she sought, stationary herself, to keep the world stationary, and to stamp out in blood the progressive spirit of man.  Hence it is that the blessings of our modern life have been achieved in spite of the Roman Church, which should have promoted them, and the history of modern civilization and modern knowledge is in so large a part the history of emancipation from the tyranny of the theological spirit,—­that is, the clerical opposition to mental and material advancement, both of which are as necessary to moral advancement as they are to the happiness of men.  This spirit has been the same in every country and in every age, when the spiritual has exceeded the secular power, and its lamentable effects may be traced as well in the gloomy Protestant theocracy of Scotland as in the Catholic Inquisition of Spain.  During the period, however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.  The church was still the controlling intellectual influence.  A dark cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following upon it.  The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy, who used it skilfully to maintain their authority.  By every device they sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular wants.  Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected.  They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery.  The church forced herself on the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the assemblage of the people.  The constant recurrence of holy days and fasts called the mind to the consideration of spiritual things, and the rough superstition of the time was deeply excited when the approach of death in a household brought the priestly train with lighted tapers, and the awe-inspiring ceremonies with which the lingering soul was sent on its way.

The military nature of feudalism explains the predominance of warlike incidents in romantic fiction, and the character of the Roman Church gives us an insight into the causes which, in addition to the ignorance of the time, induced men to refer all remarkable events to supernatural influence, and prepared their minds for the unquestioning belief in the fictions which are so important a characteristic of the romances of chivalry.  The low standard of morality also, which is reflected in the same pages, is due quite as much to the predominance of the dogmatic over the moral element of Christianity, as to the unrefined and rude conditions of life.