As much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it.

Robert Burton (1576-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 2.

  Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book i. Chap. xxv. Of the Education of Children.