The Wintry Fortress
Philosophy and the Western Martial Artist
For in practising the art of defence, it is not only the head, legs and arms, that are employed, but the whole organs and faculties of the soul are put in motion at one and the same time –Archibald MacGregor, Highland broadsword master, 1791
Blanched With Snow
Everyone, whether they want to admit it or not, has a philosophy. We make our decisions based on what we believe to be true about the world. The Scottish swordsman Donald McBane has left us with a vivid record of his own philosophy near the end of his life, which stands in some contrast with the musings of a Miyamoto Musashi or a Yagyu Munenori:
Lord! What is Man? Originally dust; engendered in sin, brought forth with sorrow; helpless in his infancy, extravagantly wild in his youth; mad in his manhood, decrepit in his old age: his first voice moves pity, his last commands grief. Nature clothes the beasts with hair, the birds with feathers, the fishes with scales, but Man is born naked; his hands cannot handle, his feet cannot walk; his tongue cannot speak, nor his eyes see aright; simple is his thoughts, vain is his desire; toys is his delight; he no sooner puts on his distinguishing character Reason, but he burns it with wild-fire Passion; paints it with abominable pride, tears it with insatiable revenge, dirts it with avarice, and stains it with debauchery...
McBane goes on to conclude that man is "a dunghill blanched with snow." Of course, McBane was something of a scoundrel in the first place. His memoirs are a hilariously compelling proof that expertise in the martial arts is no guarantee of personal character. However, the tradition of Western swordsmanship has long been associated with a philosophy of chivalry.
Codes of Chivalry and the Peace of God
Most people who practice one of the Asian martial arts are at least passingly familiar with the Hagakure and the Budoshoshinshu, ancient texts of samurai philosophy that have proven to be extremely popular in translation. The Hagakure was even the basis for a Hollywood movie called Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, about a delusional hit man who bases his entire life around this book.
Samurai writings can be both interesting and inspirational, but they reflect the viewpoint of the culture that gave them birth- a culture that was very different from our own. Historical fencers and other Western martial artists will have to look elsewhere for the philosophical roots of their own traditions.
One source, especially for fencers of the Italian school, is The Courtier by Baldessar Castiglione. Just as the authors of the Hagakure and the Budoshoshinshu sought to describe the ideal samurai, Castiglione’s goal is to describe the ideal Renaissance gentleman, a swordsman and adventurer but also a man of culture and refinement. Sir Thomas Hoby’s English translation of 1561 includes a long list in which the qualities of this perfect courtier are summarized. Among many others, they include:
To do his feats with a slight, as though they were rather naturally in him, then learned with study: and use a recklessness to cover art...
To have the virtues of the mind, such as justice, manliness, wisdom, temperance, staidness, noble courage, sober-mood, etc.
To be more then indifferently well seen in learning, in the Latin and Greek tongues.
To be brought to show his feats and qualities at the desire and request of others, and not rashly press to it of himself.
To have the feat of drawing and painting.
To dance well without over nimble footings or too busy tricks.
To be skillful in all kinds of martial feats both on horseback and afoot, and well practiced in them: which is his chief profession, though his understanding be the less in all other things.
To play well at fence upon all kinds of weapons.
To hunt and hawk.
To ride and manage well his horse.
To swim well.
To leap well.
To run well.
To vault well.
To wrestle well.
To cast the stone well.
To cast the bar well.
To run well at tilt, and at ring.
To tourney.
To fling a spear or dart.
Not to wait upon or serve a wicked... person.
Not to seek to come up by any... subtle practice.
Not to commit any mischievous or wicked fact at the will and commandment of his Lord or Prince.
To use evermore toward his Prince or Lord the respect that becommeth the servant toward his master.
To endeavor himself to love, please and obey his Prince in honesty.
Never to be sad, melancholy or solemn before his Prince.
Seldom or never to sue (ask) to his Lord for any thing for himself.
His suit to be honest and reasonable when he sueth for others.
To reason of pleasant and merry matters when he is withdrawn with him into private and secrete places always doing him to understand the truth without dissimulation or flattery.
Not to love promotions so, that a man should think he could not live without them, nor unshamefacedly to beg any office.
The final end of a Courtier, where to al his good conditions and honest qualities tend, is to become an Instructor and Teacher of his Prince or Lord, inclining him to virtuous practices...
His conversation with women to be always gentle, sober, meek, lowly, modest, serviceable, comely, merry....
His love toward women, not to be sensual or fleshly, but honest and godly, and more ruled with reason, then appetite: and to love better the beauty of the mind, than of the body.
Not to withdraw his mistress’s good will from his fellow lover with reviling or railing at him, but with virtuous deeds, and honest conditions, and with deserving more then he, at her hands for honest affection’s sake.
While the wide range of skills and qualities expected of the Courtier is probably the origin of our phrase "the Renaissance man," there is also much in this list that derives from earlier codes of medieval chivalry, which is probably the ultimate basis for any Western version of the "way of the warrior."
One version of the code of chivalry reads as follows:
I- Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and shalt observe all its directions.
II- Thou shalt defend the Church.
III- Thou shalt repect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.
IV- Thou shalt love the country in the which thou wast born.
V- Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.
VI- Thou shalt make war against the Infidel without cessation, and without mercy.
VII- Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
VIII- Thou shalt never lie, and shall remain faithful to thy pledged word.
IX- Thou shalt be generous, and give largess to everyone.
X- Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
While certain aspects of this may be rather troubling to modern eyes (especially the commandment to make merciless war on the Infidel), the origins of the chivalric code lie in a movement called the Peace of God. Prior to the Peace of God the fierce warriors of the early Middle Ages essentially made merciless war on everyone. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
It was then that the clergy seized upon the opportunity offered by these truces to exact from the rough warriors of feudal times a religious vow to use their weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of churches. Chivalry, in the new sense, rested on a vow; it was this vow which dignified the soldier, elevated him in his own esteem, and raised him almost to the level of the monk in medieval society.
There were several lists of the so-called Chivalric Virtues, which every knight was expected to cultivate. According to one version, these are:
* Chastity
* Fidelity
* Fortitude
* Generosity
* Honesty
* Honor
* Hospitality
* Humility
* Justice
The code of the medieval knight is described most thoroughly in The Book of Knighthood and Chivalry by Ramon Lull, a medieval mystic who is still known as Doctor Illuminatus by the Church. In this work, a young knight is taught the principles of chivalry by an old hermit he meets in the wilderness.
Chivalry as such was closely connected to feudalism, but the feudal system never became fully established in outlying areas of Europe such as the Gaelic-speaking nations. In these areas, the Peace of God combined with earlier pagan warrior codes, producing works such as The Maxims of the Fianna. The mythical Fianna were based on historical bands of extra-tribal warriors known as dibergaig or feinnid, fierce berserkers of the pagan era. By the medieval period they are described in Gaelic literature as having followed a strict code of honor:
Two-thirds of thy gentleness be shown to women and to those who creep on the floor and to poets, and be not violent to the common people.
Utter not swaggering speech, nor say thou wilt not yield that which is right; it is a shameful thing to speak too stiffly unless that it be feasible to carry out thy words.
So long as thou shalt live, thy lord forsake not; neither for gold nor other reward in the world abandon one whom thou art pledged to protect.
The influence of the Peace of God movement is plain to see. The historical dibergaig warriors were described in the earliest Gaelic texts as savage outlaws, men who referred to themselves as "werewolves" and were known for celebrating hysterically over the corpses of their victims. Yet here their mythical counterparts in the Fianna are portrayed as gentle and noble defenders of the weak. This isn’t merely propaganda or wishful thinking; it is instead an attempt to provide the warriors of that era with an ethical standard to which they could aspire. While they were probably no more consistently successful at this than the medieval knights or the samurai were, it is probably also true that many atrocities and acts of brutality were prevented by the mere existence of the code. Warriors knew they were expected to live up to this standard. It must have influenced their behavior even if they often fell short of the mark.
But what role do such codes and philosophies play in our lives as modern martial artists? We could attempt to play Don Quixote, adopting the old codes with an uncritical enthusiasm and applying them to the modern world whether they fit or not- just like the strangely childlike hit man in Ghost Dog, who bases his entire life around a book he has read only in translation. This is nothing more than fantasy and wishful thinking in the end. The role of the old codes is to give us something to think about, a picture of what an ideal warrior of the past might have been like- a Platonic Form to which we can compare our own decisions. The point is not to stiffly follow an arbitrary set of ancient rules, but to attempt to be the best person and the best martial artist we can be, inspired by the example of an old tradition. What it means to be a man or woman of honor must change with the times, but the desire to be worthy of such a description remains.
However, there is an ancient philosophy that is both martial in nature and eminently practical in the modern world, playing a similar role in the history of Western martial culture as Buddhism has played in the East. This is the philosophy of Stoicism.
Stoic Philosophy and the Martial Way in the West
Warrior cultures are almost always stoic by nature. One visitor to the Scottish Highlands during the era of the clan warrior wrote:
I generally observed the men to be large-bodied, stout, subtle, active, patient of cold and hunger. There appeared in all their actions a certain generous air of freedom and contempt for those trifles, luxury and ambition, which we so servilely creep after. They bound their appetites by their necessities, and their happiness consists not in having much but in coveting little.
One can see elements of the Noble Savage fallacy at work here, but the stoicism of the Gaelic warrior’s upbringing is confirmed by other contemporary accounts. A "generous air of freedom and contempt for trifles" sounds like a fine description of the benefits of the Stoic philosophy. Ancient Stoic texts such as the Enchiridion were probably available to educated Gaels. An English translation of this work was made in the 1690s by one Ellis Walker, and it contains a dedication by an Irish Jacobite minister who was later arrested as a rebel.
Respecting man, things are divided thus:
Some do not, and some do belong to us.
Some within compass of our pow'r do fall,
And these are they, which we our own may call.
Such an allegiance all our deeds declare,
Such our endeavours, thoughts, aversions are,
Such our desires; but honour, greatness, wealth,
Our bodies, life, and life's chief comfort, health,
With all things else, with every other kind,
(That own not a dependence on the mind)
Which mortals, with concern, desire or fear,
Are such as are not in our pow'r or sphere.
In Elizabeth Carter’s more literal 18th century translation, the same passage reads:
Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
Epictetus goes on to say:
The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed.
This is the essence of the Stoic philosophy in a single paragraph: the only things which are under our control are our own actions. Therefore if we wish to never be hindered or prevented from getting what we want, we will want only those things which are truly ours in the first place. Stoicism put no value at all on comfort or luxury. A Stoic was at most allowed to accept such comforts as were freely given to him, but never to yearn for that which he did not possess:
Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don't stop it. Is it not yet come? Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Do this with regard to children, to a wife, to public posts, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy partner of the feasts of the gods.
Stoicism taught "a generous air of freedom and contempt" toward all the misfortunes of life:
If you want to improve, reject such reasonings as these: "If I neglect my affairs, I'll have no income; if I don't correct my servant, he will be bad." For it is better to die with hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation; and it is better your servant should be bad, than you unhappy.
This line of thinking was applied especially to the fear of death:
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible.
The Enchiridion was based loosely on the military manuals of its time period, as if the philosopher’s way of life was like that of a soldier in training. Another great work of Stoic philosophy, the Meditations, was written by the warrior emperor Marcus Aurelius, who spent much of his reign on campaign along the frontiers of the Empire. This is the same emperor who was portrayed as a wise and benevolent ruler at the beginning of the movie Gladiator.
Marcus Aurelius studied philosophy in order to prepare his spirit for the constant uncertainties of his life, reminding himself to value nothing but honorable behavior, considering even the fear of death to be irrelevant:
Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains: for he who has preferred to everything intelligence... and the worship of its excellence, acts no tragic part, does not groan, will not need either solitude or much company; and, what is chief of all, he will live without either pursuing or flying from death; but whether for a longer or a shorter time he shall have the soul inclosed in the body, he cares not at all: for even if he must depart immediately, he will go as readily as if he were going to do anything else which can be done with decency and order...
Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if thou art doing thy duty; and whether thou art drowsy or satisfied with sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing something else. For it is one of the acts of life, this act by which we die: it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in hand.
Such a philosophy was intended to produce an unbreakable spirit, a spirit that a Japanese martial artist would recognize and refer to as heijoshin:
Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Like many Romans, Marcus Aurelius was a martial artist himself, and he uses metaphors drawn from his training, urging us to view those who would harm us as sparring partners:
In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn thee with his nails, and by dashing against thy head has inflicted a wound. Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards as a treacherous fellow; and yet we are on our guard against him, not however as an enemy, nor yet with suspicion, but we quietly get out of his way. Something like this let thy behaviour be in all the other parts of life; let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way, and to have no suspicion nor hatred.
In a similar way, those who would help us are to be viewed as comrades on the battlefield:
Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame thou canst not mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another it is possible?
It is difficult to know for certain to what extent philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius were actually read by the swordsmen of the past. However, the Highland broadsword master Archibald MacGregor finished his Lecture on the Art of Defence of 1791 on a note that seems both biblical and Stoic:
When a man is killed by a sword, some pique themselves so much on their reasoning, that they will tell you the very parade he should have used, without ever considering that his time was come: for there is a certain mean, time, and place destined for every man. Let this then humble swordsmen, who should only use their art as a mean in a just cause, committing the issue to Him who is omnipotent, and who has the prerogative to dispose of his creatures as he pleases. Let them learn this lesson, that the strong man should not glory in his strength, nor the wise man in his wisdom. The royal philosopher has informed us, That the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. A man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?
Stoicism is not the final word on the questions we face in life, but the words of the Stoic philosophers can be a valuable tool for difficult times, and can help us cut through the fog of ethical relativism to make choices that are clear, courageous and honorable. In combination with a disciplined program of martial training, they can help produce a spirit that cannot be moved from what is right.