Thoughts on The New Knighthood

   In the year 1135, Bernard of Clairvaux penned an influential treatise entitled De Laude Novae Militiae, which translates as "In Praise of the New Knighthood." Written as a reply to a letter received by his close friend Hugh de Payens, the first Grand Master of the Templars, it was intended to promote the newly formed Knights Templar in the circles of European nobility and admonished the knights of Christendom. Bernard also produced an argument for the defense of Christian lands and lives when threatened with extinction. "What then? If it is never permissible for a Christian to strike with the sword, why did the Savior's precursor bid the soldiers to be content with their pay, and not rather forbid them to follow this calling."

   "This is, I say, a new kind of knighthood and one unknown to the ages gone by," Bernard wrote. "It ceaselessly wages a twofold war both against flesh and blood and against a spiritual army of evil in the heavens." He described the new warrior-monk as "truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is protected by armor of steel. He is doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men." Bernard also cautioned against the use of violence for conquest or power, something that set the warrior-monks of Christendom apart from their secular counterparts in any other culture. "If you happen to be killed while you are seeking to kill another, you die a murderer. If you succeed, and by your will to overcome and to conquer you perchance kill a man, you live a murderer. Now it will not do to be a murderer, living or dead, victorious or vanquished. What an unhappy victory- to have conquered a man while yielding to vice, and to indulge in an empty glory at his fall when wrath and pride have gotten the better of you!"

      The military orders were the natural evolution of the chivalric ideal, and indeed the source of many modern ideas regarding the moral character of knighthood. The Church had long pondered the role of the soldier in a spiritual world, developing the idea of Just War with Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. The members of the military orders were the pinnacle of both martial dedication and spiritual obedience. Despite the modern image of Knights Templar as bloodthirsty savages intent on destroying any chance of peace between Christian and Muslim (I'm looking at you, Ridley Scott), the military orders were more realistic about their goals and more prudent in conduct than the grand Crusaders who would stream in from Western Europe. The part-time warriors for God would soon leave the Holy Land and head home with tales of battle against the Saracens while the Templars and Hospitallars had to live surrounded by their enemies at all times. When a reasonable peace was to be had, the military orders would usually advise the Christian rulers in the Holy Land to agree to the terms. Indeed, Bernard of Clairvaux anticipated this sort of thing when he wrote, "I do not mean to say that the pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful..."

   The world once again stands in a very dangerous place. All free people around the world find themselves facing a myriad of hazards at home and abroad. Is it time for a New Knighthood to rise up to push back against the spiritual and physical forces of darkness? Not to say an army of troops seeking to slay non-believers, but rather a union of like-minded people who can look into the darkness and say with boldness, "Thus far, and no farther." People who are willing to defend themselves and their loved ones from mortal danger, but who are not militarized or violent. People who are willing to see people of other faiths and cultures as allies and friends without losing the bedrock principles of their own belief. People who see the problems of the world through the lens of faith and have the courage to speak out against injustice and oppression. With just a handful of such individuals, and the blessing of God, true victories can be won and the light in the darkness will spread.

   "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)

All quotations from "In Praise of the New Knighthood" come from The ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/bernard.html