mingly under no restraint; and from the prevalence of
deeds of violence, it is very clear that law was not only ineffectual,
but that public sentiment was not strong enough to create a better
state of affairs. The condition was not unlike that which prevailed
in Ireland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Women were
the chief sufferers from the prevalent lawlessness. They were seized
at night, and, after being dishonored, were compelled to go to the
church, where the priest, under threats and despite the protests
of the victims, performed the ceremony which linked them to their
captors. It mattered little if the woman happened to be already
married, as such proceedings were supposed by many to constitute
a sufficient divorce. Rent riots were of everyday occurrence, and
murders were not unusual. It was not altogether the poor who were
involved in such deeds of violence, as there were among them agitators
from the upper classes, who not only urged them on, but themselves
took part in all such outrages. Often murders and other forms of
violence grew out of the practice of men of quality having about them
bands of retainers who were frequently the roughest of characters,
including men under indictment for capital offences. No class was
quite secure from the disorderly elements of the population, but the
women of the country districts were more frequently the sufferers than
were their sisters of the towns.

The great increase of sensuality, the low esteem in which women were
held, and the little regard they manifested for their own characters,
showed the decadence into which the spirit of chivalry had fallen.
Being a child of feudalism, with the decay of that system it went
into eclipse. Nevertheless, chivalry contributed to English life
real benefits, apart from the elevation of women, and these remained
permanent factors in the character of the nation.

CHAPTER IX

THE WOMEN OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD

The authorities upon whom we depend for information as to
the condition of the industrial classes--particularly the
agricultural--during the fifteenth century are in such hopeless
conflict that it is impossible to do more than follow the views
of some one of them, with such modifications and checks as may be
reasonably introduced from the others. The picture already drawn of
the utterly miserable condition of the peasantry during that century
is not ratified by all the writers, and yet the interpretation o