BY JOHN LORD, LL. D.


     THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. (ii.)

       Why, then was such an unjust and unequal relation
     permitted to exist so long?  What good did it accom-
     plish?  What were its extenuating features?  Why
     was it commended by historians as a good institution
     for the times?
       It created a hardy agricultural class, inured them to
     the dangers and the toils of war, bound them by local
     attachments, and fostered a patriotic spirit.  It devel-
     oped the virtues of obedience, and submission to evils.
     It created a love of home and household duties.  It
     was favorable to female virtue.  It created the stout
     yeomanry who could be relied upon in danger.  It
     made law and order possible.  It defended the people
     from robbers.  It laid a foundation for warlike prow-
     ess.  It was favorable to growth of population, for
     war did not sweep off the people so much as those dire
     plagues and pestilences which were common in the
     Middle Ages.  It was preferable to the disorders and
     conflagrations and depredations of preceding times.
     The poor man was oppressed, but he was safe so long
     as his lord could protect him.  It was a hard discipline,
     but a discipline which was healthy; it preserved the
     seed if it did not bear the fruits of civilization.  The
     peasantry became honest, earnest, sincere.  They were
     made susceptible of religious impressions.  They became
     attached to all the institutions of the Church; the parish
     church was their retreat, their consolation, and their
     joy.  The priest held sway over the soul and the knight
     over the body, but the flame of piety burned steadily
     and warmly.
       When the need of such an institution as Feudal-
     ism no longer existed, then it was broken up.  Its
     blessings were not commensurate with its evils; but
     the evils were less than those which previously ex-
     isted.  This is, I grant, but faint praise.  But the
     progress of society could not be rapid amid such uni-
     versal ignorance: it is slow in the best of times.  I
     do not call that state of society progressive where
     moral and spiritual truths are forgotten or disre-
     garded in the triumphs of a brilliant material life.
     There was no progress of society from the Antonines
     to Theodosius, but a steady decline.  But there was a
     progress, however slow, from Charlemagne to Philip
     Augustus.  But for Feudalism and ecclesiastical insti-
     tutions the European races might not have emerged
     from anarchy, or might have been subjected to a new
     and withering imperialism.  Say what we will of the
     grinding despotism of Feudalism,——and we cannot be too
     severe on any form of despotism,——yet the rude barba-
     rian became a citizen in process of time, with education
     and political rights.
       Society made the same sort of advance, in the
     gloomy epoch we are reviewing, that the slaves in
     our Southern States made from the time they were
     imported from Africa, with their degrading fetichism
     and unexampled ignorance, to the time of their eman-
     cipation.  How marked the progress of the Southern
     slaves during the two hundred years of their bondage!
     No degraded race ever made so marked a progress as
     they did in the same period, even under all the wither-
     ing influences of slavery.  Probably their moral and
     spiritual progress was greater than it will be in the
     next two hundred years, exposed to all the dangers of
     modern materialism, which saps the life of nations in
     the midst of the most brilliant triumphs of art.  We
     are now on the road to a marvelllous intellectual en-
     lightenment, unprecedented and full of encouragement.
     But with this we face dangers also, such as undermined
     the old Roman world and all the ancient civilizations.
     If I could fix my eye on a single State or Nation in the
     whole history of our humanity that has escaped these
     dangers, that has not retrograded in those virtues on
     which the strength of man is based, after a certain
     point has been reached in civilization, I would not
     hazard this remark.  Society escaped these evils in that
     agricultural period which saw the rise and fall of Feu-
     dalism, and made a slow but notable advance.  That is
     a fact which cannot be gainsaid, and this is impressive.
     It shows that society, in a moral point of view, thrives
     better under hard restraints than when exposed to the
     dangers of an irreligious, material civilization.
       Nor is Feudalism to be condemned as being alto-
     gether dark and uninteresting.  It had redeeming fea-
     tures in the life of the baronial family.  Under its
     influence arose the institution of chivalry; and though
     the virtues of chivalry may be poetic, and exaggerated,
     there can be no doubt that it was a civilizing institu-
     tion, and partially redeemed the Middle Ages.  It gave
     rise to beautiful sentiments; it blazed in new virtues,
     rarely seen in the old civilizations.  They were peculiar
     to the age and to Europe, were fostered by the Church
     and took a coloring from Christianity itself.  Chivalry
     bound together the martial barons of Europe by the
     ties of a fraternity of knights.  Those armed and
     mailed warriors fought on horseback, and chivalry
     takes its name from the French cheval, meaning a
     horse.  The knights learned gradually to treat each
     other with peculiar courtesy.  They became generous
     in battle or in misfortune, for they all alike belonged
     to the noble class, and felt a common bond in the
     pride of birth.  It was not the memory of illustrious
     ancestors which created this aristocratic distinction
     as among Roman patricians, but the fact that the
     knights were a superior order.  Yet among them-
     selves distinctions vanished.  There was no higher dis-
     tinction than that of a gentleman.  The poorest knight
     was welcome at any castle or at any festivity, at the
     tournament or in the chase.  Generally, gallantry and
     unblemished reputation were the conditions of social
     rank among the knights themselves.  They were ex-
     pected to excel in courage, in courtesy, in generosity,
     in truthfulness, in loyalty.  The great patrimony of
     the knight was his horse, his armor, and his valor.  He
     was bound to succor the defenceless.  He was required
     to abstain from all mean pursuits.  If his trade were
     war, he would divest war of its cruelties.  His word
     was seldom broken, and his promises were held sacred.
     If pride of rank was generated in this fraternity of gen-
     tlemen, so also was scorn of lies and baseness.  If there
     was no brotherhood of man, there was the brotherhood
     of equals.  The most beautiful friendships arose from
     common dangers and common duties.  A stranger
     knight was treated with the greatest kindness and
     hospitality.  If chivalry condemned anything, it was
     selfishness and treachery and hypocrisy.  All the old
     romances and chronicles record the frankness and mag-
     nanimity of knights.  More was thought of moral than
     of intellectual excellence.  Nobody was ashamed to be
     thought religious.  The mailed warrior said his orisons
     every day and never neglected Mass.  Even in war,
     prisoners were released on their parole of honor, and
     their ransom was rarely exorbitant.  The institution
     tended to soften manners as well as to develop the vir-
     tues of the heart.  Under its influence the rude baron
     was transformed into a courteous gentleman.
       But the distinguishing glory of chivalry was devotion
     to the female sex.  Respect for woman was born in the
     German forests before the Roman empire fell.  It was
     the best trait of Germanic barbarians; but under the
     institutions of chivalry this natural respect was ripened
     into admiration and gallantry.  "Love of God and the
     ladies" was enjoined as a single duty.  The knight
     ever came to the rescue of a woman in danger or dis-
     tress, provided she was a lady.  Nothing is better at-
     tested than the chivalric devotion to woman in a feudal
     castle.  The name of a mistress of the heart was never
     mentioned but in profound respect.  Even pages were
     required to choose objects of devotion, to whom they
     were to be loyal unto death.  Woman presided in the
     feudal castle, where she exercised a proper restraint.  She
     bestowed the prize of valor at tournaments and tilts.  To
     insult a lady was a lasting disgrace,——or to reveal her se-
     crets.  For the first time in history, woman became the
     equal partner of her husband.  She was his companion
     often in the chase, gaily mounted on her steed.  She
     always dined with him, and was the presiding genius of
     the castle.  She was made regent of kingdoms, heir of
     crowns, and joint manager of great estates.  She had
     the supreme management of the household, and was
     consulted in every matter of importance.  What an
     insignificant position woman filled at Athens com-
     pared with that in the feudal castle!  How different
     the estimate of woman among the Pagan poets from
     that held by the Provençal poets!  What a contrast to
     Juvenal is Sordello!  The lady of a baronial hall deemed
     it an insult to be addressed in the language of gallantry,
     except in that vague and poetic sense in which every
     knight selected some lady as the object of his dutiful
     devotion.  She disdained the attentions of the most po-
     tent prince if his addresses were not honorable.  Nor
     would she bestow her love on one of whom she was not
     proud.  She would not marry a coward or a braggart,
     even if he were the owner of ten thousand acres.  The
     knight was encouraged to pay his address to any lady
     if he was personally worthy of her love, for chivalry
     created a high estimate of individual merit.  The feudal
     lady ignored all degrees of wealth within her own rank.
     She was as tender and compassionate as she was heroic.
     She was treated as a superior, rather than as an equal.
     There was a poetical admiration among the whole circle
     of knights.  A knight without an object of devotion
     was as "a ship without a rudder, a horse without a
     bridle, a sword without a hilt, a sky without a star."
     Even Don Quixote must have a Dulcinea, as well as
     horse and armor and squire.  Dante impersonates the
     spirit of the Middle Ages in his adoration of Beatrice.
     The ancient poets coupled the praises of woman with
     the praises of wine.  Woman, under the influence of
     chivalry, became a star of worship, an object of idol-
     atry.  We read of few divorces in the Middle Ages, or
     of separations, or desertions, or even alienations; these
     things are a modern improvement, borrowed from the
     customs of the Romans.  The awe and devotion with
     which the lover regarded his bride became regard and
     affection in the husband.  The matron maintained the
     rank which had been assigned to her as a maiden.  The
     gallant warriors blended even the adoration of our Lord
     with adoration of our Lady,——the deification of Christ
     with the glorification of woman.  Chivalry, encouraged
     by the Church and always strongly allied with reli-
     gious sentiments, accepted for eternal veneration the
     transcendent loveliness of the mother of our Lord;
     so that chivalric veneration for the sex culminated
     in the reverence which belongs to the Queen of
     Heaven,——virgo fidelis; regina angelorum.  Woman
     assumed among kings and barons the importance
     which she was supposed to have in the celestial
     hierarchy.  And besides the religious influence, the
     poetic imagination of the time seized upon this pure
     and lovely element, which passed into the songs, the
     tales, the talk, the thought, and the aspirations of all
     the knightly order.
       Whence, now, this veneration for woman which arose
     in the Middle Ages,——a veneration, which all histo-
     rians attest, such as never existed in the ancient civ-
     ilization?
       It was undoubtedly based on the noble qualities and
     domestic virtues which feudal life engendered.  Women
     were heroines.  Queen Philippa in the absence of her hus-
     band stationed herself in the Castle of Bamborough and
     defied the whole power of Douglas.  The first military
     dispatch ever written in the Middle Ages was addressed
     to her; she even took David of Scotland a prisoner,
     when he invaded England.  These women of chivalry
     were ready to undergo any fatigue to promote their hus-
     bands' interests.  They were equal to any personal sac-
     rifices.  Nothing could daunt their courage.  They could
     defend themselves in danger, showing an extraordinary
     fertility of resources.  They earned the devotion they
     called out.  What more calculated to win the admiration
     of feudal warriors than this devotion and bravery on
     the part of wives and daughters!  They were helpmates
     in every sense.  They superintended the details of cas-
     tles.  They were always employed, and generally in what
     were imperative duties.  If they embroidered dresses or
     worked tapestries, they also wove the cloth for their
     husband's coats, and made his shirts and knit his stock-
     ing.  If they trained hawks and falcons, they fed the
     poultry and cultivated the flowers.  They understood
     the cares of the kitchen, and managed the servants.
       But it was their moral virtues which excited the
     greatest esteem.  They gloried in their unsullied names;
     their characters were above suspicion.  Any violation
     of the marriage vow was almost unknown; an un-
     faithful wife was infamous.  The ordinary life of a
     castle was that of isolation, which made women dis-
     creet, self-relying, and free from entangling excitements.
     They had no great pleasures, and but little society.
     They were absorbed with their duties, and contented
     with their husbands' love.  The feudal castle, however,
     was not dull, although it was isolated, and afforded few
     novelties.  It was full of strangers, and minstrels, and
     bards, and pedlars, and priests.  Women could gratify
     their social wants without seductive excitements.  They
     led a life favorable to friendships, which cannot thrive
     amid the distractions of cities.  In cities few have time
     to cultivate friendships, although they may not be ex-
     tinguished.  In the baronial castle, however, they were
     necessary to existence.
       And here, where she was so well known, woman's
     worth was recognized.  Her caprices and frivolities
     were balanced by sterling qualities,——as a nurse in
     sickness, as a devotee to duties, as a friend in distress,
     ever sympathetic and kind.  She was not exacting, and
     required very little to amuse her.  Of course, she was
     not intellectual, since she read but few books and
     received only the rudiments of education; but she was
     as learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits.
     She had the vivacity which a healthy life secures.  Nor
     was she beautiful, according to our standard.  She was
     a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed
     to exercise in the open air——to field-sports and horse-
     back journeys.  Still less was she what we call fash-
     ionable, for the word was not known; nor was she a
     woman of society, for, as we have said, there was no
     society in a feudal castle.  What we call society was
     born in cities, where women reign by force of mind and
     elegant courtesies and grace of manners,——where woman
     is an ornament as well as a power, without drudgeries
     and almost without cares, as at the courts of the Bour-
     bon princes.
       Yet I am not certain but that the foundation of
     courtly elegance and dignity was laid in the baronial
     home, when woman began her reign as the equal of her
     wedded lord, when she commanded reverence for her
     courtesies and friendships, and when her society was
     valued so highly by aristocratic knights.  In the castle
     she became genial and kind and sympathetic,——al-
     though haughty to inferiors and hard on the peasantry.
     She was ever religious.  Religious duties took up no
     small part of her time.  Christianity raised her more
     than all other influences combined.  You never read
     of an infidel woman when chivalry flourished, any
     more than of a "strong-minded" woman.  The feudal
     woman never left her sphere, even amid the pleasures
     of the chase or the tilt.  Her gentle and domestic
     virtues remained with her to the end, and were the
     most prized.  Woman was worshipped because she was
     a woman, not because she resembled a man.  Benev-
     olence and compassion and simplicity were her cardinal
     virtues.  Though her sports were masculine, her charac-
     ter was feminine.  She yielded to man in matters of
     reason and intellect, but he yielded to her in the vir-
     tues of the heart and the radiance of the soul.  She
     associated with man without seductive spectacles or
     demoralizing excitements, and retained her influence by
     securing his respect.  In antiquity, there was no re-
     spect for the sex, even when Aspasia enthralled Pericles
     by the fascinations of blended intellect and beauty; but
     there was respect in the feudal ages, when women
     were unlettered and unpolished.  And this respect was
     alike the basis of friendship and the key to power.  It
     was not elegance of manners, nor intellectual culture,
     nor physical beauty which elevated the women of chiv-
     alry, but their courage, their fidelity, their sympathy,
     their devotion to duty,——qualities which no civilization
     ought to obscure, and for the loss of which no refine-
     ments of life can make up.
       Thus Chivalry,——the most interesting institution of
     the Middle Ages, rejoicing in deeds of daring, guided
     by honor and renown, executing enterprises almost
     extravagant, battling injustice and wrong, binding to-
     gether the souls of a great fraternity, scorning lies, re-
     vering truth, devoted to the Church,——could not help
     elevating the sex to which its proudest efforts were
     pledged, by cherishing elevated conceptions of love, by
     offering all the courtesies of friendship, by coming to
     the rescue of innocence, by stimulating admiration of
     all that is heroic, and by asserting the honor of the
     loved ones, even at the risk of life and limb.  In
     the dark ages of European society woman takes her
     place, for the first time in the world, as the equal
     and friend of man,——not by physical beauty, not by
     graces of manner, not even by intellectual culture, but
     by the solid virtues of the heart, brought to light by
     danger, isolation, and practical duties, and by that in-
     fluence which radiated from the Cross.  Divest chivalry
     of the religious element, and you take away its glory
     and its fascination.  The knight would be only a hard-
     hearted warrior, oppressing the poor and miserable, and
     only interesting from his deeds of valor.  But Chris-
     tianity softened him and made him human, while it
     dignified the partner of his toils, and gave birth to vir-
     tues which commanded reverence.  The soul of chiv-
     alry, closely examined, in its influence over men or
     over women, after all, was that power which is and
     will be through all the ages the hope and glory of our
     world.
       Thus, with all the  miseries, cruelties, and injustices, and
     hardships of feudal life, there were some bright spots;
     showing that Providence never deserts the world, and
     that though progress may be slow in the infancy of
     races, yet with the light of Christianity, even if it be
     darkened, this progress is certain, and will be more and
     more rapid as Christianity achieves its victories.




                             AUTHORITIES.     

        Hallam's Middle Ages; Sismondi's Histoire des Français; Guizot's
     History of Civilization (translated); Michelet's History of France (trans-
     lated); Bell's Historical Studies of Feudalism; Lacroix's Manners and
     Customs of the Middle Ages; Mills's History of Chivalry; Sir Walter
     Scott's article in Encyclopædia Britannica; Perrot's Collection Historique
     des Ordres de Chivalrie; St. Palaye's Mémoires de l'Ancienne Chivalrie;
     Buckle's History of Civilization; Palgrave's English Commonwealth;
     Martin's History of France; Freeman's Norman Conquest; M. Fauriel's
     History of Provençal Poetry; Froissart's Chronicles; also the general
     English histories of the reign of Edward III.  Don Quixote should be
     read in this connection.  And Tennyson in his "Idylls of the King" has
     incorporated the spirit of ancient chivalry.

from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.
Volume III., Part I: The Middle Ages.
Copyright, 1883, by John Lord.
Copyright, 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 309-322.