By this point in western European history, knights had become a small and increasingly demilitarized class. It was more expensive than ever to become a knight, due to increasingly onerous obligations that had been imposed in the 12th-14th centuries, and so the number of eligible men who could or would pay to assume the rank of knight decreased. Instead, the former military duties of the knight were largely carried on by unknighted "esquires" and "armigers." These were not children, but full-grown fighting men. Together with the remaining militarily active knights, they formed a body of men referred to as men-at-arms.