In the field, he learned to ride a war-horse and to practise warlike exercises. Armed with a lance he tilted at the quintain, a shield bound to a pole or spear fastened in the ground. After the Crusades, the figure of a Saracen, armed at all points and brandishing a wooden sabre, was set up instead of the shield. If the squire could not strike it in the centre of face or breast, it revolved rapidly and struck him in the back. Then there was the pel, a post or tree stump, six feet high. This he struck at certain points, marked as face and breast and legs, covering himself at the same time with a shield. He must learn also to scale walls, to swim, to bear heat, cold, hunger and fatigue. If he were a "squire of the body" he bore the shield and armour of his lord in battle, cased and secured him in it and assisted him to mount his war-horse. To him fell the honour of defending the banner and securing the prisoners. If his lord were unhorsed, he must raise him and give him a new mount; if wounded, he must bear him to a place of safety. Froissart tells the story of a knight who fought as long as his breath served him and "at last at the end of the battle, his four squires took him and brought him out of the field and laid him under a hedgeside for to refresh him, and they unarmed him and bound up his wounds as well as they could." The squire did not fight unless his lord was sore pressed, but he kept a careful watch, as did the son of the King of France, at Poitiers, standing by his father in the mêlée, though he was but fifteen, shouting "Guard thyself on thy right, father. Guard thyself on thy left, father," till he was taken prisoner. A squire might be dubbed a knight on the battle-field in reward for bravery, or at the age of twenty-one he became a knight if he so desired, and this was the manner of his knighting, though often some of these ceremonies were left out. In the evening, he was placed in the care of "two squires of honour, grave and well seen in courtship and nurture and also in the feats of chivalry." A barber then attended and shaved him and cut his hair. After this he was led by the squires into his chamber where a bath was prepared, hung within and without with linen, and covered with rich cloths. While he was in the bath, "two ancient and grave knights attended on him, to instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of chivalry." When this had been done, they poured some of the water of the bath over his shoulders, signing the left shoulder with the Cross. He was then taken from the bath and put into a plain bed without hangings, and there he remained until his body was dry. Then the two squires arrayed him in linen and a white shirt, and over that "a robe of russet with long sleeves, having a hood thereto like unto that of a hermit." In this way, knights of the order of the Bath were made.