GENEALOGY OF THE WELFS.

WELF, Duke of Bavaria, 1070-1101.
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+—HENRY the Black, Duke of Bavaria, 1120-1126.
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+—Judith, m. to Frederic, Duke of Swabia (d. 1147),
| the son of Agnes, who was the daughter of HENRY IV. FREDERIC I
| (Barbarossa) was the son of Judith, and this Frederic of Swabia.
| The Swabian dukes were called Hohenstaufens, from a
| castle on Mount Staufen in Wurtemberg.
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+—HENRY the Proud,
Duke of Bavaria 1126, of Saxony 1137; deprived, 1138.
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+—HENRY the Lion, m.
Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England.
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+—HENRY the Young, d. 1227.
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+—OTTO IV, d. 1218.

SECOND CRUSADE (1147-1149).—The preacher of the second Crusade was St. Bernard, whose saintly life and moving eloquence produced a great effect. Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. were the leaders. The expedition was attended by a series of calamities. The design of recapturing Edessa from Noureddin, the sultan of Aleppo, was given up. The siege of Damascus failed (1148). Conrad returned home with broken health. Soon after, Damascus fell into the hands of Noureddin, who was a brave and upright leader. Through one of his lieutenants, he conquered Egypt. After his death, Saladin, who sprung from one of the tribes of Kurds, and was in his service, rose to power there, and set aside the Fatimite caliphate (1171). He was not less renowned for his culture and magnanimity than for his valor. Saladin united under his scepter all the lands from Cairo to Aleppo. In the battle at Ramla, not far from Ascalon (1178), the crusaders gained their last notable victory over this antagonist, which served to prolong for some years the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Afterwards victory was on his side: the crusaders were overthrown in the fatal battle of Tiberias, and Jerusalem was taken by him (1187). Thus the Latin kingdom fell. The Saracen conqueror was much more humane after success than the Christian warriors had been in like circumstances.

FREDERICK BARBAROSSA.—Frederick I.—Barbarossa, or Redbeard, he was called in Italy—(1152-1190) was one of the grand figures of the Middle Ages. He was thirty-one years of age at his election as emperor, and had already been with the crusaders to the Holy Land. In him great strength of understanding and a capacity for large undertakings were combined with a taste for letters and art. His aim was to bring back to the empire the strength and dignity which had belonged to it under the Saxon and Franconian emperors. The rulers of Bohemia and Poland he obliged to swear fealty as vassals. He put down private war, and restored order in Germany. The palatinate on the Rhine, formerly a part of Franconia, he gave to his half-brother Conrad, who founded Heidelberg (1155).

STRUGGLE WITH THE LOMABARD CITIES.—The principal conflict of Frederick I. was in Italy, where he endeavored to restore the imperial supremacy over the Lombard cities, which had grown prosperous and freedom-loving, and were bent on managing their own municipal affairs. They had thrown off the rule of bishops and counts. The burghers of Milan, the principal town, had obliged the neighboring nobles and cities to form a league with them. The smaller cities, as Como and Lodi, preferred the emperor's control to being subject to Milan. Pavia clung to the empire. But most of the cities prized their independence and republican administration. The Pope and the emperor were soon at variance, and the cities naturally looked to the pontiff for sympathy and leadership. In 1158 Frederick again crossed the Alps, bent on establishing the imperial jurisdiction as it had stood in the days of Charlemagne. The study of the Roman law was now pursued with enthusiasm at Bologna and Padua. At a great assembly in the Roncalian Fields, Frederick caused the prerogatives of the empire to be defined according to the terms of the civil law. The emperor was proclaimed as "lord of the world,"—dominus mundi. In the room of the consuls, a Podesta was appointed as the chief officer in each city, to represent his authority. Milan, which had submitted, revolted, but, after a siege of two years, was forced to surrender, and was destroyed, at the emperor's command, by the inhabitants of the neighboring cities (1162). In 1159 Alexander III. was elected Pope by a majority of the cardinals. Victor IV. was chosen by the imperial party, and was recognized at a council convened by Frederick at Pavia. On the death of Victor, another anti-pope, Paschal III., was elected in his place; and, on the fourth visit of Frederick to Italy (1166-1168), he conducted Paschal to Rome. In 1167 the cities of Northern Italy, which maintained their cause with invincible spirit, united in the Lombard League. They built the strongly fortified place, Alessandria,—named after the Pope,—and took possession of the passes of the Alps. The emperor, whose army was nearly destroyed by a pestilence at Rome, escaped, with no little difficulty and danger, to Germany.

FREDERICK I. AND POPE ALEXANDER III.—For nearly seven years Frederick remained in Germany. He put an end to a violent feud which had been raging between Henry the Lion and his enemies (1168). In 1174 he was ready to resume his great Italian enterprise. But he did not succeed in taking Alessandria. All his efforts to induce Henry the Lion to come to his support failed. He was consequently defeated in the battle of Legnano (1176). The extraordinary abilities and indefatigable energy of the great emperor had been exerted in the vain effort, as he himself now perceived it to be, to break down the resistance of a free people to a system which they felt to be an obsolete despotism. A reconciliation took place at Venice in 1177 between Pope Alexander III. and Frederick, in which the latter virtually gave up the plan which he had so long struggled to realize. It was a day of triumph for the Papacy. At Constance, in 1183, a treaty was made with the Lombard cities, in which their self-government was substantially conceded, with the right to fortify themselves, and to levy armies, and to extend the bounds of their confederacy. The overlordship of the emperor was recognized. There was to be an imperial judge in each town, to whom appeals in the most important causes might be made. The "regalian rights" to forage, food, and lodging for the emperor's army, when within their territory, were reduced to a definite form. The cities grew stronger from their newly gained freedom; yet the loss of imperial restraint was, on some occasions, an evil.

FREDERICK IN GERMANY.—After his return to Germany, Frederick deprived Henry the Lion of his lands; and when Henry craved his forgiveness at the Diet of Erfurt in 1181, he was allowed to retain Brunswick and Lüneburg. He was to live for three years, with his wife and child, at the court of his father-in-law, Henry II., king of England. His son William, born there, is the ancestor of the present royal family in England. In 1184 the emperor, in honor of his sons, King Henry, and Frederick, duke of Swabia, who were of age to become knights, celebrated at Mentz a magnificent festival, where a great throng of attendants was gathered from far and near. In a last and peaceful visit to Italy, his son Henry was married to Constance, the daughter of Roger II., and the heiress of the Norman kingdom of Lower Italy and Sicily.

THIRD CRUSADE (1189-1192).—The old emperor now undertook another Crusade (1189), in which he was supported by Philip II. (Philip Augustus), king of France, and Richard the Lion-Hearted (Cæur-de-Lion), king of England, but of French descent. Having spent the winter at Adrianople, Frederick crossed into Asia Minor, and conquered Iconium. In his advance he showed a military skill and a valor which made the expedition a memorable one; but at the river Calycadnus in Cilicia, either while bathing or attempting to cross on horseback, the old warrior was swept away by the stream, and drowned (1190). His son Frederick died during the siege of Acre. Richard and Philip quarreled, before and after reaching Acre, which surrendered in 1191. Philip returned to France. Richard, with all his valor, was twice compelled to turn back from Jerusalem. Nothing was accomplished except the establishment of a truce with Saladin, by which a strip of land on the coast, from Joppa to Acre, was given to the Christians, and pilgrimages to the holy places were allowed. Richard was distinguished both for his deeds of arms and for his cruelty. On his return, he was kept as a prisoner by Leopold, duke of Austria, by the direction of the emperor, Henry VI., for thirteen months, and released on the payment of a ransom, and rendering homage. He was charged with treading the German banner in the filth at Acre. His alliance with the Welfs in Germany is enough to explain the hostility felt towards him by the imperial party.

HENRY VI.: POPE INNOCENT III.—Henry VI. (1190-1197) had the prudence and vigor of his father, but lacked his magnanimity. He was hard and stern in his temper. Twice he visited Italy to conquer the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the inheritance of his wife. He waged a new war with Henry the Lion (1192-1194), which ended in a marriage of Agnes, the emperor's cousin, with Henry, the son of Henry. It was a project of the emperor to convert Germany and Italy, with Sicily, into a hereditary monarchy; but the princes would not consent. He aspired to incorporate the Eastern Empire in the same dominion. While engaged in strife with the aged Pope, Coelestin II., respecting the Tuscan lands of Matilda, which she had bequeathed to the Church, the emperor suddenly died. His son Frederick was a boy only three years old. On the death of Coelestin II., early in 1198, Innocent III., the ablest and most powerful of all the popes, acceded to the pontifical chair. Innocent was a statesman of unsurpassed sagacity and energy. He was imbued with the highest idea of the pontifical dignity. He made his authority felt and feared in all parts of Christendom. He exacted submission from all rulers, civil and ecclesiastical. The Empress Constance, in order to secure Italy for Frederick, accepted the papal investment on conditions dictated by the Pope. After her death Innocent ruled Italy in the character of guardian of her son. He dislodged the imperial vassals from the Tuscan territory of Matilda, and thus became a second founder of the papal state.

FOURTH CRUSADE (1202-1204).—Under the auspices of Innocent III., a Crusade was undertaken by French barons, with whom were associated Baldwin, count of Flanders, and Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. Arrived at Venice, the crusaders were not able to furnish to the Venetians the sum agreed to be paid for their transportation. The Venetians, whose devotion was strongly tempered with the mercantile spirit, under the old doge, Henry Dandolo, greatly to the displeasure of the Pope, persuaded them to assist in the capture of Zara, which the king of Hungary had wrested from Venice. Then, at the call of Alexius, son of the Eastern emperor, Isaac Angelus, they went with the Venetian fleet to Constantinople, and restored these princes to the throne. The result of the contentions that followed with the Greeks was the pillage of Constantinople, and the establishment of the Latin Empire under Baldwin. Principalities were carved out for different chiefs; the Venetians taking several Greek coast towns, and afterwards Candia (Crete). The patriarch of Constantinople had to take his pallium from Rome. The Latin service was established in the churches. There was no real union between the Greeks and the invaders, but constant strife, until, in 1261, Michael Paloeologus, the head of a Greek empire which had been established at Nicoea, put an end to the Latin kingdom.

CHILDREN'S CRUSADE.—The failure of the stupendous undertakings for the conquest of the infidels was attributed to the wicked wrangles, and still more to the vicious lives, of the crusaders, whose defeat was regarded as indicative of the frown of Heaven on their evil courses. This feeling gave occasion to the Children's Crusade, in 1212. Many thousands of French and German boys made their way, in two distinct expeditions, to Marseilles and the seaports of Italy, in order to be conveyed thence to the Holy Land. But few returned: nearly all perished by the way, or were seized, and carried off to slave-markets. The enterprise grew out of a wild construction of the injunction of Jesus to let little children come to him.

OTTO IV.: CIVIL WAR IN GERMANY.—Frederick had been elected king; but, on the death of his father, his claims were disregarded. The Hohenstaufens chose Philip, brother of Henry VI.: the Welfs appointed Otto, the second son of Henry the Lion. Innocent claimed the right, not to appoint the emperor, but to decide between the rival claimants. He decided, in 1201, in favor of Otto IV. (1198-1214). Philip's party, however, seemed likely to succeed; but, in 1208, he was murdered. Otto, having made large promises of submission to the Pope's requirements, was crowned emperor, and universally acknowledged. When he failed to fulfill his pledges, and began to assert the old imperial prerogatives in Italy, he was excommunicated and deposed by Innocent (1210).

FREDERICK (II.) MADE KING.—Innocent was now led to take up the cause of young Frederick (1212). The latter won Germany over to his side, and received the German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215. Otto was restricted to his ancestral territory in Brunswick.

CHARACTER OF FREDERICK II. (1214-1250).—Frederick II., on account of his extraordinary natural gifts and his accomplishments, was called the wonder of the world. He knew several languages, and, in intercourse with the Saracens_ in Sicily, had acquired a familiarity with the sciences. In many of his ideas of government he was in advance of his time. But his reign was largely spent in a contest with the Lombard cities and with the popes. He is styled by an eminent modern historian, "the gay, the brave, the wise, the relentless, and the godless Frederick." He was often charged with skepticism in relation to the doctrines of the Church. The main ground of this imputation seems to have been a temper of mind at variance with the habit of the age,—a very moderate degree of reverence for ecclesiastical authority, and the absence of the usual antipathy to heresy and religious dissent.

FIFTH CRUSADE (1228-1229).—Having caused his son Henry to be elected king of Rome, Frederick, in 1220, left Germany for fifteen years. It was the policy of the popes to keep the Sicilian crown from being united with the empire, and the emperor from gaining the supremacy in Lombardy. Frederick, at his coronation at Aix, and afterwards, had engaged to undertake a crusade. But he had postponed it from time to time. Pope Honorius III. had patiently borne with this delay. But when Frederick, in 1227, was about to start, and was prevented, as he professed, by the contagious disease in his army, from which he himself was suffering, Gregory IX., the next pope, placed him under the ban of the Church. Nevertheless, the emperor, in the following year, embarked on his crusade. His vigor as a soldier, and, still more, his tact in conciliating the Saracens, enabled him to get possession of Jerusalem. No bishop would crown an excommunicate, and he had to put the crown on his own head. That he left a mosque unmolested was a fresh ground of reproach. He negotiated an armistice with the sultan, Kameel (El Kámil), who ceded Nazareth and a strip of territory reaching to the coast, together with Sidon. Fifteen years later (in 1244) Jerusalem was finally lost by the Christians.

CONTEST OF FREDERICK WITH THE POPES.—On his return to Italy, Frederick drove the papal troops out of Apulia. In a personal interview with Gregory IX. at San Germane, a treaty was made between them, the ban was removed, and the treaty of Frederick with the Sultan was sanctioned by the Pope. Frederick now displayed his talent for organization in all parts of his empire. His constitution for the Sicilian kingdom, based on the ruins of the old feudalism, is tinged with the modern political spirit. His court, wherever he sojourned, mingled an almost Oriental luxury and splendor with the attractions of poetry and song. A sore trial was the revolt of his son Henry (1234), whom he conquered, and confined in a prison, where he died in 1242. The efforts of Frederick to enforce the imperial supremacy over the Lombard cities were met with the same stubborn resistance from the Guelfs which his grandfather had encountered. In 1237 he gained a brilliant victory over them at Cortenuova. But the hard terms on which Frederick insisted, in connection with other transactions offensive to the Pope, called out another excommunication from Gregory IX. (1239). The Genoese fleet, which was conveying ecclesiastics to a council called by the Pope at Rome, was captured by direction of Frederick; and the prelates were thrown into prison. Pope Innocent IV. (1243-1254) fled to Lyons, and there published anew the ban against the emperor, declared him deposed, and summoned the Germans to elect another emperor in his place. The ecclesiastical princes in Germany chose Henry Raspe (1246-1247), landgrave of Thuringia, who was defeated by Conrad, Henry's son. The next emperor thus chosen, William of Holland (1247), made no headway in Germany. During this period of civil war, many German cities gained their freedom from episcopal rule, attained to great privileges, and came into an immediate relation to the emperor. A fearful war raged in Italy between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, in the midst of which Frederick died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Had he been as conscientious and as capable of curbing his passions and appetites as he was highly endowed in other respects, he might have been a model ruler. As it was; although his career was splendid, his private life, as well as his public conduct, was stained with flagrant faults.

THE SICILIAN KINGDOM.—The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was bravely defended by Manfred, son of Frederick II, in behalf of young Conradin, the son of the new emperor, Conrad IV. The Pope gave the crown to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France. Charles, after the fall of Manfred at Beneventum (1266), gained the kingdom. Conradin went to Italy, but was defeated and captured in 1268, and was executed at Naples. Such was the tragic end of the last of the Hohenstaufens. The unbearable tyranny of the French led to a conspiracy called the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and, at Easter Monday, at vesper time, the rising took place. All the French in Sicily were massacred. Peter of Aragon, who had married the daughter of Manfred, became king of Sicily. The dominion of Charles of Anjou was restricted to Naples.

SPAIN.—The Spaniards had a crusade to carry forward in their own land, which lasted for eight hundred years. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, especially under Abderrahman III. (912-961), the Moorish civilization was most brilliant. In Cordova, there were six hundred mosques. There were said to be seventeen universities and seventy large libraries in Spain. The caliph's fleets were dominant in the Mediterranean. He was mild in his policy towards Jews and Christians. In the eleventh century the caliphs gave themselves up to luxury, and the control of their forces was in the hands of the viziers. Of these, Almanzor, the general of Hakem II (976-1013), was the most famous. He took the city of Leon, and plundered the church of St. James of Compostella, the patron saint of Spain. After this time the caliphate of Cordova broke up into numerous kingdoms. The Christian Visigoths in the north-west had built up the little kingdom of Oviedo, which later took the name of Leon. The rest of Christian Spain was united under Sancho the Great (970-1035). To one of his sons, Ferdinand I, he left Castile, to which Leon and the Asturias were united; to another, Aragon; and, to a third, Navarre and Biscay. It was under Ferdinand that the exploits of the Spanish hero, the Cid (Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar), in conflict with the infidels, began. The complete conquest of the Moors was prevented by the strife of the Christian kingdoms with one another. Under Alfonso VI (1072-1109), they were all once more united.

GREAT DEFEAT OF THE MOORS.—The invasion of the Almoravids, invited over from Africa by the Mussulman princes (1086), checked the progress of the Christian conquest. These allies of the Arabs built up a kingdom for themselves, reconquered Valencia, and taxed to the utmost the power of the Christians to resist their progress. New sects of fanatical Moslems, the Almohads, having conquered Morocco, passed over into Spain. The Mohammedans were thus at war among themselves, and were divided into three parties. Military orders were established in Spain; and the kings of Castile, Leon, and Navarre, aided by sixty thousand crusaders from Germany, France, and Italy, defeated Mohammed, the chief of the Almohads, with great slaughter, in a decisive battle near Tolosa (1212). The Spanish crusade built up the little kingdom of Portugal, and the states of Castile and of Aragon. They were destined to play an important part in the history of commerce and discovery. The Spanish character owed some of its marked traits to this prolonged struggle with the Moslems.

THE MONGOLIAN INVASIONS.—At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan, the leader of Mongolian hordes which roamed over the Asiatic plateau between China and Siberia, conquered China, and overthrew the ruling dynasty. He subdued Hindustan and the empire of the Chowares, which had been founded by a Seljukian slave, and spread his power from the Caspian Sea through Persia to India (1218). Bokhara and Samarcand were among the populous cities which were burned with all their treasures by these ruthless invaders. Libraries were converted into stalls for the horses of the brutal conquerors. The sons and successors of Genghis Khan swept over the countries north of the Black Sea, captured Moscow and Kiev, burned Cracow, and pursued their murderous and devastating path over Poland and Hungary, At the battle of Wahlstatt (1241), the Germans under Henry the Pious, duke of Liegnitz, were defeated. The victories of the Tartars were frightful massacres. It was a custom of the Mongols to cut off an ear of the slaughtered enemy. It was said that at Liegnitz these trophies filled nine sacks. The Mongol hosts retired from Europe. They attacked the caliphate of Bagdad, a city which they took by storm, and plundered for forty days. They destroyed the dynasty of the Abassids. They marched into Syria, stormed and sacked Aleppo, and captured Damascus. For a time the central point of the Tartar conquests was the city or camping-ground of Karakorum in Central Asia. After a few generations their empire was broken in pieces. The "Golden Horde," which they had planted in Russia, on the east of the Volga, remained there for two centuries. Bagdad was held by the Mongols until 1400, when it was conquered, and kept for a short time, by Tamerlane.

The religion of the Tartars was either Lamaism—a corrupted form of Buddhistic belief and worship,—or Mohammedanism. In China and Mongolia they were Lamaists: elsewhere they generally adopted the faith of Islam. Their original religion was Shamaism, a worship of spirits, akin to fetichism. The later Mongol sovereigns, especially Kublai Khan, were ready to promote peaceful intercourse with Europe. It was at this time that Marco Polo resided at their court.

SIXTH CRUSADE (1248-1254): SEVENTH CRUSADE (1270).-Two additional Crusades were undertaken under the leadership of that upright and devout king, Louis IX. of France. The first (1248-1254) resulted in the taking of Damietta in Egypt (1249); but the next year Louis, with his whole army, was captured, and obtained his release after much delay, by the surrender of his conquests, and in return for a large ransom. Not disheartened by this failure, the pious monarch, in 1270, sailed to Tunis, where he and most of his army perished from sickness. In 1291 Acre, the last town held by the Christians, was taken by the Egyptian Mamelukes; and the Crusades came to an end.

EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES.—The Crusades were a spontaneous movement of Christian Europe. It was a great tide, which bore away all classes of people. It lends to the Middle Ages an ideal and heroic character. An overpowering sentiment, submerging calculation and self-interest, swept over society. There was infinite suffering: countless lives were the forfeit. The results, however, were beneficent, 1. It is true that the conquests made in the East were all surrendered. The holy places were given up. Yet the Turks had received a check which was a protection to Europe during the period when its monarchies were forming, and were gaining the force to encounter them anew, and repel their dangerous aggressions. 2. The Feudal System in Europe was smitten with a mortal blow. Smaller fiefs, either by sale or by the death of the holders, were swallowed up in the larger. The anarchical spirit was counteracted. Political unity was promoted. 3. There was a lessening of the social distance between suzerain and serf. They fought side by side, and aided one another in common perils. The consequence was an increase of sympathy. 4. There was an expansion of knowledge. There was a widening of geographical knowledge. An acquaintance was gained with other peoples and countries. To the more civilized Saracens, the crusaders seemed brutal and barbarous. The crusaders in turn were impressed with the superior advancement and elegance of the Saracens. It was not the lord only who beheld distant lands: the serf was taken from the soil to which he had been tied. He drew stimulus and information from sojourning under other skies. 5. A great impulse was given to trade and commerce. An acquaintance was gained with new products, natural and artificial. New wants were created. 6. The cities advanced in strength and wealth. Important social consequences resulted from their growth.

WHY THE CRUSADES TERMINATED.—After the thirteenth century it was impossible to rekindle the crusading enthusiasm. The fire had burned out. It seemed as if the idea had exhausted itself in action. This effect was due, (1) to the absence of novelty in such undertakings; (2) to the long experience of the hardships belonging to them, which tended to dampen the romantic zeal that had formed a part of the motive; (3) to the disappointments following upon the practical failure of so prodigious and costly exertions; (4) to an altered condition of public feeling of a more general character. Antipathy to the infidel, the more exclusive sway of religious sentiment, were giving way to a mingling of secular aims and interests. There were new and wider fields of activity at home. The mood of men's minds was no longer the same.

LUXURIES INTRODUCED BY THE CRUSADES.—The effect of the Crusades in bringing in new comforts and luxuries, and in thus altering the style of living, was remarkable. At the very outset, a great deal of money, obtained by the sale or pawning of estates, was spent in the outfit of the hundred thousand nobles, who, at the beginning, took the cross. Costly furs, embroidered cushions, curtains of purple dye, pavilions worked with gold, banners of purple or of cloth-of-gold, showy costumes, and shining armor,—such was the splendor that met the eyes of thousands who had never before beheld such a spectacle. The journey to the East brought under the observation of the crusaders, arts and fashions to which they had been strangers, They saw the gilded domes and marble palaces of Constantinople, and the treasures of ancient art which had been gathered within the walls of that ancient capital. Antioch, with all its wealth, fell into their hands. Later, the merchants of both religions followed in the wake of the armies, and met one another. The superb fabrics of the East were carried to the West by routes which now became safe and familiar. The precious ores and tissues of Damascus, and the beautiful glassware of Tyre, were conveyed to Venice, and thence to places more distant. Silk stuffs of exquisite beauty were brought from Mosul and Alexandria. The elegance of the East, with its rich fabrics, its jewels and pearls, was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader termed it "the vestibule of Paradise." It was not the nobles alone in the West who acquired these attractive products of skill and industry. The cities shared in them. Even the lower classes partook of the change in the way of living.

LIFE IN THE CASTLE.—Even in the earlier days of feudalism, the seclusion of the castle was not without an influence in promoting domestic intercourse and affection. A new sentiment respecting woman sprang up in the Middle Ages, and was fostered by the honor which the New Testament and the teaching of the Church rendered to saintly women. A spirit of gallantry and devotion to woman, partly natural to the Germanic race, and partly arising from causes like that just named, sprang up in the midst of prevailing ignorance and perpetual strife. In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries life in the castle is found to be very much improved. In the eleventh century it lacked comfort, to say nothing of luxury. The lights were torches of dry wood: even candles were not in general use. Houses in France, England, and Germany commonly had thatched roofs. They were made of logs covered with a sort of clay or mud. They were built with low and narrow doors, and with small windows which admitted but little light. In the middle of the smoky hall was a large, round fireplace. There was no chimney, but only a funnel, which pierced the ceiling. The seats were benches and stools. The feet of the family and guests were kept warm by hay spread beneath them. In the later period the substitution of dry rushes and straw was thought to be a marvelous gain. Beds of straw were introduced into all the apartments of nobles, and even of kings. To sleep on a straw couch was deemed a regal luxury. One consequence of the Crusades was to introduce carpets and hangings into the dwellings of the great. Improved timepieces took the place of the water-clocks, which were a wonder in the days of Charlemagne. In the twelfth century the castle begins to look less like a dungeon. Within and without, it ceases to wear so exclusively the aspect of a fortress. The furniture has more beauty. In the great hall are the large tables attached to the floor, the sideboards, the cupboards, the stately chair of the lord, the couch with its canopy, the chests for the wearing-apparel, the armor on the walls. In the thirteenth century France was covered with chateaux, which, in the case of princes and nobles of highest rank, had their spacious courts, their stables, their lodgings for the servants. All these were within the precincts of the palace. In the great hall were held the assemblies of vassals, banquets, judicial trials. In the wealthiest mansions, there was a main saloon on the floor above, reached by a spiral stairway, and serving also for the principal bed-chamber. There the stone floor gave place to marble of varied colors. Mosaics and other ornaments were introduced. Sculptures, carvings, and mural paintings decorated the apartments. Glass mirrors, imported by way of Venice, began to supersede the mirrors of polished metal. Larger windows, of painted glass, became common among the rich, in the room of the small pieces of glass, or of alabaster, which had before served to let in a few rays of light. Tallow candles came into vogue. Lamps were not unknown. On great occasions, lanterns and wax candles were used for a festive illumination. Chimneys were in use, and about the vast fire-place the family group could gather. The hospitality of the castle was often bountiful. The chase, the favorite amusement, gave life and animation to the scene, and prepared the inmates for the feast that followed. Minstrels enlivened the social gathering. Troops of mountebanks and buffoons furnished amusement, and were sometimes lavishly rewarded. There were singers and buffoons who were attached permanently to the household. There were others who traveled from place to place, and were even organized into corporations or guilds. The fool, or jester, to whom a large license was allowed, was long deemed a necessary adjunct of the castle-hall. Carriages were little used; rank was indicated by the accouterments of the war-horse or of the palfrey. From the twelfth century onward, the improvement in the comforts of living was not confined to the nobles and to rich burghers in cities. It was shared by the rural classes, notwithstanding the miseries—such as insecurity, and dangers of famine—that belonged to their condition.

POVERTY AND DISEASE.—A French writer on the history of luxury, speaking of France in this period, says, "In the cities, we meet at once luxury, certain beginnings of prosperity, and frightful misery. Beggary exists in a form the most hideous: there is an organization of it with grades, and a sort of hierarchy. In the face of sumptuous costumes, of chateaux better adorned, of the nascent wealth of industry, France included more than two thousand lepers, and knew not how to treat maladies born of the most imperfect hygiene and the most sordid filth. Such were the extremes. The course of general progress went forward between them." The condition of the poorest class in England was no better. "The absence of vegetable food for the greater part of the year, the personal dirt of the people, the sleeping at night in the clothes worn in the day, and other causes, made skin-diseases frightfully common. At the outskirts of every town in England, there were crawling about emaciated creatures covered with loathsome sores, living Heaven knows how. They were called by the common name of lepers; and probably the leprosy, strictly so called, was awfully common." Such being the life of the poor in villages, and in the absence of drainage and other modern safeguards of health, in large towns, it is no wonder that in the Middle Ages there were terrible pestilences, and that the average length of life was much less than at present.

ORIGIN AND NATURE OF CHIVALRY.—It was in the period of the crusades that the mediaeval institution of chivalry was ennobled by receiving a religious consecration. Chivalry is a comprehensive term, denoting a system of ideas and customs that prevailed in the middle ages. In the western kingdoms of Europe there was gradually formed a distinct class of warriors of superior rank, who fought on horseback, and were recognized as knights by a ceremony of equipment with arms. Among the customs of the ancient Germans, which are noticed by Tacitus, and in which may be discovered the germs of chivalry, are the remarkable deference paid to women, attendance of the aspiring youth on a military superior,—out of which vassalship arose,—and the formal receiving of arms on reaching manhood. At the outset, knighthood was linked to feudal service: the knights were landholders. In the age of Charlemagne, the warriors on horseback—the caballarii—were the precursors, both in name and function, of the chevaliers of later times. The word knight, meaning a youth or servant, and then a military attendant, came to be a term of equivalent meaning. The necessary connection of knighthood with the possession of fiefs was broken in the thirteenth century, through changes in the circumstances of warfare. Knighthood became independent of feudalism. It was a personal distinction, frequently bestowed as a reward for brave deeds, and often conferred with elaborate ceremonies, partly of a religious character. When the boy of gentle birth passed from under the care of females, he first served as a page or valet at the court of a prince or the castle of a rich noble. Having been thus trained in habits of courtesy and obedience, he was advanced, not earlier than the age of fourteen, to the rank of squire, and instructed in horsemanship and in the use of weapons. He followed his master to the tournament and in battle, until finally he was himself dubbed a knight, was clothed in armor of steel, and took on him all the obligations and privileges of his order. The introduction of hereditary surnames and of armorial bearings served to distinguish the members of this order. He who was a knight in one place was a knight everywhere.

There were different classes of knights. The "bachelor," who bore a forked pennon, was below the "knight-banneret," who alone had the right to carry the square banner. The banneret was required to have a certain estate, and to be able to bring into the field a certain number of lances, i.e., inferior knights with their men-at-arms and foot-soldiers. Each knight was accompanied by his squire and personal attendants. Not seldom two knights joined together in a brotherhood in arms, pledging themselves to sustain each other in every peril.

THE VIRTUES OF KNIGHTHOOD.—There were characteristic obligations of knighthood. One was loyalty, which included a strict fidelity to all pledges, embracing promises made to an enemy. Another knightly virtue was courtesy, which was exercised even towards a foe. The spirit of gallantry, inspiring devotion to woman, especially the chosen object of love, and protection to womanly weakness, was always a cardinal trait of the chivalric temper. Courage, which delighted in daring exploits, and sought fields for the exercise of personal prowess, was an indispensable quality of the knights. The ideal of chivalry was honor rather than benevolence. The influence of chivalry in refining manners was very great; but, especially in its period of decline, it allowed or brought in much cruelty and profligacy. Its distinctive spirit could find room for exercise only amid conflict and bloodshed, which it naturally tended to promote.

CEREMONIES OF INVESTITURE.—When the knight was created according to the complete form, he entered into a bath on the evening previous, was instructed by old knights in "the order and feats" of chivalry, was then clad in white and russet, like a hermit, passed the night in the chapel in "orisons and prayers," and at daybreak confessed to the priest, and received the sacrament. He then returned to his chamber. At the appointed hour he was conducted to the hall, where he received the spurs and was girded with the sword by the prince or other lord who was to confer the distinction, by whom he was smitten on the shoulder and charged to be "a good knight." Thence he was escorted to the chapel, where he swore on the altar to defend the church, and his sword was consecrated.

JUDICIAL COMBATS.—The disposition to resort to single combats as a judicial test of guilt or innocence was stimulated by the development of chivalry. There were other ordeals long in vogue, by which it was thought that Heaven would interpose miraculously to shield, and thus to vindicate, the innocent, and to expose the criminal. Such were the plunging of the hand into boiling water, the contact of the flesh with red-hot iron or with fire, the lot, the oath taken on holy relics, the reception of the Eucharist, which would choke the perjurer, and send his soul to perdition. The ordeals were regulated and managed by the clergy. Among the German, and also the Celtic tribes, there are traces of the duel between combatants, for purposes of divination, or of determining on which side in a controversy the right lay. The judicial combat in mediaeval Europe became general. Champions, in cases where the rights of women were in debate, and in other instances where the wager of battle between the direct antagonists in a dispute was impracticable, were selected, or volunteered, to try the issue in an armed conflict. Sometimes professional champions, hired for the occasion, were employed. The custom of judicial combats by degrees declined. The municipalities and the spirit of commerce were averse to it. It was opposed by the Emperor Frederic II. and by Louis IX. of France. The influence of the Roman law helped to undermine it; but the opposition of the Church was the most effectual agency in doing away with it. The modern duel, which survived the judicial combat, is a relic of the ancient custom of avenging private injuries, and of proving the courage of the combatants between whom a quarrel had arisen. In the opening of Shakespeare's play of Richard II., in the quarrel of Mowbray and Bolingbroke, the idea of the judicial combat mingles with the motives and feelings characteristic of the duel when stripped of its religious aspect.

FRANCE.—DESCENDANTS OF HUGH CAPET