--- title: Castles, knights and cathedrals — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Castles, knights and cathedrals», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In medieval Europe land was power: the king gave land to lords, the lords promised him soldiers, and peasants farmed the lords' land in re --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Castles, knights and cathedrals # Castles, knights and cathedrals Lesson 21 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/0/) — In medieval Europe land was power: the king gave land to lords, the lords promised him soldiers, and peasants farmed the lords' land in return for protection. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/1/) — The lords lived in castles, first wooden forts on a mound and later stone giants with thick walls, towers, moats and drawbridges, but inside they were cold, smoky and busy, not fairy-tale palaces. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/2/) — Their best fighters were knights, rich horsemen trained from boyhood, who wore heavy armour and painted coats of arms on their shields so friends could tell who was who in battle. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/3/) — Picture a castle in a cartoon under siege: in real life the attackers more often just waited for weeks until the defenders ran out of food, and from the 1400s cannons began to smash even the thickest walls. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/4/) — Meanwhile whole towns spent a hundred years or more building cathedrals, whose stained-glass windows told Bible stories to people who could not read. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/5/) — In the medieval system often called feudalism, the king gave land to lords, lords owed him soldiers, and peasants owed the lords work and part of their crops. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/6/) — Most people were peasants who worked from sunrise to sunset, lived in small one-room houses and often kept their animals inside in winter for warmth and safety. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/7/) — The first castles were wooden towers on earth mounds; later castles were built of stone, with thick walls, towers, moats and drawbridges. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/8/) — Attackers besieged castles for weeks or months with catapults and trebuchets, or tried to starve the defenders out, and cannons from the 1400s made castle walls far less useful. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/9/) — A noble boy became a page at about seven, a squire at about fourteen, and could be knighted at about twenty-one. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/10/) — Early knights wore chain mail and later knights wore fitted plate armour, which was so well made that a knight could run and climb onto his horse by himself. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/11/) — The story that knights had to be lifted onto horses by cranes is a myth. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/12/) — Chivalry was the code knights were meant to follow: be brave and loyal, protect the weak and honour God, though real knights often fell short of it. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/13/) — King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are legends, not proven history. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/14/) — At tournaments knights jousted, charging at each other on horseback with blunted lances in front of cheering crowds. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/15/) — Coats of arms let knights be recognised when helmets hid their faces, and towns, schools and football clubs still use them. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/16/) — Cathedrals were huge and built by hand, and money came in slowly, so many took a hundred years or more to finish. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/17/) — Lincoln Cathedral in England was probably the tallest building in the world for about 200 years, until its spire fell in 1548. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/18/) — From 1096 European Christians fought the Crusades to control Jerusalem, a city holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims, and Muslim leaders such as Saladin fought back and retook it in 1187. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/19/) — Both sides in the Crusades did brave things and cruel things, and ordinary people of all three faiths suffered. - ← previous: [The Middle Ages begin: the Vikings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/20-the-middle-ages-begin-the-vikings/) - next →: [The Islamic golden age and the wider medieval world](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/22-the-islamic-golden-age-and-the-wider-medieval-world/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)