In the Middle Ages, a childe or child was the son of a nobleman who had not yet attained knighthood, or had not yet won his spurs. As a rank in chivalry, it was used as a title, e.g. Child Horn in King Horn, as a male progressed through the positions of squire and then knight.
The term is now obsolete, but is still well known from poetry, such as Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came and Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Read more about Childe: Cultural References
Famous quotes containing the word childe:
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“...a mind, if given only the best food never craves any other.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“...feminism differs from reform of any kind, even franchise reform. Feminists, I should say, are not reformers at all, but rather intellectual biologists and psychologists.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)