Making knights of peasants

As we all know, I'm sure, only three peasants in history have been made into knights, and only one of these (Huebold) is explicitly named.

The precise mechanism by which a peasant can be made a knight differs between sources. According to the WFRP2 sourcebook Knights of the Grail, it requires the agreement of the King and the Fay Enchantress. However, the tale of Huebold as told by the Black Library (in Tales from the Ten Tailed Cat and, second hand, in Tales of the Old World) has him being knighted by Lady Ariadne's husband-to-be, the Duke of Gisoreux, with no mention of the King or the Fay Enchantress. All sources are in agreement that he then failed to survive his first battle, with the Black Library adding the detail that he was probably shot in the back by his squire, under instructions from (and bribed by) some disgruntled knights.

This very, very limited opportunity for peasants to become knights raised a couple of problems for me.

The first, which is general, is that we also know one further thing from the Army Book - that peasants wish to become mounted yeomen not only because they're the best off of the peasants but also because of the tales of them being raised to knighthood. The continued existence of such tales does not sit well with the idea that only three peasants in 1500 years have been so raised.

The second, which is specific to me, is that (back in 5th ed., when commoners became knights fairly frequently) I wrote a piece of background for my character, Abbot Hugh of Cinque Damoiselles, which had him born as the bastard son of a knight to a blacksmith's daughter. This does not square with the ideas of needing noble descent on all sides in the latest background.

However, a solution struck me while perusing Knights of the Grail. The Bretonnian mentality is such that it would be inconceivable to a noble that anyone capable of knightly deeds were not a knight. It is also the case that the interference of the Fay in removing children, and sometimes returning them, could lead to a noble child ending up being 'fostered' inadvertently by a peasant family. A child thus fostered would not appear as 'noble' on the various pedigrees and family trees (which are probably about as realistic as the ones drawn up by Henry VII's heralds showing his descent from King Arthur), but would, in fact, be of noble blood and eligible for knighthood.

The question is, then, how would such a noble be recognised. To the Bretonnian mind, the answer must be that 'blood will out'. A noble, even though fostered by peasants, is still a knight in his blood and will thus demonstrate his true parentage through noble and knightly deeds. It follows quite simply from this, and the notion that only a noble could carry out knightly deeds, that any seeming-peasant who carried out a knightly deed must, in fact, be a noble who was taken by the Fay and then fostered by peasant parents. Once identified by his deeds, such a noble could obviously be knighted without any further rigmarole.

So, why was Huebold not knighted by this method? The answer is clear - his actions, while brave, were not knightly. As the Black Library accounts show, he drove off the beastmen with his bow while on foot. Had he been on horse-back and using a sword and shield he might, by my theory, have simply been recognised as a 'lost noble' and there would have been no further problems.

This theory also explains why Mounted Yeomen are believed more likely to be made knights. It is far easier to carry out knightly deeds when one is on horseback using a sword or spear and a shield!

In conclusion, I hold that while only three peasants have ever been formally raised to knighthood, there is no limit on the number of 'lost nobles' that were discovered fighting among the ranks of the peasants due to their noble and knightly deeds.