ntious men.

This respect for women and chaste family life was considered by the
Romans the highest quality of the Germans. Even Christianity, which
spread from the Roman to the German countries, could not place women
and marriage on a higher footing; on the contrary, its ascetic
tendencies served to lower them. The full enjoyment of the pleasures of
the world were no longer allowed to man; passionate devotion to a
beloved husband was easily mistaken for a wrong to heaven and the holy
Redeemer. On the other hand men fixed their eyes on the heavenly
Virgin, whose especial favour they might win by despising the women of
earth. At the time of the Saxon Emperors this tendency of the mind
reached its highest point. In those days education was confined to the
cloister; there the daughters of the nobility were educated; there men
weary of sin retired; and there also, enthusiasm sought for the highest
enjoyment of love, which seemed unattainable in marriage without danger
to the salvation of the soul. Secret sensuality mixed even with the
worship of the highest objects of faith.

But the heart of man could not long rest satisfied with ideal love in
heaven. When, under the first Hohenstaufen, education, manners, and
good taste were only to be found among the feudal nobility, they
hastened to transfer to the women of this world the devotion and
veneration which had been exclusively confined to the Virgin Mary. The
courtly worship of woman began, new conventional forms were introduced
for the intercourse between man and woman, accompanied in Germany with
a strong intermixture of Italian manners. The man had to give proof of
his love by heroic deeds and adventures, and his lady-love was
surrounded by an atmosphere of poetry, and veiled in ideal perfections,
as we may perceive in the numerous minne-songs of that time. But
neither the dignity of woman, nor the fundamental morality of marriage,
was increased by this chivalrous devotion, and it became a cloak for
reckless profligacy. Sometimes even a married woman had a knight
devoted to her service; he was invested kneeling before his liege lady,
and she, laying her hands between his, confirmed his allegiance by a
kiss. From that time he wore her colours; he was bound to be faithful
to her, and she to him, and in some cases they lived together as man
and wife; and there were even instances in which the Church gave its
sanction to these improper unions.

This knightly service often