Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Swords, weapons, armor, and all the accotrements that go with this genre of interest are fun to learn about, collect and read about. But, it is important to always realize that these things were, at one time, very serious business.

Today is memorial day and it is important that we think about and thank all the modern day knights of our world of today. The weapons may have changed but the code has remained practically the same for the last several hundred years.

This formulation we have of freedom and the fact that we need to sometimes take up arms to defend it is an important one. I believe it is one of the single most important developments in our history.

We say, as a people “We are free, and we don’t want to fight. But if we have to we will because we cherish our freedom.”

Pretty much as simple as that. And this has come down to us from many many knights, and men-at-arms, over the course of centuries, who believed the same things. We owe a debt of gratitude to them. So the next time you pick up a sword or a mace, axe, shield, helmet, pick, hammer, or halberd take a moment to reflect on what that item really means - it has power.

Here is an interesting little tidbit that ties the knights of the past with the knights of the present.

I am a veteran and in the service we would often talk tactics, drilling, psychology and well all kinds of military things. And in these conversations or meetings the name Baron Carl von Clausewitz would often come up. He was born in 1780 and was a Prussian soldier, scholar and writer. He lived in a tumultuous time and no doubt saw many changes in the military world as we transitioned from the ways of castles and kings to the ways of generals and armies.

Anyway, the story about The Baron was that early on in America’s history we had no military. And the founders of the country looked to him to help us establish a legitimate military force which he did. And many of what he established still remains with our military today.

You see? There is a thread that comes to us from the times of the middle ages and the renaissance. Those knights had an effect on what we do, how we live and what we think.

Here is a quote from his very famous book called “On War” which I have owned for many years.

On the difficulty of separating perception from judgment

“All Thinking is indeed Art. Where the logician draws the line, where the premises stop which are the result of cognition - where judgment begins. There art begins.”

Popularity: 8% [?]