Pentecostal Oath



The Pentecostal Oath was an oath which the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table swore, according to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. It embodied the code of chivalry. In William Caxton's printed edition, this appears at the end of book three, chapter fifteen.

According to Malory's text (translated from the Winchester Manuscript):

"the king established all his knights, and bestowed on them riches and lands. He charged them never to commit outrage or murder, always to flee treason, and to give mercy to those who asked for mercy, upon pain of the forfeiture of their honor and status as a knight of King Arthur's forever more. He charged them always to help ladies, damsels, gentlewomen, and widows, and never to commit rape, upon pain of death. Also, he commanded that no man should take up a battle in a wrongful quarrel—not for love, nor for any worldly goods. So all the knights of the Round Table, both young and old, swore to uphold this oath, and every year at the high feast of Pentecost they renewed their oath."