Resurrecting Chivalry

Posted by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan on April 1, 2009

A Review of The Compleat Gentleman: A Modern Man’s Guide to Chivalry by Brad Miner (Spence Publishing Company, 2004)

When asked to explain the mission of Seven Pillars, I generally begin by outlining the four core areas. As I invoke the words Cosmology, Revelation, and Mysticism, I am typically greeted with beaming approval. Then comes Chivalry. Now my listener has a furrowed brow. Peering through that brow I can almost read the thoughts it encloses: Chivalry is sexist, elitist, and violent. Chivalry is dead.

Why should Seven Pillars struggle to resurrect a concept that seems irredeemably mired in the morass of outmoded social mores? It’s a fair question.

As it happens, Seven Pillars is not alone in its attempt to revive and redefine chivalry. Consider for instance Scott Farrell’s delightful website, Chivalry Today. Mr. Farrell clearly has a soft spot for the medieval aesthetic, but his central concern relates to chivalry’s timeless values. These are, in his seven-fold formulation: Courage, Justice, Mercy, Generosity, Faith, Nobility, and Hope.

Turning to the world of print, the most energetic case for chivalry that I know is Brad Miner’s The Compleat Gentleman. A former literary editor of National Review, Miner writes with flair. He also writes with the ideological conviction of a committed conservative.

The Compleat Gentleman effectively traces the concept of chivalry from its origins in medieval Europe through its revival in the Confederate South. Along the way we encounter King Arthur and Charlemagne, Andreas Capellanus and Baldassare Castiglione, the Cathars and the Templars. The subjects treated here are treated well. One only wonders why nothing is said of the formative influence of Islamic culture via Muslim Spain and the experience of the Crusades.

Miner’s purpose in writing, however, is not so much to chronicle medieval manners as it is to articulate a chivalric ethos of contemporary relevance, a corrective to the pervasive absence of personal ethical clarity in our time. The greater part of the book is devoted to portraying the qualities of a true gentleman.

Miner’s gentleman is a warrior. This means that he is ready to stand for, and if necessary to die for, his convictions. This gentleman is also a lover. He respects women, prioritizes their welfare, and strives to give them what they want. And this gentleman is a monk, which is to say he is disciplined, stoic, and taciturn. In all three of these roles, Miner’s gentleman is recognized for his sprezzatura, a word borrowed from Castiglione, the meaning of which, in contemporary terms, is (approximately) “cool.”

The Compleat Gentleman aims to inspire, and for this reader, it frequently succeeded. The page sparkled as I read Miner’s account of Benjamin Guggenheim’s refusal of a lifejacket as the Titanic sank, saying, “We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. But we would like a brandy.” That’s sprezzatura! And Guggenheim is just one of many examples of death-defying cool that Miner offers up. If The Compleat Gentleman were to be updated in 2009, it would have to include Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the steely-nerved pilot of US Airways Flight 1549.

Yet I must confess that, try as I might, I was not always able to see eye-to-eye with the author.

One of my concerns relates to the manner in which The Compleat Gentleman conceptualizes the virtue of honor in the context of international relations. When Miner complains that, in the U.S., “We obsess about root causes … we whore after global consensus,” he seems to be saying that conscientious introspection and dialogue have no place in the conduct of foreign affairs when honor is at stake.

To my mind, H.G. Wells had it right when he argued, following Dante, that patriotism will serve a constructive purpose when every human being sees him/herself as a citizen, first and foremost, of the world community. Then zealous militancy will be on the right track. To quote Richard Grossinger addressing al-Qaeda: “Hey, bad boys, make it the honor of the whole planet, the defense of all sentient beings—and we will be there right alongside you, halfway home.”

My aunt, Noor-un-Nisa, is my own “mirror of chivalry.” She valiantly fought (non-violently), endured torture, and died for the ideal of liberté, braving the worst of odds in the darkest hours of the Second World War. When she enlisted with Special Operations she made it clear that while she would faithfully serve the Crown in the present war, she retained the right to take up the cause of Indian independence when it was over. Her allegiance was not to Great Britain; it was to freedom.

Noor-un-Nisa is the reason I cannot accept the claim that “chivalry is a male mission.” My aunt was no less a woman for being a hero. Gentlemanliness is all for the good, but what the world really needs now is the Compleat Human.

Brad Miner is someone I’m sure I would enjoy having a conversation with. Should our differences become too acute, we could always settle them the old fashioned way: by duel.

Comments (8)

• Dear Pir Zia,

  Thank you for these beautiful comments and reflections. Chivalry is the honor of the heroic culture of knighthood. We still appreciate and affirm knightly heroes. Great leaders such as Barack Obama stand as contemporary Knights. And like Barack Obama, knights can also share in the heroism of the Artist and the Saint. How beautiful to remind us of your aunt Noor-un-Nisa a female Knight par excellence, and in both political and spiritual reams a Hermetic Knight.

  — Talat on April 2, 2009

• Pir Zia, You have sparked my interest in this subject.  At times it seems the chivalrous male has been glorified to an extreme in some cultures.  You bring a different approach to the subject.  If there be a duel, I stand ready to be at your side!

  — Mark on April 3, 2009

• Pir Zia, It would seem that the idea of Chivalry as a male endeavor is fundamentally rooted in a particular epochs needs. Part of that need was for a very strong arm to wield a very heavy sword, but never the less Joan of Arc managed. The other need is for a sense of ‘maleness’ that defines itself in opposition to ‘femaleness’. We have subsequently learned that the poles of sexual identity are just that, poles on a continuum. The seven ideals: Courage, Justice, Mercy, Generosity, Faith, Nobility, and Hope are hardly limited by ones Y and/or X chromosome configuration. And as you know I also share your interest in how the ‘Convivencia’, 781 years (711 to 1492) of Islamic presence on the Iberian Peninsula, affected the idea of chivalry as we know it. I am also actively interested in how we might actualize a modern form of chivalry.

  your friend,

  Tomas Chaitanya

  — Tomas Chaitanya Gomez on April 7, 2009

• Dear Pir Zia,

  As a woman, I’ve been very inspired by your attempt to resurrect a gender-neutral version of the chivalry traditions. I believe this is very much a step in the right direction.

  As a feminist, I understand the knee-jerk response to the medieval chivalry traditions as being sexist, which of course in a certain sense they were. However, context is everything: we have to understand that in a highly hierarchical society, those chivalric traditions provided perhaps the only route whereby a woman could be elevated and treated with respect. In that sense, these traditions were valid for their times, and we can extract their universal values while letting go of some of that cultural and patriarchal baggage.

  Personally I am a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (you might remember me as I commented on a previous post as well), and one of the things they taught in the integral yoga was what they referred to as the transformation of the “vital”. Now the “vital” in our yoga refers to the aspect of our being that corresponds to the passions, the will to power, the life-energies in us. Many monastic traditions have found these passions so dangerous that they have tried to starve them or weaken them. But Mother and Sri Aurobindo emphasized that one is not to destroy or starve the passions, but rather to purify them, and turn them into an instrument of Divine strength—into a source of creativity, courage, mettle, generosity, nobility, hope, leadership, and so on, as you put it so well in your post. To be a Divine warrior means to stand up for the weak and the innocent and offer them protection—not in a spirit of arrogance, but in a spirit of humility and self-giving, so as to *empower* those apparently weaker than oneself and help them awaken their own inner power, the only true Power there is in this world.

  Like you are saying here, Mother and Sri Aurobindo emphasized that every human being, man or woman, has to learn how to become a warrior in the “vital”, how to reject lower impulses and rise to a level of nobility that makes them capable of acts of noble self-sacrifice. History has shown that many women who have developed this powerful and purified will or “vital” as we in the integral yoga call it proved themselves to be great leaders who provided stability and protection to their people. Your aunt Noor Inayat Khan—a personal inspiration to me as well—is exactly such an embodiment of a chivalrous will.

  To me, the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and Mother on the transformation of the “vital” correspond almost exactly to the Sufi tradition of futuwwah or spiritual chivalry: not to starve or try to throw away the passions, but rather to purify, strengthen and civilize the passions so that they no longer serve lower petty personal desires but rather serve the Divine. The passions, when untransformed, can be a menace both to us and to others around us, but reigned in and turned into magnificent stallions controlled by the soul-rider, they are undoubtedly one of the most powerful elements in the God-lover’s armory that can give us the strength and courage so desperately needed in the world today.

  On a side note: I’m interested in investigating whether it is possible to “spiritualize” our military forces and how this might be accomplished. Would it not be wonderful if some day armies of spiritually-trained and cultured modern-day “knights” would be able to march into war-torn regions to rescue the weak and provide stability to these lands? For now this is impossible given how our military forces are structured. In modern-day armies, soldiers are actually “broken down” and re-built like machines—hardly conducive to the development of the culture of the noble and honorable knight who is in control of his or her passions and emotions. That’s how the West was able to colonize the world—by building armies that were essentially gigantic mechanisms stripped of their humanity, let alone of deeper spiritual impulses. So to spiritualize the world’s military forces would require quite a revolution in consciousness.

  With love and peace,
  ned.

  — ned on April 13, 2009

• Both as a female and a Celtic pagan/mystic I have loved your journeying into the chivalric realm. In Celtic mythology and warrior codes of honor, which predates medieval Europe but has its roots from the lands of the East from which they originated, it was by the custom of fostering that the young were sent to live and train with those “professionals” in their fields/arts. Two of the greatest heroes in Celtic mythology Fionn mac Cumhail (pronounced ‘fin mac cool’, mac a gaelic word for son), and Cuchulainn (pronounced ‘coohoolan’) were trained by female warriors. Fionn was trained by Bodhmall and Liath Luachra, while Cuchulainn was trained by Scathach of Skye, “the supreme mistress of single combat” (The Celtic Wisdom Tarot - Catilin Matthews). May Scathach and Noor-un-Nisa be with you in any and all future duels, such battle-willingness the mark of a true bard and poet, the word-warriors who were seen to have greater powers than any kings, chiefs, or warriors of their day. I bow to your supremely wise knighthood.

  — Zahira on April 18, 2009

• Just another thought! Noor-un-Nisa was free to choose her cause, as she was young enough to still be unmarried and without children. Women taking on men’s heroic roles (as if serving husbands and raising children weren’t heroic) was the exception in history. I feel grateful to all the women who came before me (and the men sho supported them) in this society I was born into who fought for the equal opportunity to all possiblities for becoming a “compleat” human. How cool/sprezzaturra is that!!!

  — Zahira on April 23, 2009

• As far as I have heard, it is not enough only to have a strong desire to practise yoga. Special physical and mental preparation is needed. In one of ebooks I read recently ( http://www.ebook-search-queen.com/ebook/Easy/Easy+Steps+to+Yoga.all.html ) I learned that only having practised yoga for a certain period of time it is possible to get a bit closer to the inner and deeper understanding of this teaching. I wonder only how long this period should be…

  — dolly on June 11, 2009

• As a Baha’i, I see chivalry as an attempt each day to embody courtesy and kindness.

  — Jay Bender on June 27, 2009

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