RingoContent warning for easily triggered Steel fighters. This contains “Larp names and titles” if you can’t handle that, maybe don’t read?
Also apologies to anyone who’s words I mangled. I start writing this write after pennsic but then let if for month and since then details have escaped. That’s what I get for not taking notes.
At Pennisc I was asked a question. Not THE question. Or, I guess the other THE question. Just a normal question. What is the greatest knightly virtue? The sort of question that pops up from time to time in bullshiting session all the time, sometimes with serious intent and other times just idle banter. This time there was some added weight to the question though. If I answered correctly( or if I interpret it correct as long as I don’t answer incorrectly) I will become Man at Arms to Sir Zippy in the SCA. I’ll talk more about that later, but for now I want to focus on the question itself. And how that simple question went on to carry more personal weight than I had thought a simple silly SCA thought experiment could.
I’m not really one of those people who puts much stock in the Chivalric Virtues. I’m not a fan of the Victorian white washed version nor do I find the actual middle ages practices to be much better. I’m pretty much as far from the gentlemanly courteous ideal of a victorian knight as possible without being a sociopathic asshole. No Gawain or Lancelot am I and I have no desire to be. I am no scholar either so perhaps my understanding is flawed but the alternative ideals, the code of chivalry as it was lived and applied in the actual middle ages, was essentially social pressure to stop knights from killing other nobles and reduce the amount they raped. While I’m down with the whole not raping thing, I don’t really think that as a high moral bar. It’s not something that should be strived for so much as constantly achieved, much like not shitting in the middle of the street.
This isn’t to say some of the values don’t hold weight, they do. I just don’t find it as a school of though or moral guide to be really a great guiding principle. In general I reject most things like that out of hand anyway. I’m a bit of nihilistic moral relativist so it’s fairly foreign to me. The few guides I put some faith in are the more internal facing ones, Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, but even those I take with a hefty grain of salt. More of a salt shaker really.
I put this long preamble in to drive the point home that this is not my forte. I am a foreigner traveling the paths of knightly aspirations. It’s important to note this because the people I talked to have done alot to change my perspective on the SCA, “knighthood,” and the idea of virtues in general. What seemed a fairly trivial task became a very meaningful experience that would last with me if I quit the SCA today(which I won’t).
When considering the virtues my default assumption had always been, Prowess is the greatest. To misquote Anton(who’s SCA honorific I don’t know. Sorry bro, you can meet me in the lists if you need redress for this insult) about SCA knighthood “…if you don’t have Prowess, we aren’t having the conversation…” basically indicating that’s a minimum(not sufficient) bar you need before they consider you. I’ve been known to take that much farther, having said Prowess is the only virtue before. Maybe you’re asking if I think Might makes right? yes. Moral relativist remember? In the end Prowess is how kingdoms and societies are established, which create the cultural norms we follow, that change per society. In the end it all follows from Prowess.
However if we want to take it in the spirit of the challenge or with the knowledge the moral relativism is a stupid meme only fit for edgy teens, we can dig deeper. As I talked with people I still kept coming back to Prowess being the greatest, because without it did it matter?
Lets take Courtesy, Service, and Charity as one. I do this because much of the words I heard on them grouped them together. Wait. Before we go on, I should make mention I am working off no definitive list of virtues as in my mind there is none. There is simply the meme of it that changes per person, per region and time studied, or per great/pulp work read. Back to discussion. A good friend and knight, Sir Kennemathor, spoke on how without Service the game we played would not exist. His knight, Sir Colin, spoke up on how Curtesy emcompases this. One should do as one’s station demands to be courteous, which almost always includes services. This is easily extendable to real life and the idea of charity. The society exists by people being willing to work together and help each out. Courtesy is more than manners in my mind, which are really just an extension of the societal rules that keep us from killing each other into a weird set of behavioral patterns meant to show you know how to belong and follow the important ones. That idea, giving, serving, helping, is what makes civilization work, to the point that we enforce it with laws. Taxes are really just enforced charity or to indulge the Libertarian in me, charity by theft. But isn’t that what we celebrate Robin Hood for? Anyway I’m off track.
Charity/Service/Courtesy are clearly important virtues but do they out way prowess. It is Prowess that enables one to utilize Charity and Service. If a person has none, they are far less likely to be effective in their service(particularly if we take prowess to mean excellence in one’s art as opposed to specifically martial prowess). This suggests that Prowess is in fact the greater as a person who has none is really not that useful. I believe in effective altruism so just wanting to help aint enough for me. Yeah I’m a bit of dick that way. I’m not if its ableism, meritocracy, or both, but I ascribe to that shit.
I do remember hearing that Curtesy was all the more important because of Prowess. It was the virtue that reigned in those capable of great harm, which is line with the idea of chivalry as a rape prevention tool. Something like “Those without Courtesy, who have prowess are the worst villains, those capable of great evil.” Which I suppose could be true but I think the lack of the virtue simply makes them a threat not guarantees them to act in that way. And a lack of prowess guarantees you can do nothing to stop those who have it. Which again suggest to me, prowess is the victor.
What of other virtues though? I heard great words from The Winter Witch Mistress Crane on Humility and Mercy, that essentially boiled down to Check your Privilege(but all said all cool and noble like). Treat people well regardless of their station and know your advantages and don’t let them be an excuse to abuse people. I am a huge believer in humility, but if one is humble without achievements what is that humility worth? What of mercy? Mercy is great and noble, but again what is it worth if you are not in a position to give it? Prowess is the thing that gives these virtues their meaning and as such.
However there is a problem. See Zippy said in passing, that the answer wasn’t as important as the ques, because there were no wrong answers. Which he followed up with “Well there is one wrong answer.” Shit. See I’m pretty sure I know the wrong answer. And I think it might be Prowess. Cause like….duh? Its too obvious. Its the one that doesn’t speak to external good and possibly not even to internal good. It really just speaks to determination, grit, passion, and possibly talent. These are good qualities by standards of self improvement so maybe stoicism(though passion would be rejected out of hand) but not by any virtue ethics that I know nor the consequalism style I prefer.
I would have loved to simple pick a different answer. However there is another virtue to consider on that path. Truth or Honesty. The first person I asked this question of was not technically an SCA peer, Sam Awry. He plays a different game in which he is some sort of Count. He explained it to me and I actually intended to write it down so I could get it right cause it was complicated as hell…but I got excited about talking about knight shit instead, which somehow dovetailed into a sex conversation, which again, quite distracting. We got into a long discussion that lasted the whole week and even the drive back to Philly on the validity of chivalric values in the first place, whether they have a place in the game, out of the game, and whether there is value in a set of morals for “knights” and for non-Knights. It was all great stuff.
His answer, with no hesitation was a quote from Excalibur ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLsBwLhIVkk . I however walked away unconvinced of his answer. I have thoughts on truth being valuable and perhaps it’s because the conversation moved on too quickly or simply because it was the first answer I had. The value of good lie is immeasurable. A feint on the tourney field will yield you a fight in the list. A ploy like Ulysses’ horse wins battles. Similarly a well placed mistruth can save lives or damn a villian who has escaped requisite justice. Its not something I was willing to enshrine as the highest virtue while I still believed in clever lying. Still it is a virtue I believed in and wanted to keep to.
Keeping with that value I knew I could not answer falsely on this and if I did not find a virtue I thought was greater than prowess I would answer with that, even if it was “wrong.” So I kept looking. I don’t look at this as brave since I was fairly convinced even with a wrong answer I would be taken on, as long as my reasoning was good and I had discussed with peerd. Speaking of courage strangely I don’t remember anyone mentioning it. It is clearly important in the aspect of knighthood, being able to go out fight and die for one’s King. In our game though it is not of that much value there. While there is certainly courage to fight on the field it is not nearly the same scale. No, the courage of the SCA is speaking truth to power…but seeing as I had already discounted truth, I could discount courage.
I heard many more answers of Service, Honesty, Charity, humility. And Honor. Quite a few said honor. One answer of honor in particularly sticks out to me, that I will never do justice. I went to see Master Olaf the last night of pennsic. He was in modern clothes overseeing his camps tear down. Despite this he took the time to talk with me and created one of those few effervescent moments where The Dream drifts into reality. The modern trappings diminished the moment not at all as he began to tell me the story of Tyr and Fenris in way of answer. He squatted down to get comfortable and I sat, being told an oral tradition as a way of lesson. Olaf does one of the best Viking impression kits I’ve seen on the field, but this was far more. This was him living and doing, not as a representation of what they did, but as a modern continuation of the line. I sat, underneath the stars, surrounded by canvas tent camps, staked out palisades fires, relevery, mead, garb, cooking on spits…and none of it came close to creating a medieval moment as this man in a tshirt and jeans talking to me about a mythical god and wolf.
I suppose I should impart the lesson, but without the story it has less meaning. TL;Dr Tyr agreed to place his hand in Fenris mouth as bait to let him get chained up and he kept his word, even when he had the chance not too while still achieving his goal. His honor was at stake and he wouldn’t flinch. He lost that hand. To me that speaks of courage and honesty, not honor…but meditating on it later I realized it was more and what people had been saying before that. Honor is not just sticking to your word. It is not just your reputation. It is literally your ethos, your pathos, and your logos, all in one(I have no idea if I can use those words like that, but fuck it YOLO). It is a representation of you both internally and externally. I’m not sure I’m translating but holding to your honor is holding to your code, whatever that is. Mine? Deeds, not words. After 2k+ words Ironic no?
However Honor fell short for me as well. You can have honor if you follow a shit moral code and still be shit. And also you can have a strict adherence to it, but again, it you lack prowess, what does that mean? You are still a nobody who’s done nothing. Yes harsh. But true, see above. In order to effect the world one must have the power to do it and that comes from Prowess. So how can anything be above that?
It was late in the week and I’d had no answers that had changed my preconceived notion. I thought far more deeply about the game, about morality, about chivalry and found I was on much less firm ground on that rejection than I had been before. This should not have surprised me. I agreed to become Zippy’s man at arm’s because he was in so many ways everything I wasn’t. Partially he was just a sharp fucking dresser. Dude is fancy and well…in the ACL I’m called the trash knight, so, that should sum it up. He had mastered pomp and schtick. He was artsy. He knew and loved history. He was the bits of the SCA I loved but never approached. The same reason I loved the Deed. So I agreed hoping I could learn some of that. And with little actual work on his part I was starting to learn and appreciate this knight shit.
On walking back to camp that night I messaged Mistress Anelada to ask her thoughts. She shared with me a song she had written that I highly recommend. In addition she spoke of Franchise, the acting of one’s station, which for us is all a noble station. Of living up to the ideal we all hold as nobility. Being consistent in character. She acknowledged, as others had before her, however that this answer may be a cheat answer, as it essentially ALL the virtues. I felt the same way. It is inherently the greatest by being all of them and thus cannot be the greatest in any meaningful sense. Perhaps this was the one incorrect answer Zippy spoke of.
I returned to camp and sat with my buddy and drilling partner Dan. While we were bullshitting, His Grace Duke Edward came in to talk with some of our camp mates. Dan prodded me to ask him. I was hesitant. I already had over a dozen answers and besides he was busy. I didn’t really know Edward outside of his fighting, we’d never really talked about anything that didn’t involve being a better fighter and for some reason asking him about the other aspects seemed wrong. However I eventually yielded and I’m glad I did. Edward began to describe Duke Brion Tarragon. How he could fight, how he was the consummate gentleman, how he was always generous, he walked down the line of all virtues and gave examples of him always embodying them. Of being, looking, and acting like a knight. At the end he said “So, if I have to pick a single answer, well…Franchise don’t suck.”
This was the last answer I got at Pennsic. I missed a number of peers I had wanted to get answers from, due to time constraints. If the greatest chivalric virtue is time management I do not have it. And so Pennsic ended and I went from a medieval event that placed those virtues on an altar to one where there is only the one virtue. Deeds, Not words. That is my home, my church, my motto. And thus I though despite receiving many great answers I would remain with my preconceived notions.
Until, that is a random discussion about some ACL fighters. I don’t remember who we were discussing or who I was discussing them with, but we both agreed that the fighter with little skill or ability who kept coming back and fighting was better than the skilled fighter who would refuse to fight if they thought they might lose. And it hit me…I valued courage more than prowess. I was literally stunned to realize that I didn’t hold prowess as the highest virtue. Deeds, not words still held for me, but I had reconciled that deeds did not always mean winning. I had to rethink the whole this whole virtue thing.
Was it courage? I valued it higher than prowess true. But courage without prowess was not only useless but often foolish and worse than not being brave. Could it be charity after all? No I still discounted that, as being charitable without courage could leave you only doing things when there was little cost to you. I walked through them all trying to think which one held up without the others and I realized I had come back to the beginning. It was truth.
I have a weird relationship with honesty. I used to be a compulsive liar. Perhaps that’s I have an internal fear that everything I know is a lie. That every person is lying to me, always. Deep down, I don’t trust anyone. I have countered this by cultivating the idea that people are usually telling the truth and my internal thoughts are irrational. I assume everything is true unless I can find reason it would not be. I am a skeptic who practices reverse skepticism. This has left me in the odd position of believing many things I shouldn’t and holding doubts about people and things I should trust implicitly.
Perhaps that distrust came first though. Perhaps that’s why I’m always tempted to use a lie if it will save trouble. Perhaps It’s why I always want to hold the full truth when a half truth will work. I doubt it though. When I’m not paying attention I tend to be unconsciously honest, often to my detriment. Brutal blunt truths people weren’t prepared for, secrets I wasn’t supposed to share, or facts that wasn’t shared put me at a disadvantage, all slip through my lips with ease. So to do fibs, made up stories, or other quick falsehoods. I’ve been spending a decade trying to stop that and for the most part think I have managed. I have tried to stop using lies that smooth feelings or leaving out details that would be uncomfortable. An acid trip in my 20’s left me with the impression that it was vitally important I stop lying…probably should try that again, both because I don’t remember the reason and because I still fail to face truth as often as I should.
That personal anecdote is only there to show that I don’t come by this easily. Truth may be my weakest virtue. It is not inherent to me, but a foreign food I have forced upon myself. That is likely why I rejected it out of hand without a clear reason. For Truth without prowess is still valuable. If truth comes from a source with no skill or power it is still truth and still valid. Truth with no courtesy or charity may be rude and it may hurt, but in the end one should be better for it. To quote Elieser Yudkowski on the virtue Relinquishment from the 12 virtues of Rationality (another set of virtues I likely prize higher than Chivlary) who was himself quoting P. C. Hodgel : “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Truth is virtue that achieves courage, for to face the truth is the bravest of actions. Truth is the virtue that causes Prowess for if you do not face your weakness honestly you can never fix them.
In the end it has to be Truth. That said…Franchise don’t suck.
See yall in the list.