Some considerations on the legality and the need to the militia in Don Quixote

Abstract

Don Quijote would seem to be torn between the chivalry and the military, especially in the Second Part, following the episode of the descent into the cave of Montesinos (II, 23) and the meeting with the soldier (II, 24). The four reasons for taking up arms (II, 27) appear to be an extended reflection of part of Machiavelli’s doctrine spread by (among others) Diego de Salazar, who established discipline as the fundamental condition for soldiers, «the energy» of the war of organicism that Erasmus also defended, and the basis for the «civil nobility» of Urrea and other writers who may have read Cervantes. Spiritual, temporal and military governments respond to an ordo that facilitates the compatibility of the chivalrous individualism of a poor nobleman such as don Quijote with the military, with whose representatives the protagonist sympathises.