“Win his spurs”

“Win his spurs” is the expression for a newly admitted knight’s next task: to prove himself through deeds of arms. Its clearest illustration is Edward III’s decision at Crécy to leave the living Prince of Wales to meet the battle with the men around him, so that the prince might earn its honour. The phrase makes knighthood not merely a rite conferred, but a reputation tested in action.

Meaning and Exemplum

The book introduces the expression after describing the religious rites by which an esquire entered the order of knighthood and the solemn engagements he undertook. Admission was therefore a beginning, not a completed achievement: the knight had next to “win his spurs.” The account turns to Froissart’s story of Edward III and the Black Prince to make that expectation concrete.

The Prince at Crécy

During the battle, French and German forces pressed the prince’s division, and the English reinforcements sent to his aid were hard-pressed. A messenger carried their appeal to Edward, who watched from a small windmill hill. The king asked whether his son was dead, wounded, or fallen; when told that he was alive but severely matched, Edward refused further requests for aid while the prince lived.

Edward’s message was that the prince and those beside him should be allowed to win their spurs that day. If God permitted, the work and its honour would belong to his son and the men with him. The narrative says the reply greatly encouraged them and that they regretted having sent to the king. The scene defines the expression through a specific ordeal: honour is earned amid danger, in company, rather than bestowed in advance.

Honour, Risk, and Service

The author compares the prince’s men with the brigade of Sir Colin Halket at Waterloo. When the Duke of Wellington was told that two-thirds of the brigade were down and the remainder exhausted, he could offer no relief and said that everything depended on them. The officer answered that they would stand until the last man fell. The parallel shifts the phrase beyond the ceremony of knighting: it links earned honour to endurance when duty continues despite peril and no rescue can be expected.

The passage then describes the knight’s future as depending, in the customary language of chivalry, not on himself alone but on God and his lady. Thus the trial of arms is framed by obligations and loyalties beyond personal ambition. To win one’s spurs is to establish worth through action, but the meaning of that action rests within a moral and devotional order.

Wider Resonance in the Book

The phrase’s pattern of proving oneself recurs in the account of Beaumains, who asks to undertake a battle and to be made a knight by Sir Launcelot. He departs with a spear and shield obtained from Sir Kay, fights Sir Launcelot, reveals his name, and is at last dubbed by him. This sequence presents knighthood as both tested ability and recognition bestowed by another knight.

The broader narrative also gives knightly achievement a public and ethical dimension. After the quests associated with Sir Gawaine, Sir Tor, and King Pellinore, King Arthur binds the knights of the Round Table to avoid wrongful violence and treason, show mercy, and succour women. In this context, martial proof is not sufficient by itself: the honour associated with a knight’s deeds is measured against duties of justice and restraint. “Win his spurs” consequently names the threshold between admission and earned reputation, while the surrounding material shows that reputation must be sustained by conduct.