Thus we have this Chronicle, rambling, incoherent, picturesque, with its glimpses of all this pretty world, for which our Salimbene, despite his cowl, has an uncloistered eye—its keenness for incident and circumstance undeflected by the inner sight with which it could also look on the invisible world. When Brother Salimbene was young and an enthusiastic Joachite, a strong motive of his wish to live on in the flesh was to see whether those prophecies regarding Frederick came true. Alas! for this purpose he lived too long: Frederick died before the prophecies were fulfilled, and with his death honest Salimbene had to put from him his darling trust in the words of Abbot Joachim of the Order of the Flower.
BOOK IV
THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL: SOCIETY
CHAPTER XXII
FEUDALISM AND KNIGHTHOOD
Feudal and Christian Origin of Knightly Virtue; the Order of the Temple; Godfrey of Bouillon; St. Louis; Froissart’s Chronicles