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Rediscovering things forgotten — Medieval thoughts for modern life — Book out now!
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May 3 27 tweets 6 min read
Éomer son of Éomund doesn't get enough love. Too often he is overlooked among the great heroes of Tolkien's epic. I cannot let this stand. 🧵 Image His introduction in the second chapter of The Two Towers is a thrilling literary moment. Things hit a different gear immediately when he rides into the story—returning from a mission to exterminate some Orcs trespassing in his country.Image
May 2 8 tweets 2 min read
There were warnings. And not just from some guy off the street, but from Arthur's most trusted advisor. Merlin tried to tell him of the peril of involvement with Guinevere. 🧵 Image From Book 3 of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur: Image
Apr 26 11 tweets 8 min read
Books on Chivalry—
For those interested in the study of chivalry, this is where to start. 🧵 Image 1) “The Necessity of Chivalry” by CS Lewis
(from a collection of essays called Present Concerns)

This was the work that got me started. Prior to reading it I had thought of chivalry merely as a series of good manners: the chivalrous man holds doors open and gives up his seat to ladies and so on. I’m all for good manners and everything—but chivalry understood thus is boring. Politeness and manners are not going to make any claim on the heart of a spirited young man.

Lewis shows chivalry to be much more invigorating: it's ultimately the attempt to reconcile ferocity and gentleness in the same man. “The important thing about the chivalric ideal is 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 guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or a happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.”

In other words, good manners are just one part of the picture. The more fundamental part is that the guy who gives up his seat to a lady must be a man of prowess, someone who could stomp a hooligan who was threatening that lady.

It seems like a stroke of Providence that I found Lewis’ essay shortly after reading Bronze Age Mindset, which I enjoyed greatly and which made me wish for a Christian vitalism. Lo and behold, Christian vitalism has long existed. Chivalry is it.Image
Apr 23 10 tweets 3 min read
Happy Feast of St George the Dragonslayer!

Most people don't appreciate how relevant his clash with the dragon is. This wasn't just some random monster, but one that wanted children. 🧵 Image Most of my friends already understand this, but it's always worth restating: George of Cappadocia did not slay a "metaphorical" dragon; he slayed a real one.

That said, his literal dragon and our metaphorical dragons bear resemblance. Image
Apr 23 32 tweets 7 min read
The Pat Tillman Experience—
It was twenty years ago today that he fell. A few reflections on being a sensitive young fellow and learning about the death of your country's manliest man. 🧵 Image The word manly wasn’t spoken much during my formative years. I didn't know what it meant, and American monoculture seemed deeply uninterested in examining what men were for. When people said “manly,” they seemed to mean “cave-manly”: dumb, boorish, horny, violent.
Apr 19 6 tweets 2 min read
How do you earn history’s greatest epithet?

According to a medieval romance, when Richard I was (illegally!) imprisoned by King Modred on his return from Crusade, his captor's daughter fell in love with him. 🧵 Image She bribed the guards to let her see the famous Crusader. When Modred found out what was going on, he wanted to kill Richard immediately, but his advisors convinced him to make it look like an accident.
Apr 18 4 tweets 1 min read
Just a couple years ago this speech seemed destined to be mostly unremembered—but thanks to rw Twitter it will be immortalized. They will remember, Baldwin. "When you stand before God, you cannot say 'but I was told by others to do thus' or that 'virtue was not convenient at the time.' This will not suffice. Remember that."
Apr 17 7 tweets 2 min read
Some contemporary etiquette manuals take the nagging tone of a PSA on how men can be less irksome to their lady-superiors. THOU SHALT SHAPE UP, ANON!

I flipped through Peter Post’s Essential Manners for Men and found this:Image
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I have something very different in mind when talking about the chivalric virtue of courtesy—not weak-kneed compliance, but the kind of manners that proceed from good cheer and warm-heartedness, from a position of strength.
Apr 12 31 tweets 7 min read
Some people are surprised to learn that Christians are not supposed to be pushovers and doormats.

“But Jesus was a pacifist!”🧵 Image If you’re anything like me, your religious educators conveyed a lot of skepticism about red-blooded men, even the otherwise courteous ones. It was unclear if such men belonged in the Faith.
Apr 8 23 tweets 6 min read
"They have killed our king, chased away our priests, sold the goods of our church, eaten everything we have, and now they want to take our bodies ... No, they shall not have them.”

Vanquish or Die—
A few notes on a film you must see🧵Image 2023’s Vaincre ou Mourir caused a bit of a scandal in France by highlighting a chapter in that country's history which polite company would rather not discuss: the uprising in the Vendee against the Revolution, and the brutal suppression that followed.
Apr 2 7 tweets 2 min read
If you want to be one of Charlemagne's top guys, you'd better dress the part.

One of my favorite anecdotes from the life of the emperor to celebrate his birthday (April 2, 747)🧵 Image According to the De Carlo Magno, courtiers had just returned to Charlemagne’s palace after doing his business in Pavia, still wearing the fashionable attire of the place, silk clothing with ribbons and feathers. Their lord was not impressed.
Mar 30 13 tweets 4 min read
The Harrowing of Hell—
What went down between the Crucifixion and Resurrection was the ultimate rescue 🧵 Image I cannot help being sympathetic to the spirited young men who wanted (then and now) to see the Lord throwing down against some bad guys and were disappointed that he didn’t.
Mar 28 7 tweets 2 min read
Loyalty to code, mission, vow—

Sir Percival’s quest for the Grail (as told in Tennyson’s Idylls) 🧵Image Amid all the excitement and oath-taking on the eve of the Grail Quest, King Arthur himself knows better than to expect much success, and he says so. He knows how many of his knights will soon forget their vows and “follow wandering fires” instead. Image
Mar 20 4 tweets 1 min read
This passage on El Cid describes pretty well what the virtue of meekness is supposed to mean:

"Fundamentally tempestuous and violent by nature, he learned how to hold himself in check. He got the better of his enemies by a perfect mastery over himself, even though he was sometimes subject to terrible gusts of passion. He restrained them almost immediately. This violent man was able to pass himself off as a man temperamentally moderate."Image Meekness, in the words of Thomas Aquinas, “restrains the onslaught of anger” and “properly mitigates the passion of anger.” This is the virtue of self-control with regard to the heat of rage, and is a prerequisite for a man who wants to accomplish anything.
Mar 16 11 tweets 3 min read
Tomorrow (March 17th) is the Feast of Saint Patrick.

It might also be called the Feast of Providence Working in Mysterious Ways.🧵 Image Odds are that someone has tried to comfort you in your moments of defeat, disappointment, or suffering by saying, “everything happens for a reason.” If you’re anything like me, you found this assurance not at all helpful.
Mar 15 17 tweets 4 min read
Growing up Plantagenet—

Richard the Lionheart's formative years were about as wild as they come. 🧵 Image He was the third son of the great empire-builder Henry II and the feisty heiress Eleanor of Aquitaine, who just eight weeks before marrying the King of England had been married to the King of France. Image
Mar 13 12 tweets 4 min read
Gandalf's 5-step method for performing a quasi-exorcism on a friend bewitched by sinister forces.

This might be surprisingly applicable in 2024.🧵


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1. Get the patient away from wicked people—

In other words, allow no more harm to be done. Poisonous influences must be stopped.

In the case of Theoden, Gandalf has Grima Wormtongue put face-down on the ground and silenced. Image
Mar 9 4 tweets 2 min read
In The Two Towers, there's a debate between rival orc factions. Asserting the superiority of his clan over others, Ugluk says, "We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We slew the great warrior. We took the prisoners..."

This is a telling claim. Short 🧵Image
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The "great warrior" of course is Boromir, and Ugluk is bragging that they were able to take him out—they being dozens of Uruk-hai, many of whom were killed in the attempt!

This is the kind of thing orcs take pride in, apparently, a swarm of them taking out one single man.Image
Mar 7 5 tweets 2 min read
The generosity of St George in giving the rewards of his heroism to the poor of Silene was an obvious act of generosity.

In a less direct sense, so was his cultivation of prowess. It was generous of him to pay the price to become a brave and muscular cavalier.🧵
Image His courage and strength became gifts to the people of Silene. It was only because he had cultivated these virtues that Silene was saved from the dragon. Image
Mar 4 6 tweets 2 min read
Boromir and the Young Hobbits—
A short 🧵 Image One of the best lines from LotR is Gandalf's observation, after Boromir's death: "It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir's sake." Image
Mar 2 16 tweets 6 min read
UFC fans hear a fair amount about devout Muslim fighters, particularly the Dagestanis. Khabib and Islam have won renown, and their excellence brings credit to their faith.

We hear a good deal less about Christian champions. So I thought to add some perspective.🧵


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The highlighting of great Muslim fighters and the relative silence about Christian one leave one with the vague impression that Islam is the dominant religion of the sport and contribute to the larger narrative that Christianity is not for hard men.

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