Dr.

Robert Hickson

27 March 2015
Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Saint John Damascene (d. 749)
Saint Rupert of Salzburg (d. 720)

Reflections on the Higher Chivalry of Loyal Catholic Christianity

--Epigraphs-The sophists are under a gross misapprehension! A nation which loves luxury
first [cf. the deadly sin of luxuria in Latin, i.e., carnal lust and lechery] is a
nation lost! Such a one will be pushed aside, and obliterated by the more manly
and vigorous race. It wasit isChivalry that saves nations! It is their very
essence, and Chivalry disdains all those petty luxuries and the ease of a
nerveless life. It despises suffering: it is the old command put in action, Esto
vir.
The last commandment of the ancient Code [the Vows of Chivalry] appears to
us to be more needed in the observance now. It is: Do not lie! Be truthful! I
understand by that the feeling of horror of all the finesse, white lies, and petty
insincerities, which in so many shades darken the vistas of our lives! Of all
things here below Chivalry is most opposed to the insinuation, to the shade
of untruth! Chivalry would have us meet the daily danger with the most
luminous frankness. We should never conceal our badge or banner. If we believe
in Christ, let us, like those early martyrs, cry out: I am a Christian!
[Christianus sum!]. Let us, with open brow, and transparent soul, learn, not
only how to die for the truth, but learn also, what is much more difficult, how
to live in it! [To live in the truth.] (Lon Gautier, Chivalry (New York: Crescent
Books, 1989), pp. 498-499my emphasis added.)
***
Lon Gautier's own Dedication to his own 500-page book, Chivalry:
I dedicate this work to the memory of MIGUEL CERVANTES SAAVEDRA who
laughed at Chivalry in his books and was a true 'Chevalier' in his life. I dedicate it
to the greatest of Spanish authors and to one of the most valiant soldiers of Spain
the author of Don Quixotethe wounded Knight of Lepanto! (Chivalry
(1989), in the Frontispiece-Dedication)
***
Our boys [in the French Foreign Legion] don't know all you do [Father, who was
then the little Cur of Ambricourt]. They simply identify God [now] with a justice
they despise, because it's a justice without honour....They [Roland, Bishop
Turpin et al. in the epic of The Song of Roland] were well worth the fine ideal
they were trying to represent....Our peoples had chivalry in their blood. The
1

Church merely had to bless it.....Soldiers, just soldiers....they were protectors of

the City, not slaves to it [as they were in Pagan Rome]....they did stand for a kind
of justice, which for centuries and centuries has haunted the sadness of the poor,
or sometimes filled their dreams....One day it was rumoured all over the
Christian world that there was going to arise a kind of police-force [militia,
chivalry] of the Lord Jesus....When you think of the huge uninterrupted success
of a book like Don Quixote, you're bound to realize that if humankind have not yet
finished being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest
hope [for justice with honour], it was because that hope was cherished so long
and lay so deep! .These soldiers [of chivalry] belonged to Christianity alone,
and Christianity belongs to no one now. There is no Christianity now....Because
there are no more soldiers. No soldiers, no Christianity....The last real soldier
died on May 30, 1431, and you [churchmen] killed her, you people. Not only
killed her: condemned her, cut her off, burned her....And that soldier was raised
so high, because she was the last. The last of a race had to be a saint. God wished
it to be a woman. Out of respect for the ancient covenant of chivalry. The old
sword rests for ever across knees that the proudest among us could not kiss
without shedding tears. How I love the discreet reminder of the [risk-filled but
yet splendid] tournament: Honneur aux Dames!....
I saw that his [the Legionnaire's] eyes were sorrowful, a sorrow I knew. And
such sorrow gets my soul on the raw....
What is your grudge against the Church? I [i.e., the little Cur of Ambricourt]
said at last, foolishly....
You've [you of the Church have] secularized us. The first real secularization
was that of the soldier....
Each of his words stirred in the depth of my heart....Should we [priests] ever know
how to die as they [these legionnaires] do?....For one moment I hid my face,
appalled to feel the tears slip between my fingers. To weep in his presence like a
child....I let him see my sorrowful face, my shameful tears. He looked at me for a
long time. Oh, pride is still very much alive in me ! I was watching for a smile of
scorn, or at least of pity on those wilful lipsI feared his pity more than his scorn.
You're a good lad, he said at last. I wouldn't like any priest but you around
when I was dying. (Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), pp. 242-246my bold emphasis added)
***
In any reflective discussion of a man's chivalrous disposition or of the chivalrous ethos and
attitude itself, one is also soon likely to speak of a man of honor and even the matter of honor
itself and perhaps even honor's own etymological relation to honesty and even as a form of
gracious but firm forthrightness. However, today, one does not usually, or immediately, think of
Honor in Foreign Policy or of Chivalry in War. Such concepts are often enough greeted with a
pitying cynicism, if not with a scornful smile, and indeed as a delusional form of sentimentalism at
2

least that has been the case in my own experience down the years in the Military and in the Intelligence
Community, and in some strategic involvement with U.S. Foreign Affairs. But, three thoughtful men of
action and of profound scholarship have inspired me and have taught me otherwise: James Burnham;
Captain B.H. Liddell Hart; and Major Maurice Baring (the close friend of Hilaire Belloc and G.K.
Chesterton).
For example, the gifted strategic thinker (and former Trotskyite), James Burnham, had the
following historical and strategical insight to present in his 1952 book, Containment or Liberation?
An Inquiry into the Aims of United States Foreign Policy:
The American foreign policy of the anti-Nazi epoch, which has carried over to the
early anti-Communist age, has another characteristic that bears on the
possibility of [our] effective political warfare [i.e., especially against the Soviet
Union and its allies]. The [American] policy has been conducted without honor.
There are some who say that honor [much less chivalry] in politics went out with
feudalism, and breathed its last when the faithless Louis XI [1423-1483] beat the
chivalric Charles [the Bold, le Tmraire] of Burgundy [1433-1477]. Surely there
has been a post-Renaissance honor that lasted, if with deviations, well into the
19th century, and has not wholly disappeared from the world. The recent directors
of American foreign policy [as of 1952] do not seem to recognize any claims of
honor....[Burnham then gives, on pages 211-213, several trenchant and recent
examples of dishonor, in support of his contention, and then concludes with these
summary words:] Machiavelli insisted that states are not run by prayer books,
and I do not wish to pretend that a modern government in the complex modern
world can act like a Don Quixote on the bright field of honor. But honor still
has a place in the relations of human beings. You can buy agents, but not friends
or allies or comrades; and when you buy you always risk being outbid. If the
United States is to succeed in political warfare [i.e., in strategic and tactical
POLWAR] against Soviet Communism, it must have friends who are firm
under all circumstances, even the blackest, who are ready to go through to the end.
Surely a man of honor is most likely to find such friends. If we do not
ourselves honor our own words, who will honor them?1

The Military Historian and Strategist, B.H. Liddell Hart, himself a combatant in World War I,
writes these words about Grand Strategy and the Moral Factors of Warfare, constituting a sort of
supplement to James Burnham's own insights; and he presents them in one of his last books, entitled
1 James Burnham, Containment or Liberation?An Inquiry into the Aims of the United States Foreign Policy (New York:
The John Day Company, 1952, 1953), pages 211 and 213italicized emphasis in the original; my bold emphasis added.

Strategy (1967):
The term grand strategy serves to bring out the sense of policy in execution.
For the role of grand strategyhigher strategyis to co-ordinate and direct all
the resources of a nation, or band [coalition] of nations, towards the attainment
of the political object of the warthe goal defined by fundamental policy.
Grand strategy should both calculate and develop the economic resources and
man-power in order to sustain the fighting services. Also the moral resources
for to foster the people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess the
more concrete forms of power. Grand strategy should also regulate the
distribution of power between the several services, and between the services and
industry. Moreover, fighting power is but one of the instruments of grand
strategywhich should take account of and apply the power of financial
pressure, of diplomatic pressure, of commercial pressure, and, not least of ethical
pressure, to weaken the opponent's will. A good cause is a sword as well as
armour. Likewise, chivalry in war can be a most effective weapon in
weakening the opponent's will to resist, as well as augmenting [one's own]
moral strength.
Furthermore, while the horizon of strategy is bounded by the war, grand strategy
looks beyond the war to the subsequent peace. It should not only combine the
various instruments, but so regulate their use so as to avoid damage [or
embitterment!] to the future state of peace [an enhanced and truly just peace]
for its security and prosperity. The sorry state of peace, for both sides, that has
followed most wars [like WWI and WWII] can be traced to the fact that, unlike
strategy, the realm of grand strategy is for the most part terra incognitastill
awaiting exploration, and understanding [and application!].2

Maurice Baring's open-hearted tribute to the French General de Castelnau, whom he knew
intimately during World War I, will give us glimpses of an enduring example of chivalrous virtue, as
though the French General were himself a native of the age of chivalry. Baring's vivid tribute also
deserves our further reflections, especially in light of the desolating aftermath of World War I and the
subsequent moral deterioration in modern forms of remote and impersonal warfare. For, after much
2 B.H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970), Strategy, the second revised edition (London, England: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1967), p.
322italics in the original; my bold emphasis added. This passage concerning Grand Strategy comes from Chapter XIX
The Theory of Strategy, pp. 319-333. So much more could be quoted from this fine book, especially about Grand
Strategy, and even about why grand strategy tends to coincide with morality: through having always to keep in
view the ultimate goal of the efforts it is directing. (220my emphasis added) By way of contrast, he adds, strategy
is the very opposite of morality, as it largely concerned with the art of deception. (220) A fuller vision of grand
strategy (221) is always therefore needed.

close experience as a British staff officer working with his French ally, Nol duard de Castelnau
(1851-1944), Baring admiringly says the following about the general's character:
General de Castelnau's name and exploits.... They will be written, and are already
written in gold, in the history of France and [like King Saint Louis or like the
earlier Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon] in the Gesta Dei per Francos....But it is
perhaps permissible to say a word or two about his personality.
He seemed to belong to a nobler epoch than ours, to be a native of the age of
chivalry, of that time when Louis IX, who is known as Saint Louis, dispensed
justice under a spreading oak-tree. He had the easy familiarity, the slight play of
kindly irony, the little ripple of humour, the keen glance, the foresight and
forethought, that politesse du coeur, that complete remoteness from what is
common, mean, base, self-seeking, which are the foundation of God's gentleman. 3

With his white hair and keen eyes and distinctively chiselled granite-like features, General de
Castelnau also drew others to him. Indeed, says Baring, with his own politesse du coeur, the general
Radiated goodness and courage and cheerfulness, a salt-like sense, and a twinkling
humour. And his smile went straight to your heart, and made you feel at home,
comfortable, easy and happy. When one had luncheon with him and the orderly
said luncheon was ready he used to say: A cheval [to horse!], Messieurs, and
throughout his conversation there was always a rippling current of goodhumoured , delicate and keen chaff. 4

In marked contrast to what Edmund Burke had written in his classic book Reflections on the
Revolution in France (1790) as he so poignantly saw what was then growing in France i.e., the
death of the Age of Chivalry and its base replacement by the New Age of Hucksters and
Sophisters Maurice Baring saw in the vivid example and ethos of General de Castelnau himself an
inspiring exception to Burke's grim perception, inasmuch as
He [de Castelanau] was the salt of the earth, and one felt that if Burke had met
him he would have torn up his dirge on the death of the Age of Chivalry, for there
3 Maurice Baring, R.F.C. H.Q.1914-1918 [Royal Flying Corps Headquarters] (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1920), p. 273.
The book is 315 pages in length, and should be read and savored in its entirety.
4 Ibid.

it [the ethos of chivalry] was alive and enjoying life and making others enjoy it. 5

About how many general officers today could one say what Maurice Baring so sincerely (and
perspicaciously) expressed and felt in the presence of General de Castelnau? Especially his dignity and
grace under pressure! For, says Baring, even amidst stern combat and the pervasive loss of men, his
speech was poised and forceful and without a hint of a false tone:
To hear him talk was like reading [sic], was to breathe the atmosphere in which
classic French was born, racy, natural, idiomatic, and utterly free from anything
shoddy, artificial or pretentious. 6

Maurice Baring was in a position to make such differentiated comments about language, because
he not only knew and spoke French very well, but possessed unmistakably himself a chivalrous heart.
It is fitting now to consider two medieval texts which reveal to us the oaths and high standards of
medieval knighthood and its formative ethos of chivalry: one text from the twelfth century and the
second one from the thirteenth century. The first example is from the Latin Policraticus of the learned
and eloquent John of Salisbury (c.1120-1180), who was a close companion of the martyr Saint Thomas
Becket (d. 1170) and who later himself, in 1176, became the Bishop of Chartres. The second example
comes from King Saint Louis of France: his letter to his eldest son (Philip), composed shortly before
the king's death in 1270, in North Africa, in Tunis. This Letter is presented in full near the end of The
Life of Saint Louis (1309), which is Jean de Joinville's memorable biography of Saint Louis and also a
Chronicle of the Seventh Crusade. Joinville (1224-1317) was a close companion of King Louis IX on
that Crusade.
We shall first examine and quote at some length two short chapters from Book VI of The
Policraticus: Chapter VIII and Chapter IX. For, according to the great medieval scholar, D.W.
Robertson, Jr., these two chapters constitute one of the most forceful statements of the ideal
underlying medieval knighthood. 7
5 Ibid., p. 274.
6 Ibid., pp. 273-274.
7 D.W. Robertson, Jr., as the Learned Editor of The Literature of Medieval England (New York: McGraw-Hill Book

Each of the two Chapters bears a lengthy title. The first one, Chapter VIII, is entitled That the
Soldiery [Militia] of Arms Is Necessarily Bound to Religion Like That Which Is Consecrated to
Membership in the Clergy and the Service of God; and That the Name of Soldier [Miles] Is One of
Honor and Toil. The following Chapter IX is entitled That the Faith Which is Owed to God Is to Be
Preferred before Any Man, Nor Can Man Be Served Unless God Is Served.
John of Salisbury (Old Sarum) begins his Chapter VIII, as follows:
Turn over in your minds the words of the oath itself, and you will find that the
soldiery of arms not less than the spiritual soldiery [militia, chivalry] is bound
by the requirements of its official duties to the sacred service and worship of
God; for they owe obedience to the prince and ever watchful service to the
commonwealth, loyally and according to God. Wherefore...those who are
neither selected nor sworn, although they may be reckoned as soldiers in
name, are in reality no more soldiers than men are priests and clerics whom the
church has never called into [the sacrament of holy] orders. For the name of
soldier is one of honor, as it is one of toil. And no man can take honor upon
himself, but one who is called of [by] God [and thus] glories in the honor which
is conferred [as a gift] on him [cf. Hebrews 5:4].8
John of Salisbury raises a question about the Christian soldier's specific scope of duties, and he
then seeks to answer that question:

But what is the office [the officium] of the duly ordained soldiery? To defend the
Church, to assail infidelity, to venerate the priesthood, to protect the poor from
injuries, to pacify the province, to pour out their blood for their brothers (as the
formula of their oath instructs them), and, if need be, to lay down their lives....But
to what end? To the end that they may serve madness, vanity, avarice, or their
own private self-will? By no means. Rather to the end that they may execute the
judgment that is committed to them to execute; wherein each follows not his
own will but the deliberate decision of God, the angels, and men, in accordance
with equity [i.e., with gracious justice] and public utility [i.e., the bonum
commune]....For soldiers who do these things are saints [Psalm 149:9], and
are the more loyal to their prince in proportion as they more zealously keep the
faith of God; and they advance more successfully the honor of their own valor
Company, 1970), p. 215.
8 Ibid., p. 214my emphasis added.

as they seek the more faithfully in all things the glory of God.9

Professor D.W. Robertson, Jr. then immediately adds this illuminating comment at the end of this
chapter, and it deserves to be emphasized: The allegiance a knight owed to his lord was considered
to be an aspect of his allegiance to God. It was assumed that if he [the knight] were not loyal to
God, he had no reason to be loyal to anyone else.10

Chapter IX builds upon and elaborates this insight about the priority of loyalty:
This rule must be enjoined upon and fulfilled by every [loyal and duly ordained]
soldier, namely, that he shall keep inviolate the faith which he owes first to God
and afterwards to the prince and to the commonwealth. And greater things always
take precedence over lesser, so that faith is not to be kept to the commonwealth or
to the prince contrary to God, but [loyally] according to God, as the formula of
the military oath itself puts it. Wherefore I marvel greatly if any prince dares to
put his trust in those whom he sees not keeping their faith which they owe to
their God, to whom, without mentioning other obligations, they are bound even
by their military oath. Under what disease of reason must a prince [himself] be
laboring who trusts that a man will show fidelity to himself who before his
[the prince's] eyes reveals himself as corrupt and faithless toward Him to
whom he is under the greatest of all obligations?....There is nought which the
godless wretch will not stoop to do who prefers man before God. It is vain to
expect one [a vassal] to be true to his secondary loyalty [the prince] who holds
his primary loyalty [to God] in no regard.11

When we move now to the moral atmosphere of the thirteenth century and consider the chivalry
of the Christian King of France and not only in his earlier leadership of the unsuccessful Seventh
Crusade (1245-1254) we may especially appreciate how the chivalrous Joinville, near the end of his
own vivid Chronicle, reverently introduces Saint Louis' final Letter to His Son:
9 Ibid., p. 215my emphasis added.
10 Ibid.my emphasis added.
11 Ibid., p. 216my emphasis added.

I will not attempt to describe the king's journey to Tunis [where he died], nor tell
you anything that happened, becausethank God!I did not take part in it, and
have no wish to to put in my book anything of which I am not absolutely certain.
So I will speak only of our saintly king, and tell you how, after he had landed in
Tunis, in front of the [Muslim] Castle of Carthage, he fell a victim to enteric
fever....The king took to his bed, and felt that he must shortly pass out of this
world into the next. He sent for his son the Prince Philippe and commanded him,
as if he were making his will, to observe all the instruction he was leaving. These
you can find set down in French [and also in the Vie de Saint Louis by Guillaume
de Nangis, which is probably Joinville's own reliable source], as they were
written, so it is said, with the king's own saintly hand. 12
Here, in full, we may now see and savour the range of religious insights and the truly chivalrous
and gracious expressions of that dying saint's letter to his eldest son and successor:
My dear son, the first thing I would teach you is to set your heart to love God;
for without that [love] no one can be saved. Keep yourself from anything
displeasing to God, that is to say, from mortal sin. Rather than commit such a
terrible offense you must on the contrary be ready to suffer every kind of torment
[unto blood martyrdom].
If God sends you adversity, accept it patiently, and give thanks for it to our
Savior; consider that you have deserved it, and hope that He will make it turn to
your advantage. If, on the other had, God sends you prosperity, then thank Him
humbly, so that you do not become worse from pride, or any other cause, when
such a blessing should make you better. For we ought not to use God's gifts to
fight against Him.
Go often to [sacramental] confession, and choose for confessor a wise and upright
man who knows how to teach you what you ought, and what you ought not, to do.
Always behave yourself in such a way that your confessor and your friends
will not be afraid of reproving you when you have done wrong. Listen to the
services of Holy Church reverently and devoutly, and without chattering. Pray to
God with your heart as well as your lips, and most of all during Mass at the
moment of the consecration. Let your heart be tender and full of pity towards
the poor, the unhappy, and the afflicted; and comfort and help them to the
utmost of your [own chivalrous] power.
Maintain the good customs of your realm and abolish the bad ones. Do not be
greedy in your demands on your people, or impose heavy taxes on them, except in
case of emergency.
If anything lies heavy on your heart speak of it to your confessor or to some
12 Jean de Joinville, The Life of Saint Louis (London: Penguin Classics Book, 1963), pp. 346-347. Joinville's Life of Saint
Louis is to be found as the last section of a twofold text, Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades (New
York: Penguin Classics, 1963translated by M.R. B. Shaw). King Louis IX himself led the Seventh Crusade (12451254) where Joinville was also a participant, and was even to become a close and respectful companion of the King.

wise and discerning man who has not too glib a tongue. In this way your trouble
will be easier to bear.
Take care to have around you people, whether clerics or laymen, who are wise,
upright, and loyal, and free from covetousness. Talk with them often, but shun
and fly from association with the wicked. Listen willingly to the Word of God,
and keep it in your heart; be eager to obtain prayers and indulgences. Love all
that is good and beneficial; hate all that is evil wherever you find it.
Let no one be so bold as to say in your presence anything that may entice and
move men to sin, nor do anything so presumptuous as to speak evil of another
behind his back in order to belittle him. Nor must you allow anything in
disparagement of God and His saints to be said before you. Render thanks to
God continually for all the good things He has given you, so that you may be
considered worthy to receive further benefits.
In order to deal justly and equitably with your subjects, be straightforward and
firm, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, but always following what
is just, and upholding the cause of the poor till the truth be made clear. If
anyone bring a suit against you, make full inquiry until you know all the truth;
for then your counsellors, having the facts before them, will be able to give
sentence more confidently, whether for or against you.
If through your own act, or the act of your predecessors, you hold anything which
should belong to another, and his right to it is proved beyond question, restore it
[make just restitution] to him without delay. If on the other hand there is
some doubt about the matter, have it investigated, promptly and thoroughly, by
wise and knowledgeable men.
You must give your attention to ensuring that your subjects live peaceably and
uprightly under your rule. Above all, maintain the good cities and communes of
your realm in the same condition and with the same privileges as they enjoyed
under your predecessors. If there is anything in them that needs reform, do what is
necessary to set it right; and keep them ever in your favour and your love. For
because of the wealth and power of your great cities not only your own subjects,
and especially your great lords and barons, but also the people of other countries
will fear to undertake anything against you.
Love and honour all persons in the service of Holy Church, and see that no one
takes away or diminishes the gifts and donations made to them by your
predecessors. It is related of King Philip, my grandfather, that one of his
councillors [sic] once said to him that the servants of Holy Church were doing him
[Philip] much wrong and injury, in that they deprived him of his rights and
trespassed on his authority, and that it was a great marvel that he [Philip] allowed
it to be so. The good king answered that this might well be true, but after
considering the benefits God had bestowed on him and His many gracious acts of
kindness, he thought it better to forego some of his rights than embark on any
10

dispute with the people of Holy Church.

Honour and respect your father and mother, and obey their commands. Bestow the
benefices of Holy Church on persons of upright character and a clean life; and
do this on the advice of good and honourable men.
Beware of undertaking a war against any Christian prince without careful
deliberation; if it has to be undertaken see that you do no harm to Holy
Church, or to persons who have done you no injury. In the case of wars and
dissensions arising among your subjects, make peace between the disputants as
soon as ever you can.
Take special care to have good bailiffs and provosts, and often inquire of them,
as also of people attached to your household, how they conduct themselves, and
whether any of them are addicted to the vice of excessive covetousness, or
untruthfuless, or shifty behavior. Endeavor to drive out of your land all hateful
and unrighteous practices, and in particular do all in your power to root our
evil swearing and heresy. Take care to keep the expenses of your household
within reasonable limits.
Finally, my very dear son, have Masses sung for my soul and prayers said for
me throughout your kingdom; and give me a full and special share in all the
good you do. My own dear child, I give you all the blessings a good father can
give to his son. May the blessed Trinity and all the saints keep and defend you
from all evils; and may God grant you the grace to do His will always, so that
He may be honoured through you, and that you and I, after this mortal life is
ended, may both be with Him together and join in praising to all eternity.
Amen.13

Two more persons and their distinctive texts should now very fittingly be discussed in conclusion,
so as to disclose some other essential aspects of Chivalry, especially as they touch upon the Blessed
Mother (Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary) and the place of the Religious Military Orders (such as
the Knights Templars). We shall find that the Cistercian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, is himself a link
between the Military Orders and the devotion to Our Lady, as it is also to be seen at the very end of
Dante's Divine Comedy. For, not only did Saint Bernard write a Rule (Regula) for the Templars which
was based upon the Cistercian Rule, but he also later wrote a hortatory tribute to them, which is entitled
De Laude Novae Militiae (In Praise of the New Chivalry).
Moreover, in Dante's Commedia, Saint Bernard himself is the last guide that Dante the Pilgrim
13 Ibid., pp. 347-349my emphasis added.

11

has before he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the Beatific Vision. Just before the end of the Paradiso, we
see Saint Bernard praying for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and we see her implicit
immediate acceptance of his prayer on behalf of Dante the Viator-Peregrinus (the Wayfarer-Pilgrim).
Then, Our Lady silently and wordlessly merely raises her eyes to Our Lord and the Vision of
Beatitude is at once granted and glimpsed by the Pilgrim Dante and the poem ends there.
Saint Bernard's own special challenge in writing De Laude Novae Militiae was how to justify an
order of chivalrous monks who were now also authorized to bear arms as part of their protective
mission to protect the innocent and the vulnerable especially in defense of those pilgrims en route
to, and while in, the Holy Land, and then during their return home. This challenging Mission is part of
the great and noble story of the courageous and truly chivalrous Military Orders, all of them, to include
the Hospitallers of Saint John (of Rhodes and Malta) and the Spanish and Portuguese Orders who
rescued Christian captives s uch as the Mercedarians (the Order of Our Lady of Mercy), founded in
1218 by Saint Peter Nolasco.
All of the above considerations about chivalry will be more fully and gratefully grasped, if one
fundamentally understands that the Vow was the Linchpin of Christendom. That is, The Vow, and
not a mere Contract. For, a Vow is, at root, a free and irreversible binding of one's own will in a
Promise to God.
There is no one I know who better conveys this indispensable understanding than G.K. Chesterton
in his The Story of The Vow, which he published in 1920, shortly before he finally entered the
Catholic Church in the summer of 1922. 14

For example, in his politeness, Chesterton will first have us consider that
Chivalry is something recognisably different from the virtus of Virgil. Charity is
something exceeding the pity of Homer. Even our patriotism is something more
subtle than the undivided love of the city; and the change is felt in the most
permanent things, such as the love of landscape or the love of woman [as towards
Our Blessed Mother]. To define the differentiation in all these things will always
be hopelessly difficult. But I would suggest one element in the change [from
heathen things to the Christian things] which is perhaps too much neglected;
which at any rate ought not to be neglected; the nature of a vow. I might express
it by saying that pagan antiquity was the age of status; that Christian
14 G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce (London: Chatto & Windus, 1920), pp. 81-101 (The Story of the Vow).

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mediaevalism was the age of vows; and that sceptical [and untrusting] modernity
has been the age of contracts; or rather has tried to be, and [as of 1920] has
failed.15

Later, Chesterton adds:

It [vassalage] marks at least a special stage of transition, that the form of freedom
was essential to the fact of service, or even of servitude. In this way it is not
coincidental that the word homage means manhood. And if there was vow
instead of status even in the static parts of Feudalism, it is needless to say there
was a wider luxuriance of vows in the most adventurous parts of it
[Feudalism]. The whole of what we call chivalry is one great vow. Vows of
chivalry varied infinitely from the most solid to the most fantastic [romantic]....As
I have remarked [about the nature of a vow], this rule of loyalty, even in the
unruly exceptions which proved [i.e., tested] the rule, ran through all the romances
and songs of the troubadours....I mean here to emphasise the presence, and not
even to settle the proportion of this new notion [i.e., the notion of the Christian
vow] in the middle ages....There was a chivalry of trades [Christian guilds] as
well as a chivalry of orders of knighthood....That was the vital revolt and
innovation of vows...; as when a man vowed to be a monk, or the son of a cobbler
saluted the shrine of St. Joseph the patron saint of carpenters. When he had
entered the guild of carpenters he did indeed find himself responsible for a very
real loyalty and discipline; but the whole social atmosphere surrounding his
entrance was full of a sense of a separate and personal decision. There is one
place where we can still feel this sentiment [as of 1920]; the sentiment of
something at once free and final. We can feel it, if the service is properly
understood, before and after the marriage vows in any ordinary wedding in any
ordinary church.16

After Chesterton has presented his outline of the historical nature of vows of the personal
pledge, feudal or civic or monastic he goes on to unfold a little further the meaning of a Vow:
The idea, or at any rate the ideal, of the thing called a vow is fairly obvious. It is
to combine the fixity that goes with finality with the self-respect that goes
with freedom....But in the story of his own soul he [any man who is still alive] is
still pursuing, at great peril, his own adventure....For the purpose of this part of
the argument, it would not matter if the marriage vow produced the most austere
15 Ibid., pp. 86-87my emphasis added.
16 Ibid., pp. 89-91, 93my emphasis added.

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discomforts of the monastic vow. The point for the present is that it [the vow]
was sustained by a sense of free will; and the feeling that its evils were not
[merely] accepted but chosen. The same spirit ran through all the guilds and
popular arts and spontaneous social systems of the whole [Christian medieval ]
civilisation. It [the civilisation of vows (96)] had all the discipline of an
army; but it was an army of volunteers.17

In contrast to the ancient world and the modern world, Chesterton courteously notes: So far
history has only one way of combining that sort of stability with any sort of liberty not in a
regime of servile status nor in one primarily of mixed contract, but in a society full of varied vows. 18

Moreover, from his vantage point in England in 1920, Chesterton sees that the opponents of the
irrevocable vow have a sly and self-deceived way of appearing as the true friends of freedom:
There is only one form of freedom [the freedom of habitual vice, or an actually
sordid and consequent bondage] which they tolerate; and that is the sort of sexual
freedom [cf. luxuria] which is covered by the legal fiction of divorce. If we ask
why this liberty is alone left [but not the liberty to bind oneself!], when so many
other liberties are lost, we shall find the answer in the summary of this chapter [on
the Vow]. They are trying to break the vow of the knight as they broke the
vow of the monk [with King Henry VIII, for example]. They [the subverters of a
man's word] recognise that the vow as the vital antithesis to servile status [and
to the growing Servile State, as he says elsewhere, agreeing with H. Belloc's
concept]; [i.e., the vow is] the alternative and therefore the antagonist....In
short, what they [the Libertines] fear, in the most literal sense, is home rule....
[But] let them...ask themselves whether the oldest and simplest of the charges
against [the institution of] slavery has not always been the breaking up of
families [as well as the loyal bonds of their vows].19

17 Ibid., pp. 94-96my emphasis added.

18 Ibid., p. 98my emphasis added.
19 Ibid., pp. 99-101my emphasis added.

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So, too, today, would they have a man break his word and break his honor. And even break his
irreversible promises to God and to his beloved spouse and thus to their own vulnerable little
children.

APPENDIX
We may consider now, at the end of these varied reflections on Chivalry, an extended and worthy
passage fittingly to be further savored in full, coming from Georges Bernanos' The Diary of a Country
Priest (first published in 1936 in French; then soon in 1937 in an English translation). It is, in full, the
unexpected, but mutually enriching, and unmistakably chivalrous exchange between a humble Catholic
Priest (the Cur of Ambricourt) and a manly and still deeply reverent Soldier of the French Foreign
Legion (Monsieur Olivier):
I have just had a strange meeting [says the little Cur of Ambricourt in his
Diary]....But I think I have met a friend: friendship came as a revelation....I
realize now that friendship can break out between two people, with that violence
which generally is only attributed to the revelation of love....
I am sure you believe in God [said the Cur of Ambricourt to M. Olivier of the
French Foreign Legion]. Our people, he answered, never question the matter.
We all believe in God, even the worst of usthe worst believe in Him most,
perhaps. I think we must be too proud to sin without taking risks; we have
always one witness to face: God.
Such words should have torn my heart, for it was easy to take them as
blasphemous, and yet they in no way disturbed me.
It's not a bad idea to face up to God, I said. It compels a man to pledge the
whole of himselfthe whole of his hope, all the hope he is capable of, only
sometimes God turns away his face....
He [the Legionnaire] was watching me with his pale eyes....
Tell me what you think of me....
Oh, you? If it wasn't for that black sheath [soutane], you'd be like any one of us. I
saw that at first glance.
I didn't understand (I don't understand even now). You don't mean that?
Yes, I do mean that. But perhaps you don't know that I serve in a foreign
regiment.
A foreign regiment?
The Foreign Legion, if you like. I hate the word since novelists have made it so
fashionable.
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But surely a priest I stammered.

Priests? We've plenty of priests out there [in Algeria and the like]. My colonel's
orderlyhe'd been a priest at Poitou, at one time. We only knew afterwards.
After what?
After he was dead, of course.....
Something inexpressible was taking place in me. God knows I had never given
much thought to those harsh men, to their terrible, mysterious vocation....But
now the words of this stranger were awakening in me untold curiosity.
There are blasphemies and blasphemies, my [Legionnaire] companion went on,
in his quiet rather callous voice. In the mind of those blokes it's a method of
cutting off your retreat, a way they have. It's stupid, I consider, but not foul.
They're outlaws in this world, and they make themselves outlaws in the next. If
God isn't going to save soldiers, just because they're soldiers, what's the good of
trying? One more blasphemy for the sake of good measure, running the same
risk as the other lads....He snapped his fingers. You see, it's always the same
motto: All or nothing! Don't you agree? Why, I bet you yourself
Me?
Well, there's a shade of difference, perhaps, butIf only you'd take a look at
yourself.
Look at myself?
He couldn't help laughing, as we had laughed earlier on the road [together on M.
Olivier's motorcycle], in the sun....
The habit of prayer, as I see it [as a soldier], would mean a constant anxiety with
regard to prayer, a fight, a struggle. It is that particular dread of fear, the fear of
fear, that shapes the face of a brave man. Your faceyou don't mind if I tell
you?looks worn by prayer; it reminds me of a very old missal....Anyway, I
don't think it would take much to outlaw that face [of yours!], after our fashion
[out there in the Legion!]. Besides my uncle [the cold-spirited and adulterous
Count Omer at the Chteau in Ambricourt] says you have no sense of social life.
You'll admit our order isn't theirs [i.e., their arid aristocratic order]?
I don't deny their order, I said. I reproach it for being loveless.
Our boys don't know all you do. They simply identify God with a justice they
despise, because it's a justice without honour.....
Look here, I said, there is such a thing as a Christian soldier...
My voice was shaking as it always does when I am aware, through some
unknown sign, that whatever I do my words will bring solace or offense,
according to the will of God.
A Knight? He smiled. Our good fathers at college used still to swear by
helmets and bucklers, and we were given the Chanson de Roland to read as the
French Iliad....They [Roland et al.] were well worth the fine ideal they were
trying to represent. And they didn't borrow the ideal from anyone [neither
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from Greece nor from Pagan Rome]. Our peoples had chivalry in their blood.
The Church merely had to bless it. Soldiers, just soldiers, that's all they were,
the world has known none better. They were protectors of the City, not slaves to
it....No doubt they were neither just nor pureall of thembut they did stand
for a kind of justice, which for centuries and centuries has haunted the
sadness of the poor, or sometimes filled their dreams....And one day it was
rumoured all over the Christian world that there was going to arise a kind of
[protective] police-force of the Lord Jesus. A rumour isn't much to rely on, I
agree. But look: when you think of the huge uninterrupted success of a book like
Don Quixote, you're bound to realize that if humankind have not yet finished
being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest hope, it
is because that hope was cherished so long and lay so deep! Righters of wrong,
hands of iron!...Those men dealt heavy blows, they forced open our [Christian]
consciences with heavy blows. Even to-day women'll pay a high price [of
sacrifice] to bear their names, poor soldiers' names...These soldiers belonged to
Christianity alone, and Christianity belongs to no one now. There is no
Christianity now. There never will be again.
But why?
Because there are no more soldiers. No soldiers, no Christianity. You'll say the
Church has survived and that's the chief thing. Sure. But Christ's Kingdom on
Earth will never be again. It's over and done with, and all hope died with us.
With you? I cried. There's no lack of soldiers.
Soldiers? Call 'em 'army-men.' The last real soldier died on May 30, 1431, and
you killed her, you people. Not only killed her: condemned her, cut her off, burned
her.
We made her a saint, too.
Why not say it was the will of God? And that soldier was raised so high, because
she was the last. The last of such a race had to be a saint. God wished it to be a
woman. Out of respect for the ancient covenant of chivalry. The old sword
rests for ever across the knees that the proudest among us could not kiss
without shedding tears. How I love the discreet reminder of the tournament:
'Honneur aux Dames!' Enough to make your doctors of divinity squint with spite,
they who are so afraid of women.
The joke would have made me laugh, for it was like many I had heard in the
seminary, but I saw his eyes were sorrowful, a sorrow I knew. And such
sorrow gets my soul on the raw, as it were, fills me with stupid insuperable
shyness.
What is your grudge against the Church? I said at last, foolishly.
Mine? Oh, nothing much. You've secularized us. The first real secularization
was that of the soldier. And it's some time ago now. When you go snivelling over
the excesses of nationalism, you [churchmen] should remember it was you who
first pandered to the law-makers of the Renaissance, whilst they made short
work of Christian right, and patiently constructed under your very noses, right in
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your very faces the Pagan State: the state which knows no law but that of its own
well-beingthe merciless countries full of greed and pride.
Listen, I said, I don't know much about history, but it seems to me that feudal
anarchy had its own risks.
No doubt....[But] You [churchmen] wouldn't take them [those risks]. You left
Christianity high and dry, it took too long, it cost a lot and brought in very
little. You gave us the 'state' instead [i.e., Power without Grace]. The state to
arm us and clothe us and feed us, and take charge of our conscience into the
bargain....An the titulary gods of the modern worldwe know 'em; they dine
out, they're called bankers....Outside Christianity, there is no place in the
West for soldiers or fatherland, and your filthy compromises [in the Church]
will soon have permitted the final shame of both [both of soldiers and of true
fatherlands]....I don't give a damn, he said. I'll be killed before then.
Each of his words stirred the very depths of my heart. Alas, God has entrusted
Himself in our handsHis Body and Soulthe Body and Soul, the honour of
God in our consecrated handsand all that those men [those legionnaires]
lavish over the highways of the world....Should we even know how to die as
they do? I asked myself. For one moment I hid my face, appalled to feel the
tears slip between my fingers. To weep in his presence, like a child, like a
woman! But our Lord restored some of my courage. I stood up, let my arms drop,
and with great effortthe thought of it hurts me stillI let him see my
sorrowful face, my shameful tears. He looked at me for a long time. Oh, pride
is still very much alive in me! I was watching for a smile of scorn, or at least of
pity on those wilful lipsI feared his pity more than his scorn.
You're a good lad, he said at last. I wouldn't like any priest but you around
when I was dying.
And he kissed me, as children do, on both cheeks.
(Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 19371936 in French), pp. 233, 239-246my emphasis added.)
A Brief Outline of Additional Points for Our Further Reflection and Inquiries:
1. The Ideals of Chivalry (1100-1250), in contrast with the Stern Earlier Practices and Actual
Combative Martial Reality of Chivalry, also in the protracted Crusades.
2. You cannot understand chivalry unless you have yourself learned to ride and to take good care of
your horse and other things you are also so dependent upon.
3. The gradual and lengthy process of the Christianization of Warfare, at least until 1431 A.D. (hence
up to the burning of Saint Joan of Arc).
4. The Essential Combination of Discipline with Culture : Culture itself as a Vital Medium and thus
the further need for an Attentive Cultivation unto Slow Fruitfulness. ( Consider The Parable of
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the Sower: the relationship between the Cultivation of Soil and the Cultivation of the Soul; and
consider the final Encounter in Purgatory between Dante and Beatrice and her mention of Dante's own
Neglect and his Neglected Rich Soil of Talents).
5. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (1966)Theological and Anthropological Considerations;
considering a foreign (or one's own) Culture as a subtle and symbolic Text; Cliffort Geertz (d. 2006).
6. Victor Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (1978)his doctrinal position, along with
that of his own wife and with Mary Douglas too, as part of the Scholarly Anthropological School
School of the gifted Oxford Professor, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, the British Social Anthropologist.
7. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, De Laude Novae Militiae (In Praise of the New Chivalry); the Matter of
the Military Orders, to include the Templars.
8. John of Salisbury (c.1120-1180), Polycraticus, Book VI: Chapter VIII and Chapter IX (That the
Faith Which Is Owed to God Is to Be Preferred before Any Man, Nor Can Man Be Served Unless God
Is Served).
9. Jean de Joinville (1224-1317), The Life of Saint Louis; his full Chronicle of the Seventh Crusade.
10. An unknown Breton Priest's likely composition of The Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) (a
late 11th-mid-12th century poem, about an epic battle against the Moslem Moors, Traitors, and Basque
Tribes near Roncesvalles on the Strategic Marches of Northern Spain in 778 A.D.especially about
military friendship and the death of Roland, Charlemagne's loyal knight to the end.
11. Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un cur de compagne (1936); in 1937
came the first English translation).
12. King Clovis (466-511) and Saint Clothilde (475-545)the Patron Saints of the French Foreign
Legion and of the Elite French Combat Helicoptersand the rationale of the latter patronage.
13. Some of R.D. Hickson's Personal History and Formative Military Involvements: from West Point to
Southeast Asia and East Asia; and to Germany once again; and to Turkey and Greece on the Eastern
Flank of NATO, and the overlapping relationship with CENTO (Turkey, undivided Pakistan, and the
Shah's Iran) as part of an Anti-Communist Strategy.
14. The importance of the deep Contrast of Culturesto include the deeper contrasts of various
Strategic Military Cultures and their Histories.
15. China, as distinct from Japan, concerning the status and qualities of their Military Cultures.
16. Historical China: the earlier, detached and Daoist-oriented Philosophers of the Bamboo Grove
(mid-3rd century A.D., during the troubled Three Kingdoms Period in view of the brief Wei Dynasty,
220-266 A.D.); a consideration of the Catholics of Asia (the Chinese) in contradistinction to the
Protestants of Asia (the Japanese); the Recurrent Phenomenon of Chinese Warlordism; China's Other
Strategic-Geographic Vulnerabilities; the Chinese Tradition of Military Secret Societies, such as the
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White Lotus Society and the later varieties of the Chinese Triads; the 16th-century Motto against the
occupying: "Restore the Ming, Remove the Ching"the Manchu Ching (Quing) Dynasty (1644-1911).
17. Historical Japan: the Samurai and the Code of Bushido; the Japanese Martial Aesthetic and
Evidence of Cruelty; and what is not present or what is, rather, missing in Bushido (e.g., the presence
and influence of the Blessed Mother and the attentive protection of the Little Ones).
18. The visit to Japan and startling book about Japan written by Bernard Rudofsky (1905-1988): The
Kimono Mind.
19. The Translator and Scholar, Edward Seidensticker (1921-2007) and his cultural-literary insights,
also about B. Rudofsky and his rare insights about the Zen religion and culture, and the Samurai Code.
20. The Japanese Scholar, Ivan Morris and his own book, The Nobility of Failure. The meaning of
Makotoa quality of Purity in the special Japanese concept of Tragedy; the inspiring Counsel Ivan
Morris himself once received in Japan, and so unexpectedly so, from Yukio Mishima himself.
21. Leon Gautier, Chivalrythe implications of his book's Dedication to Cervantes; his insight that "It
wasit isChivalry that saves nations!" The chivalric ethos: "Esto Vir""Do Not Lie!""Be
Truthful"Be and Remain Opposed to "the insinuation" and to "the shade of untruth"; "Chivalry
would have us meet the daily danger with the most luminous frankness." Let us "learn, not only how to
die for the truth, but learn also...how to live in it to live in the truth]!"
22. Wolfram von Eschenbach (c.1170-c.1225), Parzivaland its importance as a Chivalric Tale from
the early thirteenth century (circa 1210); it also involves the higher, sacred Quest for the Holy Grail.
23. Some of THE ENEMIES OF CHIVALRY, at least the Opponents of Christian Chivalryespecially
from the otherwise tolerant Secular Enlightenment Thinkers and Authors: e.g., Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing, and especially his own 1779 Tale that promotes Religious Toleration, which is entitled
Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise). However, Lessing's presentation unmistakably favours both Islam
and Judaism over Christianity (especially the play's depicted Christianity of the Crusaders-Templars, in
contrast to the wise and virtuous Saladin and his intermingling and chess-playing Jewish Merchants).
24. A Barrier to Chivalry: the very Character of Modern Warfare, and a further elucidating Analogy
with Usury: the Attempt to Remove Risk (not to Share the Risk); Further Considerations of ModernPostmodern Warfare's Growing Impersonality, Anonymity, and Lack of Accountability; the Subversive
Diffusion of Personal Responsibility and of any Public Accountability, as such. The increasing subtlety
of False-Flag Operations and their deceitfully devious, operational Technologies.
--Finis- 2015 Robert D. Hickson

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