What did English people really say when knighting someone?
score:21
According to the British Monarchy website:
The first and simplest method of knighting was that used on battlefields, when the candidate knelt before the Royal commander of the army and was 'stricken with the sword upon his back and shoulder' with some words such as 'Advances Chevalier au nom de Dieu'. (The action of touching the sword on the recipient's shoulder is known as dubbing.)
So the reason you could not find the phrase in Latin is because it was in French.
Edit, MerilP notes that in French it should actually be 'Avancez Chevalier au nom de Dieu' and 'Soyez preux, hardi, et loyal'.
Upvote:7
The famous English antiquary, Elias Ashmole, wrote:
The first Christian Kings and Princes (saith in Favin) at the giving of the Cingulum militare, kissed the new Knight on the left cheek, and used these words, In the honor of the Father, of the Son; and of the Holy Ghost, I make you a Knight. And this was called Osculum pacis, the kiss of Favour or Brotherhood.
He is citing Andre Favin who wrote the book Theatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie, an early and well-known tome on chivalry in the 16th century.
Of course, what might be said at various times and places would be completely different and the ceremony could range from being perfunctory or elaborate. As a general rule, a knighting pronouncement had three parts, the admonition (warnings and advice), the blessing and the bestowal (the actual title(s) and rank conferred announced).
Upvote:18
If it was really Latin that you saw, then it might have been:
Surge aut sis eques in nomine Dei 1
Stand up as a knight, in the name of God.
This is how William Camden described the ancient ceremony in his Britannia. There are variations, such as substituting vel for aut. I'd be a bit surprised if the site you originally found actually used Latin, though.
Since you expected to find the answer in English ("I dub thee"), I suppose the question is focused on England. In that case, as @SteveBird's rightly points out, the traditional words are in French, not Latin. Complementing his answer, the classical formula is for the sovereign to lay a naked blade on the candidate's left shoulder and pronounce:
Sois chevalier, au nom de Dieu 2
(Be thou a knight in the name of God)
Followed by the command to rise:
Avancez chevalier 2
(Arise, knight)
The use of French has long since died out in English governance. In later times, it appears the monarch simply pronounce:
Rise up, Sir (name) 3
This part is possibly slightly profane. Mouseover to show.
Jake Cade: Rise up, Sir Dick Butcher
- William Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI (certain versions).
Sources:
[1] Jacob, Giles, and Thomas Edlyne Tomlins. The Law-Dictionary: Explaining the Rise, Progress, and Present State, of the English Law. A. Strahan, Law Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1809.
[2] Burke, John Bernard. The Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Edward Churton, 1841.
[3] Cox, Thomas, and William Camden. Magna Britannia et Hibernia, Antiqua & Nova Or, A New Survey of Great Britain. Savoy: Nutt and Morphew, 1720.
More post
- 📝 How many troops died on D-day?
- 📝 Is there a Welsh or Irish equivalent to the Declaration of Arbroath or Magna Carta?
- 📝 Why did Bayer lose aspirin and heroin trademarks under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles?
- 📝 What did 'bookseller' cover as an occupation on British census documents during Victorian times?
- 📝 After America achieved independence, did George Washington continue to wear a military uniform?
- 📝 Why is Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf often refered to by his given name "Conrad"?
- 📝 Why didn't the Arab states industrialize?
- 📝 Would Lauri Törni have recieved the Waffen-SS blood type tattoo?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Cleopatra and Caesarion considered fleeing to India to escape the Romans?
- 📝 Who was the prime leader of the Maratha Confederation?
- 📝 What is the largest mutiny in human history?
- 📝 How did WWII change the GDPs of the great empires of the world?
- 📝 Were Christian Mediterranean ports open to Muslim traders in the middle ages?
- 📝 Was Karst (Kras) first region that was man-made reforested?
- 📝 Why did the USA invade Okinawa instead of one of the many other islands in southern Japan
- 📝 Who compared giving women the vote to giving cows the vote (& in what context)?
- 📝 How were the earliest automatic traffic lights automated?
- 📝 Was there any imperial nation whose home country was conquered but was able to retain its colonies?
- 📝 Were there natives In Iceland prior to the Irish monk's landings?
- 📝 When did the "Great War" become "World War 1"?
- 📝 Can the current British monarch be overthrown or otherwise replaced?
- 📝 Why didn't the Germans fully exploit the first gas attack near Ypres
- 📝 What is the year of Ethelred the Unready's Laws of London?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the CIA didn't want Reagan to end the Cold War?
- 📝 Was Mimar Sinan of Greek Christian origin?
- 📝 During the Berlin Blockade, why didn't the people in West Berlin just go over to buy food in East Berlin?
- 📝 What symbolism is incorporated in this illustration for a book by Riccati?
- 📝 What was the significance of the Schleswig-Holstein question in the 19th century?
- 📝 How much of the Jonestown money actually got given to the USSR?
- 📝 How did Muslim traders raise investments given Islam's prohibition of usury?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What did English people really say when knighting someone?
- 📝 What did other European powers say when Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas?
- 📝 What did the English people during the Peasants' Revolt know about the Ciompi Revolt?
- 📝 Why did Mussolini say that people are not really free if they don't have access to the ocean?
- 📝 When did people decide that all caps means the writer is shouting?
- 📝 When and how did people begin to consider slavery immoral?
- 📝 What did people in 13th century England know about Greek mythology?
- 📝 Did active frontiersmen really eat 20,000 calories a day? How does this compare to other highly-active people in recorded history?
- 📝 Did Rothschild say this famous quote? If yes, what did he mean by it?
- 📝 When did official documentation stop referring to black people as Negros in the States?
- 📝 How did people react to Cavendish bananas when they first replaced the Gros Michel strain?
- 📝 When did challenging to a duel cease to be a practice in English culture?
- 📝 Did Joseph Goebbels really say this about German opposition in 1933?
- 📝 What did the people of the Middle Ages call their period?
- 📝 What did Zhang Zuolin say after his train blew up?
- 📝 How did bank transactions (or "data" transactions) work when it took people weeks to travel vast distances?
- 📝 When did the English and Americans realize that vegetables were healthy?
- 📝 What numerals did the people of Ireland use before Roman Numerals? (aka, did Ogham include numbers?)
- 📝 When did Warren Harding say "I am not fit to be president." Why?
- 📝 What did the top minds of the late 17th century have to say about Salem witch trials?
- 📝 How did people say “I have to go to the bathroom” before the bathroom and pipes were common?
- 📝 Did Jefferson really say this quote about patriotism?
- 📝 What mistake did abbot [Jacques?] Delille make when eating an egg at the Court of Louis XVI?
- 📝 When did people stop translating their names when moving from one country to another?
- 📝 What did the Romans call black people (sub-Saharan)?
- 📝 What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
- 📝 "No sane man will dance."? When / where / about-what did Cicero say this?
- 📝 In British heraldry, what happens when a woman with a coat of arms marries someone without?
- 📝 What treatment did Allied Jewish POWs get when captured by the Germans?
- 📝 What route did the Hindenburg take when traveling from Germany to the U.S.?
