'Guards, Knights, Squires; prepare for battle!' hollers one of the kings noble knights. The rumbling thunder of horses trotting across the wooden mote bridge echoes throughout the castle. Brave knights gallop their horses into the foggy mist where swords and shields smash, the sounds of their armor and their striking metals echo across the land they battle over. Blood oozes from severed bodies as limbs are sliced off men like cheese. These barbaric and berserk behaviors were the everyday duties of men during the Middle Ages. Becoming a knight was the ideal manhood during this time. Every aspect of a mans life revolved around their desire to one day serve their king as a knight. The yearning aspiration to become a knight is portrayed in several ways in John Boorman's movie, Excalibur. Arthur's responsibility as a squire (before he was king), Lancelot's challenge of worthiness and Perceval's ambition illustrate the urge that exists in men to serve their king as a knight.
ARTHUR LITTLE
ARTHUR LITTLE
King Arthur and Sir Nicholas Sir LancelotThe responsibilities of a squire serving a knight is one way in which a man is eventually knighted. In the early opening scenes of the movie Excalibur, young Arthur serves as a squire to his brother Kay. Squires were the duties of young men who served their knights by preparing their armor and weaponry. During some of the jousting scenes squires retrieve jousts and pass them over to their knights, but never really assist in combat. Just from the experience and duties as a squire, it is typical that a young squire may eventually become a knight. However, in the movie during an Easter afternoon the knights are jousting for the right to attempt to draw the sword from the stone, and young Arthur forgets his brother's sword. So young Arthur runs back to the camp to...