DECALOGUE OF KNIGHTLY DUTIES (CODE OF CHIVALRY)

As stated by our founder: “The Code of Honour of Chivalry is the moral Law which binds all knights and establishes them in the knightly state of life. It has been expressed in a variety of ways, but all contains the following elements:

a.       Faith, Hope and Charity.

b.      Fidelity.

                      c.       Moral rectitude, a passion for Truth and Justice.

d.      Force at the service of Right.

                     e.      A scorn of money, a horror of compromise, a rejection of all mediocrity in oneself.

                     f.        Respect for, and love of, the poor and the weak.

g.       Loving service of one’s Country, of Christendom and of Peace.

                    h.      Humility and Magnanimity.

                    i.         Unshakeable boldness.

                    j. Courtesy and sensitivity of heart.” (Dom Lafond, OSB, Principles for a Charter of Chivalry, Art. 14a)

The MSM itself uses the following formulation of what we call “The Code of Chivalric Honor”:

(1)    The Knight fights for Christ and for His Reign

(2)    The Knight serves his Lady, the Virgin Mary

(3)    The Knight defends the Holy Church to his last drop of blood

(4)    The Knight maintains the traditions of his fathers

(5)    The Knight fights for justice, the Christian Order and for peace

(6)    The Knight wages against this World and its Prince a war without truce and without mercy

(7)    The Knight honors and protects the poor, the weak and the disenfranchised

(8)    The Knight scorns money and the powers of this world

(9)    The Knight is humble, magnanimous and loyal

(10) The Knight is pure and courteous, ardent and faithful

Our Decalogue is adapted from the seminal study on the institution of Chivalry by Léon Gautier, La Chevalerie (1884) –required reading for all postulants. Gautier draws his own Decalogue from an exhaustive review of various admonitions given to knights over the centuries, for instance in the Ordene de la Chevalerie of the early 13^th century, in the Magnum Belgii Chronicon of 1247, in Guillaume Durand’s Pontificale of 1292, and in the Instructions of the Bishop of Cambrai (Gui de Bologne) of 1330.