Chivalry Book Club (March 2025)

"The Necessity of Chivalry" & The Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry

Greetings and welcome to the Chivalry Book Club. This month’s selections are “The Necessity of Chivalry” by CS Lewis and The Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry, from Chivalry by Leon Gautier.

I will post notes and questions on the readings below and will be adding to this post throughout the month until our discussion on Monday, March 31 at 7:45PM (eastern). Please add your thoughts in the replies.

The live discussion will be open to anyone wishing to attend, though many future ones will be limited to patrons and backers. Please email sonofchivalry @ protonmail.com with “CBC March ‘25” in the subject line if you would like to join. I will then send out links.

My hope is to record the conversation so that backers and patrons will have access to the audio if they cannot attend.

1) “The Necessity of Chivalry” by CS Lewis (1940)

This essay is featured in a collection called Present Concerns. It’s also available online, also on audio.

Notes

• Lewis offers a clear and concise (under 1400 words) distillation of the medieval code, trying to show what makes it “an ideal distinct from other ideals.”

• Here’s Sir Ector’s extended eulogy for Sir Lancelot from Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which Lewis uses convey the essence of chivalry:

  "And thou were the most courteous knight that ever bare shield. And thou were the kindest man that ever struck with sword. And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights. And thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou were the stearnest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."

• The key point is the “double demand” of chivalry: meekness + ferocity. These two qualities do not go together naturally, which is what makes the chivalrous man dynamic and special.

• The title: not importance, significance, etc, of chivalry. Lewis claims it is a necessity; a civilization will either find a way to reconcile the double demands, or it will perish.

• Chivalrous man: art, not nature.

Questions

• Is meekness the best term for capturing the softer part of the “double demand”? As always we need to properly define this word. It’s not weakness, not lameness, not the quality of a pushover. It’s specifically the control of one’s anger. We can talk more about this during the discussion. But note: Lewis quotes only the last two lines of the passage above. It seems to me that Sir Ector’s eulogy is getting at something a little more expansive than just control over one’s anger. Or is this the essence of gentlemanliness?

• Other authors on the subject include more virtues in the chivalric ideal—like honor, generosity, loyalty, and faith. Lewis is trying to distill chivalry as much as possible. Does his distillation imply the other virtues?

• Was this ideal truly a “novel and unique” contribution by the medievals? Some people point to hints of it in the Old Testament or in Plato’s Republic.

• What are the hopes that significant numbers of men will embody the “double demand” in a classless and comfortable society?

2) The Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry by Leon Gautier

Taken from Chivalry (1883). Available online. Begins on page 34 in my book and page 24 in the digital version.

I. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and shalt observe all its directions.

II. Thou shalt defend the Church.

III. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.

IV. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.

V. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.

VI. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.

VII. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.

VIII. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word.

IX. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone.

X. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

Notes

• Fwiw, he includes explanations for each of the commandments.

• Gautier makes it plain in the first commandment that this is a religious ideal. “Chivalry is the Christian form of the military profession: the knight is the Christian soldier,” he writes earlier.

• Regarding the second commandment, Gautier writes: “Chivalry has never been, is not, and never will be anything but armed force in service of unarmed truth.” Which calls to mind a very discussable line from Michael Davies book on the uprising in the Vendée:

  “It is fashionable to claim today that truth, and especially religious truth, is strong enough to defend itself on its own merits, and has no need of protection by force of arms. This is a grave error, which even a minimal knowledge of the history of the Church is sufficient to dispel.”

• Regarding the third commandment:

  “The knight’s mission was to defend in this world all that was defenseless, and particularly the priests and monks who serve God, women and children, widows and orphans. The origin of these precepts is not doubtful: it is entirely Christian, and there is in it no mixture of Roman, Celtic, or German elements. It is pure and without alloy.”

• Regarding the fifth commandment: “‘Fight, God is with you.’ Such, in a few words, was the whole formula of Christian courage.”

• Elsewhere in the book, Gautier argues for Carolingian chivalry and against Arthurian chivalry.

  “The romance of the Round Table spread amongst us the taste for a less wild but also a less manly chivalry. The elegancies of love in them occupied the place formally reserved for the brutality of war and the spirit of adventure in them extinguished the spirit of the crusades. One will never know how much harm this cycle of the Round Table inflicted on us. It's civilized us no doubt; but effeminated us. It took away from us our old aim, which was the tomb of Christ gained by blood in battle. For the austerities of the Supernatural it substituted the tinsel of the Marvelous. It is to this dangerous but charming literature that we owe for theatrical, the boastful, rash chivalry which proves so fatal during the Thirty Years’ War. It was against it and not against our old chivalry that Cervantes pointed his pencil, and we must confess that some complaints of the great satirist are not without foundation. Thanks to this regrettable encroachment we now entertain a false idea of true chivalry, which we confuse with a certain delicate and sometimes an excessive gallantry. The time has arrived to protest against such an error. The chivalry, of which we are about to examine the code, is that of the 11th and 12th centuries—that of the crusades, that of our [epic poetry]. It will appear rude and barbarous to some people, but in truth is strong and healthy, and has formed for us the powerful race whose glory has filled the world.”

Questions

• Do you discern a logic in the ordering of the commandments?

• The seventh commandment mentions “feudal duties.” Does this have any application to people living in democratic times?

• Richard Kaeuper saw fit to add two commandments. #11 about fighting fair

  and #12 about behaving beautifully toward women. Do you find these to be good additions? Or unnecessary?

• Do you find his critique of Arthurianism to be convincing?

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I’m looking forward to the discussion! Remember to email me if you’d like to take part.

And here are the selections for upcoming months:

April ‘25—The Song of the Cid

May ‘25—The Four Cardinal Virtues by Josef Pieper: Prudence & Justice

June ‘25—The Four Cardinal Virtues: Courage & Temperance

July ‘25—The War in the Vendee by George Hill and/or For Altar and Throne by Michael Davies

August ‘25—Defenders of the West by Raymond Ibrahim: Godfrey, El Cid, Richard, St Fernando

September ‘25—Defenders of the West: St Louis, Hunyadi, Scanderbeg, Vlad

Stay tuned … I aim to add more as the discussion draws near.

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3/27/25

Received this concern from a reader:

Also, I have a feeling, from reading CS Lewis' The Necessity of Chivalry, that the courtesy/meekness that he describes, is about being a good dinner guest, having good manners, behaving well in the presence of women and in the court. But I don't see an emphasis on mercy and humility. It seems to me, that mercy and humility are far more important than being courteous.

This is a very fair point—I’m glad you brought it up.

Lewis himself would certainly agree that mercy and humility are more important than mere manners. His point in this short essay is not to detail the code in full, but to distill it down to the double demand. “If we want to understand chivalry as an ideal distinct from other ideals … we cannot do better than turn to the words addressed to the greatest of all the imaginary knights...” Much more is going to be required of the chivalrous man—but this paradox of ferocity and gentleness captures something very striking.

Though I will defend Lewis, I do share your concern. Like mentioned in my first question, Lewis focuses for brevity’s sake only on the last part of Ector’s eulogy for Lancelot: “Thou wert the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies, and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.” The rest of the passage explicitly mentions kindness and goodliness, and thus gives a fuller picture of the softer part of the double demand. I also think this ties in to the question about Arthurian/English vs Carolingian/French chivalry.

There’s more to say about this, but I want to save some for the discussion.