sanctity in works
founded, and by means of which she raised up German individuality to the
idealism of chivalry, i.e. a free military service in behalf of
Christendom.

Sec. 244. It is evident that the system of monkish education was taken up
into this epoch as one of its elements, being modified to conform to it:
e.g. the Benedictines were accustomed to labor in agriculture and in the
transcribing of books, and this contradicted the idea of monachism,
since that in and for itself tends to an absolute forgetfulness of the
world and a perfect absence of all activity in the individual. The
begging orders were public preachers, and made popular the idea of love
and unselfish devotion to others. They labored toward self-education,
especially by means of the ideal of the life of Christ; e.g. in Tauler's
classical book on the Imitation of Jesus, and in the work of
Thomas-a-Kempis which resembles it. Through a fixed contemplative
communion with the conception of the Christ who suffered and died for
Love, they sought to find content in divine rest and self-abandonment.

Sec. 245. German chivalry sprang from Feudalism. The education of those
pledged to military duty had become confined to practice in the use of
arms. The education of the chivalric vassals pursued the same course,
refining it gradually through the influence of court society and through
poetry, which devoted itself either to the relating of graceful tales
which were really works of art, or to the glorification of woman. Girls
were brought up without especial care. The boy until he was seven years
old remained in the hands of women; then he became a lad (a young
gentleman), and learned the manner of offensive and defensive warfare,
on foot and on horseback; between his sixteenth and eighteenth year,
through a formal ceremony (the laying on of the sword), he was duly
authorized to bear arms. But whatever besides this he might wish to
learn was left to his own caprice.

Sec. 246. In contradistinction to the monkish education, Chivalry placed an
infinite value on individuality, and this it expressed in its extreme
sensibility to the feeling of honor. Education, on this account,
endeavored to foster this reflection of the self upon itself by means of
the social isolation in which it placed knighthood. The knight did not
delight himself with common possessions, but he sought for him who had
been wronged, since with him he could find enjoyment as a conqueror. He
did n