The Nine Worthies, do you think they truly deserves it or not?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

To those not aware, the Nine Worthies refer to 9 Historical, Bliblical, and Legendary figures that best exemplify the Ideals of Chilvary, at least as established in the Medieval Period.

Seperated by 3 of 3s they include the 3 Good Pagans: Hector of the Trojan War, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caeser

The 3 Good Jews: Joshua, King David of Israel and Judah, and Judas Maccabeus.

And the 3 Good Christian: King Arthur of Britain, Charlamange, and Godfrey of Bouillon.

So to those that are interested in a bit of history, do these men deserve being ""Worthies" of Chivalry, or at least of noble virtues such as Justice and Honor?

Basically is there anything to deconstruct about these Men?

 

[Veylon]

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

 

[Fox12]

It's one of those weird outdated medieval concepts we don't use anymore. Hector was pretty cool, though.

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

No, but it sounds like a pretty accurate representation of what chivalry really was.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

Which one is that? Or are they all guilty of that?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

It's one of those weird outdated medieval concepts we don't use anymore. Hector was pretty cool, though.

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

No, but it sounds like a pretty accurate representation of what chivalry really was.

The Wiki articles information suggest that thier heroic actions would be considered universal, regardless of thier flaws?

 

[Kolby Jack]

Well, while I'm sure most or all of them were real people, it's hard to really account for their virtues and actions as it is written. Historical record keeping back then was... inaccurate. People tended to write what they believed SHOULD be written, not what actually occurred. We're at least slightly better about that stuff today.

THEN AGAIN, if I'm going to be such a stickler about historical fact versus fiction, I also can't really judge people of those times by today's standards. Chivalry is kind of a dying concept in today's society, for the better, IMO, because it's largely being supplanted by "don't be an asshole." In the past, you could be chivalrous as fuck and still be a huge asshole, as long as you were an asshole to the "right" people. Likewise, someone like Jesus would not be considered chivalrous because he refused to defend his own honor, even in the face of murderers.

Further muddying the water is Chivalry is generally considered some kind of code based on honor, and everyone has different ideas about what is and is not honorable. Of course, real Chivalry was more about pride and an innate sense of superiority. Knights were better than everyone so they had to have rules to prove it. Defend the "weak" because you were better than them, which required convincing them they were weak in the first place so you could have someone to defend. Naturally, all women were weak, so you always had to defend women no matter what. It was a lot of self-fulfilling bullshit meant to prop up the nobility on the backs of the peasants while convincing them that it was a good, necessary thing.

According to wikipedia at least, the "10 commandments of chivalry" were:

1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions. (Stupid)
2. Thou shalt defend the Church. (Eh)
3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.(Conceited)
4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.(Stupid)
5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.(Stupid)
6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.(Hilarious considering the connotations of "infidel" today, also: stupid)
7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.(The feudal system died out for a reason)
8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word. (Practically impossible)
9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. (Okay)
10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. (Vague and easily bent to evil)

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well, while I'm sure most or all of them were real people, it's hard to really account for their virtues and actions as it is written. Historical record keeping back then was... inaccurate. People tended to write what they believed SHOULD be written, not what actually occurred. We're at least slightly better about that stuff today.

THEN AGAIN, if I'm going to be such a stickler about historical fact versus fiction, I also can't really judge people of those times by today's standards. Chivalry is kind of a dying concept in today's society, for the better, IMO, because it's largely being supplanted by "don't be an asshole." In the past, you could be chivalrous as fuck and still be a huge asshole, as long as you were an asshole to the "right" people. Likewise, someone like Jesus would not be considered chivalrous because he refused to defend his own honor, even in the face of murderers.

Further muddying the water is Chivalry is generally considered some kind of code based on honor, and everyone has different ideas about what is and is not honorable. Of course, real Chivalry was more about pride and an innate sense of superiority. Knights were better than everyone so they had to have rules to prove it. Defend the "weak" because you were better than them, which required convincing them they were weak in the first place so you could have someone to defend. Naturally, all women were weak, so you always had to defend women no matter what. It was a lot of self-fulfilling bullshit meant to prop up the nobility on the backs of the peasants while convincing them that it was a good, necessary thing.

According to wikipedia at least, the "10 commandments of chivalry" were:

1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions. (Stupid)
2. Thou shalt defend the Church. (Eh)
3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.(Conceited)
4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.(Stupid)
5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.(Stupid)
6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.(Hilarious considering the connotations of "infidel" today, also: stupid)
7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.(The feudal system died out for a reason)
8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word. (Practically impossible)
9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. (Okay)
10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. (Vague and easily bent to evil)

Funny thing is how do those commandments apply to the Pagan Worthies?

 

[Kolby Jack]

Well, while I'm sure most or all of them were real people, it's hard to really account for their virtues and actions as it is written. Historical record keeping back then was... inaccurate. People tended to write what they believed SHOULD be written, not what actually occurred. We're at least slightly better about that stuff today.

THEN AGAIN, if I'm going to be such a stickler about historical fact versus fiction, I also can't really judge people of those times by today's standards. Chivalry is kind of a dying concept in today's society, for the better, IMO, because it's largely being supplanted by "don't be an asshole." In the past, you could be chivalrous as fuck and still be a huge asshole, as long as you were an asshole to the "right" people. Likewise, someone like Jesus would not be considered chivalrous because he refused to defend his own honor, even in the face of murderers.

Further muddying the water is Chivalry is generally considered some kind of code based on honor, and everyone has different ideas about what is and is not honorable. Of course, real Chivalry was more about pride and an innate sense of superiority. Knights were better than everyone so they had to have rules to prove it. Defend the "weak" because you were better than them, which required convincing them they were weak in the first place so you could have someone to defend. Naturally, all women were weak, so you always had to defend women no matter what. It was a lot of self-fulfilling bullshit meant to prop up the nobility on the backs of the peasants while convincing them that it was a good, necessary thing.

According to wikipedia at least, the "10 commandments of chivalry" were:

1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions. (Stupid)
2. Thou shalt defend the Church. (Eh)
3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.(Conceited)
4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.(Stupid)
5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.(Stupid)
6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.(Hilarious considering the connotations of "infidel" today, also: stupid)
7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.(The feudal system died out for a reason)
8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word. (Practically impossible)
9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. (Okay)
10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. (Vague and easily bent to evil)

Funny thing is how do those commandments apply to the Pagan Worthies?

Eh, apparently those rules were written in the 1800's, long after chivalry faded to history. They are a good approximate summation of how chivalry worked though. From what I can tell, the 9 worthies were not practicers of chivalry, just guys who embodied the ideals of it. Not everything about chivalry had to do with the Christian church, so pagans and Jews could easily embody certain aspects of it.

Apparently whoever came up with the nine worthies figured that the individual aspects of chivalry each worthy embodied was blatantly obvious and thus timeless. What a moron.

 

[happyninja42]

It's one of those weird outdated medieval concepts we don't use anymore. Hector was pretty cool, though.

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

No, but it sounds like a pretty accurate representation of what chivalry really was.

The Wiki articles information suggest that thier heroic actions would be considered universal, regardless of thier flaws?

Well at what point do you consider their flaws? I mean, how many bad things does someone have to do to be downgraded from "Worthy" to "a dude who did stuff, some good, some bad" ? Or how many good things do they have to do to offset their bad? If you're saying "regardless of their flaws", then that means they weren't perfect ideals, so why should I care? That basically sounds like a regular person. Did some good stuff, did some shit stuff. Hopefully they did more good than shit.

But personally, I can't really think of much in the way of good you could do to offset murdering a dude to take his wife. I mean, yeah I guess it's always possible for someone to change who they are, but I wouldn't hold them up as some ideal to emulate or anything.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

It's one of those weird outdated medieval concepts we don't use anymore. Hector was pretty cool, though.

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

I think you forfeit your claims on being a paragon of Justice and Honor when you have a guy murdered so you can force his widow to marry you.

No, but it sounds like a pretty accurate representation of what chivalry really was.

The Wiki articles information suggest that thier heroic actions would be considered universal, regardless of thier flaws?

Well at what point do you consider their flaws? I mean, how many bad things does someone have to do to be downgraded from "Worthy" to "a dude who did stuff, some good, some bad" ? Or how many good things do they have to do to offset their bad? If you're saying "regardless of their flaws", then that means they weren't perfect ideals, so why should I care? That basically sounds like a regular person. Did some good stuff, did some shit stuff. Hopefully they did more good than shit.

But personally, I can't really think of much in the way of good you could do to offset murdering a dude to take his wife. I mean, yeah I guess it's always possible for someone to change who they are, but I wouldn't hold them up as some ideal to emulate or anything.

Which one did the murdering a person to steal his wife?

 

[balladbird]

i'll focus primarily on the fictional, since Chivalry is one of those concepts that never really existed in this world, and thus only fictional characters could be said to truly possess it:

Hector could be seen as a forebear of of the medieval concept of chivalry, purely by accident on the part of Homer. It's actually a little eerie how a character created such a long time before a concept can embody it so precisely. He was a deeply flawed character, but had many traits that would, as the passage of time changed society's values, gradually make him much more sympathetic to readers of the Iliad than the nominal hero of the work.

Hell, even by today's standards, Hector can almost be classed as a hero, if a byronic one. The warrior prince of a nation being invaded by a larger force for a very stupid reason, largely valiant in battle, so devoted to his wife that I imagine the greeks thought him weird, he was the only friend Helen had left in the city of Troy after Paris abandoned her and the citizenry blamed her for the war... his greatest crimes were the killing of Patroclus, believing him to be Achilles, desecrating the aforementioned man's body in the skirmish with the Greeks that followed, and, on the eve of his final battle with Achilles, becoming so spooked by the specter of his mortality that he succumbed to fear, screaming and running around the city three times before finally regaining his composure... a scene that was probably intended to be intense and emotional, but sounds more like a loony-toon sketch, and is impossible for me to think about without laughing.

So yeah, I'm down with Hector's place on the list. Seriously, though... and I seldom cuss on this website... but... Fuck Paris. Can't stand that guy. One of my most loathed characters in all of fiction, and his death is the one thing about the Trojan saga I cheer on.


Then there's King Arthur, who I would say also deserves his place in the nine. Granted, it's kind of cheating, since he was created primarily to BE a paragon of chivalry, unlike with Hector, who was something of a crazy accident. Still, points for him, though his life did have its bits of drama that blur the line, and it feels like a less ambiguously noble member of his court, such as Gawain, would have been a better choice.

 

[Veylon]

According to wikipedia at least, the "10 commandments of chivalry" were:

1. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions. (Stupid)
2. Thou shalt defend the Church. (Eh)
3. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.(Conceited)
4. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born.(Stupid)
5. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.(Stupid)
6. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy.(Hilarious considering the connotations of "infidel" today, also: stupid)
7. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.(The feudal system died out for a reason)
8. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word. (Practically impossible)
9. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. (Okay)
10. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. (Vague and easily bent to evil)

In fairness to Chivalry and Feudalism, these rules were pretty progressive for their time. The default state at the time was endless chaotic tribal warfare. A rigid, even oppressive, social order is a big step from every day being The Purge.

Which one did the murdering a person to steal his wife?

This would be King David. I suspect he's on the list more due to name recognition than anything else. "Famous Jewish Warriors" is not a large pool to draw upon even in our times.