Knights rode horses and used long spears called lances. They lived in the years when castles were new in England. After 1066 the Normans built castles all over England and Wales. Let's see how a knight was trained, and how castles changed.

Training began early. A page was a child from a wealthy family. Pages learned good manners by working in a lord's household. The next step was to be a squire. A squire was a knight in training who helped a knight.

Early knights wore mail. Mail was armour made of thousands of linked metal rings. You may think knights always wore a full metal suit. They did not. Suits of plate armour came later. By the 1400s knights wore them.

Knights wore armour to protect their bodies. So how could you tell one knight from another? A coat of arms could tell you. It was a design on a shield. It showed who its owner was.

Many early castles were made of wood. A motte and bailey castle was one kind. It had a mound of earth with a wooden tower on it. Next to it was a courtyard called the bailey. It could be built quickly, from earth and timber found close at hand.

Later, castles were built of stone, which made them stronger. From the 1100s some owners rebuilt wooden castles in stone, with a stone keep. A keep was the strong inner tower of a castle. A concentric castle had two rings of walls, one inside the other.

Words to know

• squire: knight in training
• mail: linked-ring armour
• concentric: rings inside rings
• keep: inner tower