No matter in what sequence the Church bestowed these virtues upon the warrior, she gave him a definite aim and object—a precise law.
The law was the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments of chivalry, which we purpose to illustrate.
The object was to enlarge the Kingdom of God on earth.
When our knights attended Mass one might have seen them, before the reading of the second lesson, draw their swords and hold them unsheathed in their hands until the reading of the lesson was finished. This defiant attitude seemed to imply their readiness to defend the Gospel. “If the Word is to be defended, we are ready.”
This is the whole spirit of chivalry.
León Gautier, Chivalry, trans. Henry Frith (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1891), 23.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 683
