The Art of Manliness - Episode #17： The Code of Chivalry With Scott Farrell

00:00:00.000 Hello, Brett here. Before we get to today's show, got a quick favor to ask of you. If you've been

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00:00:23.760 check out a particular episode if you think they'd get something out of it. Thank you for

00:00:26.200 your support and now on to the show. Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of the Art of

00:00:47.420 Manliness podcast. Now at the Art of Manliness, we talk a lot about the importance of being a

00:00:53.100 gentleman. And one aspect of that means being a chivalrous man. But for most of us living in the

00:00:58.720 21st century, being chivalrous means opening the door for a lady. And that's probably about it. 1.00

00:01:04.700 What else does chivalry mean? And what's its history in relation to manliness? Well, our guest

00:01:09.160 today will help us answer those questions. His name is Scott Farrell, and he's the director of

00:01:13.920 Chivalry Today. Chivalry Today explores the history, literature, and philosophy of the Code of

00:01:18.880 Chivalry and shows how modern men and women can use chivalry to influence business,

00:01:22.780 politics, love, and relationships. Scott has written several articles and has contributed

00:01:28.260 to several books on the subject of chivalry and the legend of King Arthur. In addition to writing

00:01:33.800 about chivalry, Scott provides presentations on the history and the modern application of the Code

00:01:38.460 of Chivalry to businesses, schools, and couples. And you can find out more info about Scott's work at

00:01:44.420 chivalrytoday.com. Scott, welcome to the show. Thank you, Brett. Great to be here. Well,

00:01:50.180 thanks for taking time to speak to us today. So, Scott, to start off, what exactly is chivalry? I

00:01:55.580 mean, is it just opening doors for ladies or standing up when they walk into a room, or is 1.00

00:02:00.560 there something more to it? Well, you've hit on exactly what our perception of chivalry is,

00:02:05.920 which is sort of that heightened and possibly even a little bit absurd sense of manners. But to really

00:02:12.060 understand the full breadth of chivalry, we need to go back several hundred years and understand that

00:02:18.540 chivalry back in the Middle Ages was a warrior's code of honor, not unlike the code of Bushido that

00:02:25.280 many people are familiar with from Japanese culture and the code of the samurai. The code of

00:02:31.740 chivalry was very much the same sort of thing for the knights, the warrior class of medieval Europe.

00:02:38.020 And it was sort of an understanding that with their elevated sense in the society of the time

00:02:46.800 and their abilities as warriors, as heavily armed and elite warriors, along with that came a greater

00:02:53.340 responsibility to conduct themselves with a sense of restraint and courtesy and awareness of their

00:03:01.120 abilities. And so, really, that is where we get the complete sense of chivalry as a warrior's code of

00:03:09.460 honor in, and really more of what we would almost call today as a fully rounded code of ethics, is really

00:03:15.940 what the code of chivalry is.

00:03:18.440 And so you mentioned that, you know, we all know chivalry kind of got its start with the Middle Ages,

00:03:22.640 because I think we often associate it with knights and slaying dragons and things. But this is a time of,

00:03:28.320 you know, moral and intellectual darkness. And you said that chivalry, code of chivalry kind of came up to

00:03:33.840 provide a code of ethics to the warrior class. But it seemed like a really heightened code of

00:03:40.400 ethics for the time. I mean, was, did the code of chivalry develop in reaction to the, I guess,

00:03:45.300 the moral, just darkness that was facing the land, the world in that time? Or was it something else?

00:03:51.560 The Middle Ages was not quite, you know, really as dark as it's sometimes portrayed. But it was very

00:03:58.980 much an era of kind of individualism, of the, with the, you know, not to get too much into a history

00:04:06.240 lesson here, but with this, with the, with the overall structure of a greater civilization, the

00:04:11.720 Roman Empire kind of gone, it was sort of left to, you know, in some way, everybody kind of was on

00:04:16.600 their own. And, you know, for a while, things looked pretty grim. But what evolved was sort of a

00:04:23.820 sense that, you know, in a vacuum of any other sort of greater authority, everybody needs to be

00:04:30.340 responsible for themselves and do their part to make society a safe, a stable, a pleasant place

00:04:38.000 to be. And that was the role that the warrior, the knight, was kind of cast into. And so in that

00:04:45.040 way, yes, it was sort of, chivalry was sort of a reaction to the society and the social

00:04:51.520 expectations or lack thereof at the time. And so it is kind of, that is kind of where we get that

00:04:58.780 sort of hardy individualist sense of the code of chivalry, you know, and, you know, at its heart,

00:05:05.800 that is, you know, almost like it is what the Boy Scout code is drawn from. Be prepared. Be prepared

00:05:12.380 for anything. Be ready to do anything that you're called upon to do. And, yeah, that is very much

00:05:19.020 kind of in that, in response to that, that sense of what the world was like in the Middle Ages.

00:05:25.980 Now, going a little bit more about the history of chivalry, can you explain the transformation

00:05:30.920 of chivalry?

00:05:32.420 Sure, yeah. And, you know, yeah, even just talking a little bit about this history here, you really

00:05:38.040 can kind of get a sense of just how much is behind that very kind of simplistic concept of chivalry.

00:05:45.280 I mean, we're talking about a concept that has evolved and developed with society over the course

00:05:52.240 of six or seven hundred years, or even a little bit more, depending on what your definition of

00:05:56.900 the Middle Ages is. But chivalry in the medieval sense, again, was started as kind of a warrior's

00:06:05.240 code of honor. It emphasized the knight's role as a protector initially, as a protector of the church,

00:06:13.700 the church who was going around doing charitable works, trying to save people's souls. And the knight

00:06:20.620 was the protector of the clerics and the church and the people who worshiped in the church. And

00:06:26.440 therefore, the knight then kind of became, by default, a protector of all those who were weak,

00:06:32.780 who needed help, who were, you know, in harm's way, in danger. And so from that medieval sense

00:06:40.540 of the knight's duties, again, we get that sense that chivalry is the code of somebody who helps

00:06:48.500 people in need, who goes out of his way, even maybe goes into harm's way, to help others. And

00:06:54.520 from that, it became something of a military and a political sense. And the code of chivalry became,

00:07:03.820 throughout the later periods, became more of what we think of as the law of arms, a military code

00:07:11.020 that encompasses things as simple, but as foundational of the fact that, like, for example,

00:07:17.740 you don't shoot at someone who's waving a white flag of truce. You know, we think about,

00:07:23.580 we think, we still think of that sort of thing in conjunction with our military and even,

00:07:28.680 in some ways, political standards today. And then, of course, you know, throughout the Victorian

00:07:34.960 and even in the early 20th century, chivalry, as society again continued to change, chivalry

00:07:43.080 kind of became that, you know, as your listeners are probably aware, that kind of gentlemanly art,

00:07:49.600 that sense of the art of being a gentleman that would once have been expected of the rich,

00:07:57.540 and aristocratic status of gentleman kind of became filtered down to everyone, to every

00:08:08.160 gentleman as, you know, that we are kind of became born equal. That sense of gentlemanly behavior,

00:08:16.820 that sense of courtesy, gallantry, nobility, kind of became part of middle-class life, and everyone

00:08:24.540 was expected to be a gentleman. So that's kind of the progress of chivalry from, you know,

00:08:30.120 the Middle Ages and even right up until today.

00:08:32.840 Now, going back to the Middle Ages, you talk about it was the code of the warrior class.

00:08:38.720 How did someone become a part of the warrior class, and how were they taught this code of chivalry?

00:08:43.080 I mean, they get like, they had to go to school and like, you know, sit with their scroll or whatever

00:08:47.340 they used back then and like read. I mean, how was this passed on to them?

00:08:50.700 Yeah, well, and again, this is a subject that we could, you know, do a lengthy lecture on right

00:08:57.640 here. But by and large, in the Middle Ages, as you kind of mentioned, you know, there was not a

00:09:04.600 time of great literacy. Most people could read and write probably a small amount, but most learning

00:09:13.260 was done, especially of the warrior class, as literally just a one-on-one kind of understanding.

00:09:19.720 From some of the writings of the Middle Ages, we can see that there were knights in the period

00:09:25.400 who wrote their thoughts about what chivalry was, what it was to be a noble and honorable

00:09:30.400 warrior. And, you know, they took this very seriously. This is a very sincere part of their

00:09:37.260 lives that they were writing about. But, you know, much like being kind of a big brother or a mentor

00:09:43.440 today, this was something that was passed on in the one-on-one from generation to generation.

00:09:49.820 It was something that was learned very much by example. There was, you know, very much an

00:09:55.120 understanding of, you know, you've got to practice what you preach. You've got to put your money where

00:09:59.840 your mouth is. That learning a code of honor isn't something that you can say, you know, be nice and

00:10:05.420 honorable and then go around and do things that are corrupt and unethical. You've got to live by

00:10:10.120 your standards in order to, you know, in order to really make that a strong part of a society.

00:10:16.180 And that's exactly how these things were, how these ideals were taught in the Middle Ages.

00:10:21.260 You know, and we can still see today that, you know, that really is the strongest way of teaching

00:10:25.840 someone, of bringing someone up and kind of instilling good ideals in the next generation.

00:10:32.400 And we talk about, you know, the code of chivalry. And a lot of times when I hear the word code,

00:10:37.740 I'm a law student or law grad, and I hear code, and I think enumerated things. Is there like an

00:10:45.800 enumerated list of what makes up the code of chivalry? Are there certain values or virtues that,

00:10:50.400 you know, a chivalrous man was supposed to live by?

00:10:53.860 Yeah, that's a really interesting thing, because there is no, as you say, in kind of a legal sense,

00:11:00.980 there's no uniform code of chivalry. There's nothing that you can go to and say,

00:11:04.480 well, on page 298, you know, subsection one, paragraph eight of the code of chivalry, it says

00:11:09.100 this. The code of chivalry was interpreted differently by every knight in the Middle Ages. And again,

00:11:18.920 even through some of the writings that we can see from these knights of 14th, 15th, 16th centuries,

00:11:25.660 we can see that every one of them has a little bit of a different take on what it means to be

00:11:30.580 an honorable warrior, or what it means to be a good servant of a lord or a king, of what it means to be

00:11:38.260 a protector of the weak. But there are some themes that emerge throughout all of those individual

00:11:44.220 interpretations. And there's an awareness of, for example, an appreciation of what they would have

00:11:51.000 called prowess. Probably that's really the highest standard of what you might think of as a code of

00:11:57.040 chivalry, which is simply an appreciation of people who take the time and effort to do what it takes to

00:12:05.580 be their best at whatever it is they're doing, whether it's in battle, whether it's in tournament,

00:12:10.960 whether it's as a spiritual, you know, religious aspect of their lives, whatever it is to always

00:12:20.380 strive to be their best. That was really a mark of respect among those people who write about

00:12:26.660 chivalry, with that respect for that sense of prowess. Other ideals, you know, again, kind of

00:12:33.700 come through as universal themes, loyalty, to be loyal, to stand by your word and do what you said

00:12:41.840 you were going to do, but also to have, you know, a sense of compassion, a sense of prudence, of being

00:12:51.060 a, you know, a shrewd and wise judge of what needs to be done in a given situation. So that, you know,

00:12:56.760 there was an awareness also that, you know, blind loyalty doesn't necessarily make someone a good

00:13:02.120 person. So these are the kind of state themes that come through that we can see that kind of make up

00:13:09.080 that general, that kind of nebulous concept of chivalry and honor.

00:13:13.340 Hmm. Very interesting. Now, Scott, this is a, I guess, a statement we hear a lot in these modern

00:13:20.900 times, but, you know, that chivalry is dead. Is that the case? Is chivalry dead? Or if it is dead,

00:13:27.420 can it be revived?

00:13:29.680 Yeah, if it's dead, is it on life support?

00:13:31.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:32.660 Right. Well, you know, I think what we're talking about here really kind of lends a different

00:13:38.320 perspective, even to that question, because, you know, you think about how long this concept

00:13:43.160 of chivalry has been around since, you know, the 10th or 11th century. And I think it's

00:13:47.840 silly to think that something that's been around for, you know, the better part of a millennium

00:13:52.500 could be dead. But it's a little bit like saying, you know, to look around and see the kind of

00:13:58.800 things that are going on in the world today and say, well, government is dead. Well, I think chivalry

00:14:05.200 maybe the perception is that it's dead if you look for the ideals, the presentations of chivalry

00:14:11.920 from another generation in the world today, it's easy to think that maybe chivalry is

00:14:17.780 dead. And, you know, a good example that I try to give, one that you mentioned in the

00:14:22.200 opening there, is one of the concepts of chivalry as a gentlemanly guide is that a gentleman always

00:14:28.960 stands when a lady enters the room. Well, back in the day when most people sat around their

00:14:34.660 parlors in the evening and had, you know, had a conversation in a quiet smoking room or something

00:14:41.920 that sort of thing certainly was a good demonstration of good manners and good etiquette.

00:14:48.260 But imagine today in a crowded coffee shop or a busy restaurant trying to stand every time a woman 1.00

00:14:53.620 enters the room. It's just not practical and it's not the sort of thing that would be expected today.

00:15:01.360 But that doesn't mean that that underlying sense of respect and courtesy is dead. There are just

00:15:07.360 different ways of showing it. You know, for example, you know, back in the day, they didn't

00:15:12.700 have online electronic communications so that we can bring that sense of respectfulness to a new

00:15:21.240 venue of our life by understanding and looking for ways that we can express courtesy, respect, kindness,

00:15:27.380 compassion in online transactions and how we interact with people in chat rooms and email and that kind

00:15:33.440 of thing. So I think that chivalry isn't dead. We just have to continue to look for it and its spirit

00:15:39.780 in what we do in our modern world to understand how it still affects us and how crucial its need really

00:15:47.300 is in those sorts of applications. Well, this is a perfect segue to my next question. What are some

00:15:52.780 things that today's modern man can do to implement the Code of Chivalry? Well, I think first and most

00:16:00.320 important, you really have to kind of look within yourself, understand that no sense of whatever

00:16:08.420 you want to call it, chivalry, honor, ethics, integrity, no sense of that can be conveyed by a

00:16:15.360 simple checklist of rules that you have to follow. What you have to look for in your everyday dealings

00:16:23.840 is how can I express that? What can I do today in any given situation to show respect for someone,

00:16:31.580 to demonstrate courtesy for the people that I'm going to come in contact with, to make life a

00:16:36.040 little better for the people in the world around me? And once you start looking at the world like

00:16:42.220 that, you start to see things that you can do to express that sense of chivalry in a very modern and

00:16:49.560 contemporary way without having to be old-fashioned or stodgy or absurd. You know, one of the ways I

00:16:58.120 think we can see that sort of thing, you know, again, is in the workplace to show respect and

00:17:06.040 courtesy for your co-workers, your clients, customers, that sort of thing, standing up on it when you meet

00:17:14.420 someone, you know, exchanging pleasant greetings. That's not anything that necessarily is, you know,

00:17:21.780 biased by gender, or it's not sexist, but it is a way that you can express that sort of respectful,

00:17:28.940 dignified behavior in a modern sense. And one of the things that I always try to tell people to keep in

00:17:38.100 mind is that, you know, those little courtesies, the kind of things that we're talking about,

00:17:43.300 opening a door for a lady, tipping your hat, standing up for when someone enters the room,

00:17:48.260 all of those, the intent behind that is not so much to show some sort of deference or

00:17:55.580 old-fashioned manners. It's a way of breaking out of our mentality of thinking only about what affects

00:18:03.720 me and thinking about what can I do to help someone in the world around me? What can I do to show

00:18:09.160 courtesy to someone around me? And so those little acts of courtesy, whether it's letting someone

00:18:14.780 merge ahead of you on the freeway, or standing up when someone enters your office, or always making

00:18:20.020 sure that you greet your children, your wife at the end of the day, all of those things are the first

00:18:25.560 step towards being aware of what larger changes need to be made in the world, the sort of things that

00:18:32.480 call on us to stand up for our beliefs, to do the right thing, to protect someone who is in need.

00:18:39.560 All of those are the first steps in being aware and seeing those greater things that can be done

00:18:44.700 to express a much larger sense of chivalry and a code of honor in a broader context of the world.

00:18:50.880 Very interesting. Now, Scott, a criticism that's, I guess, leveled at chivalry, a modern one at least,

00:18:58.820 is that it's sexist, or that it implies weakness in the female sex. How would you respond to that

00:19:04.280 criticism, and do you even think modern women want to be treated with, I guess, the traditional

00:19:09.940 idea of what chivalry is?

00:19:11.860 Sure, sure, yeah. And I think it's a statement, really, that in many ways we kind of don't

00:19:20.800 understand the historical society, the historical context that these sort of things come from.

00:19:29.720 Women have never had a passive place in the concept of chivalry, but the fact of the matter is that

00:19:38.820 in the Middle Ages, and even up until fairly recently in history, society wasn't really a place where

00:19:45.800 any kind of equal roles of men and women could really be expressed. It was a world powered by

00:19:52.680 muscle and brute force. And up until the modern, up until the luxuries of the modern day,

00:19:59.640 we didn't really have the capability of men and women doing the same kinds of jobs.

00:20:05.240 But chivalry gave women a great deal of authority, of prestige, of influence in that medieval world. 0.95

00:20:16.840 They were the arbiters of chivalry. It was their job to make sure that the knights who were in the

00:20:25.540 world around them didn't descend into selfishness, into egotism, into brutality and corruption.

00:20:33.420 And so they played a very important but very different part in the code of chivalry in that

00:20:40.140 historical sense. In a modern context where we do, in fact, have a world where at least we're coming

00:20:48.000 much closer to real gender equality and equal treatment in society, I think that women can have

00:20:58.160 just as much of a part of this aspect and the presentation of chivalry as any man. I mean,

00:21:04.380 we expect women to be honorable, to be ethical, to be courteous and respectful. And I think that's

00:21:12.800 great. I think it's great that women can, in fact, take as much of an active and present role in the 0.96

00:21:21.680 expression of chivalry in today's world that they never have before. So, you know, I think that

00:21:28.360 there's nothing about chivalry, about that sense of honor and respect that is inherently male. In

00:21:34.780 today's world, I think that a woman can, and frankly should, be every bit as chivalrous as a man should

00:21:40.580 be. Very interesting. Well, Scott, thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:21:45.200 Great to be here, Brett. Thanks. And I sure hope your listeners enjoy learning a little bit more about

00:21:50.460 Dakota Chivalry. Our guest today was Scott Farrell. Scott is the director of Chivalry Today, and you can

00:21:57.140 find out more information about Scott's work at chivalrytoday.com.

00:22:05.580 That wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:22:11.280 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And until next week, stay manly.

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The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014

Episode #17： The Code of Chivalry With Scott Farrell

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