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The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
@ChivalryGuild
Aug 12, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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Sometimes the courage of one true-hearted man makes all the difference.🧵 Image
Every time I read the tale of St George’s showdown with the dragon, my attention is caught by a different detail. One that struck me recently was in the backstory, before George even showed up.

When the dragon’s terrors began, the men of Silene gathered to put a stop to it. Image
But they all fled in terror the moment the dragon appeared.

This detail not only establishes a contrast between these inferior men and St George, but it also helps to establish the impossibly high cost that a failure of courage can impose.
The dragon now faced no opposition as it "envenomed" the city at will with its horrible breath. (Another important detail.) To appease it, the townspeople gave two sheep per day. But soon that wasn’t enough and they took to offering humans.
It gets worse. Human sacrifices also proved inadequate. The dragon had a more choice appetite. It wanted to eat children. Also very telling. Evil wants the children.

So the people of Silene held lotteries to determine which unfortunate children would be next.
Lesson: the failure of men to muster the necessary courage leads to the sacrifice of their children.
But then, just as the king's daughter was offered up, St George happened upon the scene. He crossed himself, charged the dragon, and killed it. Alone he accomplished what a small army of men could not. Like I said, the courage of one real man sometimes makes all the difference. Image
St George's courage and martial prowess gave others a chance at life. For this reason he became the patron saint of chivalry. Image
It appears more and more like the dragons are coming out again and a similar test will be put to us.

St George, ora pro nobis. Image

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More from @ChivalryGuild

The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Oct 10
October 10, 732—Charles Martel and an army of Franks halt and turn back the Umayyad invasion at the Battle of Tours.

Isidore of Beja on the Frankish infantry:
“Firmly they stood, one close to another, forming as it were a bulwark of ice.”

Denis the Chronicler on the leader of the Franks:
"He fought as fiercely as the hungry wolf falls upon the stag. By the grace of Our Lord, he wrought a great slaughter on the enemies of Christian faith. Then was he first called 'Martel,' for as a hammer of iron ... even so he dashed and smote in the battle all his enemies."Image
“The Spanish Muslims were fully aware of who Charles Martel was and what he had done to their aspirations. Indeed, Muslims in Spain had learned from their defeat that the Franks were not a sedentary people served by mercenary garrison troops, nor were they a barbarian horde. They, too, were empire builders, and the Frankish host was made up of very well trained citizen volunteers who possessed arms, armor, and tactics superior to those of the Muslims. Indeed, when the Muslims tried to invade Gaul again in 735, Charles Martel and his Frank gave them another beating, so severe that Muslim forces never ventured very far north again. Forty years later, Martel's grandson joined the long process of driving them from Spain.”Image
Stark also highlights a good lesson to be drawn from the battle.

“Late in the afternoon, as the Arab chronicler reported, many Muslims became ‘fearful for the safety of the spoil which they had stored in their tents, and a false cry arose in their ranks that some of the enemy were plundering the camp; whereupon several squadrons of the Muslim horseman rode off to protect their tents.’ To other units appeared to be a retreat, and it soon became one, during which the Franks unleashed their own heavily armored cavalry to inflict severe casualties on the fleeing Muslims; at least 10,000 of them died that afternoon.”
Read 4 tweets
The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Sep 8
On September 8, 1157, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine was born: Richard the Lionheart. One of the all-timers.

“Richard was a complex character," wrote Rodney Stark. "As a soldier he was little short of mad, incredibly reckless and foolhardy, but as a commander he was intelligent, cautious, and calculating. He would risk his own life with complete nonchalance, but nothing could persuade him to endanger his troops more than was absolutely necessary. Troops adore such a commander.”Image
In battle:
Excellent anecdote:
Read 7 tweets
The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Feb 27
That gap in the Pyrenees is called Roland’s Breach—legend has it that Charlemagne’s most famous knight cut the rock away in the final moments of his life. 🧵 Image
Roland was the medieval Achilles and the last survivor of Charlemagne’s rearguard at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, where they were treacherously ambushed. As the end neared, he dreaded the seeming inevitability that his sword Durendal would fall into Saracen hands. Image
He could not allow such a thing to happen.

This was no ordinary sword—made in Heaven and given by an angel to Charlemagne, who then gave it to his nephew and champion. So Roland tried to break the sword by striking against the Pyrenees. Image
Read 6 tweets
The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Feb 16
You know St George killed a dragon, but do you know what the dragon was about?

It wasn’t just a random mythological creature, much less one of those nice dragons who will carry riders on his back. It was a venom-spewing devourer of children.🧵 Image
Long before George arrived, the men of Silene decided to do something about the fearsome beast in their country, so they assembled and marched off. But when they were face to face with the monster their hearts gave out, the Golden Legend reports. They fled. Image
And the cost of their cowardice would be steep. The narrative continues: "And when he came nigh the city he envenomed the people with his breath, and therefore the people of the city gave to him every day two sheep for to feed him, because he should do no harm to the people.”
Read 7 tweets
The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Nov 30, 2024
One of the unsung heroes of the third Crusade was a priest who dove from the battlements of the Jaffa into the sea and swam to Richard the Lionheart’s galley with a cry for help.🧵 Image
Richard had been in Acre making preparations to return to England to deal with the urgent business there (traitors trying to take his kingdom). The Crusade was over, he thought, a brilliant but doomed campaign which he planned to return to after taking back his own kingdom. Image
Then he heard about Saladin’s surprise attack against Jaffa.

He sailed back to Jaffa and arrived thinking that it was too late; Saracen banners had been raised and the city appeared to have been taken.
Read 12 tweets
The Chivalry Guild Profile picture
Oct 21, 2024
A pattern you recognize when reading history is that we can count on being outnumbered. The enemy is so often legion.

One of the greatest mechanisms for maximizing this numerical superiority was the janissary program of the Ottoman Turks. 🧵 Image
This thread will get dark, but a note of hope emerges at the end (as always).

Turkish for “new soldier,” janissaries were elite infantrymen unleashed against the enemies of the Ottomans, like the Christian people of the Balkans.
What made the corps truly devastating was the origin of these soldiers: they were taken from Christian families as boys, indoctrinated in Ottoman ways, and then turned loose against their own people!
Read 16 tweets

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