CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
ON WORLDLY
KNIGHTHOOD
W HAT THEN IS THE GOAL OR THE FRUIT of this worldly-I will call it, not knighthood, but-knavery? What if not the mortal sin of the victor and the eternal death of the vanquished? Well then, to borrow a word from the Apostle, let someone who plows, plow in hope, and someone who threshes, do so in view of garnering the grain.1
What then, O knights, is this stupendous misapprehension and what this unbearable impulse which bids you fight with such pomp and pains, and all to no purpose save death and sin? You drape your horses in silk, and plume your armor with I know not what sort of rags; you paint your shields and your saddles; you adorn your bits and spurs with gold and silver and precious stones, and then in all this pomp, with shameful wrath and fearless folly, you charge to your death. Are these the trappings of a warrior or are they not rather the trinkets of a woman? Do you think the swords of your foes will be deflected by your gold, spare your jewels or fail to pierce your silks?
As you yourselves have often certainly experienced, there are three things especially needful to a warrior: a knight must guard his person with vigor, shrewdness, and caution; he must be unimpeded in his movements, and he must be quick to draw his sword. You, by contrast, blind yourselves with effeminate tresses and trip yourselves up with long, voluminous tunics, burying your tender, delicate hands in cumbersome, flowing sleeves.
Over and above all this, there is that terrible insecurity of conscience, in spite of all your armor, since you have dared to under-
1 Cor 9:10.
In Praise of the New Knighthood take so dangerous a business on such slight and frivolous grounds.
Nothing stirs you to battle or rouses you to disputes, really, except flashes of irrational anger, hunger for empty glory,2 or hankering after some earthly possessions? For causes like these It certainly is not safe to kill or to be killed.
Gal 5:26.