, dude. Sure and uh that's basically where they got their 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. Um, and that was about age seven. So that's where the word night comes from. It's an old Anglo Saxon word nicked, I believe for boy you didn't know how to pronounce. There's a lot of letters in it's being said C N I H T knit yes, weird Nit that's chaucer. Sure,

um and also chuck. I found out in researching this article that the German word for night is writtter, which is literally writer. So the name of the TV show night Writer was redundant interesting writer writer or night night and the Germans love Hasselhoff. It all makes sense, that's crazy, alright. 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 fourteen, he was eligible to become an esquire or squire, 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 fourteen years of of work, or I get the feeling. From from page to squire was a little more learning, but then from squire to night was

when the rubber meets the road. Yes it was not Rubbert or Rhodes, but you know what I mean, there were trails, trails. That's where the hoof met the trail. How's that? So they became a squire at fourteen, and that's um. They had a little ceremony, a religious ceremony where you get your sword, which is pretty big deal at the time, I'm sure, Um, and you basically become a houseboy there. 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 him 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 boy and that was the personal servant. I get the feeling. They were probably probably the most trusted uh squire of the chamber. And they attended to the rooms. That was sort of like I guess the maid. That's that's the worst squire job. 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 seller. They'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 the good stuff that knights loved to eat. Uh Squire the arms, of course, maintained the armament and the swords and all that kind of stuff in the Squire of Honor assisted the Lord and ceremonies and feasts. 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 fire of the wines, Squire

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 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 kind or if they had an omelet station, I'd like to do that, the squire of the omelet stage.

Nice chuck so um. From hanging out with the at these feasts and carving the roast beef and making the omelets and tending the wine that the the squire was also being indoctrinated into um, a higher lifestyle, learn how to how to carry himself in in in situations like feasts and um 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 as you know, lofty as it seems I would imagine. No,

it's been um night who it? I guess we should probably say has been romanticized almost entirely through literature that big time actually originated in the thirteenth century, I believe it, like Whillace is going on, they started to romanticize kind of like Billy the Kids stories that were read by the youngsters and east in the nineteenth century, the little serial books. Alright, so what you're doing is you're you're learning all these things, like you said, learning how to

be a bad person. Actually that's not true. Do you don't want to offend the knights in the nights? Elton John will have your head. But they also learned they started to do a little bit more training in the martial arts of of night dum um, like how to handle and ride horses? How does 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 um and I looked this up, chuck um chainmail and plainmail weighed about the same pounds, which seems like a lot, but it's about half of what the average foot soldier in the U. S. Army today carries. An average rifleman carries about nine pounds of gear. Yeah, but did the Knights carry stuff in addition to just know

they had squires? Another another duty of the squire was when the night went into battle um or tournament, he right, but in battle specifically he went with him, and if the night fell, he was expected to to basically aid and protect the night as he got up. And actually, we should just since you mentioned that, we should go ahead and point out that you could become an instant night on the battlefield. And I get the impression that if you saved your night's bacon, you might have a

good chance of just being knighted right there on the battlefield. Right, A night was bestowed with the the ability to invest

knighthood into a squire under circumstances like that. But for the most part they followed a um a process right where once you turned about twenty one, if you'd proven yourself a decent square fire, if you weren't just completely you know, fat from being inspired the panther, your your liver given out from being the squire of the wine right right, Um, you could become a night right and usually this took place during an event like a larger

event like the Christmas or Easter feast. Yeah, a nobleman's wedding or festival or something like that. Yeah, and you could be bestowed knighthood by other nights, kings, nobles, clergy. And I get the impression that the most favorite way if your father was a knight, he might do the 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 tap on the shoulder. So this the the squire would would sit up for a

night praying right and Um. When he was finally knighted, he would take an oath that usually included several points right. Um. Defending a lady, it's a big one, speaking only the truth. Um. Being loyal to his lord. That's a huge part of the feudal system. Um. Being devoted to the church. That was also that came to be a huge part of

being a night with the crusades. Yeah, Um, defending the poor, being charitable, defending the helpless, being brave, and then getting more specific rules to at least cracked me up a little bit, like um, fighting only one person at a time, never avoiding a dangerous path out of fear. See, I would have failed that one. It would have been like, that path looks a lot safer to me, so let's go that way. That seems like a smart thing to do,

not a cowardly thing. Right. That's just me. But if you, if you framed it like that, you could be like, well, I didn't avoid that path out of fear. I avoided it because out of intelligence, Yes, exactly. Um. Never taking off your armor during a quest except to sleep, I would that'd 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. But then the guy who does next to you takes an arrow in his back and you're like, man, I'm glad I kept my armor on while you're beating someone in with the war hammer. That's what you're thinking. Um. 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 night took was to um.

Upon returning from a quest or a journey, or a battle or something, he would entertain his the person he was um conscripted to with with his stories. See, i'd be great at that part. You definitely would. We should. I just I'd just be like, I don't feel like doing this, so I'm gonna I'm not gonna do this. We should call this one why Chuck and Josh would be horrible nights? I think you'd be a good night. Oh really sure, I'd be a good uh pantry tender. And that's about it? What was it? What was the

last one? There? The one that uh, if he was taking 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, See, that's why i'd be a bad night. Check. Revenge makes the world go around you. 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 you kind of hop on a horse. I imagine this to be like, um, you know, some like hormoned up kid. It's like, yeah, man, watch this, and it's like starts beating up on like other little kids who

are still squires, you know that in front of everybody. Yeah, except now he's got a real sword. Um. And also, chuck, we should say those oaths that the night took yeah, um basically made up the code of Chivalry, which was established um basically because knights were the only ones who were armed, who were capable of, um, you know, battling on horseback and could just completely reek havoc any anywhere they wanted to. So the code of chivalry, especially defending

the poor in the week. They didn't kill the poor in the week, right, or take their stuff or whatever. So this code of Chivalry was intended to keep these um, 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, which it comes from the French were josh chevalry, which means chivalry. 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. Um, a lot of commonalities between these two. Actually they Yeah, they both went the way of the dinosaur because of gunpowder, which we'll get to. Um, there's a spoiler, but you can you can also you can make the case that, um, the fall of the Roman Empire, feudalism, and the invention of the stirrup all allowed knighthood to develop.

The stirrup showed up in the eighth century, and it allowed stability while you're staying on a horse and lancing somebody. Well, and 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, if you could fight somebody on a horse, you were a knight. Before all of this tradition was dressed alongside of knighthood, the mounted soldiers. Essentially what a knight was should we

talk about weapons? Well, yeah, I just mentioned the lance, right. Yeah. The lance was basically like a spear earlier on, and then later on it developed the the handguard, the in a metal tip on the end of it, and that was you know, if you were on a mounted horse, you wanted something long so you could engage in battle without getting down from the horse. Then they had their sword double edged carbon Uh what kind of carbon steel? Yeah, but usually light on the carbon steel. Light on the

carbon steel, heavy on the ketchup. Uh. And they had the cross guard, hilt and the pommel, which you know you've all seen excalibirds, that classic looking sword, very large, I would imagine, pretty heavy. I never picked one up, and they you know, depending on how much money you had determined how fancy your sword was. Yeah, it could have like a prayer inscribed to nature or your name. Yeah, found returned to Josh Clark. Can't you see it? Like

pinned to like your your plate mail, your gauntlet. Um and and uh so the sword in the lance where 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 out the war hammer on Google Images. Yeah, so it's like they're not as big. It's not like Thor's war hammer. It's like a tack hammer with the um pointed like the rounded curve pointed end on one side and then a hammer

on the other. And I just imagine like some guy in in some sort of male just beating somebody's head in with this. I doubt if it was pretty That's what the European martial arts amounted to, Like death through blunt instruments, Yeah, pretty much. Um, they had access which also could slice you up. And the mace the metal Uh, it wouldn't then mace the metal ball on the end of the chain. That's I think a mace isn't on

a chain. Morning star is on the chain. If if my paladin training serves me, I think the morning Star is on the chain. Mace is a pointed ball, just stick stick. They thought that. They did think though that. Um, although they did use archers in war, the Knights kind of a lot of them thought that was a little bit coward leadership. Something from a distance. Yeah, because there was no hand in hand combat. Yeah, like get down

here and find me like a man. Exactly one at a time, one at a time, and that's about it. On the weapons front. Uh. 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 you were because you own land, and I don't think it was necessarily because you're a night, but because you own land, you dispense justice locally, right, right, somebody stole someone's dog, you'd be like, I'm gonna cut this dog in half and you can both have it. And the true owner would be like, no, no, don't cut the dog in half. He can have the whole dog, and you'd be like, it's your dog. Was justice, right, yeah, and then you just beat the other guy's head in

with the warhammer. You could pack heat and church. You were allowed to carry your sword to church. Apparently not everyone could do that. No, you would get a seat at the high table at feasts 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. Um, chuck,

let's talk about wartime for a second. One of the things that shaped the European nights where the crusades, Right, I don't know a ton about the crusades, but we're gonna do probably a full podcast on that at some point, I agree, But just just very briefly, the first crusade took place in ten ninety six, and it was based on a sermon by the Pope in that basically said, the Muslims have Jerusalem and we need to go get it back. And I think the Europeans are considered to

have one or been successful in the first crusade. And then the Muslims over overran Jerusalem again. Uh, in their in their view, took it back because it was an equally holy land, right. Um. After that, so for the next two years, there were crusades, crusades, crusades, I think they were. There were several, yes, right, it's more than two, there definitely, And um. Over time, orders of knights developed

out of these crusades. Uh. And they also this is this is the time when religiousness was attached to knighthood, so sweating an oath to the church, um, 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. This they were pious. They

were defending your freedom, exactly, defending God. So the So if I think the stirrup, feudalism and the Crusades are what really shaped knighthood in in Europe, I would say, isn't it crazy how Christians and Muslims all this time, all this time had been going at each other. I don't think that changed any times. So that's why we have to do one on crustates. Yeah, Joshulet'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, you know. In fact, the only time. The thing I know about him is from the Cable Guy movie same here. Actually, yeah, Genny Garfolo is the the waitress, the medieval waitress. I don't remember that. She

was really funny. She had 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. It sounds familiar, that's because you've seen the movie. Uh. During peace time, Josh 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 there's some knights being in the tar out of each other in the castle keep. Yeah, that's huge, and 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 eight hundred times. Just go ahead and die. I mentioned Malee's two you're an ancient human being. Have you ever seen um the Mr Show little clip where

it's like m questions, questions, questions. Modern man can think of three questions instead 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 would gather out in the middle of the keep, and sort of reenact what

a real battle would be like. And judge or Marshall would say let it begin, and you would start fight each other one at a time until that was only one of you left standing, right, And that's why it was popular blood sport. Sure, and these things were for for spectators. You could also make some cash off of them if you won, especially in the joust. If you want to joust, you got the other guy's armor extremely expensive and horse extremely horses armor, perhaps, sure, and um,

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 unless you are virtually naked. Let me just sell it back to you. But that's my armor. And it'd be like t s hell, you have to buy it back because I'll kill you if

you don't. But so if you did that a few times, you just made a bunch of money in one tournament. Unless you're losing. You can also lose your fortune if you're a bad jouster, I would be I would try to improve my jousting skills. For sure. You could also lose your life if you were King Henry the Second of France. Yeah he died, but he got a spear through the little visor right like right through the eyehole 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 him off, but you they You could also win through points by breaking a lance or just even making contact. But I'm under the impression you've

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. Although back then maybe that was in poor formed, maybe that was penalty penalized. Who notes, I don't know. This is a culture where again the more scial arts are consist of beating other people. A death of blunt instruments and you were talking about making a ton of money. That

was a famous night called Ulrich von Liechtenstein. And he's the one who Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger's character im Posts 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 eight oldie. Yeah. Emily's parents used to live on in one of those neighborhoods where it's all you know, the English, Nottingham Force. Their street was Crown Point, but we called it Crowny Point because it was obviously at ease. And I always call evandale Estates e oldie avandala Estates. Did you know there is no word ye the y e still pronounced the really, so when I

say ye old, I'm just did moron. There's no such thing. Yeah, but again, Chuck, I think one of the things that we've done with this show is proved that if you can get your point across, that's correct. Okay, gotcha, let's talk about armor. Okay, chain mail, Well, first it 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, but if you were going to be

running through, you're in trouble exactly. And the same with chainmail. Chainmail was was good and would protect you even more from a slice, but still a big joust or a or atlance jousting you puncturing you a big sword, your your chain mail probably not gonna work out that well either. And it says in this article that that was also barbed from the Romans. Untrue. Chain mail was developed by Celts in Eastern Europe as far back as the third time tree. Does it say that in here? No? Okay? Uh?

And then if you had some serious dough you would get the plate armor, which uh, if you've ever seen like the nights standing in the corner, not the real Yeah, the suit of armor, that's exactly what it is. Um. They protected you a lot more from a puncture wound, but still wasn't And where you're really vulnerable was in the gussets where like in your armpits and the places where your joints would meet where you had chainmail underneath. That's what I was gonna ask you. They were chainmail

and the plated armor. So does that equal what a modern day soldier would I read that chainmail and plate mail weighed about the same fortounds, So then I guess if you were wearing both a be eighty to a hundred pounds of armor. Right. 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 writing about because they can't get up. 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 got a gun pointing out you, does it? No, it doesn't. And actually, um, I can't remember the show, but it's one of the shows where one ancient warrior battles another ancient warrior and it was called Battles of

the Ancient Warriors something. There's like five of them in there. Yeah, there's a few. Um there there was I saw a pirate versus Night right, I would say a night would win 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. And this is

a really good point that um, gunpowder made Night's obsolete. Actually, and by the way, in the Pirate versus Night battle at the end, the pirate gets the Night down, pulls his visor up and shoots him in the faces. It's really graphic. Did they reenact these Yeah, yeah, they battle. I got to see that. Um. But the the gunpowder brought about the end of the military martial knights because number one, there was no more like you couldn't make armor that was that was going to defend against firearms.

And that was a huge hallmark of characteristic of a night the ability to wear armor and fight on a horse. Not everybody could do that, And that same specialization became obsolete by gunpowder because I can just shoot you with the gun. You go ahead and study for fourteen years your little sword, play and protect the wine, and I'll just shoot you in the face because I'm a pirate. 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 Nights in a way. Yes, yes, uh, chuck, yes, you want to talk about a few orders of Nights Nights Templar. Do you know how many emails we would get if we just hadn't talked about the Knights Templar. I'm so sick of the Knights Templar. I am too, this whole Dan Brown stuff. Yes, there was a whole group of Knights, and they were associated with the devil, but they actually have like this plundered this treasure. I

hate it, it's so played out. So that's the Knights Templar. That was also of the Knights Hospitallers and uh also called the Knights of St John of the Hospital, and they cared for the sick pilgrims, which is what they do today right in the Templar and the Knights of St John of the Hospital Um 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 shaped Nights Um Order of the Garter. Yeah. King Edward the Third of England established this and the hundreds, and they were an elite group of knights that are still around today and their royalty and a point by the Sovereign of Great Britain. Yes, And originally there were um women in the Order of the Garter. Uh. And that went away for many centuries, and then in seven Queen Elizabeth said we're gonna get the gals back in

this exactly. And um Order of the Garter weren't the only female knights, right, Yeah, what was the other one? There was a bunch um from let's see thirty fourteen there were women in the Order of the Garter. Um, in the Order of the Star of India. There was another order of knights, didn't we Oh no, that's the

Order of the Eastern Star. God do we get those confused? Um, well, they're pretty close the In eighteen sixty one, a woman with one of the coolest names of all time, nawab Begam It sounds like Barbara Walters is pronouncing nawab Begham, was inducted in eighteen sixty one. Um Order of the Hatchet. Yes, sounded like it sounds like probably the meanest female knights to be the Order of the Hatchet. And they protected the h They defended the Spanish down with Tortosa from

the moors. And so they said, you know what, you did a pretty good job. We're gonna 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, um, 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 as we like to say here in Atlanta. Sometime Atlanta resident or part time Atlanta resident. Boy when he moved here. That just Southerners. Yeah, he's the toast of the town, wouldn't he still? I'd never see him around? I don't know, Uh, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bono? Are we calling him Bono? Is that not his name? I thought it was Bono? Is it one of the two. I'm just kidding. Bono is is

I think what's his real name, Paul Houston. I think I think that's right, is it? I think so. I don't think they called him imagined him within a real name, Yeah, named Paul Bono. Vox was what he was his a full name and it means a good voice. Yeah, he's a little full of himself back when he was a kid in Ireland. In Ireland. Uh and um, the Edge, what's his name, Tommy Edge? He has, he has a real name to He wasn't born in the Edge. He was married as the Edge though. 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 is Dave something. But I wonder if those guys ever felt silly now it's um Dave Coolier that's his name, is it. I wonder if they ever feel silly like sixty called the Edge and Edge. I thought of that when I was eighteen. It was kind of cool back then. That would be the equivalent of those stupid Jersey Shore kids with all

their dumb names. Yeah, I can't believe that there. I can't believe the Jersey Shore can't believe that in two thousand ten, The Jersey Shore is one of the most popular shows on television. I've never seen it. Just just take like a minute and really watch a clip on YouTube. You'll get everything you need to know. They won't be night at anytime soon. Uh? And who else? Well you get if you're a female n you're a dame, Yeah, like Dame Judy Dench. You want to hear some more

surprising ones? Oh yeah, Steven Spielberg really, Bill Gates, Scottie Pippen, No, no, he's he's an honorary member of the Eastern Star Bill Gates. Ted Kennedy got one right before he died. Rudy Giuliani really who? By the way, I learned UM has a Blackwater esque security company. Now that's how he's making his money. They're fighting the drug war down in Mexico. Yeah. Wow, I didn't realize that, but yeah, Pale Colin Powell really.

Robert Mugabe, the president Zimbabwe whose knighthood was rescinded in two thousand eight just being a horrible dictator. Um. And then Mussolini was also a night starting in n and his rescinded in ninety and then Bob Hope. Yeah, that makes sense. Honorary night. Wow, so we could actually be nights. I thought you had to be uh, you know, not from the not American. If you're American, you can be knighted. But you're not titled sir h So when it wasn't sir Bob Hope, No, just Bob, It's yeah Bob, just

Bob or what he wanted. Anyway, Chuck, this is a long one. Do we have any listener mail anything like that? Uh, let's do a quick announcement for our trivia event, and then we have a few Facebook questions. Well, um, I guess let's get the trivia announcement. Music started mm hmm Chuck. On October two thousand ten, eight d there will be an event unlike any other except for one that we held in New York in June. This is a quick version.

October six pm, doors open. We finally have a time, dude. Yeah, it was likely surmised at five Seasons Brewery. We're having our trivia event. Doors opened at six West Side. Yes, where what Mariette and Howell Mill. It's like right there. Um from six six pm. The doors opened seven pm. We're starting trivia John Hodgeman, UM, the editor of The Onion, Joe Randazzo and the creator of Aquitine Hunger Force day willis we'll all be playing with us, playing trip with us. Yeah. Uh,

that's gonna be awesome. Anybody who wants to come can play. I believe um scout mob right, They're going to have like some sort of coupon or like half off drink something they can get jumped on the bandwagon here and there. We're promoting each other. And that's going down October the night before at the Drunken Unicorn on Punts the Daily on Avenue UM 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 it's a later show. UM. I would get there by like you know, nine. They probably won't gone about eleven, so hopefully John and Joe will be there too. Hopefully we can't promise that. Two huge days in the Southeast October twelve Tuesday, Henry Clay People, October Wednesday, our trip of It Thursday. Who knows, will all be in Guadalajara by then. I just saw the guys too this past weekend. Cool it came through town, not playing a gig, but we cooked out and played

music and it's all that was awesome. It's good time. Did you use your guitar picks? No? I didn't, Actually, I just kind of watched while they played. Um, how many kid these can we get to? I don't know. I didn't know what you were doing. This. This is Facebook stuff. So we have a Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know. By the way, Yes, please like it because that that is good for us around here. Yeah, get a penny for every person that

likes us. I was gonna say. Nicol 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 me and Emily ever hang out together? Yes, they do, Wayne, Chuck and I hang out together, but we have forbade them from seeing each other unless we don't want them talking or coming up with anything to use against this. Right. Emily loves Umi? Well, Umi loves Emily really. Yeah, that's good.

Uh like this you would tell me? Actually? She thinks I like real jerk. Yeah, you can't stand uh. 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 shave my head and had the ponytail and little tambourine and literature and everything, real literature. Did you get your hands on some hardy Christina litterus? No,

I just printed some mountain What about you? Um? When I was in elementary school, my mom made an upside down clown costumes. So from my shoulders where the legs sticking up 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. Uh. Kristin Keeler says, you cover a lot of topics that are outside your area of expertise. What you personally know

a lot about? I know a lot about music and movies and filmmaking and camping and hiking and personal defenses him excellence. What about you? I didn't hear the questions what do you know a lot about? Personally expertise wise? Oh? Weird? Um? Um? You know a lot about politics, I guess, but I mean how is that? What do you know a lot of expertise? What am I an expert in? I guess throwing stars, 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? At a top five Wow, public Enemy and at the Masquerade unbelievable cross cultural experience. The London Philharmonic did baetom It's night that Carnegie Hall, the full choir, Oh de joy, unbelievable um to Lallapaloos experience is the first one of Jane's addiction that was immense, and then the second one the Beastie

plays was just out of control, so good. Yeah, Bonnie Prince Billy last year, which I know you hate and leave on helm I sa'll leave on Helming last year and I was just 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 stage show I ever saw in my entire life? Was Peter Gabriel in the I guess early

nineties that would have been good. Um, I guess all around best show I ever saw would have been alternate down in Florida when I was a little brave kid. And then, let's see, there has to be at least one other. Did you have a pacifier? Yes, they had Mickey Mouse on it. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely one of those grave kids. I was so glad. I'm just old enough to have been too old for the rave culture. Yeah. Yeah, you just saw the big leg jeans and the past

fires and I just didn't get it. Oh and probably my first concert ever, Haul of Notes, with Until Tuesday opening form Poor Till Tuesday got Buddolf stage. Really yeah. Um, But Hall of Notes came out and they were backed by g Smith and started out band including the guy who wears like the floor length mink coats and plays the sacks 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 gonna start going to him. Yeah.

Amy Man is still terrific. Sure, and she's buddies with Paul Tompkins. I did not know, I believe, so awesome part of the whole Largo scene. Is there anything else You've got anything else? Yeah? 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 uh, Facebook dot com slash stuff you should Know, Or you can just send us a plain old fashioned email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and

thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house, stuff Works, DOOT Come homepage h brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you