. Social England; a record of the progress of the people in religion, laws, learning, arts, industry, commerce, science, literature and manners, from the earliest times to the present day . ebrated Ayenbite of Inwyt (p. 125),which was finished in 1840, and is said to be a literal translationof the French original. Here a considerable sjiace is devoted tothe question of chastity in all its meanings; and while the authorstates, as did Chaucer after him, that siiousliod . is a statof greate autorit/-, for Cod hit made ine Paradis terestre, he yet FAITH AND TBACTWK IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 781 compares
. Social England; a record of the progress of the people in religion, laws, learning, arts, industry, commerce, science, literature and manners, from the earliest times to the present day . ebrated Ayenbite of Inwyt (p. 125),which was finished in 1840, and is said to be a literal translationof the French original. Here a considerable sjiace is devoted tothe question of chastity in all its meanings; and while the authorstates, as did Chaucer after him, that siiousliod . is a statof greate autorit/-, for Cod hit made ine Paradis terestre, he yet FAITH AND TBACTWK IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 781 compares the state of the celibate to that of the angels, identitiesmaidenhood with the treasure of the tield which forms thesubject of Christs parable, and quotes with approval St. Jeromesexaltation of it above all other virtues. The earlier treatises in praise of virginity must have beenaddressed, like modern temperance lectures, to an approvingaudience. They were written by ecclesiastics for ecclesiasticalreaders. This is also true of the violent httle pamphlet on Heli Meidenhod. But the French treatise, though the workof Friar Levens, was written for the use of Philip 111. of France ;. THE SIE(_iE OF THE CASTELL DAMOIU.(Inltrdl Psalter.) the autlior of the Ayenbite, an Augustinian (anon fromCanterbury, addressed his couutiymen in general; while, whatevermay have been the position and object of Chaucers interpolaters,the poets desire in the original cast of the sermon must havebeen merely to make his parson speak in character. The \iewsof the Church, then, were sufficiently well known. So, unfortu-nately, were the acts of iiidi\i(lual Churchmen. The sanctity offamily life owes much ti) the early Christians; nothing to thedoctrines or practice of the medieval (Jlun-cii. A s^-stem, inwhich betrothal is regarded as of the .same binding force as theceremonial of marriage itself in which divorce is impossible 782 THE BEGiyXIKGS OF MODEliX EXGLAKD. under all , while subsequ
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