obligations, in which service was given in return for protection.  The vassal did homage to his lord—­became his homme or man—­and his lord was bound to take care of him.  In theory, at least, every serf was entitled to a living.  In theory, too, the Church embraced all Christendom.  None save Jews were outside it or could get outside it, except by excommunication; which was the most terrible of penalties, because it cut a man off from all spiritual human fellowship.  The same principle of co-operation prevailed in mediaeval industry and commerce, organised into guilds of craftsmen and trading corporations, which fixed the prices and quality of goods, the number of apprentices allowed, etc.  The manufacturer was not a capitalist, but simply a master workman.  Government was paternal and interfered continually with the freedom of contract and the rights of the individual.  Here was where Carlyle took issue with modern Liberalism, which proclaims that the best government is that which governs least.  According to the laissez-faire doctrine, he said, the work of a government is not that of a father, but of an active parish constable.  The duty of a government is to govern, but this theory makes it its duty to refrain from governing.  Not liberty is good for men, but obedience and stern discipline under wise rulers, heroes, and heaven-sent kings.  Carlyle took no romantic view of the Middle Ages.  He is rather contemptuous of Scott’s mediaeval-picturesque,[35] and his Scotch Calvinism burns fiercely against the would-be restorers of mediaeval religious formularies and the mummeries of “the old Pope of Rome”—­a ghastly survival of a dead creed.[36] He said that Newman had the brain of a good-sized rabbit.  But in this matter of collectivism versus individualism, Carlyle was with the Middle Ages.  “For those were rugged, stalwart ages. . . .  Gurth, born thrall of Cedric, it is like, got cuffs as often as pork-parings; but Gurth did belong to Cedric; no human creature then went about connected with nobody; left to go his way into Bastilles or worse, under Laissez-faire. . . .  That Feudal Aristocracy, I say, was no imaginary one. . . .  It was a Land Aristocracy; it managed the Governing of this English People, and had the reaping of the Soil of England in return. . . .  Soldiering, Police and Judging, Church-Extension, nay, real Government and Guidance, all this was actually done by the Holders of Land in return for their Land.  How much of it is now done by them; done by anybody?  Good Heavens! ‘Laissez faire, Do ye nothing, eat your wages and sleep,’ is everywhere the passionate half-wise cry of this time.” [37]