The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 is a watershed moment in the history of chivalry and knighthood. It was an event when the army of France, which consisted primarily of knights armed with the finest “high tech” military equipment of the day, was defeated by a much smaller English force, comprised primarily of yeomen and peasant archers.

Agincourt thus became symbolic of the triumph of the “commoner” over the knightly nobility; of grit and determination over chivalry and gallantry. But there is another side to the imagery of Agincourt — that of a small, courageous band of brothers standing against all odds and emerging victorious not only by force of arms but also by strength of character and virtue. Songs were written about the English King Henry V immediately after the battle saying his victory was won, “by grace and might of chivalry.”

But recent scholarly investigations into the Battle of Agincourt are beginning to remold our image of this historic event — and these updated images of the campaign, the battle and the men who fought it (on both sides) have been incorporated into the recent novel Azincourt» (the medieval spelling) by acclaimed historical novelist Bernard Cornwell.

But if our image of the Battle of Agincourt – the arrogant French knights, the valiant English king, the stalwart bowmen – is being repainted, what does that do to the concept of chivalry? Was Agincourt an excoriation of an outdated notion of aristocratic privilege? Or an atrocity against the very concept of ethics on the battlefield?

This article, written by Bernard Cornwell himself and published in the Oct. 28, 2008 edition of The Daily Mail, may shed some light on just how the concept of chivalry emerged from the muddy battlefield at Agincourt.

Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle.

The romantic image of Shakespeare's Henry V (played here by Sir Lawrence Olivier) maybe inspirational, but it also appears in stark contrast to the authentic image of the king and his army who fought at Agincourt.

Laurence Olivier’s film of Shakespeare’s Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt.

The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.

A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim’s visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger’s point.

It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle’s height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered.

(Recently) during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like ‘war criminals’ during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French ‘were met with barbarism by the English’, said the museum’s director Christophe Gilliot.

The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England’s history.

Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt» – spelled as it is in France – and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was.

Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed.

Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry’s feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered.

In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry’s army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin’s Day, Henry’s small army had entered legend.

But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years’ War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town’s stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege’s end his army had been struck by dysentery.

Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat.

He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur.

Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers.

The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry’s path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains.

They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped.

The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions’ chests.

But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say ‘Let’s go, fellows!’ as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line.

And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry’s men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud.

The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows.

At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack.

A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos.

Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry’s men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach.

They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses’ hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets’ visors.

They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers.

The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented.

At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour.

A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second.

Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent.

So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards.

If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men.

Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived.

Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers.

The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud.

But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race …

Learn More: Shakespeare’s Famous Band Of Brothers

The famous St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V, delivered here by Lawrence Olivier in a 1944 motion picture, creates a stirring and romantic image of chivalry at Agincourt. Is it an image of a king, an army and a code of honor built on literary grandeur rather than historical reality?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. Agincourt Part 2: Where A New Crop Of Chivalry Was Planted
2. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 2
3. Teaching With Chivalry Part III: Ethics, Tactics and Literature

In the second part of this article, as in his latest novel Azincourt,» Cornwell paints a stark and brutal picture of Agincourt. Yet, despite the folly and callousness demonstrated at times by both sides in this battle, the day did not result in “the death of chivalry,” as some pragmatic historians might like to claim. Instead, Agincourt might better be described as “the transformation of chivalry” … from an ideal that applied only to an elite and aristocratic few, to one that every man, “no matter how vile” (in the words of Shakespeare) could achieve.

The English army at Agincourt was one in which peasant and knight stood side-by-side in the mud — it might have brought the knights low, but it also let those humble English yeomen feel a bit of the chivalric glow that had previously illuminated the knightly class alone. This was a moment — perhaps one of the first in all of history — when an everyman could imagine himself as a knight in shining armor.

A 19th century artist's depiction of the disheartened English soldiers receiving blessing on the eve of Agincourt.

Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads?

Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy’s armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down.

What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms.

There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms.

The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows.

Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back.

The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents.

Any man capable of hauling a warbow’s string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds.

The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men.

Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph.

There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless.

Shakespeare’s heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle’s place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again.

Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?

It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman – the V- sign that is common parlance today.

The men in Henry’s army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers.

They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won.

The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride.

The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. It is an English tale for the ages, an inspiration and – far from being ashamed of so-called ‘war crimes’ – we can be proud of it.

Bernard Cornwell on the Battle of Agincourt

Click here to view the embedded video.

Learn More: The Battle of Agincourt

• An article in the New York Times shows how historians are using tax records to reassess the Battle of Agincourt — and a familiar picture of war and soldiers is emerging.
• Historians Anne Curry, Michael Jones and John Watts discuss the latest documentary evidence for the compositions of the armies that met at Agincourt in 1415 on the show In Our Time on BBC Radio.
• Was King Henry V the greatest monarch who ever lived? England’s Daily Mail seeks an answer to the question.

More Of Bernard Cornwell’s Novels of Chivalry and Medieval Adventure:

The Archer's Tale» A Novel of the Hundred Years War
The Winter King» A Novel of Historical King Arthur
The Last Kingdom» A Novel of Alfred the Great and Saxon England

Related posts:

1. Agincourt Part 1: Where Chivalry Died In The Mud
2. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 2
3. The Medicine of Chivalry

In just a few days, the 2008 Olympics will begin in Bejing, China. These Games have, and will continue to allow the world to focus on both the possibilities and challenges faced by today’s global society. Among all the debate, celebration and protest over the 2008 Games, it is interesting to note that these things are not unique to this session of the Olympics. In fact, more than 70 years ago, an editorial in the British newspaper, The Guardian, made some statements that bear an eerie similarity to some being made today. It is interesting to look back and recall the concerns voiced just prior to the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.

Similarly, this historical article gives us a chance to contemplate the association between chivalry and the Olympics. As the author points out, the Games were originally conceived in the highest spirit of chivalry — as a means of transcending bigotry, nationalism and corruption in pursuit of a more noble goal: friendship. Human nature being what it is, of course, striving to reach that goal continues to be problematic, but no matter how many times we stumble, we persevere nonetheless. In a race with no finish line, the only way to fail is to quit trying.

“What is the point of this article?” you may ask. It is a crucial demonstration, I think, that any worthy, noble goal — from the values of chivalry to the Olympic dream — can be coopted and subverted by those with a political cause to advance. That was true in the Middle Ages, and it remains true in the modern world. But if our response to that corruption of noble ideals is to hide them away … to cancel the Olympic games or to proclaim the obsolescence of chivalry … then our ideals may as well be dead. We have to “put ourselves out there” rather than locking chivalry away in a glass case like a relic from the ancient past. We have to continue to strive and compete — and risk failure — if we are to establish free trade in ideals that can inspire others. The challenge is simply to never allow idealistic goals to blind us to suffering and oppression. To never turn our backs on those in need, simply for the sake of “putting on a good show.”

In Games, Knightly Ideals Were The Original Gold Medal

Forty years ago this year the first modern Olympic Games were held, revived by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, with a triple purpose. He wished to spread throughout the world the social benefits of sport as observed in Great Britain and the United States. He wanted to foster through sport the instincts of nobility and chivalry. And he believed that by the friendly mingling of athletes from many countries the peace of the world would be reinforced. He said:

Coubertin’s first hope has been fulfilled. The Olympic Games have had a great effect in promoting the physical health of a world which is being progressively industrialised. The other hopes have not been fulfilled. They have not kept bright the flame of chivalry. Sport has run away with us and has become a wild, nationalistic race. Coubertin’s Free Trade in athletes has become an athletic war. And Coubertin’s hope that the athletes of the world, by meeting at Olympic Games, might form an international body of friends is still far from fulfilment.

To-day the Olympic Games begin a new phase. This year at Berlin for the first time we are to see them confessedly exploited as an advertisement for a political party. The conduct of the Games and their setting are to be a demonstration of the excellence of Nazism. Houses in Germany have been whitewashed, and there has been other whitewashing as well. German Jews have been given no chance to fit themselves to represent Germany, but a few selected Jews have been included in German teams for the sake of window-dressing.

All over Europe it is being said that whatever dangerous designs Germany may be harbouring will be postponed until the Olympic Games are over. There will be no trouble at the Games; even if events are won by negroes, as is not improbable, the Nazis know on which side their bread is buttered. But the ordinary man is cynical; he believes that Germany is using the Games for her own ends.

The German railway office in London has for some time been displaying in its window the words Pax Olympica. Inhabitants of Berlin, it is said, are speaking of “the Olympic pause.” Which is it to be? If it is only a pause, then the Olympic Games may remain in public estimation the greatest of the world’s athletic festivals, but faith in them as an instrument for world peace and understanding will have been destroyed.

© 2008 The Guardian

REPRINTED FROM THE AUGUST 1, 1936 EDITION OF THE GUARDIAN

Related posts:

1. White Knight of the Olympics
2. Disrespect: The New Chivalry?
3. Episode 29: Campaigning to Live with Chivalry

Typically we think of “chivalry” as associated strictly with the medieval culture of Christian Europe, yet as I often point out, the ideals and principles of the Code of Chivalry transcend the society that gave rise to them. You can find parallels to the Seven Knightly Virtues in the writings of Aristotle, in the teachings of Judaism, in the Vedic poetry of India and even in the principles of zen philosophy. So perhaps it’s not surprising to discover that chivalry has roots in the culture of the east — as Mr. Salloum points out, the noble and gentle ideals of chivalry were present among the Arabian desert warriors long before they flourished in the west.

His thought-provoking article reminds us that chivalry is not the exclusive property of one culture, one class or one religion; honor, compassion and dignity are universal, elemental aspects of human decency.

Muru’ah and the Code of Chivalry

So said Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafii, the founder of the Shafiite rite in Islam, when advising about life and its standards of honor. His words of advice were but a part of the continual Arab code of life since the beginning of time. They are part of the concept of chivalry which can be traced back to the Bedouin concept of al-furusiyyah (horsemanship) and muru’ah (manliness and honour) — principles akin to the European Code of Chivalry which includes courage, honor, loyalty and generosity.

Case in point: the chivalry of generosity. Hatim al-Tai, who lived in the 7th century and was made renowned by poets singing of his virtues, is said to have slaughtered his only remaining animal to feed a newly arrived guest is still remembered today for his generous act.

In the deserts of Arabia since time immemorial, a man in Arab dress, sword in the scabbard and spear in hand, riding his pure Arabian horse across the sands to do away with injustice and protect his womenfolk has always been the image of an Arabian chivalrous knight. Without doubt, it is a prototype of the medieval western “knight in shining armor.”

From long before the birth of Christ, chivalry in the Arabian Peninsula became recognized as a social institution. Before the advent of Islam, religion played no part in the evolution of this code of honor. In early Islam some poets exalted muru’ah above religion. However, in the ensuing years, religion began to play some role and chivalry became somewhat identified with Islam.

The Arabs are said to have been the first people to practice chivalry in their way of life and conflicts. Unlike those of other nations like the Greeks, Romans and Persians, Arab wars were usually fought for glory according a strict code of conduct and honor. They were fought fairly and, at most times, without treachery. Champions fought before both armies and battles often took place by appointment. As late as 1492 when the Christians captured Granada, the Muslim champions came out before the battle to challenge their Spanish counterparts.

Writing about these engagements, John Glubb,» a modern British historian, writes:

The Arab nomads were passionate poets and every incident of these chivalrous encounters were immortalized in verse and recited every night around the campfires which flickered in the empty vastness of the desert peninsula.

Arabian chivalry was a code of ethics, life and social structure. It evolved to become synonymous with the quest for freedom and justice as well as a man fighting to the death for his womenfolk. During war, women often accompanied their men to battle, but they were usually stationed behind the lines. R.A. Nicholson in A Literary History of the Arabs» quotes a verse by Amr ibn Ma’dikarib, a famous Arab poet who lived at the time of the Prophet Muhammad:

Protecting the good repute and honor of women, the knight’s harim (sanctuary), family and tribe was a basic requirement of an Arab knight. In pre- and early Islam, women were very important in society. They inspired the poet to sing and the warrior to fight. The women played a role comparable, to a great extent to the role the ladies were later to play in Western chivalry.

Renowned Arab knights such as Imru’uI al-Qays and Antar ibn Shadad al-Absi were not officially knighted as in Europe. They became knights by reputation of their courage, dignity, noble deeds and the pursuit of honor, through poetry, tales and legends. Incorporating generosity, forgiveness, and a just and honorable reputation as well as advocating justice and freedom, they became the treasure of their people, and a major aspect of Arab poetry. Pride of culture revolved around their adventures and feats.

The most common themes in Arab poetry were love, praise and insults. In their ballads, the poets helped foster the romantic spirit and, hence, furnished the setting for the rise of chivalry. As to honorable love, the Arabs are said to have been the first people to make romance in the unattainable sense, like courtly love, sighs and devotion to the untouchable beloved, a way of life.

Gustav Leabeon writes that Islam, in its early days, gave women exactly the position that European women would take centuries to achieve. Leabeon concludes that after the chivalry of Andalusia (Spain) filtered into Europe, courteous behavior towards women became the main theme of European chivalry.

Titus Burckhardt in Moorish Culture in Spain» writes that the European chivalry of the Middle Ages was learned from the Spanish Moors. Burckhardt maintains that the glorification of women and the depiction of noble knights with their many virtues came about as a result of the impact of the Arab qualities in battles, literature and daily lives — characteristics not familiar in the world of Christendom (in the 7th through 10th centuries — ed.).

© 2005 Habeeb Salloum

This article has been reprinted by permission from the website of the Al-Hewar Center for Arab Culture and Dialogue, and may not be reproduced in any format withtout express permission of the author.

Related posts:

1. Arabian Knights: Part 2
2. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 1
3. Traditions of the Black Knight

In the second half of his article, Mr. Habeeb reminds us that even during the brutality of the Crusades (in the 11th through 15th centuries), European knights were absorbing a unique sense of honor, refinement and compassion from their Muslim adversaries. As he explains, Saladin, acclaimed hero of the Islamic warriors, set an example of chivalry so powerful that he even gained the admiration of his enemies.

Saladin, Chivalry and the Crusades

The ethical and romantic characteristic of al-furusiyyah al-arabiya (Arabian chivalry), as practiced in the Arabian Peninsula, evolved and spread with the Muslim expansion. During the Arab era in the Iberian Peninsula and the years of the Crusades, chivalry with all its attributes was transferred to Western Europe. An important Arab contribution to Western medieval society, its origin has been virtually ignored by Western historians.

Romantic chivalry as pursued in medieval Europe is nothing more than the continuation of al-furusiyyah al-arabiya. Abanese, a Spanish writer, wrote that Europe had not known the arts and practices of knighthood before the arrival to Andalusia of Arabs with their knights and heroes; a logical hypothesis in that chivalry had not been known to the Greeks and Romans. This offshoot of the chivalrous life of the Arab and Muslim conquerors in the Iberian Peninsula, both in theory and manner, was never outdone by the European Christians.

It is said that chivalry was the most prominent characteristic of the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. To all Arabs in that era, to become a genuine faris (knight), a man had to attain attributes of dignity, eloquence, gentleness, horsemanship, physical strength, poetic talent and mastery in the bow and arrow, spear and sword. These virtues were transferred by way of the Iberian Peninsula to the remainder of Europe. Romantic Hispano-Arabic literary forms, such as the love songs of the muwashshah form, were forerunners to the songs of the troubadours which gave birth to medieval knighthood and the Age of Chivalry.

A historian once wrote that the genius of the Arabs was poetic and their songsters in the Iberian Peninsula outnumbered those of all other peoples put together. El-Cid, who was greatly influenced by Moorish culture, especially its poetry, composed a poem which is the oldest and finest ballad of medieval Spanish verse and is said to have given birth to the songs of chivalry in Christian Spain.

While some of Arabic poetry was sensual and pleasure-seeking, it was the romantic components that were adopted by the Provençal troubadours from the Arab courts in Andalusia. This poetic genre combined with the Christian honor to the Virgin Mary was behind a good part of the medieval concept of chivalry.

European chivalry also gained much from contact with the Arabs during the Crusades. From among the many incidents during these long conflicts are those which relate to Saladin and which become renowned. To the Europeans, Saladin (pictured above) was the perfect example of cultured chivalry. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 A.D., they slaughtered virtually all the inhabitants. When Saladin, well-known for his kindness to prisoners taken in battle, re-took the city in 1187, he spared his victims, giving them safe passage to leave.

Despite his fierce opposition to the Crusading powers, Saladin achieved a great reputation in Europe as a chivalrous knight. When his foe Richard the Lionheart, leader of the Christian armies, became sick, Saladin sent his personal physician to heal him. There is no doubt that the Crusaders learned from him a great deal about chivalry. During the 14th century, an epic poem about Saladin was circulated in Europe, and Dante included him among the virtuous pagan souls in Limbo in his Inferno.

When one reads today of the nobility of a knight in shining armor rushing to rescue a maiden in distress, it is well to remember that behind the nobility of his act are the Arabs who laid the basis of his action. Perhaps, no one has described the impact of Arab al-furusiyyah and muru’ah on European chivalry better than R.A. Nicholson who writes:

Chivalry began in a secular Arabia where the tribal code of honor with all its ramifications was the basis of right and wrong. Heroes were those who exemplified the characteristics of the chivalrous attributes in that society. It was so important that as Islam enveloped the area, it remained part of the new social order of life and continued as part of the human code of life with the conquests of new territory. As such, chivalry became part of the many Arab contributions to the West.

© 2005 Habeeb Salloum

This article has been reprinted by permission from the website of the Al-Hewar Center for Arab Culture and Dialogue, and may not be reproduced in any format without express permission of the author.

For more information, visit these websites:

• Arabian Chivalry
• Center for Contemporary Arab Studies

Books referenced in this article:

• The Arabic Literary Heritage» by Roger Allen
• Moorish Culture in Spain» by Titus Burckhardt
• The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History» by Maria Rosa Menocal
• The Matter of Araby in Medieval England» by Dorothee Metlitzki
• The Great Arab Conquests» by J.B. Glubb
• A Literary History of the Arabs» by R.A. Nicholson

Related posts:

1. Arabian Knights: Part 1
2. Episode 5: Chivalry in Other Cultures
3. Joseph Campbell on Chivalry: Part 1

Writing in the mid-14th century, Sir Geoffroi de Charny» in his book on chivalry as a way of life said:

In short, Charny urges us to learn leadership by observing those who are the proven leaders. So let’s follow Sir Geoffroi’s advice to the letter and examine the 11 Leadership Principles put forth by some folks who have done fairly well in the “military vocation,” the United States Army. Modern soldiers come from a martial tradition that traces back to the Age of Chivalry, and, as Sir Geoffroi points out, there are valuable lessons to be found in the teachings of those who are truly today’s knights in shining armor.

1. Be tactically and technically proficient
   Knights admired skill in battle more than any other quality. Medieval knights always worked to achieve a high level of prowess without cutting corners or making excuses, and they always applauded others (allies and adversaries alike) who demonstrated outstanding expertise and ability.
2. Know yourself and seek self-improvement
   Bravado and false pride are the greatest enemies a warrior can face — these qualities result in an artificial sense of accomplishment. We don’t often associate humility with strength, but in this case, a knight who is humble enough to see his own deficiencies is one who is strong enough to correct them.
3. Know your soldiers and look out for their welfare
   A knight required a sizable support staff: armor makers, farriers, stone masons, carpenters, valets, sergeants and victualers, just to name a few. To be an effective warrior a knight had to make sure his supporters were healthy, properly supplied and capable of doing their jobs.
4. Keep your soldiers informed
   Among the knight’s staff was an officer called the herald, who wrote and conveyed messages to other knights, and made daily news announcements to the troops. Knights had to keep their officers and sergeants up-to-date all the time, not just when a battle was imminent.
5. Set the example
   The people around a knight shared his values — but whether those values were integrity and courage, or laziness and greed depended upon the knight’s own character. Knights frequently had to ignore fatigue, frustration and vanity in order to demonstrate in importance of honorable behavior to the people who followed them.
6. Ensure the task is understood, supervised and accomplished
   An indispensable part of communication among a medieval army was follow-through. A scout or surveyor whose reports were incomplete, or who failed to report back when the job was done could lead a whole army into a disastrous ambush.
7. Train your soldiers as a team
   Jousting in a tournament was a way to win personal glory; marching with the army meant being part of a team. A knight might have been phenomenally successful in jousting tournaments, but he didn’t win battles that way. A knight, with his cadre of squires and yeomen, had to work in concert with others if he expected to achieve productive results.
8. Make sound and timely decisions
   The medieval battlefield was a chaotic environment, and the knight-commander had to direct troops in the middle of a maelstrom. Basic maneuvers that worked were better than grandiose plans that failed in execution; a decisive leader often trumped one who hesitated or wavered.
9. Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates
   Part of a knight’s duty was to train squires and men-at-arms in the ways of knighthood. These trainees needed to be know how to be strong, worthy leaders because one day they would be knights in their own right, and might well wind up protecting their mentor’s flank in battle. A knight who tolerated irresponsible subordinates might later find himself dependent on irresponsible comrades.
10. Employ your unit in accordance with its capabilities
    A knight who was put in command of archers didn’t try to charge into the enemy’s front ranks; a knight who led a battalion of cavalry didn’t form ranks in the rear echelon. To be successful on the battlefield, a knight had to be aware of the most effective placement of his own soldiers, rather than trying to force them to do a job they weren’t able to do.
11. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
    Integrity and duty were the foundation of a knight’s reputation. A knight who was brave and accountable in the face of defeat could achieve a more noble reputation than one who tried to blame others, or worse, who turned tail and sided with the enemy to save his own skin.

The job of the leader has changed very little throughout the centuries, and (as Sir Geoffroi would surely tell us) what was true of knights in the Middle Ages is still largely true for leaders today. The Army’s leadership principles encompass some basic doctrines of the Code of Chivalry, such as trust, integrity and responsibility. There are some important lessons in chivalry to be found in the Army’s principles of leadership.

These 11 principles, along with several other doctrines of leadership applied by the U.S. Armed Forces, can be found in the Army Leadership Study Guide.

Related posts:

1. Leadership and Chivalry
2. The Road to Abu Ghraib
3. The True Secret of Leadership

Authentic Voices on a Misunderstood Code of Honor

The Accolade, by neo-Gothic painter Edmund Blair Leighton, depicts the gentle and subservient image of knights and chivalry common in art and literature of the late 19th century.

The image of the knight in the popular media has taken quite a rocky evolutionary journey over the course of the past 50 years or so. Influenced by Victorian poets and painters, the picture of the knight throughout the 1940s and ’50s was one of a saint in armor, demonstrating a brand of chivalry that was, in the words of Dr. Richard Barber, “a mere escape from reality … an empty shell, a pretty relic of the past, fit to while away an idle moment.” Books and motion pictures of the era portrayed knightly characters (both fictional and historical) as poets, lovers and champions of the poor and downtrodden — noble, impartial and courteous to the point of absurdity.

But as academic research over the course of the past decade has peered with greater depth into medieval society in general, and the lives of medieval knights in particular, the ideals of chivalry have taken something of a beating. The heroic, genteel character of the knight has been supplanted by a standard image that is uncultured, oppressive and violent. It’s a view that is now widely accepted by academicians and popular audiences alike. Professor Peter Arnade, quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune, encapsulated this notion when he said, “Chivalry is mostly a fiction … It was a feel-good movement among the military to make them feel like they were doing something other than smashing people’s brains out, which is what they were doing.”

Both of these views — the genteel and the brutal — have a valid basis in history and literature, which only serves to confuse the issue even further. The noble, polished image of the knight stems from the legendary tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Medieval legends of these knights as paragons of heroic virtue, such as the Lais of Marie de France and the chivalric romances of Chretien de Troyes, were further distorted by Walter Scott and Alfred Lord Tennyson in the Gothic revival of the 19th century, resulting in an almost godlike ideal of chivalrous behavior. In contrast, the unsavory image of the knight as an unscrupulous soldier seeking plunder and vengeance in the name of “honor” can be found in the pages of medieval chroniclers such as Matthew Paris and Froissart, in depictions of battle and tournament such as the Maciejowski Bible and the Manasseh Codex, and is reinforced by satirical authors of the period, including Dante and Cervantes.

But somewhere between the “knight as saint” and “knight as sociopath” there lies a middle ground. Common sense would seem to indicate that not all knights were brutal, predatory thugs — if they had been, Western culture would never have survived the Middle Ages. Nor is it reasonable to believe knights were all iconic, transcendental models of virtue and chastity — human nature hasn’t changed that much in the course of the past millennium.

Whether in the halls of academia, the pages of popular novels or upon the movie screen at the local cinema, these disparate portrayals of knights as both villains and angels raise an essential question: Did “chivalry” ever really exist as a practical, approachable social ideal?

To answer that question, this article is going to explore, not the medieval romantic epics (which were no more realistic reflections of their time periods than Hollywood action movies are of modern culture) nor period historical chronicles (which, like all news sources, were subject to the biases of the authors), but rather the words of actual knights and lords who pursued and even wrote about the ideals of chivalry on a realistic, functional level.

Consider the contrasts between the following “myths of chivalry,” which are based on modern interpretations of the knightly ideals, and quotes taken from sources written by and for real knights. The resulting understanding of “chivalry” may provide a more balanced, practical image of knights and the code of honor they admired.

Myth #1: Knights Were Duplicitous and Bloodthirsty

One of the more prominent disputations of the cause of chivalry came from the book Timeline» by Michael Crichton (as well as from the movie adaptation of the same name). The book is one of the author’s signature mixtures of fact and fiction — in this case the “fiction” is a time machine and the “fact” is the Hundred Years War. Timeline is set in 1357 during the siege of Castelgard, a minor skirmish between Sir Oliver de Vannes (an English knight) and Sir Arnaut de Cervole (a mercenary captain).

Crichton says the 14th century was “a world that gave lip service to the ideals of chivalry while indiscriminately pillaging and murdering … where women … took lovers at will and plotted assassination and rebellion. It was a world of shifting boundaries and shifting allegiances … (and) constant warfare.”

Driving this unsavory opinion of knights and chivalry home on a more personal level, Crichton describes one of the more sympathetic medieval characters in the book in this way: “Sir Guy de Malegant … is a knight of renown — for his many acts of murder and villainy.” (Keep in mind, he’s talking about one of the good guys.)

For a different perspective of chivalry in this region and period, perhaps we can turn to Geoffroi de Charny,» a French knight who was born in the first decade of the 14th century and who died at Poitiers in 1356. Charny’s knightly career was a celebrated one: he campaigned all across France in the 1340s, went on crusade, was elevated to the prestigious Order of the Star in 1355, and was selected to carry the Royal standard of France, the Oriflamme, into battle.

Charny wrote a treatise on chivalrous behavior called Livre de chevalerie» (The Book of Chivalry), which is an eminently practical “how to” manual focusing on conduct appropriate to “worthy men-at-arms.” (For Charny, chivalrous behavior was not limited to knights.) The fictional knights in Timeline seem to be at odds with Charny’s advice:

Charny’s view of chivalry may not be romantic or genteel, but it is certainly humane and responsible. This real knight of the 14th century would have had nothing but contempt for the knights of Timeline, who torture, murder, and rape indiscriminately, and who would surely fall into his definition of “doers and consenters of evil deeds.”

Related posts:

1. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 2
2. Chivalry in Timeline – A Behind-the-Scenes Look
3. Knights and Fireflys

Myth #2: Knights terrorized and exploited the
peasants and “working class”

If the knights in Timeline are unsympathetic, the members of the knightly class described in the best-selling novel The Jester» by James Patterson and Andrew Gross are downright vile and despicable. The story, set in 1096, concerns a fictional “peasants revolt” in Veille du Pére in southern France. In the book, the local peasants are habitually mistreated by their feudal lord, Baldwin of Treille, and his household knights. In the opening scene, Peter the Hermit passes through the village, gathering followers to free Jerusalem. Although the villagers are given many incentives to join the “peasant’s crusade,” including “freedom from servitude upon your return,” the local baron persuades them from going to the Holy Land by burning several buildings in the village, raping a young woman, torturing and drowning the miller’s son, and (to top it all off) raising taxes by 10 percent.

The book’s main character, an innkeeper named Hugh de Luc, describes the estate management practices of Sir Baldwin in a letter of redress to King Philip:

A more realistic view of the way in which a knight was expected to run his estate, in contrast, may be found in the anonymously authored treatise called Seneschaucy, written around 1272. This is not a political or social discourse, simply an administrative handbook covering every major office on a knightly manor, from the carter and the cowherd right up to the steward and the lord. Here is the treatise’s chief advice regarding how a knight was expected to conduct himself in order to maintain a productive estate:

Although Seneschaucy never specifically mentions the concept of chivalry, its portrait of a knight as a lord and estate manager seems to fall right in line with the basic principles of chivalrous behavior: Be kind but don’t be gullible; be firm but also equitable; behave in an exemplary manner and expect those who serve you to do the same. Nowhere in its description of the lord’s office does Seneschaucy mention arson, rape, indiscriminate taxation or any other sort of “wickedness” as valid methods of treatment for those who work the land.

Myth #3: Chivalry was simply a pragmatic approach to warfare as a money-making venture

Another book that presents the “gritty” side of chivalry is Bernard Cornwell’s The Archer’s Tale.» This book, set in mid-14th century France, follows a company of English archers through the landscape of the Hundred Years War. They encounter a variety of knightly and aristocratic characters, both French and English, none of whom seem to have any use for the principles of chivalry – except when it puts them in a position to make a profit from loot or ransom on the battlefield.

One of the English knights attached to the band of archers is Sir Simon Jekyll, who, during the siege of La Roche-Derrien, requests the assignment of being first to scale the walls during a night assault on the city. While Sir Simon claims this is an honor due to a worthy and chivalrous knight, the captain of the archers who is tasked with driving away the defenders sees the Sir Simon’s request in a different light: “What honor was there in being the first onto a wall that another man had captured? No, the bastard did not want honor, he wanted to be well placed to find the richest plunder in town.”

To provide a counterpoint to this distinctly avaricious view of chivalry, we can turn to Ramon Llull, author of Libre del ordre de cavayleria» (The Book of the Order of Chivalry). Llull lived in Spain in the later half of the 13th century — he was an active tourneyer and crusader, served as the seneschal of the king of Majorca, wrote courtly poetry, taught at the Franciscan College at Miramar, and, later in life, preached Christianity in Spain and North Africa. Llull knew quite a bit about both the glories and duties of chivalry, and he understood that chivalry should not be confused with military tactics or preparation for battle:

Llull’s analogy reveals a very subtle and complex understanding of the difference between riding a horse and being a role model. These words were not written by someone who viewed chivalry as a fiction or as a rationale to be in a position to garner the best spoils after a military encounter, and it does not seem to be directed at a culture that simply wanted to feel good about “smashing people’s brains out.” Llull, Charny and the author of Seneschaucy are all describing a chivalry that was meant to be respected, internalized and put into practice.

None of this should be taken as a claim that honorable, chivalrous behavior was an overriding and universal concept in the Middle Ages. Historical chronicles do, in fact, reveal that knights could be cruel, violent, avaricious and “wicked” — but, of course, the same could be said for merchants, priests and scholars of the time as well.

Exploring the real words of real knights provides a very valuable lesson with regards to the realities of chivalry: Human nature has changed very little throughout the centuries. Today, ethical behavior (in business or politics, for instance) is highly admired, even if infrequently seen. Yet just because personal integrity may be the exception rather than the norm, we do not abandon our hope that decency and honor will prevail in the face of corruption and selfishness. We still espouse and admire high ethical standards, even if few people achieve them.

Medieval texts encouraging chivalrous behavior among the noble class provide an implicit statement that admirable, virtuous conduct might have been uncommon, but it was no more “fictional” in the Middle Ages than it is in the 21st century. The voices and writings from history demonstrate that chivalry could be, and undoubtedly was, put to use in real life, by real knights.

• Order Charny’s Book of Chivalry,» Timeline,» The Jester» or The Archer’s Tale.»
• Read about chivalry and the Canterbury Tales
• Joseph Campbell on chivalry in myth

Related posts:

1. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 1
2. Great Expectations: Chivalry In Tomorrow’s Knights
3. Tolkien and Chivalry Today

The most difficult part of providing an excerpt from Prof. Braudy’s book From Chivalry to Terrorism» was choosing which portion to select. It’s an excellent book that provides a scholarly examination of chivalry and the warrior ethos in Western Culture throughout the ages. I settled upon this passage because in it, Prof. Braudy focues on the complex interplay of many of the knightly virtues — mercy, faith and justice, but primarily nobility, and how the Code of Chivalry and the literature of the Late Middle Ages helped to change our perception of that concept. Nobility was once indicated by the trappings of wealth and an aristocratic pedigree; chivalry turned the focus inward and reached toward a realization that true nobility comes from the heart.

Chivalry and the Wife of Bath

Until the 12th century in Europe, the time of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes, literary depictions of a sympathetic male vulnerability characterize it as existing primarily between men. Achilles may leave the battle for Troy in the Iliad because Agamemnon has taken the slave girl Briseis for himself, but he returns because Hector has slain Patroklos, his sworn companion. Such male camaraderie hardly disappears from war. But the works of Chrétien mark the literary dawn of the possibility of receiving similar support and emotional nourishment from women as well.

Hidden not very deeply in Chrétien’s presentation of the conflicts within the chivalric assumptions about masculine and feminine identity (and even more explicit in the works of Andreas Capellanus, thought to be another member of Marie de Champagne’s court) is the distinction between a nobility of birth, verified by the externals of knightly and noble show, and a nobility of virtue, validated by individual nature. In the midst of the Hundred Years’ War, some 300 years after Chrétien, Chaucer revisits Arthurian romance in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and dramatizes for a war-weary audience the submerged implications of what happens when women and their perspective are allowed into the chivalric world.

After a long prologue in which the Wife of Bath recounts her life, tells of her five husbands, and attacks the efforts of medieval misogynistic literature to regulate women’s behavior, she surprisingly tells a tale set not in a contemporary realistic world but in an Arthurian fairyland that existed “many hundred years ago.” At first the Wife of Bath is nostalgic about this world, particularly because it lacked the wandering friars who use their place in the Christian hierarchy to prey upon women. But even in this ideal world there is brutality. A knight from Arthur’s court, “a lusty bacheler,” sees a young woman walking by the river and rapes her. By law, he is to be beheaded. But the queen and the ladies of the court ask that he be given to them for judgment, and Arthur agrees. The queen then tells the knight he will be spared if within a year he can find out what it is that women most desire.

Fruitlessly, the knight searches for the answer, since no one he talks to agrees with anyone else, until, the year almost gone, he comes upon a women in the forest who says she will give him the answer if he promises to marry her. Even though she is “foul, and old, and poor,” the knight agrees. She tells him that women most desire “sovereignty” and “mastery” over their husbands. They return to the court where the queen and her ladies accept this answer and free the knight from his death sentence. However, when the old woman claims her recompense of marriage, he balks: “Take all my good [possessions] and let my body go.” But a promise is a promise, she says, and he is forced to marry her.

As the story then unfolds, it focuses on the confrontation between a sexually immature but aggressive male knight and a sexually unattractive but wise lower-class woman, a confrontation that illustrates how the relation between the sexes taught by chivalric literature fosters emotions that may at first intensify a relationship but then too quickly lead to its destruction. Even though his new wife has saved his life, the knight in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” feels that all his social and sexual prestige have vanished with his marriage.

But now the tale takes another turn, as they lie in bed and talk, the knight bemoaning that he has married someone so ugly, old, and socially beneath him. In response the woman questions all the knight’s assumptions about the way the world should be, especially his definition of what constitutes social prestige. The word she uses is gentilesse, but not in its usual meaning of high social position. True gentilesse, she says, has nothing to do with family or wealth or position, but comes from God alone. It is a personal characteristic, not a social one, validated by deeds, not by ancestors or possessions.

Choose then, she says. Would you rather have me ugly, old, and faithful to you, or would you rather have me be young, beautiful, and wellborn and take your chances with the trouble that might bring?

“I put me in your wise governance,” he answers.

Well, she responds, since you have given me the mastery, I will be both beautiful and true.

© 2004 Leo Braudy

About the Author: Leo Braudy is a University Professor and Bing Professor at the University of Southern California. He previously taught at Yale, Columbia and Johns Hopkins. He has received a Gunggenheim Fellowship as well as a Senior Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, as well as a writer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. His book The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History» (now available in paperback) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Harper’s. Mr. Braudy lives with his wife in Los Angeles.

Related posts:

1. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 2
2. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 3
3. Women and Chivalry

In the second part of this essay, Prof. Braudy provides an analysis of how “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” reflects the shifting social mores of the 14th century, and how the Code of Chivalry helped soften the brutal warriors’ ethos into the more sympathetic and cooperative spirit that we still admire today as part of an inner nobility and strength of character.

Struggling Toward Empathy

In the context of The Canterbury Tales,» “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a story of wish fulfillment by which the Wife, who has railed against misogynist doctrine in her prologue, constructs an ideal relation between husband and wife. In it, she counters the institutional Christianity that licenses the hatred of women with another Christianity that emphasizes the equality of all — male and female, high and low, ugly and fair — and reverses the knightly value system of judging primarily by grand appearances and ostentatious victories. The underbelly of knighthood that justifies any male aggression must be qualified by an idea of masculinity that, even in a stumbling way and under duress, struggles toward empathy.

The early stages of this crucial shift in the nature of military masculinity might be explained by saying that Marie de France was a woman and Chrétien de Troyes wrote for a court ruled by a woman. But in a larger context, it came at a time when a significant proportion of male deaths were the result of natural causes rather than violence. War was no longer perpetual but intermittent. Moreover, female life expectancy, which had been much lower than male, increased through the Middle Ages, due in part to the softening influence of Christianity as well as to the rise of towns and the increase in access to health care. Complex, too, is the relationship between a warrior culture and institutional misogyny, especially in medieval Europe when, as the Wife of Bath amply demonstrates, that misogyny is mainly promulgated by churchmen. But “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” focuses on the retrievable young knight rather than on the venal churchmen who insult and dishonor women. The only character with a name in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is Arthur; the queen has a title, but the other characters … must define themselves. The knight, whose only way of relating to women is either to rape or to venerate them, is transformed into a husband who can appreciate the knowledge and insight of his wife as an individual. The woman, whose relation to marriage is otherwise as a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded for genealogical and political benefit, becomes instead the source of a new way of looking at the world.

This potential for an identity unindebted to either the social or the gender hierarchy had always been present in Christian doctrine, but it is only in the 14th century that it becomes an explicit criticism. In the 15th century, even the chivalric courts are penetrated by the Wife’s argument that inner gentilesse constitutes true nobility and that personal virtue must anchor social honor and external show. At the beginning of the 15th century, not long afer Chaucer created the Wife of Bath and Christien de Pizan wrote of women’s capacity to fight and rule, Joan of Arc managed to combine all these threads of inner spiritual conviction, national self-consciousness, and warrior zeal — in the form of a woman leading troops while dressed in battlefield armor, she defends the ideal of “France” sung to her by saintly voices. At her trial for blasphemy one of the primary charges against her was that she had illegitimately disguised herself as a man, to the disgust of God and nature. But, like those knights of chivalric romance who learned of love, it is precisely this crossing of a previously impermeable boundary that helped create her legend.

© 2004 Leo Braudy

About the Author: Leo Braudy is a University Professor and Bing Professor at the University of Southern California. He previously taught at Yale, Columbia and Johns Hopkins. He has received a Gunggenheim Fellowship as well as a Senior Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, as well as a writer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. His book The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History» (now available in paperback) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Harper’s. Mr. Braudy lives with his wife in Los Angeles.

Related posts:

1. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 1
2. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 3
3. Women’s Roles Part 2: Chivalry & Today’s Heroic Lady Role Models

This conclusion to Prof. Braudy’s essay is also a fine reminder that our admiration for the ideals of chivalry, nobility and knightly behavior haven’t been dulled by time. In fact, as Prof. Braudy argues, in his book From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity,» there are many knights in shining armor — men and women alike — to be found in today’s popular media.

Today’s Knights

If a clue to the dreams of a culture can be found in the quality of its escapes, we now seem to be living in a debased if modern chivalric world, still fascinated by the solitary knight sallying forth to cure the evils of the world. Something of the medieval obsession with the knight in armor returned especially in the 1980s and 1990s with the simultaneous minting of two popular images: the buffed and muscular human body as a rugged container from within which to meet the challenges of life; and, in science fiction and action films, the image of the armor-plated cyborg or robotic hero, like Robocop or Lieutenant Ripley in Aliens, climbing inside a full-body prosthesis to combat the monster. Superman is no longer a being of special power from another planet; with the right technology, he can be created right here on earth. The films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jan-Claude Van Damme, for example, combine the two images: the omnicompetent body complete with the paraphernalia of advanced technological weaponry. In part, such characters hark back to a more personal style of medieval warfare in the face of the dehumanization of modern war. Perhaps in an unknowing tribute to Joan of Arc, the neomedieval body is also not always masculine — as Ripley and other heroines like her indicate — nor must it always be in armor to be armored in effect. Yet it remains almost the sole way of dramatizing heroism, for men and women alike.

© 2004 Leo Braudy

About the Author: Leo Braudy is a University Professor and Bing Professor at the University of Southern California. He previously taught at Yale, Columbia and Johns Hopkins. He has received a Gunggenheim Fellowship as well as a Senior Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, as well as a writer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. His book The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History» (now available in paperback) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Harper’s. Mr. Braudy lives with his wife in Los Angeles.

Related posts:

1. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 1
2. True Nobility: Knightly Show & Inner Spirit – Part 2
3. Women and Chivalry

Well, those days are mostly gone. Here in the 21st century we rarely have time to contemplate myths and allegories in order to unlock their universal, transcendental meanings. We need the bottom line … now, please! What, exactly, should we deduce from spiritual parables and philosophical writings as we try to go about our lives in a decent, ethical way?

This “hurry up and find enlightenment” mentality has given rise to a particular brand of teaching encapsulated in the catch phrase, “What would so-and-so do?” We don’t need to contemplate lengthy sermons or legends, we can simply imagine how someone wiser, more virtuous or more patient than ourselves would react. Of course, the most famous of these approaches is, “What would Jesus do?” — a catchy slogan that helps cut through the mysticism and get right to the meat of New Testament teachings.

There are plenty of other similar no-nonsense doctrines. “What would Thomas Jefferson do?” helps get to the bottom of political questions. “What would Buddha do?” provides a distinctly practical approach to Zen philosophy. “What would Ghandi do?” gives us opportunity to consider the nature of nonviolent protest. There are even doctrines (both humorous and semi-serious) that focus this inquiry on pop culture figures: “What would MacGyver do?” “What would Buffy the Vampire Slayer do?” and “What would Brian Boitano do?”

So, as we debate whether the Code of Chivalry has (or should have) any practical application in the modern world, there’s one question that seems to have been overlooked:

What Would King Arthur Do?

That may sound silly, irreverent or even naïve, but the character of King Arthur (pictured above in the 14th century manuscript Romance of the Saint Graal) stands atop a body of literature that rivals nearly any other mythical or spiritual canon in human history. And, despite the erroneous perception that King Arthur stories are “kid’s stuff,” Arthurian literature is filled with rich metaphors regarding the nature of ethics, honor and humanity. Embodying ideals of bravery, courtesy and loyalty, Arthur is perhaps the most influential secular role model in Western philosophy.

What could we learn about virtue, honor and leadership if we looked to the founder of the Round Table as an example of practical and chivalrous action in the modern world?

The Business of the King

Let’s face it, talk about responsibility or honor today and the first topic that comes up is “business ethics,” so it’s logical to want to see what King Arthur can teach us about conducting business in a respectable manner. Business is, by definition, a competitive endeavor, and the purpose of competition is to “get ahead.” If given the chance to prosper by devious, ruthless or deceptive means, what would King Arthur do?

Early in Arthur’s life, he had to go to battle with the Emperor of Rome (an incident that’s left out of most King Arthur stories these days). Rome had imposed an unfair tax on the British people, and Arthur and his knights stood up against Roman oppression. Arthur’s army was so successful that, in the end, all of Rome was defenseless and at his mercy. Then, despite the opportunity to achieve a huge profit by plundering Rome, Arthur told his army to pack their things and prepare to return to England. Recognizing that he accomplished his goal, Arthur told his knights, “Enough is as good as a feast,” indicating that greed is not an effective leadership strategy.1

Of course, Arthur wasn’t doing this just to be nice or gallant; he realized that his team had worked hard and needed rest, and that he needed time to assess and fortify the new boundaries of his kingdom. The lesson Arthur teaches us is that a leader must always remain focused on the goals of the organization, and that profit for profit’s sake is not a healthy desire for a leader in any field. Given the opportunity to gain by mercilessness and ruthlessness, King Arthur shows us that the chivalrous leader will take the course of restraint, moderation and integrity.

Who’s Your King?

Here’s another situation where questions arise regarding ethical behavior: revenge and retribution. “Talking smack” about defeated rivals has become so commonplace it’s practically expected. (How ironic that derisive “taunts” are actually programmed into many of today’s video games! If you’re going to verbally denigrate your adversary, shouldn’t you be creative enough to come up with your own language?) If given a chance to humiliate an opponent after defeating them in business or in a game, what would King Arthur do?

Arthur became king when he pulled a magic sword out of a stone — but not everyone was thrilled to learn of the emergence of this boy-king. Many knights who thought they deserved the throne of England more than Arthur declared war, and England was plunged in to chaos. Arthur had to fight many hard battles to cement his claim to the crown, and those battles left a bitter taste in the mouths of everyone involved. One of the most contentious of those rivals was a mighty warrior named Pellinore. (Yes, the same Pellinore who is portrayed as a sweet, comical old man in more recent stories.)

Although Pellinore was defeated by Arthur, he was not happy about it. Yet when Pellinore came to Camelot, Arthur didn’t force his old rival to grovel in submission or jibe at him with nasty insults. Instead, Arthur offered Pellinore the greatest honor he could think of: a seat at the Round Table. When Pellinore wondered whether this offer might be a trick, Arthur assured him, “This is your place, sir. No one deserves it more.”2

When faced with rivalry or contention, King Arthur always chose a path that would bring people together rather than driving them apart. That was the purpose of the Round Table. Arthur’s example shows that an effective leader values consensus above conflict, and always seeks reconciliation rather than promoting ongoing rivalry.

I’ve Got To Wash My Armor Tonight

Sometimes ethical issues come up in association with circumstances we want to avoid or promises we don’t want to keep. You’ve got to admit to making a costly mistake or follow through on a commitment to help a friend when a more exciting offer comes along — it’s only natural to try to find a way to wiggle out of uncomfortable or boring situations like these. When facing the awkward dilemma of “biting the bullet” or telling a white lie, what would King Arthur do?

In this case, Arthur might well take his cue from one of his premier knights, Sir Gawain, who once had to choose between being true to his wife, an old, ugly woman named Ragnell, or having an affair with a lovely young maiden who he found in his bedchamber one evening. After much agonizing over questions of morality and fidelity, Gawain chose to be true to Ragnell. Upon making his choice, Gawain suddenly discovered that his old, horrid wife was, in fact, one of the magical Ladies of the Lake, who had been sent to test him. Gawain’s honesty transformed Ragnell from an “old hag” into a beautiful maiden, and the two lived in “acclaim and rejoicing,” or so the story goes.

Arthur commented upon the wonderful allegory provided by Gawain, “From it I draw this significance: As that poor, ugly beldame appeared unto the eyes of Sir Gawain, so doth a man’s duty sometimes appear to him to be ugly … But when he shall have wedded himself unto that duty so that he hath made it one with him as a bridegroom maketh himself one with his bride, then doth that duty become of a sudden very beautiful.”3

Although we’re frequently led to believe that personal gratification should be the goal in life, King Arthur reminds us that trust and faithfulness carry a value far above the mere satisfaction of personal desires. Arthur shows us that a good leader, role model or friend never breaks a promise lightly.

At the risk of oversimplifying the metaphorical depth of the legends of the Round Table, living by the credo “What would King Arthur do?” gives us pause to consider how the Code of Chivalry can help us navigate and resolve the moral and ethical dilemmas we all face at work, at play, in school or in our relationships. King Arthur is a legendary figure famous for engendering harmony in the face of chaos, for embodying duty in the face of vanity and demonstrating graciousness in the face of hostility — we could learn a lot from his example.

With such an attitude in mind, it’s hard to imagine that anyone could go far wrong by thinking of their own dilemmas, problems and tribulations as quests from the days of the Round Table, and trying to find the right path by asking, “What would King Arthur do?”

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1. A Taxing King Arthur Parabel
2. Recommended Knight Reading: Books about Chivalry for the Younger Set
3. King Arthur By The Book

Military pilots are sometimes referred to as “knights of the air.” One of the reasons for this is that pilots of combat aircraft carry on the traditions of valor and chivalry — showing respect for their opponents and refusing to attack those who cannot defend themselves. The following true story from a World War II veteran reminds us that the Code of Chivalry lives on even in the most intense, horrific situations.

When the Enemy Was A Friend

December 20, 1943, was a typically cold, overcast winter day in Britain as 2d Lt. Charles L. Brown’s B-17F lined up for takeoff. It was 21-year-old Charlie Brown’s first combat mission as an aircraft commander with the 379th Bomb Group, the target an FW-190 factory at Bremen, Germany. He and his crew of Ye Olde Pub were to become participants in an event probably unique at that time in the air war over Europe — a mission that would remain shrouded in mystery for many years.

The bombers began their 10-minute bomb run at 27,300 feet, the temperature: negative 60 degrees. Flak was heavy and accurate. Before “bombs away,” Brown’s B-17 took hits that shattered the Plexiglas nose, knocked out the number two engine, damaged number four — which frequently had to be throttled back to prevent overspeeding — and caused undetermined damage to the controls. Coming off target, Lieutenant Brown was unable to stay with the formation and became a straggler.

Almost immediately, the lone and limping B-17 came under a series of fighter attacks from 12 to 15 Bf-109s and FW-190s that lasted for more than 10 minutes. The number three engine was hit and would produce only half power. Oxygen, hydraulic and electrical systems were damaged, and the controls were only partially responsive. The bomber’s 11 defensive guns were reduced by the extreme cold to only the two top turret guns and one forward-firing nose gun. The tailgunner was killed and all but one of the crew in the rear incapacitated by wounds or exposure to the frigid air. Lt. Brown took a bullet fragment in his right shoulder.

Charlie Brown figured the only chance of surviving this pitifully unequal battle was to go on the offensive. Each time a wave of attackers approached, he turned into them, trying to disrupt their aim with his remaining firepower. The last thing oxygen-starved Brown remembers was reversing a steep turn, becoming inverted, and looking “up” at the ground. When he regained full consciousness, the B-17 was miraculously level at less than 1,000 feet.

Still partially dazed, Lieutenant Brown began a slow climb with only one engine at full power. With three seriously injured aboard, he rejected bailing out or crash landing. The alternative was a thin chance of reaching the U.K. While nursing the battered bomber toward England, Brown looked out the right window and saw a Bf-109 flying on his wing. The pilot waved, then flew across the B-17’s nose and motioned Brown to land in Germany, which Brown refused to do. After escorting them for several miles out over the North Sea, the Luftwaffe pilot saluted, rolled over and disappeared.

Why had he not shot them down? The answer did not emerge for many years.

The B-17 did make it across 250 miles of storm-tossed North Sea and landed at Seething near the English coast, home of the 448th Bomb Group, which had not yet flown its first mission. The crew was debriefed on their mission, including the strange encounter with the Bf-109. For unknown reasons, the debriefing was classified “secret” and remained so for many years. Lt. Brown went on to complete a combat tour, finish college, accept a regular commission and serve in the Office of Special Investigations, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in other Air Force and State Department assignments until his retirement. He now lives in Miami, Florida, where he is founder and president of an energy and environmental research center.

The image of his strange encounter with the Bf-109 remained firmly embedded in Charlie Brown’s memory. In 1986, he began a search for the anonymous pilot. Finally, in 1990, former Oberleutnant Franz Stigler, now living in Canada, responded to a notice published in a newsletter for German fighter pilots. By comparing time, place and aircraft markings, it was determined that Stigler was the chivalrous pilot who had allowed Brown’s crew to live. Not surprisingly, Brown and Stigler have become close friends.

On that December day in 1943, there had been two persuasive reasons why Stigler should have shot down the B-17. First, earlier in the day, he had downed two four-engine bombers and needed only one more that day to earn a Knight’s Cross. Second, his decision to not finish off the aircraft was a court-martial offense in Nazi Germany, and if revealed could have led to his execution. He considered these alternatives while flying formation with the B-17, “the most heavily damaged aircraft I ever saw that was still flying.” He could see the wounded aboard and thought, “I cannot kill these half-dead people. It would be like shooting at a parachute.”

Franz Stigler’s act of chivalry has been justly, though belatedly, honored by several military organizations here and abroad. On the other hand, Charles Brown was not decorated for his heroism over Germany, which never was reported by the 448th Bomb Group at Seething to his commanders. Such are the fortunes of war and its aftermath.

© 2004 John L. Frisbee

This article was originally pubished in the January 1997 edition of Air Force Magazine in their “Valor” column. It appears here by permission of the author.

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Chivalry is not about holding doors or tipping hats. The Code of Chivalry is a warrior’s code of honor, not a guide for genteel etiquette — and perhaps there is no more important time to remember that than now, as accounts of war atrocities committed on prisoners at Abu Ghraib are coming to light.

When the U.S. military revealed that detainees at Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq had been physically and psychologically abused, a great public outcry arose. This type of behavior is repulsive to Americans, who want to see their soldiers as knights in shining armor, not cruel barbarians. Reports of these atrocious incidents forced people throughout the world to wonder how the military representatives of an honorable nation could have gone so far down the road to such dishonorable conduct.

On a primal level, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib may be understandable given the context of the soldiers’ mission: These soldiers are fighting back against the terrorists who flew airplanes full of helpless passengers into skyscrapers crowded with unsuspecting civilians on September 11, 2001. Does anyone think terrorists will refrain from humiliating or torturing American soldiers (or civilians) who fall into their hands? Treating Iraqi captives the same way truly is “fighting fire with fire.”

Yet, on a cultural level, the Abu Ghraib incident is appalling: One of our most basic social principles is the granting of mercy to those who have surrendered or are helpless. It’s why we expect police officers to respect the rights of arrestees, and why our jails are clean and safe rather than squalid and hazardous.

The dilemma of Abu Ghraib an old and pervasive one: Do we set aside the restraints of chivalry and honor in order to “get the job done” in the most effective way possible?

The Code of Chivalry dictates humane treatment of captured enemies. Ramon Lull, a 12th century Spanish knight who wrote The Book of the Order of Chivalry, said that a knight “should have pity on poor men, helpless and sick, and should have mercy on the men taken and vanquished (in battle) that request mercy and give themselves up for honorable surrender.” Lull also points out that a merciless knight is “an enemy of justice.”

This expectation has been incorporated in nearly all modern conventions of warfare, including the famous Geneva Convention, which states:

The Code of Chivalry with its ordinance of mercy wasn’t developed to grant dignity or unnecessary liberty to enemies. In a battle against terrorists and murderers, chivalry prevents warriors from becoming the very things they are fighting against. Images of U.S. soldiers emulating the inhumane actions of Hussein’s prison guards in the halls of the same prison where the Iraqi atrocities took place are heartbreaking reminders of how far astray a warrior can go when he or she abandons the seemingly arbitrary restraints of the code of honor.

Chivalry is more than a shield for soldiers’ self respect, however. The U.S. Army’s Laws of Land Warfare refer to “chivalry” as the standard by which soldiers must conduct themselves, stating that the purpose of this restriction is not only to protect the innocent and avoid human rights abuses, but also to “facilitate the restoration of peace.”

There’s little doubt that the Abu Ghraib incidents have poured gasoline on the flames in Iraq and lengthened the duration of this conflict. How many additional months will beleaguered American soldiers have to put themselves in harm’s way because of the actions of a few unchivalrous individuals?

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib incident, the military is proposing new regulations in an attempt to prevent similar atrocities in the future. That’s certainly a good measure, but it’s hardly conceivable that road to Abu Ghraib was paved by a lack of army rules.

More plausible, it would seem, is that the otherwise-rational young soldiers stationed in that prison succumbed to the illusion that chivalry and honor can be set aside temporarily in order to achieve a goal, or to take advantage of a vaccum of oversight. The road to Abu Ghraib may well have been paved by coaches who teach players to tactically break the rules, by parents who pressure teachers to give unjustified high marks to their children, and by managers and executives who condone “cutting corners” in order to boost profits or increase production. The people who travel such a road are usually following role models who lead by example.

In short, Ramon Lull had it right: When the strong and powerful abandon their sense of justice and fair play, mercy, charity and generosity won’t be far behind.

The Geneva Convention may impose restrictions on soldiers in the theater of conflict, but the Code of Chivalry can apply to everyone, and can create an even more basic and binding appreciation of the tenets of decency and humanity. Restrictions of dignity, courtesy and respect are important — vitally important — in any area of conflict, dispute or competition. They protect the humanity of all those involved, and they prevent contained battles from spiraling into endless cycles of “payback.”

Chivalry maybe idealistic, restrictive and noble; it may also be our best defense against allowing more decent young people to start down the road to another Abu Ghraib.

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1. Chivalry And Humanity
2. The Seven Knightly Sins
3. The True Secret of Leadership

In conclusion, Professor French explores the most difficult and frustrating part of her thesis: How (and why) do you maintain honor against an opponent who has none? No matter what sort of “battle” you find yourself in — military, professional, political, academic, athletic or social — her answers are a wonderful reaffirmation of the principles of chivalry and honor.

These imperatives I have put forward apply to relations among warriors and nations defended by warriors. The moral requirements become much murkier when warriors must battle murderers.

The warriors of today will increasingly find themselves pitted against adversaries who fight without any rules or restraints. Because they see no other way to advance their objectives, these desperate men and women are likely to employ methods that are rightfully viewed as horrific and appalling by the rest of the civilized world, such as terror attacks on civilian populations. They will take “fighting dirty” to unimaginable depths, and since they are already willing to die, they will not be deterred by any threat of punishment for continuing to disregard the laws of war.

As Ariel Merari, director of the Project on Terrorism at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University points out in his essay, “The Readiness To Kill and Die: Suicidal Terrorism in the Middle East,” old ideas about tit-for-tat and the applications of rational decision theory are worthless when dealing with those who are ready – if not anxious – to sacrifice their lives for The Cause. Merari quotes Lord Chalfont, an authority on counter-terrorism:

How should stronger sides in asymmetric conflicts respond when their weaker opponents resort to terrorist tactics? One perfectly understandable reaction would be for the stronger sides to want to “take off the gloves,” too, especially when the terrorists seem to be banking on the fact that they will not. It seems natural to say, “If they will not respect the rules of war and use some restraint, then neither will we.”

Of course, one of the most serious “cons” that the West must consider before “taking the gloves off” is that it would be a violation of our own values to engage in a war with no rules. It is beyond infuriating that some of the people who claim to hate who we are and what we represent are yet able to benefit from our commitment to restraint.

The more they push us and the more suffering we endure, the harder it is for us to fight with one hand tied behind our back rather than unleashing the full extent of our power to wipe them from the earth. But if we give up who we are in order to destroy our enemies, what sort of victory will we have secured for ourselves? Even the noblest of ends can be tarnished if base means are used to achieve them.

It is truly disturbing to consider how easy it may be for a person to rationalize the terrible transition from warrior to murderer. An individual may be persuaded to become a murderer by a single charismatic personality, by a group or movement that answers some psychological need, or by the effects of a traumatic event (such as witnessing the death of a close friend or family member). I must stress that the line between a warrior and a murderer is profoundly important, but very thin. Once it has been crossed, the harm to the individual may be irrevocable.

It is easier to remain a warrior when fighting other warriors. When warriors fight murderers, they may be tempted to become the mirror image of the evil they hoped to destroy. Their only protection is their code of honor. The professional military ethics that restrain warriors – that keep them from targeting those who cannot fight back, from taking pleasure in killing, from striking harder than is necessary and that encourage them to offer mercy to their defeated enemies and even to help rebuild their countries and communities – are also their own protection against becoming what they abhor.

Everyone who cares about the welfare of warriors wants them not only to live through whatever fighting they must face, but also to have lives worth living after the fighting is done. The warriors’ code is the shield that guards our warriors’ humanity. Without it, they are no good to themselves or to those with whom and for whom they fight. Without it, they will find no way back from war.

© 2004 Shannon French, Ph.D.

About the author: Dr. Shannon E. French teaches in the Ethics Section at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her book, The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present» (2003, Rowman and Littlefield) features a foreword by Senator John McCain. In 2000 she was awarded USNA’s campus-wide Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching. This essay is reprinted by permission of the author.

1. Ariel Merari, “the readiness to kill and die: Suidical terrorism in the Middle East”, in Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, edited by Walter Reich, Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998, p. 193.

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3. The Road to Abu Ghraib

In the second part of her essay, Professor French points out that the warriors’ code allows soldiers to maintain an internal sense of dignity and respect for themselves and their own actions — an important part of remaining sane in an insane environment. She also explores the hazards of becoming “too detached” from the struggles of war.

This brings us back to my earlier line of reasoning. It is not enough to ask, “Can our warriors still get the job done if they do not have a code?” We must also consider the related question: “What will getting the job done do to our warriors if they do not have a code?” Accepting certain constraints as a moral duty, even when it is inconvenient or inefficient to do so, allows warriors to hold onto their humanity while experiencing the horror of war — and, when the war is over, to return home and reintegrate into the society they so ably defended. Fighters who cannot say, “this far but no farther,” who have no lines they will not cross and no atrocities from which they will shrink, may be effective. They may complete their missions, but they will do so at the loss of their humanity.

Those who are concerned for the welfare of our warriors would never want to see them sent off to face the chaotic hell of combat without something to ground them and keep them from crossing over into an inescapable heart of darkness. A mother and father may be willing to give their beloved son or daughter’s life for their country or cause, but I doubt they would be as willing to sacrifice their child’s soul. The code is a kind of moral and psychological armor that protects the warrior from becoming a monster in his or her own eyes.

Technology like missiles and fighter jets have robbed warfare of its humanity. Soldiers now can engage enemies without ever seeing them, and that may leave indelible psychological scars for soldiers who step beyond the boundaries of moral behavior.

Nor is it just “see-the-whites-of-their-eyes” front-line ground and Special Forces troops who need this protection. Men and women who fight from a distance – who drop bombs from planes and shoot missiles from ships or submarines – are also at risk of losing their humanity. What threatens them is the very ease by which they can take lives. As technology separates individuals from the results of their actions, it cheats them of the chance to absorb and reckon with the enormity of what they have done. Killing fellow human beings, even for the noblest cause, should never feel like nothing more than a game played using the latest advances in virtual reality.

In his book Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond,» Michael Ignatieff airs his concerns about the morality of asymmetric conflicts in which one side is able to inflict large numbers of casualties from afar without putting its own forces at much risk (e.g. by relying primarily on long-range precision weapons and high-altitude air assaults). In such a mismatched fight, it may be easy for those fighting on the superior side to fail to appreciate the true costs of the war, since they are not forced to witness the death and destruction first-hand. Ignatieff warns modern warriors against the “moral danger” they face if they allow themselves to become too detached from the reality of war:

I have argued that it can be damaging for warriors to view their enemies as sub-human by imagining them like beasts in a jungle. In the same way, modern warriors who dehumanize their enemies by equating them with blips on a computer screen may find the sense that they are part of an honorable undertaking far too fragile to sustain. Just as societies have an obligation to treat their warriors as ends in themselves, it is important for warriors to show a similar kind of respect for the inherent worth and dignity of their opponents. Even long-distance warriors can achieve this by acknowledging that some of the “targets” they destroy are in fact human beings, not demons or vermin or empty statistics.

More parallels can be drawn between the way that societies should behave towards their warriors and how warriors should behave towards one another. Societies should honor their fallen defenders. Warriors should not desecrate the corpses of their enemies, but should, whenever possible, allow them to be buried by their own people and according to their own cultural traditions. Among his therapy patients, Jonathan Shay found several veterans suffering from “the toxic residue left behind by disrespectful treatment of enemy dead.(7)” And while societies must certainly show concern for the after-effects of war on their own troops, victorious warriors can also maintain the moral highground by helping to rebuild (or in some cases create) a solid infrastructure, a healthy economy, an educational system, and political stability for their former foes.

© 2004 Shannon French, Ph.D.

About the author: Dr. Shannon E. French teaches in the Ethics Section at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her book, The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present» (2003, Rowman and Littlefield) features a foreword by Senator John McCain. In 2000 she was awarded USNA’s campus-wide Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching. This essay is reprinted by permission of the author.

1. Shay p. 117.

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1. Why Do Warriors Need A Code?
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In war, more than in any other endeavor, common sense dictates a “win by any means” approach. Yet throughout history the greatest warriors have always held themselves to codes of honor, like the Code of Chivalry, which restrain them from excessive, brutal actions against their enemies. In this three-part essay (excerpted from her book Code of the Warrior» ), Professor French considers why warriors would bind themselves to voluntary restrictions in times of war — including a war against ruthless terrorists and murderers who themselves follow no such code. She reminds us that “stepping over the line” has far-reaching consequences, and her conclusions hold an important message for anyone who thinks going beyond the borders of ethics is harmless in the realms of business, sports, school or politics.

Defining the Warrior’s Code

Warrior cultures throughout history and from diverse regions around the globe have constructed codes of behavior, based on that culture’s image of the ideal warrior. These codes have not always been written down or literally codified into a set of explicit rules. A code can be hidden in the lines of epic poems or implied by the descriptions of mythic heroes. One way or another, it is carefully conveyed to each succeeding generation of warriors. These codes tend to be quite demanding. They are often closely linked to a culture’s religious beliefs and can be connected to elaborate (and frequently death defying or excruciatingly painful) rituals and rites of passage.

In many cases this code of honor seems to hold the warrior to a higher ethical standard than that required for an ordinary citizen within the general population of the society the warrior serves. The code is not imposed from the outside. The warriors themselves police strict adherence to these standards; with violators being shamed, ostracized, or even killed by their peers. One historical example comes from the Roman legions, where if a man fell asleep while he was supposed to be on watch in time of war he could expect to be stoned to death by the members of his own cohort.

The code of the warrior not only defines how he should interact with his own warrior comrades, but also how he should treat other members of his society, his enemies, and the people he conquers. The code restrains the warrior. It sets boundaries on his behavior. It distinguishes honorable acts from shameful acts. The Homeric hero Achilles must seek vengeance for the death of his friend Patroclus, yet when his rage drives him to desecrate the corpse of his arch nemesis, Hector, he angers the gods. Under the codes of chivalry, a medieval knight has to offer mercy to any knight who yields to him in battle. In feudal Japan, samurai are not permitted to approach their opponents using stealth, but rather are required to declare themselves openly before engaging combat. Muslim warriors engaged in offensive jihad cannot employ certain weapons unless and until their enemies use them first.

But why do warriors need a code that ties their hands and limits their options? Why should a warrior culture want to restrict the actions of its members and require them to commit to lofty ideals? Might not such restraints cripple their effectiveness as warriors? What’s wrong with, “All’s fair in love and war?” Isn’t winning all that matters? Why should any warrior want to be burdened with concerns about honor and shame?

Illustrations like this one, from the medieval book known as the Maciejowski Bible, depict just how cruel and bloody battle could be, even in the "age of chivalry."

One reason for such warriors’ codes may be to protect the warriors themselves from serious psychological damage. To say the least, the things that warriors are asked to do to guarantee their cultures’ survivals are far from pleasant. There is truth in the inescapable slogan, “War is hell.” Even those few who seem to feel no revulsion at spilling another human being’s guts on the ground, severing a limb, slicing off a head, or burning away a face are likely to be affected by the sight of their friends or kinsmen suffering the same fate. The combination of the warriors’ own natural disgust at what they must witness in battle and the fact that what they must do to endure and conquer can seem so uncivilized, so against what they have been taught by their society, creates the conditions for even the most accomplished warriors to feel tremendous self-loathing.

In his powerful work, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,» Lt. Col. Dave Grossman illuminates the process by which those in war and those training for war attempt to achieve emotional distance from their enemies. The practice of dehumanizing the enemy through the use of abusive or euphemistic language is a common and effective tool for increasing aggression and breaking down inhibitions against killing. Grossman notes:

Images of the Vietnam conflict forced Americans to question the importance and application of a code of honor in battle.

Grossman has interviewed many U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War. Grossman found that some of the men he interviewed had never truly achieved emotional distance from their former foes, and seemed to be the better for it. These men expressed admiration for Vietnamese culture. Some had even married Vietnamese women. They appeared to be leading happy and productive post-war lives. In contrast, those who persisted in viewing the Vietnamese as “less than animals” were unable to leave the war behind them.

Grossman writes about the dangers of dehumanizing the enemy in terms of potential damage to the war effort, long-term political fallout, and regional or global instability:

The insidious harm brought to the individual warriors who find themselves swept up by such devastating propaganda matters a great deal to those concerned with the warriors’ own welfare. In a segment on the “Clinical Importance of Honoring or Dishonoring the Enemy,” psychologist Jonathan Shay describes an intimate connection between the psychological health of the veteran and the respect he feels for those he fought. He stresses how important it is to the warrior to have the conviction that he participated in an honorable endeavor:

Jonathan Shay, psychologist and author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character,» finds echoes of these sentiments in the words of J. Glenn Gray from Gray’s modern classic on the experience of war, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle» ⁴. With the struggle of the Allies against the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of World War II as his backdrop, Gray brings home the agony of the warrior who has become incapable of honoring his enemies and thus is unable to find redemption himself:

By setting standards of behavior for themselves, accepting certain restraints, and even “honoring their enemies,” warriors can create a lifeline that will allow them to pull themselves out of the hell of war and reintegrate themselves into their society, should they survive to see peace restored. A warrior’s code may cover everything from the treatment of prisoners of war to oath keeping to table etiquette, but its primary purpose is to grant nobility to the warriors’ profession. This allows warriors to retain both their self-respect and the respect of those they guard.

© 2004 Shannon French, Ph.D.

About the author: Dr. Shannon E. French teaches in the Ethics Section at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her book, The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present» (2003, Rowman and Littlefield) features a foreword by Senator John McCain. In 2000 she was awarded USNA’s campus-wide Apgar Award for Excellence in Teaching. This essay is reprinted by permission of the author.

1. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1996, p. 161.
2. Ibid. p. 163.
3. Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.., Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994, p.115.
4. J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, New York: Harper and Row, 1970, pps. 152-153.
5. Ibid. p. 64.

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Chivalry — The Romantic Revolution

The concept of chivalry (along with tales of the knights in shining armor) has been seen for many years as slightly out of date, if not downright absurd. In fact, “chivalry” has become almost synonymous with “outdated social customs” — chivalrous behavior is considered genteel, stodgy and antique. In today’s world, where we all want to be in control of our own destiny, we imagine that the “restrictive social expectations” of chivalry and courtly love that we’ve read about in fairy tales are nothing but impediments to happiness and self-actualization. There are even some commentators who think chivalry perpetuates that myth that women are weak, helpless and subservient.

Ironically, nothing could be further from the truth.

One fellow who points this out very eloquently is Joseph Campbell, whose life-long research revealed the complex and universal archetypes behind the “primitive” myths of nearly every culture and religion on the globe. (Campbell’s theories achieved popular attention when they were utilized by a young filmmaker named George Lucas in creating the characters and writing the storyline for his movie Star Wars.)

In the book The Power of Myth,» Campbell (in an interview with journalist Bill Moyers) talks about the legends of chivalry from both a cultural and a mythological standpoint. Campbell worked as a scholar, teacher and writer from 1934 to his death in 1987, revealing that fairy tales, legends and folklore can unlock some of the deepest and most ancient mysteries of the human mind. His thoughts on medieval tales of chivalric romance and knightly adventure are nothing short of astonishing.

Campbell recognized that chivalry wasn’t stodgy or absurd. As he points out, prior to the Middle Ages, women (and men too) were largely puppets of familial necessity — they had little influence over their own destiny when it came to establishing romantic relationships or choosing life-partners. But in a world where marriage was primarily a means of establishing geographic or economic bonds between two clans, chivalry helped to tear down the centuries-old social customs that made wives little more than property and husbands political pawns.

In fact, Campbell explains that the troubadours (i.e., professional storytellers) of the Middle Ages weren’t just telling mindless tales of romance and dalliance, they were spreading a radical, almost subversive concept: That men and women could pursue their own destinies, fall in love and relate to one another as equals under a groundbreaking concept known as “courtly love.”

Here’s how Campbell explains chivalry’s revolutionary influence on 12th century culture:

When so many people today think of “chivalry” as a concept associated with antiquated social customs, it’s interesting to realize that the Code of Chivalry was originally a radical concept that shook the very foundations of European society and, in some ways, helped pave the way for the enlightened, humanistic attitudes of the Renaissance. Although the concept of courtly love that’s contained in the true medieval tradition of chivalry may seem tame, or even dowdy by 21st century standards, Campbell reminds us that the Code of Chivalry helped break down the repressive gender roles that existed at the time. As Bill Moyers surmised:

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The Powerful Role of Women in Chivalry

So, if the Code of Chivalry was such a radical departure from the traditional gender roles of the Middle Ages, why does the mention of “chivalry” cause men and women who believe in “gender equality” to grind their teeth? Why are the genteel attitudes of chivalry seen by so many people as demeaning towards women?

Partly, it’s due to the misconceptions we have about the Code of Chivalry. In the days of knights in shining armor — the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries — women weren’t put on pedestals to be admired from afar. (That concept comes from the pens of 19th century novelists.) Instead, women of medieval society were expected to play an active, intellectual role in the culture of chivalry that transformed the violent warriors of the Gothic tribes into the noble gentlemen of the High Middle Ages. Campbell explains that rather than making women “helpless,” the Code of Chivalry gave them great power and influence:

In his writing, Joseph Campbell reminds us that chivalry was not child’s play, nor was it a means of forcing women into helpless subservience. The Code of Chivalry was nothing less than the slow but unquenchable fire that forged order out of chaos, burning away the dross of violence, ignorance and self-interest, and creating an alloy of strength, wisdom and compassion.

In the world of the 21st century, the Code of Chivalry is once again a radical, revolutionary concept in interpersonal relationships. Chivalry Today reminds us that the strongest relationships must be built on a foundation of strength, respect and courtesy.

Campbell’s words are also a reminder that the complex attributes of chivalry defy any simplistic definition based on gender stereotypes. Chivalry is strength with compassion, integrity with boldness, action with contemplation — and that is what makes the Code of Chivalry such a timeless and enduring part of our culture, from the days of knights in armor, to the heroes and role models (male and female alike) who are the knights in shining armor of the modern world.

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This perception is largely due to the attitudes of the neo-Gothic revival of the 19th century. Authors, such as Sir Walter Scott and Alfred Lord Tennyson, and painters such as Frederic Leighton and John William Waterhouse, melded the stories and images of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table with a Victorian sense of gallantry, which delineated a passive role for women. But this role would have been quite alien to the audiences of the Middle Ages, for whom tales of Arthur and Guenevere were not wistful reminiscences, but evocative and timely social commentaries.

To see the real place of female characters in Arthurian literature we must look beyond the gender-biased affectations of the 19th century. Women in medieval literature played an active and integral part in the development of the Code of Chivalry. Certainly, Guinevere, Isoud, Elaine and the other ladies of Arthurian legend didn’t put on armor and ride into battle, but neither did they sit quietly on the sidelines.

Male characters in Arthurian legends portray the practical side of chivalry — they are characters of action. Female characters, conversely, represented the intellectual side of chivalry — they are characters of reflection. Whenever a knight accomplished a great deed, he (or perhaps his vanquished foe) returned to Camelot to recount his actions to the Queen and ladies of the court.

In such instances, it was the job of the Queen and her ladies to either praise the knight for adhering to the true spirit of chivalry, or rebuke him for succumbing to the temptations of vanity, pride or greed. A knight who defended the helpless or showed mercy to a fallen enemy received acclaim and admiration. Conversely, a knight who was too boastful about his prowess or reputation received harsh, critical words, and might well be sent on a dangerous quest to atone for his vanity. In this way, Guinevere and the female characters of Arthurian romance provide much-needed balance within the literature of chivalry — a dynamic which today would be described by concepts such as “yin and yang” or “anima and animas.”

Feminine involvement in the tales of King Arthur was surely more than mere idealism. These stories were being presented to a 12th century audience who had grown tired of centuries-old adventure stories that featured predictable heroes such as Roland, El Cid and Beowulf. They wanted stories that reflected contemporary values and expectations. It is hard to imagine a Queen like Eleanor of Aquitaine (to whom the poet Wace dedicated his tales of King Arthur in 1155) tolerating stories in which a woman’s only purpose was to serve as frilly window-dressing for battles and tournaments. So Guenevere was undoubtedly a role model for attitudes and actions of ladies in medieval courtly society.

This article originally appeared in Issue #33 of Renaissance Magazine. To find out more about this publication, visit their website .

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In the stories that thrill today’s readers and viewers, there has been a rise of a character who is almost completely unique to the modern world: the female hero. Not heroine, mind you, but hero — characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Captain Kathryn Janeway and adventurer Lara Croft, just to name a few. Today’s fictional women are the heroic equals of male characters such as Captain Kirk, Indiana Jones, James Bond and Fox Mulder because today, women are the social equals of men, and the boundaries which once separated masculine and feminine roles within society are now disappearing.

Similarly, women today have equal rights under the Code of Chivalry. In modern society, a woman is just as capable of being heroic, determined, intelligent or resourceful as any man, yet she is also equally obligated to be kind, respectful, patient, generous and fair. The roles which once separated masculine and feminine behavior (behavior which once prevented a woman from being self-empowered while at the same time making it acceptable for her to “get her way” by being petulant or sulky) are also disappearing. In short, chivalry has become gender-blind.

Throughout the development of the Code of Chivalry, women have played a crucial part in the understanding of what it means to be a knight. In the Middle Ages, Queen Guinevere was foremost among the women of romantic literature who demonstrated the need to guide and nurture the growing concept of chivalry to real-life women.

Today, a new breed of fictional female heroes are a tribute to modern expectations of gender equality. These characters inspire men and women alike to set new goals for themselves and to venture into new frontiers. One of these frontiers is the Code of Chivalry, where honor, courage, integrity and duty are concepts to which both modern men and women should aspire.

This article originally appeared in Issue #33 of Renaissance Magazine. To find out more about this publication, visit their website.

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The date was September 10, 2001.

Like everyone else on the planet, I couldn’t have imagined how drastically things were about to change. On September 11, I woke not to the cheery sound of the normal morning crew on the radio, but to the somber voices of serious news commentators struggling to convey facts and details amid a dust storm of emotion and confusion.

By the time I could even switch on the television, I knew everything had been transformed. The school canceled their classes, and for most of the day I sat with my presentation notes in front of me, wondering if all these idealistic words I had written about chivalry and virtue, hope and courage, kindness and courtesy had just been reduced to rubble. Could anyone seriously talk about knights in shining armor in a world where human beings could perpetrate this kind of act on one another?

Many people who have examined chivalry throughout the years claim that this medieval social and philosophical code, with its reverence of gentle, upstanding behavior, is the ultimate exercise in absurdity. This view is based, in part, on the various cults of chivalry which were products of the neo-Gothic revival of the 18th and 19th centuries. Writers like Tennyson and Walter Scott, and artists like Leighton and Waterhouse put chivalry up on such a pedestal that it became nearly unreachable.

In the days following September 11, I was haunted, not just by the words and pictures coming from Ground Zero, but also by images of noble knights and gentle damsels — images which had once been romantic and inspiring back in the pre-September 11th world where optimism, prosperity and cheer seemed to be inexhaustible resources. Had I crossed the line between a practical application of chivalry and outright fantasy? I recalled a passage I read in the book The Knight and Chivalry by Dr. Richard Barber, a preeminent scholar on medieval literature and sociology:

A few days later, when the teacher called to reschedule my chivalry presentation, I apologetically declined. I couldn’t bear to look at those childish, starry-eyed sentiments about chivalric virtues and knights in shining armor, and I certainly didn’t want to put such notions into the heads of impressionable young children under the guise of practical advice.

But, as everyone who lived through that terrible time in the wake of September 11 knows, hope soon sprouted from the ashes. There were heroic efforts made by police, rescue workers and ordinary citizens to save and assist the survivors of the attack. There was a President, and a government, with the wisdom and grace to fill the skies over the country responsible for the attack with planes dropping food and emergency supplies rather than bombs. There were airline attendants, postal employees, file clerks and legions of other hard-working individuals who had the courage to return to their jobs even though they never dreamed that a war zone could be extended into their workplaces.

Most of all, there was a nation full of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives and people of every kind who, in a time of loss, grief and catastrophe, had the strength to overcome a tragedy that, by all rights, should have brought them to their knees.

During those days, I realized that abandoning the code of chivalry would be an insult to all of those knights in shining armor who gleamed so brightly in the aftermath of September 11.

Looking at the code of chivalry from the vantage point of liberty and prosperity which we stand upon in the modern world, it’s tempting to dismiss this noble cause as a relic from the romantics and idealists of a bygone day. We must remember, however, that the tenets of knightly behavior were created, not in an age of ease and enlightenment, but amid the brutality and ignorance of the Middle Ages. For the people of the medieval world, grace, courtesy and gentle behavior weren’t dreams and visions to while away idle moments. The code of chivalry and its knightly virtues were the best and only defense against a world which seemed to be overflowing with sorrow, terror and despair. Chivalry was the torch that chased away the darkness which, for a time, seemed as if it might engulf the whole world …

On the six-month anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the people of New York established a memorial to all that was lost on that day: two shining towers of light, blazing into the night sky, where the World Trade Center had once stood. These brilliant columns of light could be seen 25 miles away from Ground Zero.

This memorial symbolized a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it was a reminder that chivalry wasn’t destroyed on September 11, but rather given a new place in the spotlight of life. Those two beacons, glaring fearlessly into the night, were reminders that an act of courage or virtue can shine very brightly in a moment of darkness. This Tribute in Light was an affirmation of everyone who has ever had the resolve to stand by their convictions when the world seemed to be collapsing around them. Perhaps most powerful of all, it was a reminder that we must never lose our faith in the knights in shining armor who stand quietly beside us, each and every day of our lives.

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The mix of courage, justice and courtesy incorporated in Mr. Autry’s “Cowboy Code” is outstanding, and the principles codified in these “simple” words can be applied to nearly any situation – family, business, relationships or personal behavior. Although it was written in the 1940s, this credo has surprising relevance in today’s world.

It is a code based on personal honor, respect to others, self-restraint and pride. Can you think of an ethical dilemma which couldn’t be resolved by the application of at least one of the tenets listed below? Clearly this code of conduct can trace its lineage back to the age of chivalry.

The Cowboy Code
– by Gene Autry

 
Not surprisingly, the cowboy was sometimes referred to as the knight in shining armor of the Old West. Mr. Autry obviously knew a few things about chivalry, and he did a wonderful job of passing those values along to a whole generation of boys and girls (and more than a few adults who enjoyed his movies and music). Just imagine how the world might be different if more kids, and more parents, lived by the Cowboy Code.

(The Cowboy Code reprinted by permission of the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, ©1994 Autry Qualified Interest Trust. The Cowboy Code cannot be reproduced in any form without express permission of the copyright holder.)

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