They say that chivalry is dead, that the medieval ideal of the humble
knight is laid low in the dust. They were saying the same in C.S.
Lewis’s day. And Lewis, rather than lamenting the loss of chivalry,
sought to do something about it.
Lewis loved chivalry, at one point even referring to it as “the one
hope of the world.” Lewis deeply appreciated the double demand that the
chivalric ideal makes on human nature.
The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. (“The Necessity of Chivalry” in Present Concerns, 13)
Ferocious Wolves and Meek Lambs
This combination of ferocity and meekness, restricted to the
appropriate occasions and situations, is necessary because humanity is
otherwise prone to fall into two main groups: bloodthirsty wolves and
cowardly lambs. History, according to Lewis, is a cyclical progression
in which cruel barbarians rape, pillage, and destroy a civilization,
only to settle in to become soft and decadent, unable to resist the
onslaught of the next barbarian hordes. Chivalry, with its dual demand
on men, sought to break this cycle by creating lion-like lambs and
lamb-like lions.
The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop. (14) Continue at Joe Rigney
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