The Twelve Articles of Chivalry
The Rule of the Order, composed by Edmund Thorne Ashby and adopted by the Charter, 1987.
The Twelve Articles
Being the Rule of the Order of the GrailThese are the Articles by which a member of the Order of the Grail binds himself or herself, freely and in the presence of the Commandery, at reception as a Page, and which he or she renews yearly in Convocation. They are few and they are plain. They are not hard to understand. They are hard to keep, and that is the point of them.
- Seek the Light. I will seek the Light within me and above me, daily and without ceasing, by study, by practice and by prayer, and I will not mistake any lesser light for it.
- Serve the stranger. I will serve those who have no claim upon me, as readily as those who have, and I will not ask what they can do for me in return.
- Guard what is entrusted. I will keep faithfully whatever is placed in my keeping, whether a confidence, a duty, a person or a flame, and I will not abandon it for my own convenience.
- Speak the truth. I will not lie, nor deceive by silence, nor flatter, nor speak ill of the absent; and where the truth would wound without healing, I will hold my peace.
- Keep the given word. I will do what I have said I will do, and I will not give my word lightly, knowing that I must keep it.
- Protect the weak. I will place whatever strength I have, of body, of mind, of means or of station, at the service of those who have less, and I will not use it against them.
- Show courtesy to all. I will treat every person I meet, of whatever condition, as one in whom the Divine spark dwells, and I will be known by my courtesy before I am known by anything else.
- Bear injury without revenge. I will not return evil for evil, nor nurse a grievance, nor seek to be avenged; and I will forgive as I hope to be forgiven.
- Give freely. I will give of what I have to those who need it, without display and without expectation, remembering that nothing I have is finally mine.
- Hold no one in contempt. I will not despise any person for their ignorance, their poverty, their error or their difference from me, knowing that I have been all of these.
- Keep the body, the speech and the mind in discipline. I will govern my appetites, my tongue and my thoughts, not from hatred of them but so that they may serve and not rule.
- Remember death. I will remember daily that I shall die, and I will so order my life that I may meet death as a friend and not as a thief.
These things I promise, not because I am able to keep them, but because I am willing to try, and because I shall not try alone.
On the Keeping of the Articles
The Order does not expect its members to keep the Articles perfectly. It expects them to keep the Articles in view, to examine themselves against them daily, to confess their failures to themselves honestly and, where another has been wronged, to make amends. The Articles are a measure, not a wall. The member who has failed and knows it is nearer the Cup than the member who imagines that he or she has not failed at all.
Ashby wrote of the Articles that he had tried to make them such that a child could understand them and a saint could not exhaust them. He was fond of pointing out that not one of them mentions a secret, a symbol or a ceremony, and that a person who had never heard of the Order might keep every one of them. "If they do," he said, "they are of the Order, whether they know it or not; and if we do not, we are not, whatever our degree."