ly, nor by the
magnates of his court (Fig. 45). Poets and historians have handed down to
us descriptions of hunts, feasts, and ceremonies, at which a truly Asiatic
splendour was displayed. Eginhard, however, assures us that the sons and
daughters of the King were brought up under their father's eye in liberal
studios; that, to save them from the vice of idleness, Charlemagne
required his sons to devote themselves to all bodily exercises, such as
horsemanship, handling of arms, &c., and his daughters to do needlework
and to spin. From what is recorded, however, of the frivolous habits and
irregular morals of these princesses, it is evident that they but
imperfectly realised the end of their education.

[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Costumes of the Ladies of the Nobility in the
Ninth Century, from a Miniature in the Bible of Charles the Bold (National
Library of Paris).]

Science and letters, which for a time were brought into prominence by
Charlemagne and also by his son Louis, who was very learned and was
considered skilful in translating and expounding Scripture, were, however,
after the death of these two kings, for a long time banished to the
seclusion of the cloisters, owing to the hostile rivalry of their
successors, which favoured the attacks of the Norman pirates. All the
monuments and relics of the Gallo-Roman civilisation, which the great
Emperor had collected, disappeared in the civil wars, or were gradually
destroyed by the devastations of the northerners.

The vast empire which Charlemagne had formed became gradually split up, so
that from a dread of social destruction, in order to protect churches and
monasteries, as well as castles and homesteads, from the attacks of
internal as well as foreign enemies, towers and impregnable fortresses
began to rise in all parts of Europe, and particularly in France.

[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Towers of the Castle of Semur, and of the Castle
of Nogent-le-Rotrou (Present Condition).--Specimens of Towers of the
Thirteenth Century.]

During the first period of feudalism, that is to say from the middle of
the ninth to the middle of the twelfth centuries, the inhabitants of
castles had little time to devote to the pleasures of private life. They
had not only to be continually under arms for the endless quarrels of the
King and the great chiefs; but they had also to oppose the Normans on one
side, and the Saracens on the other, who, being masters of the Spanish
peninsula, spread