Spirituality

The definition that best describes chivalry is harmony or synergy between the spiritual perfection and secular power. It follows that the spiritual sphere is the most important determinant of chivalry. From the historical point of view, it is the influence of the Christian church on the class of military aristocracy on the eve of the First Crusade that encapsulated chivalry as an integral system of understandings, ideas and actions of this class. Spirituality is one ennobling factor that rises the knight above the ordinary soldier. The first orders of knights in the Holy Land, were structured as monastic orders and the brother who would enter, apart from the constant practice of military skills, was imposed with a strict monastic way of life, in the spirit of Christianity. In the broader sense, a way of life whose main fore-token is the spiritual ladder, rises the individual above the plebeian and mercantilist system of values. Spiritual development and discipline, provide a knight the only safe ground, where he is safe from the temptations and hindering factors such as pride, materialism, doubt, fear and others.