Why did the knight become the supreme fighting force in medieval Europe?

In medieval times knight was the name of noble horseman warrior well-trained and equipped for battles with enemy horsemen or infantry Knights became the most effective units on battlefields very quickly and have held this superiority for centuries , and not without reasons

First reason of martial superiority of knights was constant training that almost every knight or would-be knight took from childhood Would-be knights , that were called squires or sword-bearers , learned to ride , to care about martial weapons of adult knights and to fight with these weapons . That could be swords , battle

axes or maces . Squires were taught to put armor on and off the knight they served . Later they started to learn themselves how to wear armor and to fight in it without considerable difficulties . Also there were trainings of strength and stamina to forge the body and the spirit of the young squire . This combined learning and servitude took all the time of young sword-bearer effectively preparing him to his future career of a warrior . Yet usual militiamen , recruited usually from peasants , rarely had any combat experience and were poor opponents for such well-trained person

Second reason was that , as mentioned above , every knight had set off for a battle protected by well-crafted armor . In the early Middle Ages their bodies were protected by chain mails and helmets and shields , and in late Middle Ages knights ' armor evolved to entirely metallic suits with mobile joints that protected knight 's body from blades and arrows both Helmets and shields also evolved to grant the noble warrior more and more protection . At the same time , irregular armies gathered mainly of peasants , had little or no armor to protect themselves . At the best average militia warrior had armor crafted of leather , and more often his armor was made of padded cloth or wood , which granted protection significantly poorer than armor made of iron or steel does . And even this small amount of protection was often negated by artificial clumsiness of the armor-wearing soldier that was not used to wear it That is why knight with his superior quality armor and habit to fight in it has little difficulties to defeat even several worse protected opponents

Third reason of martial superiority of knights was their superiority in weapons . These noble horsemen used swords and battle axes forged of iron or , later , of steel . Also they had their sword-bearers to care about weapon and to set it in condition suited best for battle or storage Weapon treated such show their best characteristics in combat , and hence , its owner has chance to damage his opponent harder than if his weapon was dull and unprepared . Also it is necessary to consider the fact that majority of average recruits in the Middle Ages were armed with weapons that were stored in their lords ' arsenals for years sometimes , and that majority of these recruits could not took care of their weapons properly , at least before they went through their first training . This also shifted balance towards the...