Delegate for Canada

Mr. Patrick Bonney

• Vice Chairman of the Board of C.E.D.S Japan

• Has worked in international Finance for the past 20 years. Graduate in Political Science at UBC where he studied under a protégé of Kissinger.
  
  

Chivalry as an ethical code of conduct - then and today

"Chivalry is itself the poetry of life."
-Friedrich von Schlegel-

While springing from military origins, by the Middle Ages the practice of virtues of pitie (compassion), courtoisie (courtliness), largesse (generosity) and franchise (free spirit) as well as assistance for the poor and persecuted defined a code of personal conduct upon knighthood.

Chivalry in historical literature

The romance of chivalry is preserved in the literature of Arthurian legends". The Song of Roland" (anonymous, mid to late eleventh century), set in the period of Charlemagne, tells of the campaign to drive the Saracens (or Moors) from Spain. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (anonymous, circa 1375-1400) is a tale from King Arthur immortalizing the image of chivalric virtue in the person of Sir Gawain. "The Morte d’Arthur "(Sir Thomas Malory, 1469-70), in the first published compilation of Arthurian legends served to glorify chivalric values. In the "Canterbury Tales, "Chaucer’s Duke Theseus of Athens in the "Knights Tale "is held as an exemplar of knightly virtue for acts of bravery, nobility, courtesy (to women in particular), selflessness and mercy.

In Chaucer’s "The Wife of Bath’s Tale", a knight’s wife states ..."He that prizes his gentility in being born of some old noble house, with ancestors both noble and virtuous, but will himself do naught of noble deeds nor follow him to whose name he succeeds, he is not gentle, be he duke or earl, for acting churlish makes a man a churl..." Chaucer’s sharp point may be considered an invocation to those who "claim" nobility to live up to the expectations of chivalric virtue.

The conferral of a knightly Order was meant, at least in theory, to recognize knightly virtue, along with fidelity to the sovereign that vows required. Miguel Cervantes held these same virtues up for gentle mockery in his masterpiece, "Don Quixote." First published in 1605, Cervantes forced his hero to confront the reality that the modern world (as it was then) had rendered the chivalric romance no more than a distant memory, though we nevertheless celebrate poor Don Quixote’s personal courage and commitment. Indeed it may be said that it is this attempt to live up to the ideal of the virtuous medieval knight that to this day provides the inspiration for various religious-military Orders, which today seek to perpetuate the chivalric virtues through acts of public service and spiritual devotion.

Chivalry - a concept without religious or cultural barriers

This concept of chivalry is not unique to the west. It is a code of moral value that historically, as well as today, serves as a bridge between cultures and time. In reality, true followers of such noble aims were rare, and even those warriors who were held up by medieval writers and the Church as paragons of Chivalry would today be looked upon in a very different light. It says much of those times that one of the men who most epitomized the Code of Chivalry was not a Christian Knight at all, but the Muslim ruler Saladin (1137-1193), Sultan of Egypt and Syria, who led the Muslim army against the Crusaders in Palestine in various documented acts of chivalrous behavior.

Inazo Nitobe, the 19^th century diplomat, in explaining to a distinguished Belgian Jurist that there is no religious instruction in schools in Japan was asked incredulously "how do you impart moral education"? He codified his response in his seminal work "Bushido: the Soul of Japan. "Published in 1899, perhaps as well as any author before or since, Nitobe eloquently gets to the essence of this living soul in describing Bushido as an ethical system:

"Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it nevertheless scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared, but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution. "

The chapters of "Bushido: the Soul of Japan" are titled: Rectitude or Justice; Courage, the Spirit of Daring and Bearing; Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress; Politeness; Veracity or Truthfulness; Honor; The Duty of Loyalty; Self-Control.

While springing from Eastern philosophies of Zen Buddhism and Confucius this ethic speaks of a moral code true to the universality of Chivalry.

Chivalry for the modern man

The irresistible tide of rich, apathetic democracies is arrayed against the precepts of Knighthood. Chivalry, as a class spirit, as a reserve of intellect and culture, fixing the grades and value of moral qualities, has a natural tension with the decay of the ceremonial code, the vulgarization of life. Individual liberty, urbanization, wealth; it is these hallmarks of progress of modern society which threaten to engulf the remnants of chivalry. While inexorable, this need not eradicate the values that speak to persons of higher sensibilities of latter day civilization.

What does it mean for a modern man or woman to be invested today? Becoming a knight means more than receiving honors but rather presupposes solemn commitments to universal ideals of excellence; when one is tapped by the sword and stands, one is accepting a modern quest, fantastic and unending.

Duty, an unfashionable little word, has elicited many fine lines over the centuries, but perhaps none finer than those Shakespeare causes King Henry V to utter before Agincourt.

"We would not seek a battle as we are,
Young Harry says, his army exhausted and sick.
Nor, as we are, we say, we will not shun it."

On the eve of battle, he says something else:

"But if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive."

Honor, like duty, is an unfashionable word. Both merit a comeback in our modern world. Both are timeless reminders of what it is to have the heart of a knight.