A Return to Chivalry?
On Principle, v9n4
August 2001
By Terrence Moore
"Is chivalry dead?" I ask my Western Civilization students.
The responses are invariably electric. As attenuated its
forms, as rare its observance may be, chivalry still retains a
significant place in the modern memory. It might surprise us
that a generation reared with a bare minimum of discipline
should care about a rigorous system of morals and
manners. In particular, we may wonder that young men and
women would think much of an ethic that encouraged both
sexual restraint and the service of men on behalf of
women. Yet we must realize that today's youth are hardly
enamored with either the sexual revolution or the feminists'
struggles to create an androgynous world. Their deeper
longings are for a world in which virtuous men both respect
and protect modest women. Here is a typical response by
today's college woman to the exam question, "The system
of manners known as chivalry was necessary in the Middle
Ages but is irrelevant today."
Chivalry has indeed seemed to become
irrelevant today and that is a tragic loss
for both men and women. Women refuse to
hold men to the standards necessary to
achieve the genteel honor that we have
lost. Women are disrespected in today's
society, because we ask for nothing more.
There is probably not a woman alive who,
in some part of her heart, would not want
to be carried off on horseback by a knight
in shining armor, but we are not allowed to
admit that anymore. We are taught to
declare ourselves equal to men in all
respects and in no need of superior
treatment. If only women would realize that
chivalry was a way of showing respect and
devotion, not condescension, do we have
any hope of ever regaining this lost system
of virtue.
The question is how moral educators can bring young men
and women to this conclusion and give them the courage to
act upon it. For our deliverance from a vulgarized sexuality
on the one hand and a forced androgyny on the other will
begin only when young men and women begin to
contemplate the creation of a new chivalry. In other words,
men must begin again to act like men, women like women,
and some standards of decency must govern their relations.
Students' initial responses to the question of whether
chivalry is dead will mostly concern whether men still open
doors for women and whether they should. The teacher
might suggest other courtesies that men used to perform
which today's adolescents have never seen or heard of,
such as standing up for a lady when she walks into the
room. This discussion can be of enormous value in teaching
young men that the majority of women actually appreciate
these vestiges of chivalry. The women, with one or two
exceptions in every group, long for the days when men
"acted like gentlemen." Many young men, on the other
hand, are under the impression that women resent having
doors opened for them. "There are feminists out there who
will tell you off," they say. The testimony of their female
peers to the contrary leaves them without excuse.
Once the discussion of whether chivalry still exists and in
what forms it has been exhausted, the teacher should
address the other side of the question particularly to the
ladies. To what extent has positively unchivalrous behavior
become the norm for young men? Personal anecdotes will
abound. This might be the one chance women have to
register their dissatisfaction with inveterate cursing, for
example. They will never do so in company. When women
are told that they could create a chivalrous environment by
insisting that men stop cursing, if necessary by leaving their
company, they show reluctance. Naturally pleasing, they do
not want to spoil the conversation by correcting someone
nor to be called a bad name on their leaving. The more
restrained setting of the classroom, where comments are
not directed at anyone personally, is the ideal forum for just
complaints. Hopefully the young men will respond to this
discussion by cleaning up their language. The young women
should nevertheless be encouraged to make their objection
to cursing more generally known. I use the example of my
grandfather who deplored the modern man's practice of
wearing a hat at the table but held women responsible: "In
my day a lady would not sit with a man who wore his hat."
Previous ages realized that women are the natural arbiters
of manners, and our age must profit from their insights.
More than just cursing, women will have experienced more
threatening forms of indecency. They do not like being
whistled at, yelled at, or being made the subject of sexual
innuendo. One thing every female runner will complain of is
being yelled at by a carload of young men. Some of the
young men in the classroom might have done some of the
yelling. "So what's the big deal?" they might ask. "It's just a
way of telling a girl that she's hot." "That's why she's
running in the first place, isn't it, to be noticed?" "Sometimes
girls yell at guys, too." Here the young women should be
asked why being yelled at bothers them. What they will say
is that a woman never knows when yelling might turn into
something else, especially when running in a big city, or at
night, or even on rural roads. Some of them might even
remember an infamous rape case. Young men never have
to worry about a group of girls surrounding them. The point
needs to be made that from the perspective of a woman, a
verbal assault, besides being very often degrading in itself
("show us your X"!) is always potentially translated into a
physical assault. A woman knows that a carload of sixteen
year-olds, whatever their intentions, could stop and
overpower her without anyone coming to her rescue. A
young man has no equivalent worry. Thus, there is a
difference between the sexes, and that difference requires
a gender-specific rather than a gender-neutral code of
manners.
Once students become aware that the vulgarization of the
relations between the sexes is taking place before their very
eyes, they are ready to discuss the importance of chivalry in
the history of Western civilization. Before exploring how
chivalry worked in its heyday, students should know why
this code of manners was developed in the first place.
Chivalry took root, slowly, as the response to one of the
gravest crises in the history of the West: the total collapse
of civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Fifth
Century A. D. and again after the collapse of the more
precarious Carolingian Empire in the Ninth Century. True
Hobbesians should spend some time with the early Middle
Ages, for truly there has never been a period when life was
as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." There was no
government. There was no police force. Property and
persons were utterly at the mercy of very bad men. These
men might be called "young," partly because of their age
and partly because of their youthful energy and disrespect
for any older, established order. Young men on horseback
roamed the countryside in huge packs and pillaged
whatever semblance of civilization they found: families,
churches, farms, markets. Like all young men, they came
around to the idea of finding young women. Having no
respect for decency, their method was simple. They just
took any women they might come across. They took
widows, wives, daughters, and nuns, from any place they
might find them. Young men had no notion of courtship.
Their desire for the opposite sex expressed itself in
venereal hooliganism. In short, the behavior of young men
during the Dark Ages did not differ considerably from that
found in the inner-city gangs of today.
The solution to this crisis came through a gradual change in
the motives and manners of the armed horsemen.
Established men, the Church, and young ladies themselves
combined forces to tame the unruly passions of these
violent predators. They did so by effecting a direct
exchange of male freedom for duty. To become true
knights, young men had to submit themselves to an
elaborate set of regulations known as chivalry that brought
them into the social order and established them in marriage
to young, beautiful heiresses. To enter the ranks of
knighthood, young men had to submit themselves to a
thorough regime of ethical training that prepared them for a
life of service. The element of danger and enterprise
remained in their lives since they had to protect their land
and their ladies. The idea of male honor came into being. It
became dishonorable for a strong man to intimidate or injure
someone physically weaker than himself. The ritual par
excellence for the display of chivalry became the
tournament. No other event allowed the young knight to
shine in combat before the eyes of anxious maidens and
discerning parents so much as this great pageant of courage
and courtesy. The tournament was not simply a game or a
sport. The virtues and martial skills developed in the lists
prepared young men for encounters against enemies at
home and abroad in these lawless times. The deference
paid to ladies guaranteed that manly strength would never
be employed against the fair sex but rather in its defense.
At this point in the discussion, the teacher should drive
home his point. The women are still silently sympathetic to
the plight of women in the Middle Ages and perhaps realize
that modern manners are reverting to early medieval
conditions. The men are wishing they could become
knights. The teacher should ask the men, "In the course of
your education have you ever been taught what it means to
be a man?" The question will floor them. Immediately they
sense the need for such an ethical education and its total
absence in the schools, the culture, and too often in the
home. The fact of the matter is that young males today do
not have the slightest idea of what it means to be men. And
yet the desire of young men to be something more than
irresponsible boys or even "nice persons" remains as strong
as ever, despite the efforts of radical feminists,
androgynists, and hyper-egalitarians. The evidence comes
from a most unlikely source. Christina Hoff Sommers in
The War Against Boys aptly draws our attention to a
wonderful collection of essays called Between Mothers
and Sons. The authors are left-leaning, pacifistic, feminist,
and very much children of the sixties. Yet these mothers
discover in their sons something they did not inculcate: the
male nature. One such mother, Janet Burroway, describes
how she nervously came to terms with her son's adventures
in the military, conservative political ideas, and fascination
with weaponry. She saw the sewing lessons she gave to
her son in hopes of turning out a little feminist "put to use on
cartridge belts and camouflage." In short, even many of the
feminist mothers of today are finding themselves in the
position of Perceval's mother who had never let her son see
a knight since "if the knights told him of their way of life he
would wish to be one also." Yet on first seeing knights pass
through the forest, Perceval knew he must become one.
When his mother realized "her caresses availed no longer to
keep him" she supported Perceval in his decision:
Fair son, I wish to teach you a lesson
which you will do well to hear, and if it
pleases you to remember it, great profit
can come to you. You will soon become a
knight, my son, if it please God, and I
approve it. If, near or far, you find a lady
who needs help, or a maiden in distress, do
not withhold your aid if they ask for it; for
in this all honor lies. He who does not
yield honor to ladies, loses his own honor.
Serve ladies and maidens, and you will
receive honor everywhere. If you ask a
favor of any, avoid offending her and do
nothing to displease her. He who wins a
kiss from a maiden receives much; if she
permits you to kiss her, I forbid you to take
more if, for my sake, you are willing to
forego it. . . . Fair son, speak with noble
men and go with them; a noble man never
gives bad counsel to those who frequent
his company. Above everything I beseech
you to enter church and minster and pray
Our Lord to give you honor in this world
and grant you so to act that you may come
to a good end.
Perceval's mother learned that she could not deny her son's
nature. The attempts to deny the male nature today have
proven harmful both to men and women. For the history of
chivalry has taught us that the young male can become
gentle, provided that he is allowed to do so on his own
terms, provided that gentleness does not reflect pusillanimity
but allies itself with strength and honor.
Once the male students realize that what is at stake in this
discussion is nothing less than their own manhood, and once
the females begin to see what men could become, this
distant epoch from the past will become a source of living
instruction. The moral teacher must throw down the
gauntlet. Currently, there is a great cultural battle being
waged on every street corner, and in every school, and in
every family in this country. It is the battle for common
decency. On many fronts, the battle is being lost, but the
tide has perhaps turned. The fact that the children of the
sixties generation could even be interested in a theme like
chivalry is a great sign of hope. But more than being
interested, they must act upon the moral principles of their
nature. Just as Churchill said that World War II would be
won by the unknown soldier, so the battle for common
decency will not be won by one great thinker or statesman
or teacher. It will be won by millions of ordinary men and
women doing their duties as ordinary men and women. The
return to chivalry requires that every young man exercise
his courage in becoming a gentleman and that every young
woman exercise her modesty in becoming a lady.
Terrence Moore, a former Marine and history
professor, is a principal at Ridgeview Classical Schools
in Ft. Collins, Colorado.