Novae Militiae

I've just glanced at this blog, but it appears to be fascinating.

Anyone who mentions Bernard of Clairvaux, the Knights Templar, Alexander Nevski, and JRR Tolkien in his first 2 paragraphs is definitely worth a closer look!

No, this is not a website about the Knights Templar, societies for creative anachronism or paramilitary groups in Montana. As entertaining as it might be to discuss any of these groups, this site will have a much different focus. Its name is taken from Bernard of Clairvaux's De Laude Novae Militiae (In Praise of the New Knighthood), which the Cistercian saint wrote to praise and encourage the Knights Templar, a fledgling crusading order of warrior-monks whose Christian virtue distinguished them from so many other knights whose behavior was marked by impiety, lowness and an ostentation that bordered on the effeminate.

The New Knight is the Christian soldier par excellence, one who loves Christ and his fellow man so much that he fears neither hardship nor death in their service. I see in Bernard's New Knight a chivalric model for men today, suggesting a way of life that they should espouse if they are to save both their souls and their civilization....The life of St. Alexander Nevski, the source of my nom de cyber, shows us that the chivalric ideal could be witnessed in Eastern Christendom as well, albeit imperfectly realized as it was in the West....Two articles from the journal Touchstone reveal to the reader the chivalric mind of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose books on Middle Earth and the Peter Jackson films based on them inspire us with the high and heroic chivalrous ideals our culture has jettisoned for a mess of pottage.

De Laude Novae Militiae. Nice ring to it. Sounds like a good antidote to the recent flurry of jihadist literature.

This writer knows there's a War on, not just physically, but spiritually, for the Soul of the culture.

The extensive section of links appears interesting to explore.