During the European ‘Age of Chivalry’ (roughly from the 12th to 15th centuries CE), you really weren’t anyone unless you were equipped with a pair of golden spurs. These were a mark of rank only worn by knights or royalty, and according to ‘Royal Spurs’ of Regina, Saskatchewan, ‘proud makers of long shank spurs for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’, were a most treasured possession: “Knights vied with each other to indicate their prestige with costly spurs. Many were jeweled and all were objects of art.”
Clearly then, some sets of spurs were for ostentation rather than use. In an age when the nobility fought on horseback, spurs were of importance and apparently served to distinguish the wearer even if his clothing or armour did not, given that knights wore golden (or gilded) spurs, squires wore silver spurs and pages wore tin spurs.
The Most Chivalric Black Prince
That said, even though spurs came into use among the Celts some 300 to 400 years before the Christian era, they weren’t picked up by the Greek and Romans until much later, and even then there was distinction between those who rode to the battlefield and then fought on foot (‘dragoons’, to use a later term) and the true cavalry. Also, the spurs of those days were simply pointed iron, whereas by the time that model of chivalry Edward the Black Prince took to galloping across the fields of France, spurs with ‘rowels’ characterised by a small, rotating disc or star at the end of the shank (used by riders to give finer leg commands and encourage a horse’s movement) had become de rigeur, as the image shows.
The Black Prince received his formal knighthood, and thus at least theoretically, his spurs, from his father, Edward III, in July 1346, at the beginning of an early campaign in the 100 Years War. The ceremony took place near the coast of Normandy and, subsequently, according to contemporary accounts, the Prince went burning and ravaging, which was described as a “right good beginning”. However, it was his heroics at the Battle of Crécy, where about a month later the English roundly defeated the much larger French force, that established a phrase still in use today.
Amidst the fighting, Edward found himself faced by a furious attack by the Count of Alençon, Charles the Magnanimous, which led to calls to his father, who was reportedly watching the conflict from a windmill, for reinforcements. Having discovered his son was uninjured, the king refused, saying he wanted to give his son the opportunity to “win his spurs” – the usual method of ennoblement on the battlefield. Edward survived but only barely, requiring the help of his standard bearer and the Earl of Arundel to do so. The victors, were, however, not magnanimous as far as the Count of Alençon was concerned.
The Black Prince dressed as a Knight of the Garter. Note the golden spurs with star rowels.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs
While the Black Prince won his spurs at Crécy, there would have been many among the one thousand or more French nobles who lost theirs, given that spurs were a desirable battlefield prize. History, however, does not relate such stories from that day, entirely unlike the tales of the ‘Guldensporenslag’ or Battle of the Golden Spurs, which took place outside Kortrijk (Courtrai) in 1302.
This battle was also a French defeat, but this time at the hands of the Flemish, and “was a famous early example of an all-infantry army defeating an enemy force reliant on heavy cavalry. The 500 pairs of spurs that were captured from the French horsemen gave the battle its popular name.” (Wikipedia). In later years, and despite the fact that the French finally won the Franco-Flemish War, the battle came to be seen as a sort of Flemish coming-of-age event (and is today commemorated by a national holiday established in 1973).
Even before these two battles, golden spurs had become an integral part of royal regalia, certainly in England, when more than a century earlier, a pair of solid gold spurs were worn by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) when crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1189. Subsequently, all English (and later British) kings and queens either wore a pair of spurs or had them ceremonially presented, as happened with Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation in June 1953, or held to the ankles as at King Charles III’s coronation in September 2022.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs 1302 (1).
Rober Vyner's Huge Contribution
Sadly, however, the spurs used on these auspicious occasions were not Richard’s originals (which probably saw a lot of wear during the Third Crusade). They first belonged to Charles II courtesy of the royal goldsmith, banker, Lord Mayor of London, the fabulously rich, Sir Robert Vyner (Viner) – the man who regularly lent money to defray the expenses of the state and found himself short by some £400,000 in 1672 when the Exchequer was unable to repay him. (Vyner was also one of the founders of the Royal African Company – see Alchemist issue 101.)
To put this amount of money into context, according to the Bank of England calculation, £100 in 1672 would be worth £19,600 today, meaning Sir Robert was down over £78 million. It might be some small consolation to know that the spurs he made for the 1662 coronation were, with some modification to the bindings, still in use 361 years later.
It is uncertain whether Robert Vyner, who was knighted in 1665, was either presented with golden spurs or, indeed, made a pair for himself. Certainly, there’s no record of his appearance on a battlefield, although, born in 1631, he would have been just old enough to be involved in the later stages of the English Civil War.
Sir Robert Vyner.
The Papal Honour
That said, for one group of people who we might loosely describe as papal favourites, there has been another route to spurs – or at least one spur – open since 1367 when Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, conferred the newly created title of the Order of the Golden Spur on a certain Fenzio di Albertino. This order, which is said to be the earliest papal chivalric institution, is, according to Wikipedia, “conferred upon those who have rendered distinguished service in propagating the Catholic faith, or who have contributed to the glory of the Church, either by feat of arms, by writings, or by other illustrious acts”.
The list of recipients of this honour is impressive and includes Raphael, Mozart, Casanova, Mussolini and, perhaps more surprisingly, King Hussein of Jordan and the Former Shah of Iran. Sadly, however, with the death in 2019 of the last remaining knight, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, the order is considered dormant.
And so, as things stand, we’ll have to wait for the coronation of King William V before the story of the golden spurs takes another step forward.
Badge of the Order of the Golden Spur.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs 1302 (2).
