Legal Definitions - knight's service

Knight's service, also known as knight-service, was a fundamental form of landholding in the feudal system of medieval England. Under this arrangement, a tenant (often a nobleman or knight) held land directly from a superior lord, typically the King, in exchange for providing military service. This service usually involved supplying a specified number of armed knights, or serving personally as a knight, for a certain period each year, often 40 days, whenever summoned by the lord for defense or warfare. It was a crucial mechanism for raising armies before the establishment of standing professional armies.

Here are some examples illustrating knight's service:

• Direct Military Obligation to the Crown: Imagine Lord Alaric, a powerful baron, held vast estates directly from the King. In return for the right to possess and profit from these lands, Lord Alaric was obligated to provide the King with ten fully equipped knights for 40 days of military service each year, whenever the King called upon them for a campaign against a rival kingdom or to suppress a rebellion. This illustrates knight's service because Lord Alaric's land tenure was directly conditional upon his fulfillment of this specific military duty to his sovereign.

• Sub-infeudation and Cascading Service: Consider Sir Kael, a lesser knight who held a smaller manor from Lord Alaric (from the previous example). Sir Kael's agreement with Lord Alaric stipulated that he would personally serve as one of the ten knights Lord Alaric owed to the King, or provide a suitable substitute, whenever Lord Alaric was summoned. This demonstrates knight's service at a lower level of the feudal hierarchy, where land was held in exchange for direct military service to an immediate lord, who in turn owed service to a higher lord.

• Commutation of Service (Scutage): During a period of relative peace, King Henry decided he needed funds to build new castles and fortifications rather than a large standing army. He offered his tenants, including Lord Alaric, the option to pay a sum of money, known as "scutage" (literally "shield money"), instead of providing their quota of knights. Lord Alaric paid the agreed-upon scutage, thereby fulfilling his obligation under knight's service without deploying actual soldiers. This example shows how the underlying obligation of knight's service could evolve, allowing for a monetary payment in lieu of direct military service, which still stemmed from the original tenure type.