The age of the crusades . was not high enough. Even his vow todefend the faith had, within the bounds of Christen-dom, little field where it could be honored by exploitof arms. To take his part in the miserable quarrelsthat were chronic between rival popes, or in the warsof the imperial against the prelatic powers, both pro-fessedly Christian, could not satisfy any really reli-gious desires he may have felt. The chivalric spiritthus kindled the aspiration for an ideal which it could,not furnish. If the soldier of the cross must weararmor, he would find no satisfaction unless he sheathedhis swo
The age of the crusades . was not high enough. Even his vow todefend the faith had, within the bounds of Christen-dom, little field where it could be honored by exploitof arms. To take his part in the miserable quarrelsthat were chronic between rival popes, or in the warsof the imperial against the prelatic powers, both pro-fessedly Christian, could not satisfy any really reli-gious desires he may have felt. The chivalric spiritthus kindled the aspiration for an ideal which it could,not furnish. If the soldier of the cross must weararmor, he would find no satisfaction unless he sheathedhis sword in the flesh of the Infidels, whose hordeswere gathering beyond the borders of institution of Chivalry thus prepared the way forthe crusades, which afforded a field for all its physicalheroism, while at the same time these great move-ments stimulated and gratified what to this super-stitious age was the deepest religious impulse. CHAPTER IV. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM—GENERAL PRINCIPLES—INFLUENCE ON N accounting for the crusades we mustconsider the governmental condition ofEurope at the time. Under no othersystem than that of feudalism would ithave been possible to unify and mobilizethe masses for the great adventure. Had Europethen been dominated by several great rulers, eachwith a nation at his control, as the case has been insubsequent times, even the popes would have beenunable to combine the various forces in any enterprisethat was not purely spiritual. Just to the extent inwhich the separate nationalities have developed theirautonomy has the secular influence of the Roman seebeen lessened. Kings and emperors, whenever theyhave felt themselves strong enough to do so, have re-sented the leadership of Rome in matters having tem-poral bearings. Nor would the mutual jealousies of the rulersthemselves have allowed them to unite in any move-ment for the common glory, since the most urgentcalls have never been sufficient to unite them even 32 Minute Subdivi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidageof, booksubjectcrusades
