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What is a Paladin?

We will attempt to answer that question with information from the Internet. If you have or find additional information about Paladins, please email us so we can include it in this site.

From Wikipedia:

One of Charlemagne’s twelve peers, and by a similar description King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table. The word has been extended to be applied to any medieval champion or knight of distinctive virtue.

A paladin is the prototypical "knight in shining armour," a hero of sterling character and courage, who rights wrongs and defends the weak and oppressed. The word comes from the Latin word palatinus ("attached to the palace") - compare palatine. The original paladins of legend appeared as the Twelve Peers of the Chanson de Roland and of the other chansons de geste and romances that told of the legendary court of King Charlemagne.

The list that appears in the Chanson de Roland is early and includes names that do not reappear in later chansons.

The best known list of the paladins appears in the Italian epics of Tasso and Ariosto.

The list varies from romance to romance, and often more than twelve are named, though all feature Roland and Oliver. Others that are frequently included are Archbishop Turpin, Ogier the Dane, Huon of Bordeaux, Fierabras, Renaud de Montauban, and Ganelon.

Tales of the paladins of Charlemagne once rivalled the stories of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table in popularity. Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso, whose works were once as widely read and respected as Shakespeare's, contributed most prominently to the literary/poetical reworking of the tales of the epic deeds of the paladins.

The tales told of the paladins took as their subject matter the wars between the Franks and the Moors during the Islamic conquests of Spain and their invasion of southern France. Their adventures became known as the "Matter of Charlemagne" or "Matter of France", even as the adventures of King Arthur and his knights classed as the "Matter of Britain."

The late nineteenth century Celtic revival benefitted the Arthurian material and encouraged its reworking and recirculation. No such aura of latter-day romance could assist the Charlemagne material, which remained strongly Christian and triumphalist in its presentation. As a result, 20th Century readers know Arthur and his Camelot well while hearing little of the paladins of Charlemagne, who once enjoyed equal renown.

Paladins feature in various modern role-playing games as a playable character class. In these games the paladin is usually a virtuous knight and defender of the faith that can perform miracles, characteristics derived directly from the paladins of legend (see (paladin (character class)).

In modern language, the word paladin has been used to describe either a knight-errant, a valiant hero or a particularly loyal companion.

There is also a howitzer serving in the U.S.A. and several other N.A.T.O. countries that have been given the name Paladin. The Paladin is a mobile howitzer platform that resembles a large tank. The unit also appears in the game Command & Conquer: Generals and Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour as the heavy battle tank of the U.S.A.

From Furman University:

The Furman University athletic mascot is a knight on a horse and the school's intercollegiate athletic teams are nicknamed "Paladins." Prior to 1961 this was not the case as the baseball team was known as the "Hornets," the football team the "Hurricane," and the basketball team the "Paladins."

First used by a Greenville sportswriter in the 1930s to describe Furman's basketball team, "Paladins" became the official nickname of all of the school's intercollegiate athletic teams following a vote of the student body on September 15, 1961.

A "Paladin" is defined in the American Heritage College Dictionary as a "paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion; a strong supporter or defender of a cause; and any of the 12 peers of French emperor Charlemagne's court." While the same dictionary does not specifically describe a knight as a Paladin or vice-versa, the knight's definition of "a defender, champion, or zealous upholder of a cause or principle" closely resembles the aforementioned definition of a Paladin.

While history reveals that knights and Paladins were not always mounted men-at-arms, the modern image of a knight has no doubt played a role in the development of Furman's mascot as a knight on a horse.

From Wikipedia:

Knight-Errant

A knight-errant is a figure of Medieval romantic chivalric literature. The knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures to prove themselves as a knight. Many knights-errant fit the ideal of the "knight in shining armor". A knight-errant performed all his deeds in the name of a lady, and invoked her name before performing an exploit.

Famous examples include:
From Have Gun Will Travel:

On September 14th, 1957, a new western debuted on the CBS television network. Richard Boone played the man called "Paladin" in Have Gun -- Will Travel. The unique title survives today, in countless incarnations in advertising and other media -- or have you never heard the phrase
"Have ______, Will Travel"? Well, now you know whence it came. The half-hour show aired Saturday, at 9:30 p.m., just before another popular western, Gunsmoke, and ran for six successful seasons. (It opened as the #4 rated show for the year, then followed up with three years ranked #3.)

Its dramatic opening had Paladin aiming his gun and his words directly at the audience, and the series always featured a no-nonsense approach and intelligence rarely evident on the small screen.

HGWT has seldom been seen in syndication over the last 25 years, apparently because it was filmed in black-and-white, and because it's "tainted" by violent content. The latter rationale seems especially ludicrous, considering the graphic mayhem depicted in today's programming. Paladin killed many men, true enough -- but his victims were always deserving -- and almost none of the violence in the show was gratuitous.

The best episodes put today's television drama to shame.