Queen’s University students writing exams last month got an unexpected surprise when they were suddenly joined by a knight in shining armor.

The fellow student, who goes by the profile name “Mastadufus” on Youtube, had decided to write his final exam for medieval history garbed appropriately in a set of armour he’d cobbled together, piece by piece, over the past three years.

In a subsequent email exchange with the Kingston Herald, the student said he did it for laughs, having originally taken the course to have fun in his last year of university and wanting to “leave with a bang”.

As can be seen in the video below, other students were already seated and had just started writing their own exams when the clanging knight entered the auditorium in the old PhysEd Centre.

The student admitted he had intentionally arriving a bit late after spending a few minutes outside the building where pedestrians could be seen doing double takes (and perhaps continuing to walk on a little more hurridly than before).

The one downside to the prank, he admitted, was that the suit of armor – made to order from a blacksmith in the States – was quite uncomfortable to sit in, which resulted in him rushing through the exam faster than he normally would have.

And on his way out, the student was greeted by a bemused exam proctor who quipped, “You know you lose your knighthood if you fail, right?”

The university may see even more armored knights clanging through their corridors and exam halls in the future, since earlier that same month a Senate meeting approved the option for undergraduates to minor in Medieval Studies, which will integrate certain Art, Classics, English and History classes that have a medieval focus.