re rivalled by those practised in Europe; deliberate
directions were given to make whole tracts "a desert." Attempts had been
made to introduce some amelioration into warfare again and again, either
by forbidding hostilities at certain times, as was the object of the
"truces of God," repeatedly enforced by ecclesiastical authority, or by
establishing between the combatants themselves courtesies which are at
once the chief grace and glory of chivalry; but, to judge by the result
as offered, even so late as the eighteenth century, those attempts must
be regarded as having proved altogether abortive.

[Sidenote: Backward condition of England.] England, at the close of the
Age of Faith, had for long been a chief pecuniary tributary to Italy,
the source from which large revenues had been drawn, the fruitful field
in which herds of Italian ecclesiastics had been pastured. A wonderful
change was impending. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the
island was far more backward intellectually and politically than is
commonly supposed. Its population hardly reached five millions, and was
stationary at that point, not so much because of the effects of civil
and foreign war as merely through the operation of ordinary economical
causes. There was no reason to call more men into existence. It was
regarded as good statesmanship to maintain the population at a constant
standard. The municipal policy corresponded to the national; it was not
so much advanced as that contemporaneously existing in Peru. [Sidenote:
Apparent decline of her prosperity.] Swarms of idle ecclesiastics had
set such a pernicious example that the indisposition among common people
to work had become quite a formidable difficulty. In every village there
were stocks for the punishment of "valiant beggars," as they were
termed. By the act of 1531, vagrants "whole and mighty in body" caught
begging for the first time might be whipped at the cart-tail; the second
time their ears were to be slit; by the act of 1536, if caught the third
time they were to be put to death. In all directions large towns were
falling into decay, a misfortune popularly attributed to the laziness of
the lower orders, but in reality due to causes of a very different kind.
Hitherto land had been the representative of authority and the source of
power. Society had been organized upon that imperfect basis; a
descending scale of landed proprietors had been established, and in that
system every man