Eureka! … Since 1981

Eureka! Classics | They rode for King, Pope and beautiful women!

Valour, loyalty, recklessness and heroism, but also readiness to help, courtesy, gallantry and magnanimity – nowadays these virtues typify the knights of old. In the tough reality of the Middle Ages life seldom seemed as rosy as described in historical novels and movies.

Richard the Lionheart, Henry the Lion and Frederick Barbarossa were served by an army of truly devoted fighting men, mounted on horseback, to uphold their territorial rights. Only the best equipped warriors from the nobility could participate in their campaigns of conquest. Only they were in the position to afford the costly armour, swords and lances, to compete in expensive tournaments.

With the blessing of the Pope, knights belonging to an order, such as the Knights Templar, were despatched to the Holy Land in unimaginably poor conditions. Thousands were carried off in the Crusades by the fighting and disease. But there were also poets, such as Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach or Oswald von Walkenstein, who, despite all the zest for battle, expressed unforgettably in their love songs the grace of certain noble ladies of the castle.

It was not only in Europe that brave warriors risked their lives; Mongolian horsemen and Japanese samurai were also prepared to sacrifice themselves for higher ends. The great era of knights ended with the invention of gunpowder and newer battle technology. Their domain, the castle, could no longer withstand this threat, and chivalry foundered. The overwhelming reminder of a romantic period, inextricably linked to the concept of ‘chivalrous’, remains to this day.