Knights, Mercenaries and Paid Soldiers : Military Identities in the Anglo-Norman Regnum

Abstract

This study examines how contemporary concerns and opinions on the increasing use of paid soldiers in late twelfth-century theatres of war impacted on class identity formation, and approaches the question of chivalry and knightly identity from a decidedly unchivalrous perspective. Rather than directly investigating the chivalrous knight, I will examine the social and cultural spaces around him, for these excluded regions were just as crucial in defining knightly identity. The focus will be on the image of the mercenary and the paid soldier from the end of the eleventh century to the beginning of the thirteenth in the Anglo-Norman world and its environs, and how its development helped to define the social and military identity of Anglo-Norman knighthood.