Laudator Temporis Acti

J. Huizinga (1872-1945), The Waning of the Middle Ages, tr. F. Hopman (1924; rpt. London: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 73-74:

In the Jouvencel we find a remarkable portrayal, hardly to be sur­passed, of the psychology of warlike courage of a simple and touching kind. 'It is a joyous thing, is war. . . . You love your comrade so in war. When you see that your quarrel is just and your blood is fighting well, tears rise to your eye. A great sweet feeling of loyalty and of pity fills your heart on seeing your friend so valiantly exposing his body to execute and accomplish the command of our Creator. And then you prepare to go and die or live with him, and for love not to abandon him. And out of that there arises such a delectation, that he who has not tasted it is not fit to say what a delight it is. Do you think that a man who does that fears death? Not at all; for he feels so strengthened, he is so elated, that he does not know where he is. Truly he is afraid of nothing.'

These sentiments have nothing specifically chivalrous or medieval. The words might have been spoken by a modern soldier. They show us the very core of courage: man, in the excitement of danger, stepping out of his narrow egotism, the ineffable feeling caused by a comrade's bravery, the rapture of fidelity and of sacrifice — in short, the primitive and spontaneous asceticism, which is at the bottom of the chivalrous ideal.