How Far Have Western European Honour Codes Been Influenced By Christian Ideas and Ethics? "A great share of hazard, as of honour- comes to him who reigns. Of Hazard more as he sits above the rest. Then High Honoured due .. "- Satan, Paradise Lost.1 Milton's controversial character's "justification of entitlement and honour", despite being the antithesis of ChristianityY, strike surprising resonance in the reasoning of many Christians; wittingly or unwittingly illuminating an interesting paradox.2 Satan's 'virtues' permeate in many societies- "self-sacrificial fortitude, determination, courage and military-prowess" echoes Virgil's "warrior-statesman Aeneid", the last-stand of Icelandic Gunnar or Geoffrey de Charny's "zeal and fortitude" in the Chivalric-era.3 Whereas the futility of his cause ("take our overture and do not turn back") is no barrier to pagan or Christian heroism; "Par conséquent, compagnon Roland, klaxonner! "Ce serait fou, fou! Car je perdrais la renommée tout au long de la douce France"Y.4 The assumption that Milton's Satan can be considered more honourable than Christian fathers ensconced in Monasteries (Satan was no sloth) is employed to demonstrate that virtues of Honour, however converse to the Christian call to "seek peace and pursue it", actively flourished in the Christian West.5 This essay will hence seek to examine the reoccurring leitmotiv of honour within Western examples through Satan's 'Virtues'- bravery (violence), warfare, hierarchy and sexuality ("pseudo-sexual conquest of Eve") to demonstrate that contrary to Christian Ethics influencing honour codes, it was in fact honour codes which influenced Christian Ethics.6 Honour is difficult to define; Julian Pitt-River's mascocentric view that "Honour is the value of a person in his own eyes, but also the eyes of society" shall be altered 1 John Milton, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, (London: Harper Collins, 2011) 450. Milton's Satan is by definition the very antitheses of Christianity- actions are supposed to be vainglorious, selfish or reckless juxtapose the very laws of God which encourage servitude, modesty, chastity and deference; hence the famous quote "better reign in hell, than serve in heaven". 2 John N. King, Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 191. 3 Christopher Murphy, "Construction and Rhetoric: A Case Study of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost", Emergence: Journal of Literary Criticism and Creative Research, 3: (2012), 3., Michael C. J. Putnam, Virgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and Criticism, (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 19. &., Geoffrey de Charny, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context and Translation, ed. & trans. R. W. Kaeuper & E. Kennedy, (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 113. AY Therefore Companion Roland sound your horn! That would be mad, foolish, I would lose honour throughout France (Apologies, the loose translation is my own) 4 Milton, Paradise Lost, 151. &, Unkown, La Chanson de Roland, www. lachansonderoland.d-t-x.com, Stanza LXXXIII 5 Holy Bible: King James Edition, Psalm 34:14. 6 William John Silverman Jr., "Paradise Lost and the Cultural Genetics of Shame", LATCH, 1: (2008), 72.
for a nuanced understanding of "systems of honour; conceptualised