There’s a new program in Britain for unruly youths called “knight school,” where hoodlums learn lessons on life inspired by medieval knights. In response to this apparently successful program, a BBC reporter “canvassed opinion among medieval experts” to divine what lessons we today could learn from the medieval knight. He manage to scrape together a list of 10 lessons, half of which are best summarized as “don’t do what knights did.” Once again, I’ve done the work of reading the article for you, so that you don’t have to.
- Generosity was important to knights, so this means kids today should share.
- Mercy is chivalric, which means so go easy on people you beat up.
- Loyalty to the king means respect your elders.
- Exercise power responsibly means don’t get into fights.
- Protect the weak means stand up to bullies.
- Seek justice means fight for what’s right.
- Be humble means give credit to your pals.
- Crusading teaches us to tolerate religions.
- Carrying a sword means don’t carry knives.
- Courtly love means girls will likely find you unimpressive.
It really is that trippy in the original. Kids! Be like knights! Don’t get into fights. But in the fights you do get into, be merciful! Also, beat up bullies! But tell people your friends did it!