What did knights and vassals do?

Within a fiefs, a vassal acted as a local lord and could give portions of it to vassals of his own. Someone might be the vassal of one person, but the lord of another. Knights were warriors who fought on horseback. In return for land, they pledged themselves as vassals to the king.

Are knights lower than vassals?

Knights were usually vassals of more powerful lords. A vassal was the second-in-command to their feudal lord.

Can vassals be knights?

Some vassals did not have fiefs and lived at their lord’s court as his household knights. Certain vassals who held their fiefs directly from the crown were tenants in chief and formed the most important feudal group, the barons.

What is the difference between a vassal and a king?

A lord possessed complete sovereignty over land, or acted in the service of another sovereign, usually a king. If a lord acted in the service of a king, the lord was considered a vassal of the king. As part of the feudal agreement, the lord promised to protect the vassal and provided the vassal with a plot of land.

What do vassals do?

A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch (the suzerain), in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support by knights in exchange for certain privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief.

Do lords have knights?

This tax was called shield money. Lords and Knights – The lords ran the local manors. They also were the king’s knights and could be called into battle at any moment by their Baron. The lords owned everything on their land including the peasants, crops, and village.

Is the king a vassal?

The person who received a fief was called a vassal. The king was his lord. In return for this great gift, the vassal supplied the king with soldiers called knights. Each vassal had to lend his knights to his lord whenever asked.

What is a knight’s servant called?

squire
Initially, a squire served as a knight’s apprentice. Later, a village leader or a lord of the manor might come to be known as a “squire”, and still later, the term was applied to members of the landed gentry.