DeYoung, Wilson, and the Delusions of Chivalry

*updated 17 Nov 25 

https://clearlyreformed.org/in-search-of-chivalry/

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-wilson-moscow-mood.html

DeYoung is to be commended for his challenge to Doug Wilson and his cultish and even fascistic understanding of masculinity. I was thus surprised to find this article by DeYoung in celebration of Medieval Knighthood and its supposed virtues. In reality, DeYoung presents us with an idealised and even romanticised portrait of Christendom's warrior class. The reality is something quite different.

He even admits to some extent that the notions are romanticised and yet declares it's not a bad thing. As per the dictates of chivalry, the knight was to wield the weapons of war against the unbeliever and not fellow Christians.

But the Scriptures say that we Christians do not wield carnal weapons and all too often the knights did attack fellow believers - or at least members of Christendom so called.

He was to defend his earthly lord.

But the New Testament teaches we are to eschew vengeance and earthly rule. We are not to entangle ourselves in the affairs of this life, or to bring discipline on those who are 'outside'. We are to turn the other cheek, take up the cross, let our goods be spoiled, and living as pilgrims, we are called to conduct ourselves honourably among the Gentiles - a category under which Peter includes kings and governors. Once again, the chivalric code is found wanting and unscriptural.

And the knight was to protect the weak. This is connected with Crusade.

But crusades had nothing to do with protecting the weak. They were about slaughter and conquest, or the punishment of heresy - and connected with a theology of merit wherein the killing was salvific. The whole notion is heretical and blasphemous.

English, Norman, French, and German knights had no claims to 'recapturing' the Holy Land (so called). And when they defeated the Turks in battle, they took loot and lands and had no interest in restoring them to the Byzantine polity which had ruled them centuries earlier. The notion that these wars were anything other than conquest is farcical. Just War Theory itself is farcical and unscriptural but even if we are to consider it for argument's sake - the crusades do not qualify either in ideal or conduct.

Generally speaking the knightly class was a terror to the weak at home. They were enforcers and often landholders collecting rents. To the dissenting Christians of the middle ages, the knights were abhorrent. This would change during the period of the Great Western Schism when groups like the Hussites and Lollards would (in some cases) turn to organised violence. As such, they turned to knights and others allied with their cause. It was a dark turn that led to bloodshed, the maligning of Christ's testimony, and ultimately defeat.

In addition, chivalry did not extend to the peasant class and knights were notorious predators and often behaved in scandalous fashion. It was an order wed to the aristocracy and then later modified to incorporate arms-bearing monastic orders such as the Templars.

The appeals to romantic tradition are just that - romanticism. And further they are often guilty of gross anachronism. By the 17th century, the period and ideals are rightly lampooned by the likes of Cervantes.

Christian manhood is certainly about self-control and virtue, but to an even greater extent saving faith, self-mortification, and humility translate into a self-sacrificial ideal that does not resort to violence. In many ways it is antithetical to the chivalric ideal. It continues to irritate me every time I hear of modern military life as service. It's nothing of the kind. It's the bearing of arms in defense of the state and its interests - often quite at odds with the actual needs and wants of the people it purports to serve.

A man can work, sweat, express might and determination in combatting the elements and yet we are not called to exercise dominion over the Earth. That once holy task was dispensed with at the Fall and expulsion from Eden. East of Eden is a land in which toil and sweat produce at best vanity. Power results in Babel. We can master nature and feast on the flesh of beasts but our relationship is no longer Kingdom-like, but one of terror and fear and they will turn on us and kill us if given the chance. Only in Christ will this present evil age be renewed and as by fire. There is no Kingdom-dominion mandate connected to worldly power and glory in this age. Knighthood and chivalry become meaningless outside that confused and erroneous concept.

DeYoung cites the Beatitudes. Has he read them? There's nothing in them compatible with medieval knighthood or the assumptions of the chivalric code. It is a rotten product of Christendom, a synthesis of some Christian virtues with Roman and Germanic ideals - an apt description of Medieval Catholicism. It makes for great tales and interesting history, but it represents a serious departure from New Testament piety and religion.

And let's address one of the elephants in the room - the Christian embrace of gun culture. Such weapons are completely incompatible with notions of trial by ordeal, and character and virtue expressed in combat. They are (by these chivalric standards) the tools of cowards and assassins.

If we would attempt to be 'Western' (a nebulous concept) we might do well to study knighthood. But to be Christian we must reject it categorically and the sacral assumptions upon which it rests.

I thought DeYoung was repulsed by what Doug Wilson stands for. Rather it would seem his issue is more with his style. The reconstitution and supposed glory of Christendom (or more rightly Pseudo-Zion) is (it would seem) a goal to which they both aspire. How disappointing.

In the end, we must conclude that a great deal of what motivated knighthood and all that went with it was pride. You can take the ethos of Lamech and dress it up in Christian garb but at the end of the day, they're still living by the sword and dying by it - and thus falling under Christ's condemnation.

It's easy to parade honour and use chivalric ideals as a justification for what is simply pride and a desire for vengeance. What is this but to indulge the flesh? True spiritual courage and fortitude involves submission to Providence and the willingness to suppress all self-interest and hubris and take up the cross. You might give your life by stepping in the path of evil to help someone else escape or live, but the only 'weapon' we bear is our own bodies which we are called to sacrifice. There's no earthly glory in that - at least not that you'll get to experience in this life. It goes against all pride, sense of self-preservation, and even common sense. So it is with the gospel. It's foolishness in the eyes of the world. Knighthood on the other hand is not and that which is esteemed by man is abomination in the sight of God.