Arming Squire

Battles in the Middle Ages can last from sunrise to sunset. The Knights who fought relied on their Arming Squires to provide them with fresh weapons and horses as the day progressed. This was dangerous work and many Arming Squires got killed in battle. During these long battles, Knights had no time to take off their armour to go for a toilet break. Instead, they would do their business straight into their armour and spend the day swilling around in the mess. At the end of the fighting, it was the job of the Knight’s Arming Squire to clean his master’s armour of blood, mud – and everything else. There was no easy way of doing this: the biggest lumps of filth were scraped off by hand, and the rest was removed with grass, gravel and sand. It was a smelly, tiring and time-consuming job.