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:
“...I knew I wanted to be permanently self-supporting and I vaguely thought I might work somewhere in the realm of ideas. I felt that I had within me an undeveloped fount of ideas. I did not know exactly what my ideas were, but whatever they were I wanted to convert people to them.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“...a mind, if given only the best food never craves any other.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“...feminism never harmed anybody unless it was some feminists. The danger is that the study and contemplation of “ourselves” may become so absorbing that it builds by slow degrees a high wall that shuts out the great world of thought.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)