Post by Flamberge on Aug 29, 2005 20:32:04 GMT -6
Many of you should have become acquainted with Maestro Alberto Bernacchi and his lucid and thorough explanations of the fine points of fencing rules and tactics presented on Fencing.net. Our maestro is a young man of culture and sensitivity. This article in Schermaonline.com may interest those who appreciate the finer and more profound principles behind the tradition and historical evolution of the art of fencing.
www.schermaonline.com/scherma/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=327&mode=thread&order=1&thold=0
Honor and virtue are concepts which in the practice of the duel are traditionally connected to the point that for many they constitute the basis and the definition of the duel.
Honor becomes the defense of the personal reputation, of the social status, of the esteem the individual enjoys in public or, quite simply, of one's own hurt pride. According to the Italian dictionary, it is "the good reputation, the prestige which a person enjoys based on his own merits and abilities or in relation to the prevalent ethical and social values." Therefore, the word honor which is so tightly bound to what is dominant from the point of view of a social costume, can present multiple different facets and leads itself to be subject to the most changing interpretations.
The boundaries that separate honor and virtue -- at least from the semantic point of view -- appear wavering and very thin, and in different historical periods have defined the meaning of honor and virtue in different ways.
In the feudal medieval times the word honor indicated a "reward received for a virtuous deed" and later on by translation it became the principle that leads to virtue, if not even virtue itself.
Virtue more appropriately is understood as adherence to an ethical system of values, characterized by what is just, true, and what makes a soul a noble one. For the Romans, the word "virtus" indicated strength and courage in war, in other words the conquering of the total control of the fear of dying and therefore, in a wider sense, this term became to indicate the capacity to dominate any fear and any passion, an exercise in self control and temperance.
The culture of the duel as it was widespread in the medieval society appropriated both terms (honor and virtue) crossing at the same time the thin line that was separating and connecting them.
The prevailing aristocratic ethic saw in the manifestation of virtue in war, the ideal of honor, and the mean to conquer moral virtue -- a distinguishing characteristic of men who were clearly heroic and devoted to the ideals of a pure soul -- as opposed to the violence of the arms with the sole scope to oppress.
The champion, the gallant and courageous knight at the service of the weak and oppressed, ready to die for safeguarding his principles or confident that his own sins would be forgiven, is the symbol of a period in which what could separate virtue from non-virtue was the chance to put his own honor in play for a cause that could be considered worthy.
At the start of the modern era, with the establishment of an economy based on commerce, a change took place from a system of values connected to a mostly rural society to one which became pre-industrial. Wealth, measured on a monetary scale, substituted little by little the nobility of one's ancestry in the social values. This process contributed to confuse even more the boundaries between honor and virtue.
The commercial society allowed ambition, social climbing, an invasive exploitation -- even if optimized -- of the resources of the individual. Honor is still the sign of social appreciation, but with the progressive collapse of an aristocratic society which bestowed nobility titles according to bloodline, this appreciation now coincided with accumulation, appearances, showing off.
Honor became the only way to regulate the social order and to contrast intrinsic tensions to renewed and much feared social mobility related to economic means rather than one's noble bloodline. Since it became possible to purchase with money a title, the respect and a position of prestige in public -- hence making ever more difficult the possibility to recognize the gentleman of virtue from a commoner on the basis of old traditional values -- the culture of the duel became the preferred instrument to show honor, and the mean to social climbing through the calculated showing off of external appearances, misunderstood for virtue.
While in the medieval society the showing of honor was a mean to express one's internal virtue, in the post-medieval mercantile society honor became the equivalent of refined behavior: this is the concept of the gentleman, a man of refined manners. This is also the period which saw the maximum expansion of the duel practice, witness the numerous and futile attempts to regulate or legally interdict all duels. The duel is the contradictory mean to safeguard the honor of courage and pride, playing in the name of an ideally pure and immaculate virtue from the moral and civic point of view, but in reality false and ostentatious.
Honor and virtue, remain concepts intimately connected and yet so far apart. The first is exhibited and shown off as part of a social costume imposed by the mores of the times. The latter is an intimate tendency of each one to escape the burden of the time, searching for an honor which should not be reputation but true possession.
www.schermaonline.com/scherma/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=327&mode=thread&order=1&thold=0
Honor and Virtue -- a Thin Line
(Maestro Alberto Bernacchi)
(Maestro Alberto Bernacchi)
Honor and virtue are concepts which in the practice of the duel are traditionally connected to the point that for many they constitute the basis and the definition of the duel.
Honor becomes the defense of the personal reputation, of the social status, of the esteem the individual enjoys in public or, quite simply, of one's own hurt pride. According to the Italian dictionary, it is "the good reputation, the prestige which a person enjoys based on his own merits and abilities or in relation to the prevalent ethical and social values." Therefore, the word honor which is so tightly bound to what is dominant from the point of view of a social costume, can present multiple different facets and leads itself to be subject to the most changing interpretations.
The boundaries that separate honor and virtue -- at least from the semantic point of view -- appear wavering and very thin, and in different historical periods have defined the meaning of honor and virtue in different ways.
In the feudal medieval times the word honor indicated a "reward received for a virtuous deed" and later on by translation it became the principle that leads to virtue, if not even virtue itself.
Virtue more appropriately is understood as adherence to an ethical system of values, characterized by what is just, true, and what makes a soul a noble one. For the Romans, the word "virtus" indicated strength and courage in war, in other words the conquering of the total control of the fear of dying and therefore, in a wider sense, this term became to indicate the capacity to dominate any fear and any passion, an exercise in self control and temperance.
The culture of the duel as it was widespread in the medieval society appropriated both terms (honor and virtue) crossing at the same time the thin line that was separating and connecting them.
The prevailing aristocratic ethic saw in the manifestation of virtue in war, the ideal of honor, and the mean to conquer moral virtue -- a distinguishing characteristic of men who were clearly heroic and devoted to the ideals of a pure soul -- as opposed to the violence of the arms with the sole scope to oppress.
The champion, the gallant and courageous knight at the service of the weak and oppressed, ready to die for safeguarding his principles or confident that his own sins would be forgiven, is the symbol of a period in which what could separate virtue from non-virtue was the chance to put his own honor in play for a cause that could be considered worthy.
At the start of the modern era, with the establishment of an economy based on commerce, a change took place from a system of values connected to a mostly rural society to one which became pre-industrial. Wealth, measured on a monetary scale, substituted little by little the nobility of one's ancestry in the social values. This process contributed to confuse even more the boundaries between honor and virtue.
The commercial society allowed ambition, social climbing, an invasive exploitation -- even if optimized -- of the resources of the individual. Honor is still the sign of social appreciation, but with the progressive collapse of an aristocratic society which bestowed nobility titles according to bloodline, this appreciation now coincided with accumulation, appearances, showing off.
Honor became the only way to regulate the social order and to contrast intrinsic tensions to renewed and much feared social mobility related to economic means rather than one's noble bloodline. Since it became possible to purchase with money a title, the respect and a position of prestige in public -- hence making ever more difficult the possibility to recognize the gentleman of virtue from a commoner on the basis of old traditional values -- the culture of the duel became the preferred instrument to show honor, and the mean to social climbing through the calculated showing off of external appearances, misunderstood for virtue.
While in the medieval society the showing of honor was a mean to express one's internal virtue, in the post-medieval mercantile society honor became the equivalent of refined behavior: this is the concept of the gentleman, a man of refined manners. This is also the period which saw the maximum expansion of the duel practice, witness the numerous and futile attempts to regulate or legally interdict all duels. The duel is the contradictory mean to safeguard the honor of courage and pride, playing in the name of an ideally pure and immaculate virtue from the moral and civic point of view, but in reality false and ostentatious.
Honor and virtue, remain concepts intimately connected and yet so far apart. The first is exhibited and shown off as part of a social costume imposed by the mores of the times. The latter is an intimate tendency of each one to escape the burden of the time, searching for an honor which should not be reputation but true possession.