Eleanor could hardly be called docile.  Whatever else she loved, she certainly loved rule.  She shared this passion to the full with her only great successor and rival on the English throne, Queen Elizabeth, and she happened to become Queen of France at the moment when society was turning from worship of its military ideal, Saint Michael, to worship of its social ideal, the Virgin.  According to the monk Orderic, men had begun to throw aside their old military dress and manners even before the first crusade, in the days of William Rufus (1087-1100), and to affect feminine fashions.  In all ages, priests and monks have denounced the growing vices of society, with more or less reason; but there seems to have been a real outbreak of display at about the time of the first crusade, which set a deep mark on every sort of social expression, even down to the shoes of the statues on the western portal of Chartres:—­

A debauched fellow named Robert [said Orderic] was the first, about the time of William Rufus, who introduced the practice of filling the long points of the shoes with tow, and of turning them up like a ram’s horn.  Hence he got the surname of Cornard; and this absurd fashion was speedily adopted by great numbers of the nobility as a proud distinction and sign of merit.  At this time effeminacy was the prevailing vice throughout the world ...  They parted their hair from the crown of the head on each side of the forehead, and their locks grew long like women, and wore long shirts and tunics, closely tied with points ...  In our days, ancient customs are almost all changed for new fashions.  Our wanton youths are sunk in effeminacy ...  They insert their toes in things like serpents’ tails which present to view the shape of scorpions.  Sweeping the dusty ground with the prodigious trains of their robes and mantles, they cover their hands with gloves ...

If you are curious to follow these monkish criticisms on your ancestors’ habits, you can read Orderic at your leisure; but you want only to carry in mind the fact that the generation of warriors who fought at Hastings and captured Jerusalem were regarded by themselves as effeminate, and plunged in luxury.  “Their locks are curled with hot irons, and instead of wearing caps, they bind their heads with fillets.  A knight seldom appears in public with his head uncovered and properly shaved according to the apostolic precept.”  The effeminacy of the first crusade took artistic shape in the west portal of Chartres and the glass of Saint-Denis, and led instantly to the puritan reaction of Saint Bernard, followed by the gentle asceticism of Queen Blanche and Saint Louis.  Whether the pilgrimages to Jerusalem and contact with the East were the cause or only a consequence of this revolution, or whether it was all one,—­a result of converting the Northern pagans to peaceful habits and the consequent enrichment of northern Europe,—­is indifferent; the fact and the date are enough.  The art is French,