[1] _Feudal England_, pp. 225 sqq.
[2] Du Cange, _Gloss._, _s.v._ "Miles."
[3] _History of England_, iii. 12.
[4] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, i. 156.
[5] _Ibid._ i. 156, 366; Turner, iii. 125-129.
[6] Ingram's edition, p. 290.
[7] _Comparative Politics_, p. 74.
[8] Baluze, _Capitularia Regum Francorum_, ii. 794, 1069.
[9] Du Cange, _Gloss._, _s.v._ "Arma."
[10] Freeman, _Comparative Politics_, p. 73.
[11] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii. 392.
[12] Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ ii. 278; also compare Grosse, _Military
Antiquities_, i. 65 seq.
[13] There has been a general tendency to ignore the extent to which
the armies of Edward III. were raised by compulsory levies even after
the system of raising troops by free contract had begun. Luce (ch.
vi.) points out how much England relied at this time on what would
now be called conscription: and his remarks are entirely borne out by
the Norwich documents published by Mr W. Hudson (Norf, and Norwich
Archaeological Soc. xiv. 263 sqq.), by a Lynn corporation document of
18th Edw. III. (Hist. MSS. Commission Report XI. Appendix pt. iii. p.
189), and by Smyth's _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 312, 319, 320.
[14] J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, _Mémoires sur l'Ancienne
Chevalerie_, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781).
[15] Du Cange, _Dissertation sur Joinville_, xxi.; Sainte Palaye,
_Mémoires_, i. 272; G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Order of the
Garter_ (1841,) p. xxvii.
[16] Du Cange, _Dissertation_, xxi., and _Lancelot du Lac_, among
other romances.
[17] Anstis, _Register of the Order of the Garter_, i. 63.
[18] Grose, _Military Antiq._ i. 207 seq.; Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ ii.
276 seq., and iii. 278 seq.
[19] Grose's _Military Antiquities_, ii. 256.
[20] Sainte Palaye, _Mémoires_, i. 36; Froissart, bk. iii. ch. 9.
[21] Sainte Palaye, _Mémoires_, pt. i. and Mills, _History of
Chivalry_, vol. i. ch. 2.
[22] See the long sermon in the romance of _Petit Jehan de Saintré_,
pt. i. ch. v., and compare the theory there set forth with the actual
behaviour of the chief personages. Even Gautier, while he contends
that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the
prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the
extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies. No doubt these
romances, taken alone, might give as unfair an idea as modern French
novels give of Parisian morals, but we have abundant other evidence
for placing the moral standard of the age of chivalry definitely
below that of educated society in the present day.
[23] Sainte Palaye, _Mémoires_, i. 11 seq.: "C'est peut-être à cette
cérémonie et non à celles de la chevalerie qu'on doit rapporter ce
qui se lit dans nos historiens de la première et de la seconde race
au sujet des premières armes que les Rois et les Princes remettoient
avec solemnité au ieunes Princes leurs enfans."
[24] There are several obscure points as to the relation of the
longer and shorter ceremonies, as well as the origin and original
relation of their several parts. There is nothing to show whence came
"dubbing" or the "accolade." It seems certain that the word "dub"
means to strike, and the usage is as old as the knighting of Henry by
William the Conqueror (_supra_, pp. 851, 852). So, too, in the Empire
a dubbed knight is "ritter geschlagen." The "accolade" may
etymologically refer to the embrace, accompanied by a blow with the
hand, characteristic of the longer form of knighting. The derivation
of "adouber," corresponding to "dub," from "adoptare," which is given
by Du Cange, and would connect the ceremony with "adoptio per arma,"
is certainly inaccurate. The investiture with arms, which formed a
part of the longer form of knighting, and which we have seen to rest
on very ancient usage, may originally have had a distinct meaning. We
have observed that Lanfranc invested Henry I. with arms, while
William "dubbed him to rider." If there was a difference in the
meaning of the two ceremonies, the difficulty as to the knighting of
Earl Harold (_supra_, p. 852) is at least partly removed.
[25] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, 639.
[26] Daniel, _Histoire de la Milice Françoise_, i. 99-104; Byshe's
Upton, _De Studio Militari_, pp. 21-24; Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, ii.
708-710; Segar, Honor _Civil and Military_, pp. 69 seq. and Nicolas,
_Orders of Knighthood_, vol. ii. (_Order of the Bath_) pp. 19 seq....
It is given as "the order and manner of creating Knights of the Bath
in time of peace according to the custom of England," and
consequently dates from a period when the full ceremony of creating
knights bachelors generally had gone out of fashion. But as Ashmole,
speaking of Knights of the Bath, says, "if the ceremonies and
circumstances of their creation be well considered, it will appear
that this king [Henry IV.] did not institute but rather restore the
ancient manner of making knights, and consequently that the Knights
of the Bath are in truth no other than knights bachelors, that is to
say, such as are created with those ceremonies wherewith knights
bachelors were formerly created." (Ashmole, _Order of the Garter_, p.
15). See also Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 678, and the
_Archæological Journal_, v. 258 seq.
[27] As may be gathered from Selden, Favyn, La Colombiers, Menestrier
and Sainte Palaye, there were several differences of detail in the
ceremony at different times and in different places. But in the main
it was everywhere the same both in its military and its
ecclesiastical elements. In the _Pontificale Romanum_, the old _Ordo
Romanus_ and the manual or Common Prayer Book in use in England
before the Reformation forms for the blessing or consecration of new
knights are included, and of these the first and the last are quoted
by Selden.
[28] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 678; Ashmole, _Order of the
Garter_, p. 15; Favyn, _Théâtre d'Honneur_, ii. 1035.
[29] "If we sum up the principal ensigns of knighthood, ancient and
modern, we shall find they have been or are a horse, gold ring,
shield and lance, a belt and sword, gilt spurs and a gold chain or
collar."--Ashmole, _Order of the Garter_, pp. 12, 13.
[30] On the banner see Grose, _Military Antiquities_, ii. 257; and
Nicolas, _British Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. xxxvii.
[31] _Titles of Honor_, pp. 356 and 608. See also Hallam, _Middle
Ages_, iii. 126 seq. and Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ iii. 440 seq.
[32] Riddell's _Law and Practice in Scottish Peerages_, p. 578; also
Nisbet's _System of Heraldry_, ii. 49 and Selden's _Titles of Honor_,
p. 702.
[33] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, pp. 608 and 657.
[34] See "Project concerninge the conferinge of the title of vidom,"
wherein it is said that "the title of vidom (vicedominus) was an
ancient title used in this kingdom of England both before and since
the Norman Conquest" (_State Papers_, James I. Domestic Series,
lxiii. 150 B, probable date April 1611).
[35] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, pp. 452 seq.
[36] _Ibid._ pp. 449 seq.
[37] Du Cange, _Dissertation_, ix.; Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p.
452; Daniel, _Milice Françoise_, i. 86 (Paris, 1721).
[38] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 656; Grose, _Military
Antiquities_, ii. 206.
[39] Froissart, Bk. I. ch. 241 and Bk. II. ch. 53. The recipients
were Sir John Chandos and Sir Thos. Trivet.
[40] _Commonwealth of England_ (ed. 1640), p. 48.
[41] _State Papers_, Domestic Series, James the First, lxvii. 119.
[42] "Thursday, June 24th: His Majesty was pleased to confer the
honour of knights banneret on the following flag officers and
commanders under the royal standard, who kneeling kissed hands on the
occasion: Admirals Pye and Sprye; Captains Knight, Bickerton and
Vernon," _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1773) xliii. 299. Sir Harris Nicolas
remarks on these and the other cases (_British Orders of Knighthood_,
vol. xliii.) and Sir William Fitzherbert published anonymously a
pamphlet on the subject, _A Short Inquiry into the Nature of the
Titles conferred at Portsmouth_, &c., which is very scarce, but is to
be found under the name of "Fitzherbert" in the catalogue of the
British Museum Library.
[43] "Sir Henry Ferrers, Baronet, was indicted by the name of Sir
Henry Ferrers, Knight, for the murther of one Stone whom one
Nightingale feloniously murthered, and that the said Sir Henry was
present aiding and abetting, &c. Upon this indictment Sir Henry
Ferrers being arraigned said he never was knighted, which being
confessed, the indictment was held not to be sufficient, wherefore he
was indicted de novo by the name of Sir Henry Ferrers, Baronet."
Brydall, _Jus Imaginis apud Anglos, or the Law of England relating to
the Nobility and Gentry_ (London, 1675), p. 20. Cf. _Patent Rolls_,
10 Jac. I., pt. x. No. 18; Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 687.
[44] Louis XIV. introduced the practice of dividing the members of
military orders into several degrees when he established the order of
St Louis in 1693.
[45] G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter_
(1841), p. 385.
[46] Heylyn, _Cosmographie and History of the Whole World_, bk. i. p.
286.
[47] Beltz, _Memorials_, p. xlvi.
[48] _Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. lxxxiii.
[49] Mémoires, i. 67, i. 22; _History of Chivalry_; Gibbon, _Decline
and Fall_, vii. 200.
[50] _Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. xi.
[51] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 638.
[52] Harleian MS. 6063; Hargrave MS. 325.
[53] _Patent Rolls_, 35th Hen. VIII., pt. xvi., No. 24; Burnet,
_Hist. of Reformation_, i. 15.
[54] Spelman, "De milite dissertatio," _Posthumous Works_, p. 181.
[55] _London Gazette_, December 6, 1823, and May 15, 1855.
[56] On the Continent very elaborate ceremonies, partly heraldic and
partly religious, were observed in the degradation of a knight, which
are described by Sainte Palaye, _Mémoires_, i. 316 seq., and after
him by Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 60 seq. Cf. _Titles of
Honor_, p. 653.
[57] Dallaway's _Heraldry_, p. 303.
[58] Even in 13th century England more than half the population were
serfs, and as such had no claim to the privileges of Magna Carta;
disputes between a serf and his lord were decided in the latter's
court, although the king's courts attempted to protect the serf's
life and limb and necessary implements of work. By French feudal law,
the villein had no appeal from his lord save to God (Pierre de
Fontaines, _Conseil_, ch. xxi. art. 8); and, though common sense and
natural good feeling set bounds in most cases to the tyranny of the
nobles, yet there was scarcely any injustice too gross to be
possible. "How mad are they who exult when sons are born to their
lords!" wrote Cardinal Jacques de Vitry early in the 13th century
(_Exempla_, p. 64, Folk Lore Soc. 1890).
[59] Sainte Palaye, ii. 90.
[60] Medley, _English Constitutional History_ (2nd ed., pp. 291,
466), suggests that Edward might have deliberately calculated this
degradation of the older feudal ideal.
[61] Being made to "ride the barriers" was the penalty for anybody
who attempted to take part in a tournament without the qualification
of name and arms. Guillim (_Display of Heraldry_, p. 66) and Nisbet
(_System of Heraldry_, ii. 147) speak of this subject as concerning
England and Scotland. See also Ashmole's _Order of the Garter_, p.
284. But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great
extent independently of these considerations. At almost every period
there have been men of obscure and illegitimate birth who have been
knighted. Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that
knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it
necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman; "for, when a king
gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby
recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is
requisite for the completing of that which he bestows." By the common
law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and
accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were
knighted both his minority and wardship terminated. (_Order of the
Garter_, p. 43; Nicolas, _British Orders of Knighthood_, i. 5.)
[62] Gautier, pp. 21, 249.
[63] Du Cange, _s.v. miles_ (ed. Didot, t. iv. p. 402); Sacchetti,
_Novella_, cliii. All the medieval _orders_ of knighthood, however,
insisted in their statutes on the noble birth of the candidate.
[64] Lecoy de la Marche (_Chaire française au moyen âge_, 2nd ed., p.
387) gives many instances to prove that "al chevalerie, au xiii^e
siècle, est déjà sur son déclin." But already about 1160 Peter of
Blois had written, "The so-called order of knighthood is nowadays
mere disorder" (_ordo militum nunc est, ordinem non tenere_. Ep.
xciv.: the whole letter should be read); and, half a century earlier
still, Guibert of Nogent gives an equally unflattering picture of
contemporary chivalry in his _De vita sua_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._, tom.
clvi.).
[65] It has been taken as the Latin word meaning "he bears" or as
representing the initials of the legend _Fortitudo Ejus Rhodum
Tenuit_, with an allusion to a defence of the island of Rhodes by an
ancient count of Savoy.
KNIGHT-SERVICE, the dominant and distinctive tenure of land under the
feudal system. It is associated in its origin with that development in
warfare which made the mailed horseman, armed with lance and sword, the
most important factor in battle. Till within recent years it was
believed that knight-service was developed out of the liability, under
the English system, of every five hides to provide one soldier in war.
It is now held that, on the contrary, it was a novel system which was
introduced after the Conquest by the Normans, who relied essentially on
their mounted knights, while the English fought on foot. They were
already familiar with the principle of knight-service, the knight's fee,
as it came to be termed in England, being represented in Normandy by the
_fief du haubert_, so termed from the hauberk or coat of mail (_lorica_)
which was worn by the knight. Allusion is made to this in the coronation
charter of Henry I. (1100), which speaks of those holding by
knight-service as _milites qui per loricam terras suas deserviunt_.
The Conqueror, it is now held, divided the lay lands of England among
his followers, to be held by the service of a fixed number of knights in
his host, and imposed the same service on most of the great
ecclesiastical bodies which retained their landed endowments. No record
evidence exists of this action on his part, and the quota of
knight-service exacted was not determined by the area or value of the
lands granted (or retained), but was based upon the _unit_ of the feudal
host, the _constabularia_ of ten knights. Of the tenants-in-chief or
barons (i.e. those who held directly of the crown), the principal were
called on to find one or more of these units, while of the lesser ones
some were called on for five knights, that is, half a _constabularia_.
The same system was adopted in Ireland when that country was conquered
under Henry II. The baron who had been enfeoffed by his sovereign on
these terms could provide the knights required either by hiring them for
pay or, more conveniently when wealth was mainly represented by land, by
a process of subenfeoffment, analogous to that by which he himself had
been enfeoffed. That is to say, he could assign to an under-tenant a
certain portion of his fief to be held by the service of finding one or
more knights. The land so held would then be described as consisting of
one or more knights' fees, but the knight's fee had not, as was formerly
supposed, any fixed area. This process could be carried farther till
there was a chain of mesne lords between the tenant-in-chief and the
actual holder of the land; but the liability for performance of the
knight-service was always carefully defined.
The primary obligation incumbent on every knight was service in the
field, when called upon, for forty days a year, with specified armour
and arms. There was, however, a standing dispute as to whether he could
be called upon to perform this service outside the realm, nor was the
question of his expenses free from difficulty. In addition to this
primary duty he had, in numerous cases at least, to perform that of
"castle ward" at his lord's chief castle for a fixed number of days in
the year. On certain baronies also was incumbent the duty of providing
knights for the guard of royal castles, such as Windsor, Rockingham and
Dover. Under the feudal system the tenant by knight-service had also the
same pecuniary obligations to his lord as had his lord to the king.
These consisted of (1) "relief," which he paid on succeeding to his
lands; (2) "wardship," that is, the profits from his lands during a
minority; (3) "marriage," that is, the right of giving in marriage,
unless bought off, his heiress, his heir (if a minor) and his widow; and
also of the three "aids" (see Aids).
The chief sources of information for the extent and development of
knight-service are the returns (_cartae_) of the barons (i.e. the
tenants-in-chief) in 1166, informing the king, at his request, of the
names of their tenants by knight-service with the number of fees they
held, supplemented by the payments for "scutage" (see SCUTAGE) recorded
on the pipe rolls, by the later returns printed in the _Testa de
Nevill_, and by the still later ones collected in _Feudal Aids_. In the
returns made in 1166 some of the barons appear as having enfeoffed more
and some less than the number of knights they had to find. In the latter
case they described the balance as being chargeable on their "demesne,"
that is, on the portion of their fief which remained in their own hands.
These returns further prove that lands had already been granted for the
service of a fraction of a knight, such service being in practice
already commuted for a proportionate money payment; and they show that
the total number of knights with which land held by military service was
charged was not, as was formerly supposed, sixty thousand, but,
probably, somewhere between five and six thousand. Similar returns were
made for Normandy, and are valuable for the light they throw on its
system of knight-service.
The principle of commuting for money the obligation of military service
struck at the root of the whole system, and so complete was the change
of conception that "tenure by knight-service of a mesne lord becomes,
first in fact and then in law, tenure by escuage (i.e. scutage)." By the
time of Henry III., as Bracton states, the test of tenure was scutage;
liability, however small, to scutage payment made the tenure military.
The disintegration of the system was carried farther in the latter half
of the 13th century as a consequence of changes in warfare, which were
increasing the importance of foot soldiers and making the service of a
knight for forty days of less value to the king. The barons, instead of
paying scutage, compounded for their service by the payment of lump
sums, and, by a process which is still obscure, the nominal quotas of
knight-service due from each had, by the time of Edward I., been largely
reduced. The knight's fee, however, remained a knight's fee, and the
pecuniary incidents of military tenure, especially wardship, marriage,
and fines on alienation, long continued to be a source of revenue to the
crown. But at the Restoration (1660) tenure by knight-service was
abolished by law (12 Car. II. c. 24), and with it these vexatious
exactions were abolished.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The returns of 1166 are preserved in the _Liber Niger_
(13th cent.), edited by Hearne, and the _Liber Rubeus_ or _Red Book of
the Exchequer_ (13 cent.), edited by H. Hall for the Rolls Series in
1896. The later returns are in _Testa de Nevill_ (Record Commission,
1807) and in the Record Office volumes of _Feudal Aids_, arranged
under counties. For the financial side of knight-service the early
pipe rolls have been printed by the Record Commission and the Pipe
Roll Society, and abstracts of later ones will be found in _The Red
Book of the Exchequer_, which may be studied on the whole question;
but the editor's view must be received with caution and checked by J.
H. Round's _Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer_ (for private
circulation). The _Baronia Anglica_ of Madox may also be consulted.
The existing theory on knight-service was enunciated by Mr Round in
_English Historical Review_, vi., vii., and reissued by him in his
_Feudal England_ (1895). It is accepted by Pollock and Maitland
(_History of English Law_), who discuss the question at length; by Mr
J. F. Baldwin in his _Scutage and Knight-service in England_
(University of Chicago Press, 1897), a valuable monograph with
bibliography; and by Petit-Dutaillis, in his _Studies supplementary to
Stubbs' Constitutional History_ (Manchester University Series, 1908).
(J. H. R.)
KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, a semi-military secret society in the
United States in the Middle West, 1861-1864, the purpose of which was to
bring the Civil War to a close and restore the "Union as it was." There
is some evidence that before the Civil War there was a Democratic secret
organization of the same name, with its principal membership in the
Southern States. After the outbreak of the Civil War many of the
Democrats of the Middle West, who were opposed to the war policy of the
Republicans, organized the Knights of the Golden Circle, pledging
themselves to exert their influence to bring about peace. In 1863, owing
to the disclosure of some of its secrets, the organization took the name
of Order of American Knights, and in 1864 this became the Sons of
Liberty. The total membership of this order probably reached 250,000 to
300,000, principally in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Kentucky and south-western Pennsylvania. Fernando Wood of New York seems
to have been the chief officer and in 1864 Clement L. Vallandigham
became the second in command. The great importance of the Knights of the
Golden Circle and its successors was due to its opposition to the war
policy of the Republican administration. The plan was to overthrow the
Lincoln government in the elections and give to the Democrats the
control of the state and Federal governments, which would then make
peace and invite the Southern States to come back into the Union on the
old footing. In order to obstruct and embarrass the Republican
administration the members of the order held peace meetings to influence
public opinion against the continuance of the war; purchased arms to be
used in uprisings, which were to place the peace party in control of the
Federal government, or failing in that to establish a north-western
confederacy; and took measures to set free the Confederate prisoners in
the north and bring the war to a forced close. All these plans failed at
the critical moment, and the most effective work done by the order was
in encouraging desertion from the Federal armies, preventing
enlistments, and resisting the draft. Wholesale arrests of leaders and
numerous seizures of arms by the United States authorities resulted in a
general collapse of the order late in 1864. Three of the leaders were
sentenced to death by military commissions, but sentence was suspended
until 1866, when they were released under the decision of the United
States Supreme Court in the famous case _Ex parte Milligan_.
AUTHORITIES.--_An Authentic Exposition of the Knights of the Golden
Circle_ (Indianapolis, 1863); J. F. Rhodes, _History of the United
States from the Compromise of 1850_ (New York, 1905) vol. v.; E.
McPherson, _Political History of the Rebellion_ (Washington, 1876);
and W. D. Foulke, _Life of O. P. Morton_ (2 vols., New York, 1899).
(W. L. F.)
KNIPPERDOLLINCK (or KNIPPERDOLLING), BERNT (BEREND or BERNHARDT) (c.
1490-1536), German divine, was a prosperous cloth-merchant at Münster
when in 1524 he joined Melchior Rinck and Melchior Hofman in a business
journey to Stockholm, which developed into an abortive religious errand.
Knipperdollinck, a man of fine presence and glib tongue, noted from his
youth for eccentricity, had the ear of the Münster populace when in 1527
he helped to break the prison of Tonies Kruse, in the teeth of the
bishop and the civic authorities. For this he made his peace with the
latter; but, venturing on another business journey, he was arrested,
imprisoned for a year, and released on payment of a high fine--in regard
of which treatment he began an action before the Imperial Chamber.
Though his aims were political rather than religious, he attached
himself to the reforming movement of Bernhardt Rothmann, once (1529)
chaplain of St Mauritz, outside Münster, now (1532) pastor of the city
church of St Lamberti. A new bishop directed a mandate (April 17, 1532)
against Rothmann, which had the effect of alienating the moderates in
Münster from the democrats. Knipperdollinck was a leader of the latter
in the surprise (December 26, 1532) which made prisoners of the
negotiating nobles at Telgte, in the territory of Münster. In the end,
Münster was by charter from Philip of Hesse (February 14, 1533)
constituted an evangelical city. Knipperdollinck was made a burgomaster
in February 1534. Anabaptism had already (September 8, 1533) been
proclaimed at Münster by a journeyman smith; and, before this, Heinrich
Roll, a refugee, had brought Rothmann (May 1533) to a rejection of
infant baptism. From the 1st of January 1534 Roll preached Anabaptist
doctrines in a city pulpit; a few days later, two Dutch emissaries of
Jan Matthysz, or Matthyssen, the master-baker and Anabaptist prophet of
Haarlem, came on a mission to Münster. They were followed (January 13)
by Jan Beukelsz (or Bockelszoon, or Buchholdt), better known as John of
Leiden. It was his second visit to Münster; he came now as an apostle of
Matthysz. He was twenty-five, with a winning personality, great gifts as
an organizer, and plenty of ambition. Knipperdollinck, whose daughter
Clara was ultimately enrolled among the wives of John of Leiden, came
under his influence. Matthysz himself came to Münster (1534) and lived
in Knipperdollinck's house, which became the centre of the new movement
to substitute Münster for Strassburg (Melchior Hofmann's choice) as the
New Jerusalem. On the death of Matthysz, in a foolish raid (April 5,
1534), John became supreme. Knipperdollinck, with one attempt at revolt,
when he claimed the kingship for himself, was his subservient henchman,
wheedling the Münster democracy into subjection to the fantastic rule of
the "king of the earth." He was made second in command, and executioner
of the refractory. He fell in with the polygamy innovation, the protest
of his wife being visited with a penance. In the military measures for
resisting the siege of Münster he took no leading part. On the fall of
the city (June 25, 1535) he hid in a dwelling in the city wall, but was
betrayed by his landlady. After six months' incarceration, his trial,
along with his comrades, took place on the 19th of January, and his
execution, with fearful tortures, on the 22nd of January 1536.
Knipperdollinck attempted to strangle himself, but was forced to endure
the worst. His body, like those of the others, was hung in a cage on the
tower of St Lamberti, where the cages are still to be seen. An alleged
portrait, from an engraving of 1607, is reproduced in the appendix to A.
Ross's Pansebeia, 1655.
See L. Keller, _Geschichte der Wiedertäufer und ihres Reichs zu
Münster_ (1880); C. A. Cornelius, _Historische Arbeiten_ (1899); E.
Belfort Bax, _Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists_ (1903). (A. Go.*)
KNITTING (from O.E. _cnyttan_, to knit; cf. Ger. _Knütten_; the root is
seen in "knot"), the art of forming a single thread or strand of yarn
into a texture or fabric of a loop structure, by employing needles or
wires. "Crochet" work is an analogous art in its simplest form. It
consists of forming a single thread into a single chain of loops. All
warp knit fabrics are built on this structure. Knitting may be said to
be divided into two principles, viz. (1) hand knitting and (2)
frame-work knitting (see HOSIERY). In hand knitting, the wires, pins or
needles used are of different lengths or gauges, according to the class
of work wanted to be produced. They are made of steel, bone, wood or
ivory. Some are headed to prevent the loops from slipping over the ends.
Flat or selvedged work can only be produced on them. Others are pointed
at both ends, and by employing three or more a circular or
circular-shaped fabric can be made. In hand knitting each loop is formed
and thrown off individually and in rotation and is left hanging on the
new loop formed. The cotton, wool and silk fibres are the principal
materials from which knitting yarns are manufactured, wool being the
most important and most largely used. "Lamb's-wool," "wheeling,"
"fingering" and worsted yarns are all produced from the wool fibre, but
may differ in size or fineness and quality. Those yarns are largely used
in the production of knitted underwear. Hand knitting is to-day
principally practised as a domestic art, but in some of the remote parts
of Scotland and Ireland it is prosecuted as an industry to some extent.
In the Shetland Islands the wool of the native sheep is spun, and used
in its natural colour, being manufactured into shawls, scarfs, ladies'
jackets, &c. The principal trade of other districts is hose and
half-hose, made from the wool of the sheep native to the district. The
formation of the stitches in knitting may be varied in a great many
ways, by "purling" (knitting or throwing loops to back and front in rib
form), "slipping" loops, taking up and casting off and working in
various coloured yarns to form stripes, patterns, &c. The articles may
be shaped according to the manner in which the wires and yarns are
manipulated.
KNOBKERRIE (from the Taal or South African Dutch, _knopkirie_, derived
from Du. _knop_, a knob or button, and _kerrie_, a Bushman or Hottentot
word for stick), a strong, short stick with a rounded knob or head used
by the natives of South Africa in warfare and the chase. It is employed
at close quarters, or as a missile, and in time of peace serves as a
walking-stick. The name has been extended to similar weapons used by the
natives of Australia, the Pacific islands, and other places.
KNOLLES, RICHARD (c. 1545-1610), English historian, was a native of
Northamptonshire, and was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. He became
a fellow of his college, and at some date subsequent to 1571 left Oxford
to become master of a school at Sandwich, Kent, where he died in 1610.
In 1603 Knolles published his _Generall Historie of the Turkes_, of
which several editions subsequently appeared, among them a good one
edited by Sir Paul Rycaut (1700), who brought the history down to 1699.
It was dedicated to King James I., and Knolles availed himself largely
of Jean Jacques Boissard's _Vitae et Icones Sultanorum Turcicorum_
(Frankfort, 1596). Although now entirely superseded, it has considerable
merits as regards style and arrangement. Knolles published a translation
of J. Bodin's _De Republica_ in 1606, but the _Grammatica Latina, Graeca
et Hebraica_, attributed to him by Anthony Wood and others, is the work
of the Rev. Hanserd Knollys (c. 1599-1691), a Baptist minister.
See the _Athenaeum_, August 6, 1881.
KNOLLES (or KNOLLYS), SIR ROBERT (c. 1325-1407), English soldier,
belonged to a Cheshire family. In early life he served in Brittany, and
he was one of the English survivors who were taken prisoners by the
French after the famous "combat of the thirty" in March 1351. He was,
however, quickly released and was among the soldiers of fortune who took
advantage of the distracted state of Brittany, at this time the scene of
a savage civil war, to win fame and wealth at the expense of the
wretched inhabitants. After a time he transferred his operations to
Normandy, when he served under the allied standards of England and of
Charles II. of Navarre. He led the "great company" in their work of
devastation along the valley of the Loire, fighting at this time for his
own hand and for booty, and winning a terrible reputation by his
ravages. After the conclusion of the treaty of Brétigny in 1360 Knolles
returned to Brittany and took part in the struggle for the possession of
the duchy between John of Montfort (Duke John IV.) and Charles of Blois,
gaining great fame by his conduct in the fight at Auray (September
1364), where Du Guesclin was captured and Charles of Blois was slain.
In 1367 he marched with the Black Prince into Spain and fought at the
battle of Nájera; in 1369 he was with the prince in Aquitaine. In 1370
he was placed by Edward III. at the head of an expedition which invaded
France and marched on Paris, but after exacting large sums of money as
ransom a mutiny broke up the army, and its leader was forced to take
refuge in his Breton castle of Derval and to appease the disappointed
English king with a large monetary gift. Emerging from his retreat
Knolles again assisted John of Montfort in Brittany, where he acted as
John's representative; later he led a force into Aquitaine, and he was
one of the leaders of the fleet sent against the Spaniards in 1377. In
1380 he served in France under Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of
Gloucester, distinguishing himself by his valour at the siege of Nantes;
and in 1381 he went with Richard II. to meet Wat Tyler at Smithfield. He
died at Sculthorpe in Norfolk on the 15th of August 1407. Sir Robert
devoted much of his great wealth to charitable objects. He built a
college and an almshouse at Pontefract, his wife's birthplace, where the
almshouse still exists; he restored the churches of Sculthorpe and
Harpley; and he helped to found an English hospital in Rome. Knolles won
an immense reputation by his skill and valour in the field, and ranks as
one of the foremost captains of his age. French writers call him
Canolles, or Canole.
KNOLLYS, the name of an English family descended from Sir Thomas Knollys
(d. 1435), lord mayor of London. The first distinguished member of the
family was Sir Francis Knollys (c. 1514-1596), English statesman, son of
Robert Knollys, or Knolles (d. 1521), a courtier in the service and
favour of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Robert had also a younger son,
Henry, who took part in public life during the reign of Elizabeth and
who died in 1583.
Francis Knollys, who entered the service of Henry VIII. before 1540,
became a member of parliament in 1542 and was knighted in 1547 while
serving with the English army in Scotland. A strong and somewhat
aggressive supporter of the reformed doctrines, he retired to Germany
soon after Mary became queen, returning to England to become a privy
councillor, vice-chamberlain of the royal household and a member of
parliament under Queen Elizabeth, whose cousin Catherine (d. 1569),
daughter of William Carey and niece of Anne Boleyn, was his wife. After
serving as governor of Plymouth, Knollys was sent in 1566 to Ireland,
his mission being to obtain for the queen confidential reports about the
conduct of the lord-deputy Sir Henry Sidney. Approving of Sidney's
actions he came back to England, and in 1568 was sent to Carlisle to
take charge of Mary Queen of Scots, who had just fled from Scotland;
afterwards he was in charge of the queen at Bolton Castle and then at
Tutbury Castle. He discussed religious questions with his prisoner,
although the extreme Protestant views which he put before her did not
meet with Elizabeth's approval, and he gave up the position of guardian
just after his wife's death in January 1569. In 1584 he introduced into
the House of Commons, where since 1572 he had represented Oxfordshire,
the bill legalizing the national association for Elizabeth's defence,
and he was treasurer of the royal household from 1572 until his death on
the 19th of July 1596. His monument may still be seen in the church of
Rotherfield Grays, Oxfordshire. Knollys was repeatedly free and frank in
his objections to Elizabeth's tortuous foreign policy; but, possibly
owing to his relationship to the queen, he did not lose her favour, and
he was one of her commissioners on such important occasions as the
trials of Mary Queen of Scots, of Philip Howard earl of Arundel, and of
Anthony Babington. An active and lifelong Puritan, his attacks on the
bishops were not lacking in vigour, and he was also very hostile to
heretics. He received many grants of land from the queen, and was chief
steward of the city of Oxford and a knight of the garter.
Sir Francis's eldest son Henry (d. 1583), and his sons Edward (d. c.
1580), Robert (d. 1625), Richard (d. 1596), Francis (d. c. 1648), and
Thomas, were all courtiers and served the queen in parliament or in the
field. His daughter Lettice (1540-1634) married Walter Devereux, earl of
Essex, and then Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester; she was the mother of
Elizabeth's favourite, the 2nd earl of Essex.
Some of Knollys's letters are in T. Wright's _Queen Elizabeth and her
Times_ (1838) and the _Burghley Papers_, edited by S. Haynes (1740);
and a few of his manuscripts are still in existence. A speech which
Knollys delivered in parliament against some claims made by the
bishops was printed in 1608 and again in W. Stoughton's _Assertion for
True and Christian Church Policie_ (London, 1642).
Sir Francis Knollys's second son William (c. 1547-1632) served as a
member of parliament and a soldier during the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
being knighted in 1586. His eldest brother Henry, having died without
sons in 1583, William inherited his father's estates in Oxfordshire,
becoming in 1596 a privy councillor and comptroller of the royal
household; in 1602 he was made treasurer of the household. Sir William
enjoyed the favour of the new king James I., whom he had visited in
Scotland in 1585, and was made Baron Knollys in 1603 and Viscount
Wallingford in 1616. But in this latter year his fortunes suffered a
temporary reverse. Through his second wife Elizabeth (1586-1658),
daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, Knollys was related to
Frances, countess of Somerset, and when this lady was tried for the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury her relatives were regarded with
suspicion; consequently Lord Wallingford resigned the treasurership of
the household and two years later the mastership of the court of wards,
an office which he had held since 1614. However, he regained the royal
favour, and was created earl of Banbury in 1626. He died in London on
the 25th of May 1632.
His wife, who was nearly forty years her husband's junior, was the
mother of two sons, Edward (1627-1645) and Nicholas (1631-1674), whose
paternity has given rise to much dispute. Neither is mentioned in the
earl's will, but in 1641 the law courts decided that Edward was earl of
Banbury, and when he was killed in June 1645 his brother Nicholas took
the title. In the Convention Parliament of 1660 some objection was taken
to the earl sitting in the House of Lords, and in 1661 he was not
summoned to parliament; he had not succeeded in obtaining his writ of
summons when he died on the 14th of March 1674.
Nicholas's son Charles (1662-1740), the 4th earl, had not been summoned
to parliament when in 1692 he killed Captain Philip Lawson in a duel.
This raised the question of his rank in a new form. Was he, or was he
not, entitled to trial by the peers? The House of Lords declared that he
was not a peer and therefore not so entitled, but the court of king's
bench released him from his imprisonment on the ground that he was the
earl of Banbury and not Charles Knollys a commoner. Nevertheless the
House of Lords refused to move from its position, and Knollys had not
received a writ of summons when he died in April 1740. His son Charles
(1703-1771), vicar of Burford, Oxfordshire, and his grandsons, William
(1726-1776) and Thomas Woods (1727-1793), were successively titular
earls of Banbury, but they took no steps to prove their title. However,
in 1806 Thomas Woods's son William (1763-1824), who attained the rank of
general in the British army, asked for a writ of summons as earl of
Banbury, but in 1813 the House of Lords decided against the claim.
Several peers, including the great Lord Erskine, protested against this
decision, but General Knollys himself accepted it and ceased to call
himself earl of Banbury. He died in Paris on the 20th of March 1834. His
eldest son, Sir William Thomas Knollys (1797-1883), entered the army and
served with the Guards during the Peninsular War. Remaining in the army
after the conclusion of the peace of 1815 he won a good reputation and
rose high in his profession. From 1855 to 1860 he was in charge of the
military camp at Aldershot, then in its infancy, and in 1861 he was made
president of the council of military education. From 1862 to 1877 he was
comptroller of the household of the prince of Wales, afterwards King
Edward VII. From 1877 until his death on the 23rd of June 1883 he was
gentleman usher of the black rod; he was also a privy councillor and
colonel of the Scots Guards. His son Francis (b. 1837), private
secretary to Edward VII. and George V., was created Baron Knollys in
1902; another son, Sir Henry Knollys (b. 1840), became private secretary
to King Edward's daughter Maud, queen of Norway.
See Sir N. H. Nicolas, _Treatise on the Law of Adulterine Bastardy_
1833); and G. E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_ (1887), vol. i.
KNOT, a Limicoline bird very abundant at certain seasons on the shores
of Britain and many countries of the northern hemisphere. Camden in the
edition of his _Britannia_ published in 1607 (p. 408) inserted a passage
not found in the earlier issues of that work, connecting the name with
that of King Canute, and this account of its origin has been usually
received. But no other evidence in its favour is forthcoming, and
Camden's statement is merely the expression of an opinion,[1] so that
there is perhaps ground for believing him to have been mistaken, and
that the clue afforded by Sir Thomas Browne, who (c. 1672) wrote the
name "Gnatts or Knots," may be the true one.[2] Still the statement was
so determinedly repeated by successive authors that Linnaeus followed
them in calling the species _Tringa canutus_, and so it remains with
nearly all modern ornithologists.[3] Rather larger than a snipe, but
with a shorter bill and legs, the knot visits the coasts of some parts
of Europe, Asia and North America at times in vast flocks; and, though
in temperate climates a good many remain throughout the winter, these
are nothing in proportion to those that arrive towards the end of
spring, in England generally about the 15th of May, and after staying a
few days pass northward to their summer quarters, while early in autumn
the young of the year throng to the same places in still greater
numbers, being followed a little later by their parents. In winter the
plumage is ashy-grey above (save the rump, which is white) and white
beneath. In summer the feathers of the back are black, broadly margined
with light orange-red, mixed with white, those of the rump white, more
or less tinged with red, and the lower parts are of a nearly uniform
deep bay or chestnut. The birds which winter in temperate climates
seldom attain the brilliancy of colour exhibited by those which arrive
from the south; the luxuriance generated by the heat of a tropical sun
seems needed to develop the full richness of hue. The young when they
come from their birthplace are clothed in ashy-grey above, each feather
banded with dull black and ochreous, while the breast is more or less
deeply tinged with warm buff. Much curiosity has long existed among
zoologists as to the egg of the knot, of which not a single identified
or authenticated specimen is known to exist in collections. The species
was found breeding abundantly on the North Georgian (now commonly called
the Parry) Islands by Parry's Arctic expedition, as well as soon after
on Melville Peninsula by Captain Lyons, and again during the voyage of
Sir George Nares on the northern coast of Grinnell Land and the shores
of Smith Sound, where Major Feilden obtained examples of the newly
hatched young (_Ibis_, 1877, p. 407), and observed that the parents fed
largely on the buds of _Saxifraga oppositifolia_. These are the only
localities in which this species is known to breed, for on none of the
arctic lands lying to the north of Europe or Asia has it been
unquestionably observed.[4] In winter its wanderings are very extensive,
as it is recorded from Surinam, Brazil, Walfisch Bay in South Africa,
China, Queensland and New Zealand. Formerly this species was extensively
netted in England, and the birds fattened for the table, where they were
esteemed a great delicacy, as witness the entries in the Northumberland
and Le Strange Household Books; and the British Museum contains an old
treatise on the subject: "The maner of kepyng of knotts, after Sir
William Askew and my Lady, given to my Lord Darcy, 25 Hen. VIII." (_MSS.
Sloane_, 1592, 8 _cat._ 663). (A. N.)