Knight is the English term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In the Commonwealth of Nations, knighthood is a non-heritable form of gentility, but is not nobility. In the High and Late Middle Ages, the principal duty of a knight was to fight as, and lead, heavy cavalry (see serjeanty); more recently, in the United Kingdom, knighthood has become a symbolic title of honour given to a more diverse class of people, from mountain climber Edmund Hillary to musician Paul McCartney. By extension, "knight" is also used as a translation of the names of other honourable estates connected with horsemanship, especially from classical antiquity.
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