The age of the crusades . eighbors and challenge each other to mortalfight, as much in sport as we would defy a comradeto a chariot-race. It is but just to say that, if the Greeks were amazedat the warlike propensities of the Catholics, they ex-pressed no wonder at their cruelty. In this theythemselves even excelled their more robust dungeons of Constantinople were filled withpolitical offenders whose eyes were torn from theirsockets; and more than one imperial candidate re-sumed his place of honor among a people whose wav-ing banners he was unable to see. The Greek differedfrom the
The age of the crusades . eighbors and challenge each other to mortalfight, as much in sport as we would defy a comradeto a chariot-race. It is but just to say that, if the Greeks were amazedat the warlike propensities of the Catholics, they ex-pressed no wonder at their cruelty. In this theythemselves even excelled their more robust dungeons of Constantinople were filled withpolitical offenders whose eyes were torn from theirsockets; and more than one imperial candidate re-sumed his place of honor among a people whose wav-ing banners he was unable to see. The Greek differedfrom the Frank and German, the Norman and Saxon,chiefly in being a coward and choosing to glut hisbrutal instincts with the use of the secret torture, thepoisoned cup, or the dagger in the back of his victim,rather than with the sword and battle-axe in openfight. To a people such as we have described the appealfor the crusades, in which the imagined cause ofheaven marched in step with their own tastes andhabits, was CHAPTER III. CHIVALRY—RULES—EDUCATION OF KNIGHT—CEREMONIES—INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER. HE call for the crusades, while appealingpowerfully to the warlike disposition ofthe people, would not have succeeded inrousing Europe had there not been in thepopular heart at least the germs of noblersentiment. The vitality of conscience notwithstand- J ing its degradation, and an inclination towards theexercise of the finer graces of conduct in spite of theprevalent grossness, manifested themselves in the riseof Chivalry. The picturesqueness of knight-errantry, and theglamour thrown over the subject by poetry and ro-mance, may mislead us as to the real character of thisinstitution. We must distinguish between the idealsof knighthood and the actual lives of those who, fromvarious motives, thronged the profession. We mustnot confound the Chivalry of these earlier and ruderages with that of its more refined, though somewhateffeminate, later days. It would be an equal mi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidageof, booksubjectcrusades
