A Brief History of Paladins
I wonder how many WoW references I can get into this one.
Who is your favourite paladin? Mine is Arthas Menethil (1). Back in the day when I first started playing World of Warcraft (2), I thought Paladins were just another fantasy archetype, you know, like druids, priests, warlocks or even monks... oh, wait a minute. They're all real things, and even if the fantasy versions are not the same as their real-life counterparts, you can still see the connections. It makes sense to me that, in fantasy, druids have a connection to nature and can shift into different animal forms. But what about paladins? I assumed they were crusader-adjacent, but with a different name because, well, real-life crusaders aren't the best role models, and that is putting it politely. I then abruptly forgot about this until I started studying Classics and learnt about the Palatine Hill and palatinus.
"By the light!" (3) I exclaimed loudly to myself. That's where the word paladin comes from; they were real! I was very excited about this and had to tell everyone. The word paladin entered English through French. The Latin palatinus was a title given to a high-ranking official who served in the emperor's palace.
Would you like to know who else had Paladins? Charlemagne, because of course he did. Whether they were real or literary figures, or some combination of both, I wouldn't like to say, but it makes sense to me that Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, would use a Latin-derived name for his most trusted knights. It also now makes sense to me why paladins are often associated with some form of religion in fantasy, and why they use holy or light magic.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am in the mood to find a Romanesque transmog (4) for one of my paladins.
World of Warcraft references: 4
This post was brought to you by The Jar. The Jar is where some of my blog ideas live, so that on an evening when I have some downtime, I can pick a random topic and do some light research.
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Image Credit: Antonio Friedemann
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