During the medieval ages we had the knights as the "noble" soldiers(although more akin to a commander or a general I think) of their king.

But I'm not interested on the knights.

What I want to know is how an elite group would function in this time period?

What kind of protection and weapons would they use?What would be their fighting style?What would be their position in the feudal system?How they would be seen by their peers(if their identities were known) and even the nobility and royalty?Should there be restrictions of the sorts for joining?What kind of training they would have to go through?

And for this question I am presenting two groups.

One is designated to deal with internal issues, be they political or physical, they are the ones protecting the regent family from inside attacks and are also the ones dealing with more dangerous "elements" that might infiltrate or betray the town/city/village.They investigate and diffuse a situation before it happens, or try protect as many innocents as they can.

Think of them like a medieval equivalent to the SWAT or an elite police force.

The other group is made of people that deal with outside issues, other nations, dangerous beasts, recon and silent war(killing without being seen).They are the ones sent to rescue those that were taken from the town/city/village, the ones to go after precious knowledge and objects and secure them for their lord and the ones sent to put down those that could become(or already are) a danger for their people.

They are the medieval equivalent of a military special forces.