What is Chivalry?

To Hugh, Knight of Christ and Master of Christ’s Militia: Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes that he might fight the Good Fight.’  St Bernard’s greeting introduces us to one of the finest treatises on what constitutes a Knight, a “Good Knight”.  Since the 12th century people have tried to capture the essence of Chivalry.

• What is its essence?
• What is the greatest of its virtues?      
• What is the true basis of being a Knight or Dame of this Order?

I can remember hearing a conversation between a Novice Master and a Novice.

He gave an explanation as to why there are three knots in the rope holding his tunic together; the first is Poverty, the second Obedience and the third Chastity. The Abbot, overhearing the lesson, asked of the novice, ‘And what is the greatest’? The novice knowing the ‘correct’ answer said, ‘Obedience’. The Abbot paused for a moment and said, ‘No my Son, it’s love. Without love we would not be able to exercise poverty, obedience and chastity; those three would become burdens rather than gifts for our calling.’

Might I suggest that we have a lot to learn from this wise, old Abbot? For at the heart of our profession as a Knight or Dame must be love – the love of God and love of our neighbour. Without that, those ‘Ten Commandments of Knighthood’ would just be show, empty of meaning and impossible to keep.  So I was so glad that one of our members approached me suggesting  that the answer might lie in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, and asked if she could read that wonderful passage.

It would be good to put into context this passage. Some in the church at Corinth were striving to be super Christians, and they were far more interested in the outward show of their religion than inward spiritual sacrifice. They wanted the crown of glory without the crown of thorns.

Just before our passage, St Paul had graded some gifts of the Spirit given to the church. He had also explained that even the humble parts of the body are vital, and that all are set in the body of Christ for the glory of God. Yet behind all this there is something yet higher than the greatest of all gifts, something more important than status within the Church, and this is within the reach of the humblest and most ordinary believer. So St Paul proceeds to unfold ‘the most excellent way.’

Paul’s ‘most excellent way’ is the way of love, which he proceeds to expound in a passage of such beauty and power. Adolf Harnack, one of the greatest Church historians of the 20th century, called this chapter ‘the greatest, strongest, deepest thing Paul ever wrote’, and few would disagree.

For the regular worshipper, it warms the cockles of your heart; for those who come occasionally to church, it’s still the most popular reading at weddings and funerals. Before the New Testament the concept of love was that of a love for the best one knows, those who were close to you - like family or friends - or to love those whom you were expecting something in return.

The love adopted by Christians and praised by St Paul was a quality of love seen in the cross. It is a love for the utterly unworthy, a love that proceeds from a God who is love. It is a love lavished on others without a thought whether they are worthy or not.

It proceeds from the nature of the lover, not from any attractiveness in the beloved. The Christian who experienced God’s love for him while he was yet a sinner (Romans 5:8) has been transformed by the experience.              

Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.

Now St Paul sees people as those for whom Christ died, the objects of God’s love, and therefore the objects of the love of God’s people. The Christian comes to practice the love that seeks nothing for itself, but only the good of the loved one. It is this love that the Apostle unfolds.

I suspect one of the reasons 1 Corinthians 13 is attractive is that it is a thumbnail sketch of Jesus. With due respect to scripture and its interpretation, you can insert the name Jesus into many of its phrases:  Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus is not jealous or boastful; he is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful; Jesus does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The real challenge for us is allowing our profession as a Knight or Dame to instil those same characteristics in us so that can we put our name in front of each phrase?  Paul is patient and kind; Catherine is not jealous or boastful; she is not arrogant or rude. David does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful; Ian does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Sue bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. If we can, then perhaps we have come to recognize the love that flows from God’s very being, grounded in the cross of Jesus, experienced in our hearts through the Holy Spirit and, by the power of that same spirit, made real today by our actions as Knights and Dames.

This is the love that St Paul sang about, and the love which we celebrate at the heart of the International  Knightly Order of St  George.