which kept the knighthood of Europe in a constant
ferment, and for lack of war, burst forth in tournaments, in private
feuds, or in the extravagances of knight-errantry. The feudal system,
growing up to meet the necessities of conquerors living on conquered
territory, and founded on the principle of military service as a
condition of land tenure, made of Europe a vast army. The military
profession was exalted to an importance which crushed all effort of a
more useful or progressive nature; the military class, including all
who possessed land, and did not labor upon it, became an aristocracy
despising peaceful occupations, whose most powerful prejudice was pride
of birth, whose ruling passion was love of war. Under the influence of
this military spirit, intellectual was subordinated to active life; a
condition of ignorance and danger was sustained; an overwhelming
reverence for the supernatural was produced, and there resulted that
predominance of the imagination over the reason of man which forms the
distinctive feature of Romantic Fiction.

While the feudal system formed the framework of society, and, as much
by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the
human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection
to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war,
which was the inevitable accompaniment of feudal tenure, did much to
sustain the state of profound ignorance and consequent superstition in
which the people of mediaeval times were plunged, both by preventing the
pursuit of peaceful occupations and the growth of knowledge, and by
increasing the element of danger in life, which always inclines the
human mind to a belief in the supernatural. The same results were
brought about by the character and aims of the Roman Church. The
unswerving purpose of that church was to govern, temporally as well as
spiritually. She sought to supply to men from her own store all the
knowledge which was necessary for their welfare, and that knowledge was
limited to dogmas and beliefs which would strengthen the power of the
priesthood. A strict and absolute acceptance of the truths of
Christianity as she defined them, and a humble obedience to the clergy
were made the sole and necessary conditions of salvation. A questioning
of those truths or a violation of that obedience was a crime before
which murder and license faded into insignificance. The spirit of doubt
and of inquiry which