The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991)

Pippin’s pride is aroused by the questions that Denethor asks him about the death of his son.

“And how did you escape, and yet he did not, so mighty a man as he was, and only orcs to withstand him?”

“Pippin flushed and forgot his fear.”

He answers boldly and yet courteously, speaking of his memory of Boromir’s courage against impossible odds, until pierced by many orc arrows, he fell; and how he, Pippin, and Merry were taken prisoner.

“But I honour his memory, for he was very valiant. He died to save us, my kinsman Meriadoc and myself, waylaid in the woods by the soldiery of the Dark Lord; and though he fell and failed, my gratitude is none the less.”

And then Pippin offers himself in service to Denethor, presenting the sword of Arnor that he took from the burial mound in the Barrow Downs near the Shire and Denethor accepts his offer.

“I accept your service. For you are not daunted by words; and you have courteous speech, strange though the sound of it may be to us in the South. And we shall have need of all folk of courtesy, be they great or small, in the days to come. Swear to me now.”

And so Pippin swears fealty and service to Gondor and to its Steward. It is a moving moment, a “gleam of cold sun on a winter’s evening”, as Tolkien puts it.

Pippin now belongs to another and no longer simply to himself. He has come to this point upon his journey carried first by the bonds of his friendship to Frodo and then to the other members of the Fellowship; but now he has taken another step, an irrevocable one, and he is no longer free to go where he wills. We are very much in the world of feudal relationships in a pre-modern, medieval, world in which identity was determined by the lord that you were in service to. And you cannot leave that service just because you tire of it or feel inclined to offer your services elsewhere. Denethor receives Pippin’s offer of service with these words:

“I will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given: fealty with love, value with honour, oath-breaking with vengeance.”

I wonder how many of my readers work in situations where the organisations for whom they work promise to reward their service with love and honour? We live in a world of contractual relationships and not a world of covenant. Contracts are impersonal affairs. Covenants are deeply personal, founded upon the relationships that one person has with another. This is why Denethor promises more than remuneration to Pippin. In fact there is no remuneration mentioned here at all, no compensation for the service that Pippin will offer. What Denethor offers is to love and to honour Pippin. It feels more like the promises made at a marriage.

But what about the threat of vengeance? Thankfully I can think of no wedding ceremony in which the threat of vengeance is even implied if faith is broken. Later in the story we will meet Beregond of the Guard, a wonderful embodiment of the promises that Pippin makes to Denethor. In his story Tolkien gives us both the very best of the medieval world view and through the terrible dilemma that Beregond faces calls that world view into question. Beregond will both break his oath to Denethor for which he will come under judgement and he will also be rewarded and honoured for his faithfulness to a principle that goes deeper than that of personal loyalty. And for this to happen will require the judgement of a lord to whom the deeper principle matters as much if not more than the principle of personal loyalty.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.” These words from the gospels exemplify the relationship between master and servant that Pippin enters into at his first meeting with Denethor. Indeed throughout the Middle Ages they provided a theological underpinning of that understanding. But it is worth remembering that they are the words of a master who wields absolute power and who takes terrible vengeance upon any who fail to match the standards of fealty that he requires. It may help short term profitability if those in a servant relationship are afraid of their master and the power that he yields but that same master might want to think about what a servant might do if he were to love and honour that servant without threat of vengeance. He might want to learn from Aragorn or from Faramir.