Let it be you

Is chivalry dead?

I think one must first define what one means by chivalry.

Do you mean the chivalry of the fighter whose most important job was to fight for his lord/king/country?

Or, religious chivalry, whose aim was to serve God and protect the innocent?

Or, courtly love chivalry where one's duty was to one's lady? (Interestingly, this aspect grew out of the Middle Ages' veneration of the Virgin Mary - ordinary women were actually disparaged then, with the exception, perhaps, of aristocratic women.)

Did chivalry ever actually exist - beyond the pages of European poets and troubadours? Christian tomes? Books of courtesy that allowed the rising bourgeois class to imitate aristocratic manners? Did it live outside the minds of romantic young European girls (in manors and castles) who dreamed of armor clad knights falling to their knees before them, whispering words of love? Or romantic young European boys (in manors and castles) who dreamed of bravely slaying enemies while garbed in spine crunching armor with a bit of lace from a lovely lady tucked into the sleeve? (Outside the manors and castles there was little time for dreaming.)

Did the average, the ordinary, the non-aristocratic European woman or man (read: peasant) actually ever experience any of these personally? (Remember: at that time and place there were three classes: the nobles, the religious, and the peasants/serfs-the majority.)

Probably not.

However, if we think of "chivalry" simply as a series of qualities codified and literarily associated with European medieval knights (whether or not the average blood and bones sort lived up to said qualities), that is, "...courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak," then yes, it probably exists in the same proportions that it did then - all over the world. Or even more so given that, on the whole, women are in a better place than they were then (depending on one's economic status and location on the globe, of course). And it is not merely one class of men on one continent who might aspire to be courageous, honorable, courteous, just and kind to the weak. Nor is it just men who can be any and all of these things. Or who fail to exhbit even one.

I am happy to say that in a world that often makes me sad, I have had the joy of knowing many men and women who endeavor to be or to embody several or all of these characteristics.

If you ponder the people you know or have met, I suspect you have encountered at least one chivalrous person.

It might even be you.