Modern man finds himself at a crossroads. Bygone practices of gentlemanly conduct have been so routinely beaten down by culture and society in recent decades that masculinity has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. While the word “gentleman” endures, it is rare to find one who understands what a gentleman truly is. This confusion leaves the modern man facing two polarized opinions of what manhood is. The first is resultant of pressure by modern society to “correct the wrongs” of previous patriarchal generations, denigrating manhood to weak subservience, sapping all masculine urges and tendencies and replacing them with an artificial femininity. The second, in direct response to the first, encourages man to embrace his natural tendencies to the point of barbarism, a vain attempt at the Nietzschean Übermensch, resulting in little more than returning man to a pre-Christian and pre-civilized state. Both responses to the question of manhood ultimately fail to provide a Christian answer to the masculine identity crisis. The first reduces him to a weak, cowardly, alien, and unnatural state, pagan in origin and in practice. The second, while certainly a form of “masculinity,” results in the embrace of only his most extreme tendencies and leaves him no better than the pagan barbarians of old. Where does the answer to this conundrum lie? In this, as in many modern issues, it lies in a particularly Catholic and countercultural practice: looking to the writings of a man long dead, from a time far removed from our own, whose advice, insights, and rules on living nevertheless prove just as poignant today as in his time.
Geoffroi de Charny was the idyllic knight during the opening stages of the Hundred Years’ War. He faithfully served his liege-lord, the King of France, in almost every theatre of the war and was inducted into the Company of the Star (the French equivalent of the Order of the Garter). He also bore the King’s standard, the Oriflamme, in battle, the highest honor a French knight could possess. In addition, De Charny embodied a fierce personal piety: he went on a crusade, possessed a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was the first documented owner of the legendary Shroud of Turin, Our Lord’s purported burial cloth. De Charny would go on to write three works. The most famous of the three, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry, addresses in detail the expected rules of chivalry and the ideal knight, centering around the preudomme (worthy man), the highest form of lay manhood, which serves as a model for emulation. According to de Charny, the preudomme must embody the three essential categories of worthiness: love and service of God, wisdom, and valor.
Love and Service of God
Love and service of God, in De Charny’s mind, extend beyond mere outward devotion. The man who loves God not only goes to Sunday Mass, fasts on days of penance, and says his daily prayers, but also serves his God in his heart. “That is those who love, serve, and honor God and His gentle Mother and all His Power, and refrain from any actions that might incur Their wrath…and thus live loyally and honestly.” This love of God is attained through both devout exterior practices (like those mentioned above), and interior virtues, such as fervor of the soul. All other chivalrous vir- tues, in De Charny’s mind, are secondary to this one, as one who is knowledgeable, yet lacks Christian virtue, is not wise. Similarly, one who shows prowess, yet cannot temper it with Christian virtue, does not possess valor.
Wisdom
Wisdom for De Charny is directing one’s intellectual talents toward the pursuit of truth and aiding others in pursuit of the same truth. He stresses that such wisdom must be cultivated from youth, and one must “strive diligently to learn what is best to do, to distinguish good from evil, and to know what is reasonable to do.” Through rigorous study of both sacred and secular texts, of one’s peers, and of one’s own actions, one may arrive at this virtue. Such wisdom is essential for the preudomme to govern his own actions, both on and off the battlefield, and to advise the action of others. Furthermore, the man who possesses wisdom is able to more greatly appreciate the Love of God, as he can more comprehensively discern the nature of this love and service, and rejoice more fully in the great actions of his Redeemer.
Valor
Valor encompasses the physical conditioning and general manner of the preudomme. Such qualities are developed “through their great physical exploits, through their strenuous efforts of endurance… through their splendid bearing… whether in winning or losing, through the great support which should and is to be found in them in all situations.” A man-at-arms was expected to prove his worth through feats to obtain such valor by way of extensive physical training in arms and combat and through the application of this training on the field of battle. Yet this valor is not of a vainglorious sort. Rather, it lies chiefly in being able to bear wrongs and slights with patience, and to carry oneself with integrity, whether one was the victor or the vanquished. Retaining a sense of determination and fearlessness in the face of mortal danger, the chivalrous man must be able and willing to lay down his life for those he defends.
For the Modern Man
One may ask after reading all of this: so what? The age of knights is long gone, and the virtues for the preudomme are those of antiquated men-at-arms, not the modern young man. While one may rightly say that the age of Christendom is over, and that one no longer dons plate armor and rides on horseback to protect his keep anymore, there is still a great need for modern knights. These knights – men who don St. Paul’s armor of God, who temper their souls through devout practice of our Religion, their minds through rigorous study, and their bodies through strenuous physical discipline – are necessary to defend God, His Church, and His People against the plenitude of assaults against them in this post-Christian landscape. There is no better model of this man than De Charny’s preudomme, and no better virtues for modern man to aspire to than the three categories of worthiness.
A quote attributed to our late pontiff Benedict XVI calls us to action: “[You] were not created for an easy life, but for great things.” The mistake of modern society is believing that success in one of the three human categories – the mind, the body, or the soul – results in greatness. De Charny reminds us that we must aim for excellence in all three. Let all young men heed his advice, lest the warning of General Charles Gordon come to pass: “The society that separates its philosophers from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
