The code of chivalry must be adopted and applied, if one is not a Christian big deal, modify it. If one is a lady and feels that it does not apply to her, then realize that the gender roles have changed and apply it anyway. The most standardized/popular version is Charlemagne's Code of Chivalry from The Song of Roland (1098-1100 A.D.) Link to source
1) To fear God and maintain His Church
a. This could be modified for one’s different faith or deist/agnostic perspective
2) To serve the liege lord in valor and faith
a. This scholar personally equates this to patriotism
3) To protect the weak and defenseless
4) To give succor to widows and orphans
5) To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
6) To live by honor and for glory
7) To despise pecuniary reward
a. (A wonderfulexplanation here)
8) To fight for the welfare of all
9) To obey those placed in authority
a. With exceptions of tyranny
10) To guard the honor of fellow knights
a. One’s kith and kindred
11) To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
12) To keep faith
13) At all times to speak the truth
14) To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
15) To respect the honor of women
16) Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
17) Never to turn the back upon a foe
The 14th Century Duke of Burgundy added chivalric virtues to the code:
1) Faith
2) Charity 3) Justice
4) Sagacity
5) Prudence
6) Temperance
7) Resolution
8) Truth
9) Liberality
10) Diligence
11) Hope
12) Valor
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Tenets of Bushidō
Nitobe was not the first person to document Japanese chivalry in this way. In his text Feudal and Modern Japan (1896), historian Arthur May Knapp wrote:
“The samurai of thirty years ago had behind him a thousand years of training in the law of honor, obedience, duty, and self-sacrifice.... It was not needed to create or establish them. As a child he had but to be instructed, as indeed he was from his earliest years, in the etiquette of self-immolation. The fine instinct of honor demanding it was in the very blood....”
martial arts, and honor to the death. Under the bushidō ideal, if a samurai failed to uphold his honor he could only regain it by performing seppuku (ritual suicide).
Bushidō expanded and formalized the earlier code of the samurai, and stressed frugality, loyalty, mastery of
In an excerpt from his book Samurai: The World of the Warrior,[25] historian Stephen Turnbull describes the role of seppuku in feudal Japan:
In the world of the warrior, seppuku was a deed of bravery that was admirable in a samurai who knew he was defeated, disgraced, or mortally wounded. It meant that he could end his days with his transgressions wiped away and with his reputation not merely intact but actually enhanced. The cutting of the abdomen released the samurai’s spirit in the most dramatic fashion, but it was an extremely painful and unpleasant way to die, and sometimes the samurai who was performing the act asked a loyal comrade to cut off his head at the moment of agony.
Bushidō was widely practiced, varying little over time, and across the geographic and socio-economic backgrounds of the samurai, who at one time represented up to 10% of the Japanese population. The first Meiji era census at the end of the 19th century counted 1,282,000 members of the "high samurai", allowed to ride a horse, and 492,000 members of the "low samurai", allowed to wear two swords but not to ride a horse, in a country of about 25 million.
Bushidō includes compassion for those of lower station, and for the preservation of one's name. Early bushidō literature further enforces the requirement to conduct oneself with calmness, fairness, justice, and propriety. The relationship between learning and the way of the warrior is clearly articulated, one being a natural partner to the other.
Other parts of the bushidō philosophy cover methods of raising children, appearance, and grooming, but all of this may be seen as part of one's constant preparation for death — to die a good death with one's honor intact, the ultimate aim in a life lived according to bushidō. Indeed, a "good death" is its own reward, and by no means assurance of "future rewards" in the afterlife. Notable samurai, though certainly not all (e.g. Amakusa Shiro), have throughout history held such aims or beliefs in disdain, or expressed the awareness that their station — as it involves killing — precludes such reward, especially in Buddhism. On the contrary, the soul of a noble warrior suffering in hell or as a lingering spirit is a common motif in Japanese art and literature. Bushidō, while exhibiting the influence of Dao through Zen Buddhism, is a philosophy in contradistinction to religious belief, with a deep commitment to propriety in this world for propriety's sake.
Seven virtues of Bushidō
Associated virtues
"Native American cultures have held a warrior code of honor so similar to bushido that they many have simply adopted it while amalgamating it with their cultural interpretations.
Here is an excerpt from Redhawk of the Kainaiwa Clan of the Blackfoot People.
Today we have a tough time finding this code in the face of so many contradictions in society. However the Way of the Warrior is as valid today as it was 10,000 years ago when we evolved into reasoning beings.
What I have done is to set these out in 7 different Codes that can be easily printed and posted to your hallway mirror as the last thing you look at before you exit your home into this alien world where evil waits to distract.
In truth these codes are the same as those taught by the BUSHIDO masters in the Far East and are as valid here in the West as they are anywhere! These are the codes lived by every Native American who has been raised in the traditions of our Elders since time began on this continent. It is indeed strange how these rules of Creator can be felt even in the remotest depths of every land where Honor lives."
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