Cavalier vs Knight DIfferences and background info

[Sonya]

Ok.

We all know that on BM the Chevalier is a higher ranked Knight, but according to language (for example Spanish) Chevalier and Knight means the same thing.

I have been looking for internet and have break my head  in pieces, so i invite the BM's Medieval Expert to join me  :-\

How do we separate the BM class Knight and Cavalier since more or like mean the same on title Base.

[Indirik]

Do you mean "chevalier" or "cavalier"? Battlemaster does not use the term "chevalier". The distinction is important, as the Aurvandilians use the term "chevalier" in many areas in their realm.

[Sonya]

I am referring to the Cavalier class, according to the Manual:

Cavalier
"A noble fighter, a knight of the realm. Cavaliers are highly respected knights who subscribe even more to the life of a nobleman."
Cavaliers could be considered the advanced version of soldiers. In return for being knighted, by swearing fealty to a liege, one is able to become a cavalier.

For traduction purpose Cavalier is the French Translation of Chevalier (eng).
According to Title, they both means Knight.
According to Profession Cavalier could be a mounted warrior, but still they are knights

I have been translating the manual without problems until now, if you check the Cavalier description, it can be confusing, for example:

"A noble fighter, a knight of the realm. Cavaliers are highly respected knights who subscribe even more to the life of a nobleman."
Cavaliers could be considered the advanced version of soldiers. In return for being knighted, by swearing fealty to a liege, one is able to become a cavalier."

These are the confusing points, in some parts i understand that Cavaliers (on BM of course) are the real Nobles. so i searched for internet and i found all road taking me to Knights.

So if you are a knight, is understable that your first profession should be Warrior/Soldier.
But having a Second profession as Cavalier is confusing because you already have the Title and/or the new Subclass could be Cavalryman.

[Longmane]

I myself have always seen/treated cavaliers in BM as chevalier's in all but name.

I needed grab the following from a couple of online sources, as "cavaliers" as such aren't even mentioned in any of my books.


A "cavalier attitude" is kind of a casual, almost dismissive attitude, with Webster's defining   "cavalier" in this usage as "marked by lofty disregard of others' interests, rights or feelings; given to airy dismissal of things worthy of attention. Basically a "cavalier attitude" is not caring about things that are important to you or others.

cav·a·lier
n.
1. A gallant or chivalrous man, especially one serving as escort to a woman of high social position; a gentleman.
2. A mounted soldier; a knight.
3. Cavalier A supporter of Charles I of England in his struggles against Parliament. Also called Royalist.
adj.
1. Showing arrogant or offhand disregard; dismissive: a cavalier attitude toward the suffering of others.
2. Carefree and nonchalant; jaunty.
3. Cavalier Of or relating to a group of 17th-century English poets associated with the court of Charles I.

[French, horseman, from Old Italian cavaliere, from Late Latin caballrius, from Latin caballus, horse.]

cava·lierly adv.

cavalier [ˌkævəˈlɪə]
adj
showing haughty disregard; offhand
n
1. (Historical Terms) a gallant or courtly gentleman, esp one acting as a lady's escort
2. (Individual Sports & Recreations / Horse Training, Riding & Manège) Archaic a horseman, esp one who is armed
[from Italian cavaliere, from Old Provençal cavalier, from Late Latin caballārius rider, from caballus horse, of obscure origin]
cavalierly  adv


Thesaurus

cavalier
adjective offhand, lordly, arrogant, lofty, curt, condescending, haughty, scornful, disdainful, insolent, supercilious He has always had a cavalier attitude towards other people's feelings.




chev·a·lier  (shv-lîr)

1. A member of certain male orders of knighthood or merit, such as the Legion of Honor in France.
2.
a. A French nobleman of the lowest rank.
b. Used as a title for such a nobleman.
3. A knight.
4. A chivalrous man.

[Middle English chevaler, from Old French chevalier, from Late Latin caballrius, horseman; see cavalier.]

chevalier [ˌʃɛˈvælɪə]
n
1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a member of certain orders of merit, such as the French Legion of Honour
2. (Historical Terms) French history
a.  a mounted soldier or knight, esp a military cadet
b.  the lowest title of rank in the old French nobility
3. an archaic word for knight
4. a chivalrous man; gallant
[from Old French, from Medieval Latin caballārius horseman, cavalier]

[Longmane]

The more I think about it the more it strikes me over how different the cavalier subclass is from the others, as while they come complete with extra choice of actions for your char to perform all you get in the box with that subclass is an abiity lead more troops, heck and even then at the cost of losing being able loot, do civil work or hunt.

So to my thinking it seems that rather then being some kind of extra profession par-say, becoming a cavalier is more akin to chosing play a char with a very chivalric mind set as it were.

[Chenier]

The more I think about it the more it strikes me over how different the cavalier subclass is from the others, as while they come complete with extra choice of actions for your char to perform all you get in the box with that subclass is an abiity lead more troops, heck and even then at the cost of losing being able loot, do civil work or hunt.

So to my thinking it seems that rather then being some kind of extra profession par-say, becoming a cavalier is more akin to chosing play a char with a very chivalric mind set as it were.

You can lead more troops and you gain more honour in battle.

But you can't do fun stuff like looting, or contribute with post-TO restoration efforts.

[Sonya]

Still we don't have a way to determine the differences between the Knight and Cavalier names as we have it.

In the old system when you were a Noble with a Warrior class, was more acceptable to be a Cavalier (knight)

Now, as soon you swear fealty to a lond, you are an entitled Knight, so for a knight to have a "Cavalier" profession, is just..... that (what you think)

For game mechanic since apparently looks different would be ok, but Medieval wise is not ok. So i propose a change on the titles, it doesn't have to be the code, it can be only the displayed name for the Title and Class.

[egamma]

It's clear enough if you focus on battlemaster only.

We have ranks, which are currently being reworked. If you have an estate, and nothing else, you are a knight.

A cavalier is a career choice, a mindset. You are focused on battle and on proper "noble" conduct, you are very concerned about honor and bravery.

Yes, it is a class that should be RP'ed a lot.

[Chenier]

Still we don't have a way to determine the differences between the Knight and Cavalier names as we have it.

In the old system when you were a Noble with a Warrior class, was more acceptable to be a Cavalier (knight)

Now, as soon you swear fealty to a lond, you are an entitled Knight, so for a knight to have a "Cavalier" profession, is just..... that (what you think)

For game mechanic since apparently looks different would be ok, but Medieval wise is not ok. So i propose a change on the titles, it doesn't have to be the code, it can be only the displayed name for the Title and Class.

In BM, knight is a title and cavalier is a profession/way of life, just like the hero subclass is, or the diplomat subclass is, or the trader subclass is.

Arguing about the semantics of it is rather pointless. You can just as easily have unheroic heroes and heroic non-heroes. Undiplomatic diplomats and diplomatic non-diplomats. Etc.

Class and subclass are not written in people's signatures. They are just on the character lists and character pages. I really don't see a use in renaming them.

[Sonya]

Y

In BM, knight is a title and cavalier is a profession/way of life, just like the hero subclass is, or the diplomat subclass is, or the trader subclass is.

Yes i understand what you say, but i just can't write (translating your sentence):

En BM, Caballero es un título y Caballero es una profesión/ modo de vida.

As you can see, i just use the same word twice, the problem on BM is that you use the same word written in two different form. what part of:

I have been translating the manual.......

Is hard to understand...


Listen!

I DO understand the way BM classes work (i have two Cavalier for years) Remember this section on the forums and the purpose of this threat, is not about BM class, is about the REAL MEANING AND HISTORY INFORMATION, of the Knight and Cavalier.

[Chenier]

Y
Yes i understand what you say, but i just can't write (translating your sentence):

As you can see, i just use the same word twice, the problem on BM is that you use the same word written in two different form. what part of:
Is hard to understand...


Listen!

I DO understand the way BM classes work (i have two Cavalier for years) Remember this section on the forums and the purpose of this threat, is not about BM class, is about the REAL MEANING AND HISTORY INFORMATION, of the Knight and Cavalier.

I think we can both agree that the words mean basically the same thing. Does spanish not have a bunch of synonyms that could be used? Cavalier seems to be a word in spanish as well, with similar meaning as in English and French. Why not say: En BM, Caballero es un título y Cavalier es una profesión/ modo de vida.

[Sonya]

I think we can both agree that the words mean basically the same thing. Does spanish not have a bunch of synonyms that could be used? Cavalier seems to be a word in spanish as well, with similar meaning as in English and French. Why not say: En BM, Caballero es un título y Cavalier es una profesión/ modo de vida.

Fine!

Just because i imagined you talking spanish with a cute voice!

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Class/es#Caballero


I'm done here, Thanks everyone for help!

[Longmane]

I thought I'd add these exerts out of a couple of my books as they seem to fit with also involving differences between certain types of knights.

Johnson, Ruth A, All things Medieval~An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World.

Chivalry also required a knight to be loyal to his lord and to his fellow knights. Loyalty was not always simple, since the same man could be a vassal of different kings for different estates he held.  A knight was not supposed to seek individual glory at the expense of his fellow band of knights. A knight without ties of loyalty was called a knight errant—a wandering knight.


Kaeuper, Richard W. Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe.

MEN who possessed and exercised the right to fight and who enjoyed the blessing of God on their hard way of life easily came to believe that they were, or deserved to join, the social elite; they readily demanded recognition of their rising status. Assertion of a right to social dominance thus provides another crucial component for the fusion that made chivalry and gave it such power in medieval society. Over time, knights rose in status and even the nobility decided to wear the chivalric mantle.

The knights initially had to separate themselves from anything suggesting cultivation of the soil and the smell of manure, for many of those who became the knights were at first not fully and not always differentiated from villagers, tillers of the soil, even the unfree.  At the opening of our period, when a fighting man was termed miles (plural milites)—the word which will come to designate knight—the meaning often carried a distinct sense of subservience and could be used of warriors of rather low social status.

Many owned no land and few could have claimed to be possessors of political power.  In fact, the term miles in this early period had no clear connotation of status and referred simply to function. Yet over time knighthood fused with nobility as a result of common military function, the decline of effective royal power over much of continental Europe, the increasing valorization of knighthood via ecclesiastical efforts for peace and crusade, and the influence of romance literature.

Though the process was far from uniform, in most regions of France knighthood and noble status began to fuse in the course of the twelfth century; knighthood became the 'common denominator of the aristocracy'.  The rise of knights was slower in German lands and took a different turn in England, where a distinct legal nobility never emerged; in Italy it gradually accommodated with swiftly reviving urbanism.

But everywhere the right to commit warlike violence whenever honour was at stake became a sign of superior status; in time, it hardened into noble right over much of Europe. By the early thirteenth century, The Romance of the Wings, a popular vernacular manual for knights (c. 1210), says 'their name, rightly speaking, is the true name of nobility'. This century, as Maurice Keen notes, shifted emphasis away from entry into knighthood via the ceremony of dubbing towards eligibility via noble lineage.


As knighthood continued its social rise, the term knight even took on a more restrictive meaning than the term noble. Knighthood, in the close sense of those who had actually been dubbed and become active, strenuous knights, became a minority, a subset, even among the nobility.

The case is clear from England. The number of men called knights in the England of William the Conqueror stood at about 6,000; by the mid-thirteenth century actual or potential knights numbered only about 3,000, with about 1,250 actually having been dubbed.  Perhaps three-quarters of a typical fourteenth-century English army was composed of men below the rank of knight.

The cost of the ceremony of dubbing, of horses, and more elaborate armour restricted the group. Obligations to participate in local activities of royal governance supply another reason, adding to the economic costs of taking up knighthood the investment of time and the sheer bother of serving on the judicial and administrative inquests so characteristic a feature of medieval England.

In France, also, as the cost of active participation in chivalric life rose, so the number of dubbed knights fell accordingly; knighthood as a specific status ceased to encompass all those who were recognized as noble. Fewer than half the French nobles had actually been dubbed in the early fourteenth century.

To read any documents relating to this nobility is to encounter many esquires (damoiseaux) alongside the knights and great lords.  Strenuous knights were only a core of the medieval French nobility, as they were only a core of a medieval French army. Such an army meant a small body of belted knights accompanied by a much larger company of men-at-arms.

Does this trend mean a waning of the influence of chivalric ideas? On the contrary, the chivalric ethos in fact generalized to all who lived by arms, whether of noble family or not; chivalry served as a source of inspiration even beyond the ranks of lords and active, strenuous knights; it touched all men-at-arms.

In theory, chivalry might best be exemplified in the conduct of those formally noble or the practising milites, but several social rings beyond this inner circle aspired to the status and benefits it conferred.

Christine de Pisan wanted the ideal of chivalry extended to all warriors. Geoffroi de Charny endorsed the aspirations of those below the social level of knights; the key to the honoured and honourable life inherent in chivalry, he thought, ought to guide all who lived by the honest practice of arms.

[Lychaon]

For what concerns to Spanish, as Sonya says it's a little bit difficult to make a difference between Knight and Cavalier, as we use (as you've seen) the word Caballero to both "titles". Also, I think feudal tradition in Spain has been a little bit different from England or France; that would probably be the reason that some nobility ranks haven't got a direct translation in which the meaning is the same.

I think the most accurate word to describe what we understand in game as knight would be Hidalgo in Spanish. This means "Hijo d-algo" (son of something), a low noble rank. These nobles owned some parcel of land that allowed them to live of what this land produced without having to "get their hands dirty" working. Their only duty was to fight for their king when summoned. In Spain, some wealthy enough warriors who could pay for their horse and weapon, gained this rank by fighting against the Moors; the king, in exchange gave them a parcel of the conquered land. A lot of the current common Spanish surnames come from this tradition: Pérez (son of Pero), Díaz (son of Diego), Rodríguez (son of Rodrigo)... This low nobles had the right of being named after their father.

Cavalier is on the other hand a high nobility rank, which I'm not sure if could be translated to Paladín. A brave warrior with high ideals, but humble and pious. Not sure about that, as I've seen this word used in English to talk about knights of Religious Orders.

Anyway, we use Caballero as a generic word for medieval nobles, and literally for knight, cavalier, or even gentleman, regardless of the appropriate meaning or translation of the rank in Spanish.

[Chenier]

For what concerns to Spanish, as Sonya says it's a little bit difficult to make a difference between Knight and Cavalier, as we use (as you've seen) the word Caballero to both "titles". Also, I think feudal tradition in Spain has been a little bit different from England or France; that would probably be the reason that some nobility ranks haven't got a direct translation in which the meaning is the same.

I think the most accurate word to describe what we understand in game as knight would be Hidalgo in Spanish. This means "Hijo d-algo" (son of something), a low noble rank. These nobles owned some parcel of land that allowed them to live of what this land produced without having to "get their hands dirty" working. Their only duty was to fight for their king when summoned. In Spain, some wealthy enough warriors who could pay for their horse and weapon, gained this rank by fighting against the Moors; the king, in exchange gave them a parcel of the conquered land. A lot of the current common Spanish surnames come from this tradition: Pérez (son of Pero), Díaz (son of Diego), Rodríguez (son of Rodrigo)... This low nobles had the right of being named after their father.

Cavalier is on the other hand a high nobility rank, which I'm not sure if could be translated to Paladín. A brave warrior with high ideals, but humble and pious. Not sure about that, as I've seen this word used in English to talk about knights of Religious Orders.

Anyway, we use Caballero as a generic word for medieval nobles, and literally for knight, cavalier, or even gentleman, regardless of the appropriate meaning or translation of the rank in Spanish.

According to wikipedia (ULTIMATE RELIABLE SOURCE), "cavalier" is also a word in spanish. Why not just use that?