st man and a good citizen."

The extravagant reverence and regard paid to women of the higher
ranks of society did not have a firm basis in inherent moral principle
either in them or in their worshippers, so that it was an easy passage
from idealized woman to materialized woman. Life cannot long subsist
on the perfervid products of a social imagination. As a revulsion of
noble minds from coarseness and as a protest against tyranny and vice,
chivalry fulfilled a high mission; but, unfortunately, its exalted
admiration of woman fell to a physical appreciation of its subject.
Not her womanhood, but her graces of person came to evoke the
passionate devotion of the knight. An admiration fantastic and
romantic, expressing itself in all sorts of extravagance, a worship
of mere physical beauty--such was the nature of chivalry in its later
expression. Instead of an idol, woman became but a toy.

In no respect was this sentimentality better illustrated than in the
nature of the knightly devotion of the time. When not in the camp, the
life of the knight was an idle one, and was spent for the most part
in sentimental attendance upon ladies at court or castle. It was there
that his deeds of prowess won rewards rather more generously than
discreetly given by the lady to whom he had pledged his devotion;
so that, with all the circumstances of outward respect for women,
surpassing in ostentatious display that shown by any other age, it
is a painful fact that in no other age was there such license in the
association of the sexes. It is a striking comment upon the manners
of the times that "gallantry" should have come to signify both bravery
and illicit love. Chastity was not one of the ornaments of the age of
chivalry.

In curious contrast to the attitude of chivalry--a product of the
Church--toward women was that of the Church in its official character
and expression. The knight elevated woman to the plane of angels,
while the priest went to the other extreme. Saint Chrysostom's
definition of woman as "a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a
desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a
painted ill," continued to be the orthodox view of the Church, Woman
was to be avoided as a temptation by all those who valued the security
of their souls; and yet it was the Church, more than any other social
force, which gave to woman the dignity and worth that she achieved.

The Church stood for order and even for progress;