The word chivalry has meant at different times a good many different things - from heavy cavalry to giving a woman a seat in a train. But if we want to understand chivalry as an ideal distinct from other ideals - if we want to isolate that particular conception ofthe man comme ilfaut which was the special contribution of the Middle Ages to our culture - we cannot do better than turn to the words addressed to the greatest of all the imaginary knights in Mzlory^s Morte Darthur, “Thou wert the meekest man”, says Sir Ector to the dead Launcelot. “Thou wert the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.”

The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the «th and meek to the nth. When Launcelot heard himself pronounced the best knight in the world, “he wept as he had been a child that had been beaten”. [...]

In short, there is still life in the tradition which the Middle Ages inaugurated. But the maintenance of that life depends, in part, on knowing that the knightly character is art not nature - something that needs to be achieved, not something that can be relied upon to happen. And this knowledge is specially necessary as we grow more democratic. In previous centuries the vestiges of chivalry were kept alive by a specialized class, from whom they spread to other classes partly by imitation and partly by coercion. Now, it seems, the people must either be chivalrous on its own resources, or else choose be-tween the two remaining alternatives of brutality and softness. This is, indeed, part of the general problem of a classless society, which is too seldom mentioned. Will its ethos be a synthesis of what was best in all the classes, or a mere “pool” with the sediment of all and the virtues of none.

Lewis’s short essay is well worth a re-visit at a time when the nature of manliness is such a hot topic. The chivalric ideal he enunciates here–combining humility with the capacity for robustness when required–is what we ought to celebrate and cultivate. (Though we can question whether the adulterous and traitorous Lancelot should be our ideal.)

There is an irony though, that undercuts his elevation of the Medieval above the liberal era. As he acknowledges: “Yet with this “sternness” there is much “meekness”; from all I hear, the young pilots in the R.A.F. (to whom we owe our life from hour to hour) are not less, but more, urbane and modest than the 1915 model.” And the fact is that the democratization of military service has given us millions of men who model knightly virtues though they be butchers, accountants, baseball players, etc. We’ve told the story here before of a friend’s father who was the archetype of the strong silent type: a loyal husband, a loving father who worked for one company his whole life. He never spoke of his military service…except once. One night he–almost dreamily–revealed that at the Battle of the Bulge he bayonetted a German soldier. Not only did he never mention it again, but when my friend told him I remembered the night it turned out he didn’t recall telling us. His heroism was essentially a private matter.

I wonder if manliness/chivalry is not more threatened by the fact that so little is asked of us these days and that we fall to honor the fulfillment of duties such as maintaining a marriage, raising a family, serving others, etc. One of the under-discussed aspects of 9/11 is how thrilling it was. Post-Cold War, mid-End of History, mid-Peace Dividend, here was a challenge for us to combat. And while it is understandable that W sought to restore normality at home while fighting the threat abroad, it seems we might have been better served if he had demanded more from all of us.

We often cast our public policies in militaristic terms–the War on Drugs, the War on Cancer, the Space Race. Suppose our leaders were to challenge us to behave heroically in solving a few seemingly intractable problems: budget deficits; the debt; energy independence, and so forth. Maybe we don’t need actual warfare to show heroism? Maybe the proper milieu for discharging knightly duties in a modern liberal society lies in taking responsibility for family, community, civil society and future generations? That seems a banner worth following.

(Reviewed:16-Sep-25)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

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C.S. Lewis Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: C. S. Lewis
    -POEM: Death in Battle (C.S. Lewis)
    -STORY: Screwtape Proposes a Toast (C.S. Lewis)
    -REVIEW: of The Hobbit (C. S. Lewis, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2, 1937)
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    -PODCAST: Episode 250: “Best of” Series Replay – “The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis” with Dr. Jason Baxter (Literary Life, November 12, 2024)
    -PODCAST: What is That Hideous Strength? (Michael Dauphinais and Joseph Pearce, 6//07/24, (The Catholic Theology Show)
    -PODCAST: Prince Caspian "Old Narnia" and "Old England" with Joseph Pearce (Plotlines, 5/31/23)
    -PODCAST: 60: That Hideous Strength Is Nonfiction: Pain and Passion, Part 11 (Marianne Wright, Peter Mommsen and Susannah Black Roberts, Plough)
    -PODCAST: 50: C. S. Lewis and the Problem of Pain: The great Christian apologist is an imaginary guests as the hosts consider the problem of suffering. (Peter Mommsen and Susannah Black Roberts MARCH 15, 2023, PloughCast)
    -PODCAST: Ep 636 - The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis (Overdue, March 04, 2024)
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    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis in the Age of Bleakness: Awe, Wonder and the Power of Enchantment (Josh Appel, August 14, 2025, Real Clear Books)
    -ESSAY: The enduring brilliance of C.S. Lewis: More than 60 years after his death, the Oxford literature professor and writer is everywhere (Alexander Larman, July 15, 2025, The Spectator)
    -ESSAY: The Narnia Secret (Dwight Longenecker, July 20th, 2025, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis on the Psalm’s ‘Ferocious Parts" (Brett Vanderzee, 3/12/25, Christianity Today)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis's Mixed Bag of Tangents and Asides Jessica Hooten Wilson, October 28, 2019, Church Life Journal)
    -ESSAY: Science Fiction with a Soul: C. S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury elevated the most imaginative of genres. (Bradley J. Birzer, December 23, 2024, Modern Age)
    -ESSAY: The Imaginative Man: C.S. Lewis’s first love was poetry, and it enabled him to write the prose for which he is remembered. (Laura C. Mallonee, November 19, 2013, Poetry Foundation)
    -ESSAY: Why C. S. Lewis Said ‘No’ to Knighthood (Andy Shurson, November 18, 2024, Center for Faith & Culture)
    -ESSAY: C. S. Lewis & Maksym Kryvtsov: The Experience of War and Godforsakenness (Yuliia Vintoniv, May 20, 2024, Church Life Journal)
    -ESSAY: Reading as Moral Formation: C.S. Lewis and Iris Murdoch on Attentional Humility (Derek King, 7/18/24, Hedgehog Review)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis and “Mere Politics”: Some Shrewdly Hellish Political Advice from The Screwtape Letters: In an election year, can an over-focus upon the all-encompassing reach of modern politics pose a danger to a voter’s soul? C.S. Lewis’ Senior Devil Screwtape knew the answer to that one. (Steven Tucker, 5/23/24, Crisis)
    -ESSAY: ‘Loud-mouthed bully’: CS Lewis satirised Oxford peer in secret poems (dalya Alberge, 5/19/24, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis and His Critics (Michael Nelson, Winter 1988, Virginia Quarterly Review)
    -ESSAY: ‘This idle prig’: the truth about CS Lewis and John Betjeman’s long-lasting feud: At Oxford, Lewis complained repeatedly in his diary about his student Betjeman’s attitude to work. A newly discovered letter throws light on their mutual antipathy (Dalya Alberge, 14 Apr 2024, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: Things Worth Remembering: C.S. Lewis on Keeping Calm in Chaos: In his 1939 sermon at Oxford, ‘Learning in Wartime,’ C.S. Lewis reminded his audience that by forging ahead in the worst of times, we can touch the divine. (Douglas Murray, March 10, 2024, Free Press)
    -ESSAY: Men Without Chests: Succinct and timeless in its message, C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man" is a required read for anyone looking to diagnose modernity’s problems. (SCOTT HOWARD, FEB 13, 2024, The Freemen News-Letter)
    -ESSAY: Space Operas and Human Folly—Pandora, Perelandra, and the Fall of Man (Tyler Hummel, 5/05/23, Voegelin View)
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    -REVIEW ESSAY: What Does C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Abolition of Man’ Have to Say After 80 Years?: Review: ‘The Abolition of Man’ by C. S. Lewis (JOSEPH A. KOHM JR., 8/24/23, Gospel Coalition)
    -ESSAY: Men With Chests (Dwight Longenecker, April 3rd, 2023, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: The Mere Genius of C.S. Lewis (Joseph Pearce, March 24th, 2023, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: Weekend Short: Out of the Silent Planet (LUTHER RAY ABEL, December 10, 2022, National Review)
    -ESSAY: The Christian Cosmology of C.S. Lewis (Stratford Caldecott, November 28th, 2022, Imaginative Conservative)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis’ Seven Categories of Science Fiction (Bradley J. Birzer, May 11th, 2022, Imaginative Conservative)
   -ESSAY: "That Hideous Strength" Is Evangelicalism's Text for the Future: The future of Evangelicalism will either look less like Willow Creek or Mars Hill and more like St. Anne's or it will not exist. (Jake Meador, July 22, 2015, Patheos)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: When the naked green lady sings: CS Lewis noted how operatic the climax of his novel Perelandra was, writes Christopher Howse. (Christopher Howse, 27 Jun 2009, The Telegraph)
    -ESSAY: C. S. Lewis and Progressive Pathology: Eighty years after its publication, Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength remains a powerful prophecy of progressivism’s threats to the West. (Titus Techera, 4/04/25, Law & Liberty)
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    -ESSAY: C. S. Lewis: The making of a reluctant Christian superstar: Rev. Steve Morris identifies Lewis’s experience at a remote World War Two airbase as defining the way of talking to regular people about the spiritual life (Steve Morris, 3/06/21, The Critic)
    http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2185/2_13/83520009/print.jhtml>-ESSAY: C. S. Lewis vs. Sigmund Freud on good and evil (Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., March 2002, American Enterprise)
   -ESSAY: A Mind That Grasped Both Heaven and Hell (JOSEPH LOCONTE, 11/23/03, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Why There Are Seven Chronicles of Narnia: A British scholar discovers the hidden design of C.S. Lewis' perennially popular series. (John Wilson, Christianity Today)
   -ESSAY: To See Truly Through a Glass Darkly: C. S. Lewis, George Orwell, and the Corruption of Language (David Mills, July/August 1998, Touchstone)
    -ESSAY: The Lion, the Wizard, and the Great Physician: During childhood, my heart beat with joy in Narnia and Middle Earth. After meeting an invisible Doctor, I understood why. (Nina Maksimova, 4/15/25, Christianity Today)
    - -REVIEW: of After Humanity by Michael Ward (Samuel Gregg, Law & Liberty)
    -REVIEW: of After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. by Michael Ward. (Chris Butynskyi, University Bookman)
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    -REVIEW: of The Lion's Country: C. S. Lewis's Theory of the Real by Charlie W. Starr (Louis Markos, Christianmity Today)
    -REVIEW: of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind by Jason M. Baxter (Louis Markos, Christianity Today)
    -REVIEW: of C. S. Lewis’s Oxford by Simon Horobin (Armand D’Angour, The Critic)
    -REVIEW: of : C.S. Lewis’s Oxford (Micah Mattix, Free Beacon)
    -REVIEW: of Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway and C. S. Lewis’s Oxford by Simon Horobin (lee Oser, Law & Liberty)
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FILM
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    -FILM REVIEW: Freud’s Last Session (JC Scharl, Religion & Liberty)
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Book-related and General Links:

    -ETEXT: The Necessity of Chivalry by C. S. Lewis (Internet Archive)
    -AUDIO: C. S. Lewis - The Necessity of Chivalry (C. S. Lewis essays, May 10, 2022
    -ESSAY: Necessity of Chivalry (C. S. Lewis)
    -ENTRY: The necessity of chivalry by C.S. Lewis (GoodReads)
    -ESSAY: .S. Lewis on the necessity of chivalry (Joe Carter, September 28, 2018, Religion & Liberty)
    -PODCAST: “The Necessity of Chivalry” – C.S. Lewis (Bo Hutches, September 6, 2020, The Majesty Men)
    -PODCAST: S1E7: The Necessity of Chivaly (Lesser-Known Lewis, 7/20/22)
    -ESSAY: The Essay That Altered the Course of My Life: On CS Lewis' "The Necessity of Chivalry" (Chivalry Guild, Nov 11, 2022, The Chivalry Guild Letters)
    -PODCAST: Men, Emotions, and The Necessity of Chivalry (C.S. Lewis) (Cornerstone Psychological Services, Aug 12, 2024)
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    -REVIEW: “The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis”–A Book Review Series (Part 1) (Joel Edmund Anderson, Resurrecting Orthodoxy)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: “The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis”–A Book Review (Part 2): Symphonies vs. Machines, Education and Chivalry (Joel Edmund Anderson, Resurrecting Orthodoxy)
    -ESSAY: Knights & Martyrs (Michael Ward, 2005, Christian History Institute)
    -ESSAY: Why Chivalry is Vitally Necessary Now! (Ignatians)
    -ESSAY: Becoming Meek to the Nth & Ferocious to the Nth (Jason DiPopolo, Aug 3, 2021, The Curated Life)
    -ESSAY: Reading the Middle Ages: The "Post-Modern" Medievalism of C.S. Lewis (Charles Connell, Sehnsuct: The C. S. Lewis Journal)
    -ESSAY: The Urgent Need for Chivalry (Rob Stroud, 9/13/16, Mere Inkling)
    -ESSAY: A Matter of Chiv A Matter of Chivalry: C.S. Lewis's Response to Pacifism and the Just War Theory (Peter Barrett, Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Pr er: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016)

C.S. Lewis did not often address political issues. Besides his well-known essay on pacifism and some comments on the nature of the state scattered throughout his works, Lewis attempted to maintain a decidedly apolitical stance. As Richard John Neuhaus comments, “Indeed, in many ways he took his stand, and encouraged others to take their stand, over and against politics—especially politics as dominated by the machinations of the modern State.” Lewis prefers to concentrate on reason and virtue in the hope that they might ultimately be reflected in the political and societal structures. His concern was with principles, not partisan politics or policies. Hence, it is precisely because Lewis was so detached from the political scene, that he was able to offers such insight into the larger issues relating to politics. Though Lewis stayed away from direct political conversation and was uninterested in ordinary political affairs, he often commented on issues of human nature, war and peace, and justice and morality. He understood that people are not free floating individuals but must belong to a society. Lewis warned that “Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat, they are mortal and finite.” Yet, he still understood the need to make judgments about governments. Lewis writes that “the practical problem in Christian politics is not that of drawing up schemes for a Christian society, but that of living as innocently as we can with unbelieving fellow—subjects under unbelieving rules who will never be perfectly wise and good and who will sometimes be very wicked and very foolish.” He warned of the all-consuming nature of the search for political answers and solutions. Lewis writes that “a man may have to die for his country: but no man must in any exclusive sense live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.” Instead of dwelling on things temporary, he encourages man to pursue the more significant and eternal issues of the soul. Lewis implied that it is love and morality that should define politics, not visa versa.

    -ESSAY: The Necessity of Chivalry (The Window in the Garden Wall--A C.S. Lewis Blog)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis: A Pioneer of Chivalry Today (Katrelya Angus, November 24, 2002, Chivalry Today)
    -PODCAST: Season 2, Episode 11 | "The Necessity of Chivalry" by C. S. Lewis (feat. Keith Kresge) (Christ & Classics Podcast, Mar 28, 2024)
    -ESSAY: Recovering the Lost Art of Chivalry (Joe Rigney, Desiring God)
    -ESSAY: Why C. S. Lewis Said ‘No’ to Knighthood (Andy Shurson, November 18, 2024, Center for Faith & Culture)

“I feel greatly obliged to the Prime Minister, and so far as my personal feelings are concerned this honor would be highly agreeable. There are always however knaves who say, and fools who believe, that my religious writings are all covert anti-Leftist propaganda, and my appearance in the Honors List would of course strengthen their hands. It is therefore better that I should not appear there. I am sure the Prime Minister will understand my reason, and that my gratitude is and will be none the less cordial.”

    -ESSAY: Christian Manhood and Chivalry – C.S. Lewis (Dane Ortland’s blog)
    -PODCAST: EC02r - The Necessity of Chivalry with Dr. Bruce Johnson (All About Jack, Jul 26, 2014)
    -ESSAY: Chivalry practicality; C.S.Lewis and "The Necessity of Chivalry" (Inklings, 11/18/13)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis, War, and the Christian Character (Marc LiVecche, July 26, 2019, Providence)
    -ESSAY: C.S. Lewis on the True Nature of Morality and the Sexes (Louis Markos, 11/23/24, Eikon)
    -ESSAY: The Pursuit of Happiness: C. S. Lewis’s Eudaimonistic Understanding of Ethics (David Horner, April 21, 2009, In Pursuit of Truth | A Journal of Christian Scholarship)
    -ESSAY: Nietzsche, C. S. Lewis & the Knightly Ideal (Eddie Ejjbair, Aug 14, 2023, Medium)
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