Besides, he protected the churches
and the monasteries within his territory, and although he could
neither read nor write, (it was considered unmanly to know
such things,) he employed a number of priests who kept his
accounts and who registered the marriages and the births and
the deaths which occurred within the baronial or ducal domains.
In the fifteenth century the kings once more became strong
enough to exercise those powers which belonged to them because
they were ``anointed of God.'' Then the feudal knights lost
their former independence. Reduced to the rank of country
squires, they no longer filled a need and soon they became a
nuisance. But Europe would have perished without the ``feudal
system'' of the dark ages. There were many bad knights
as there are many bad people to-day. But generally speaking,
the rough-fisted barons of the twelfth and thirteenth century
were hard-working administrators who rendered a most useful
service to the cause of progress. During that era the noble
torch of learning and art which had illuminated the world of
the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans was burning
very low. Without the knights and their good friends, the
monks, civilisation would have been extinguished entirely, and
the human race would have been forced to begin once more
where the cave-man had left off.
CHIVALRY
CHIVALRY
IT was quite natural that the professional fighting-men of
the Middle Ages should try to establish some sort of organisation
for their mutual benefit and protection.
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