Bunuel
In 1430, Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy founded the Order of the Golden Fleece, demanding from the 24 knights nominated to join it uncompromising fealty, devotion to the glory of God, and to defend the Christian faith, if need be, by going on a crusade to the East.
A. it uncompromising fealty, devotion to the glory of God, and to defend the Christian faith, if need be, by going on a crusade to the East
B. him uncompromising fealty, devotion to the glory of God, and defense of Christianity, if need be, by going on a crusade to the East
C. it to be uncompromisingly loyal, to devote themselves to the glory of God, and to defense the Christian faith, if need be, on an Eastern crusade
D. it uncompromising fealty, devotion to the glory of God, and a commitment to defend the Christian faith, if need be, by going on a crusade to the East
E. him uncompromising fealty, devoting themselves to the glory of God, and defending the Christian faith by going on a crusade to the East, if necessary
Understand the sentence structure by avoiding unnecessary/ extra information in the sentence.
Duke .... founded the Order ...., demanding from the 24 knights nominated to join it uncompromising fealty, devotion to ....., and to defend the Christian faith.......Now the first split is 'it' vs 'him'. Though the 'it' here refers to the Order and hence you can remove B & E, but still if you have doubt let's keep it for a while.
Now after looking at the options choices, you can easily spot parallelism being asked here. But we have to understand what all should be parallel to each other. For that we can probably further trim down the sentence -
Duke .... founded the Order ...., demanding ....... .. uncompromising fealty, devotion to ....., and to defend the Christian faith.......Now you see that A is wrong as 'uncompromising fealty', 'devotion to ...', and 'to defend the...' are not parallel to each other. For the same reason, we can remove C & E. C cleverly uses the base form of verbs but has 'to defense' which is wrong. E is a trap as it parallels, 'devoting' and 'defending' with 'demanding' which is not the case according to the sentence structure.
Now when we look at B vs D, 'defense of Christianity' stands out as incorrect. 'Demanding defense of Christianity' doesn't make sense.
D removes all such issues, presents parallel structure and is the correct answer.
Ans
D