(Medieval music plays)
Shot of a man wearing a suit of armour. He lowers his visor over his eyes.
On-screen text reads, 'Knights'.
Shot of Arne Koets speaking to off-screen interviewer.
ARNE:
My name is Arne Koets and I am one of the riders who have been invited to come here to ride in this particular tournament that has been organised by Mr McKinnon here in St Ives. Knights are people who have the knightly title. It is in that sense that simple and on the other hand that makes it very complicated. Knights in medieval times were also people who were in charge of areas of land. This was called a 'fief'. They held a fief. So there was a king who had all the land and he divided it up into different little chunks and they were sorting out a chunk. They were being police, they were being judge, they were being mayor, all in one. And they were personally responsible for infrastructure, for building windmills and financing things, but also for military defence. That meant building castles and defensive structures in the landscape as well as providing military service in their person. So that is what a knight is. Knights were a person that did, basically… were a representative of the government in one person in a small area. So it's the local government impersonated. So they might judge small differences between various peasants or owners of land. They provided land to be let to people so that they can till the harvest and all that kind of stuff. They might make sure that there was enough of the harvest kept for future use.
Photographs of a man being fitted with armour.
ARNE:
And things like that — they managed all of society in their person. And also they provided protection. For instance, in feuds. If there was people from different areas that had some sort of conflict, they would mediate between it and if diplomacy would fail, they would use force as well.
Shot of a man riding on horseback.
ARNE:
So that would get the feudal armies and the feudal warfare that knights were in charge of as well. So it's quite a complicated concept of society.
On-screen text reads, 'Splash live! ABC'.