P. 25. ‘The blind archer, Love.’ For information about the pagan orientalism of the Troubadours, the blasphemous bombast by which they provoked their persecution in Provence, and their influence on the Courts of Europe, see Sismondi, Lit. Southern Europe, Cap. III.-VI.
P. 27. ‘Stadings.’ The Stadings, according to Fleury, in A.D. 1233, were certain unruly fenmen, who refused to pay tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both sexes, worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, etc., considered the devil as a very ill-used personage, and the rightful lord of themselves and the world, and were of the most profligate morals. An impartial and philosophic investigation of this and other early continental heresies is much wanted.
P. 37. ‘All gold.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7, for Walter’s interference and Lewis’s answer, which I have paraphrased.
P. 38. ‘Is crowned with thorns.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 5, for this anecdote and her defence, which I have in like manner paraphrased.
P. 39. ‘Their pardon.’ Cf. Lib. I § 3, for this quaint method of self-humiliation.
Ibid. ‘You know your place.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 6. ‘The vassals and relations of her betrothed persecuted her openly, and plotted to send her back to her father divorced. . . . Sophia also did all she could to place her in a convent. . . . She delighted in the company of maids and servants, so that Sophia used to say sneeringly to her, “You should have been counted among the slaves who drudge, and not among the princes who rule.”’
P. 41. ‘Childish laughter.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7. ‘The holy maiden, receiving the mirror, showed her joy by delighted laughter;’ and again, II. § 8, “They loved each other in the charity of the Lord, to a degree beyond all belief.’
Ibid. ‘A crystal clear.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7.
P. 43. ‘Our fairest bride.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 8. ‘No one henceforth dared oppose the marriage by word or plot, . . . and all mouths were stopped.’