The Waning of the Middle Ages

We, at the present day, can hardly understand the keenness with which a fur coat, a good fire on the hearth, a soft bed, a glass of wine, were formerly enjoyed.

Is it surprising that the people could see their fate and that of the world only as an endless succession of evils? Bad governance, exactions, the cupidity and violence of the great, wars and brigandage, scarcity, misery and pestilence—to this is contemporary history nearly reduced in the eyes of the people. The feeling of general insecurity which was caused by the chronic form wars were apt to take, by the constant menace of the dangerous classes, by the mistrust of justice, was further aggravated by the obsession of the coming end of the world, and by the fear of hell, of sorcerers and of devils. The background of all life in the world seems black. Satan covers a gloomy earth with his somber wings.

An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.

All the best elements of patriotism—the spirit of sacrifice, the desire for justice and protection for the oppressed—sprouted in the soil of chivalry. It is in the classic country of chivalry,

Quarrels and acts of violence go hand in hand with the ceremonious abdication of all pride, of which they are the reverse. Noble families disputed fiercely for that same precedence in church by which they courteously pretended to set little store.