n
that every freeman could pretend to knighthood.

Although the chivalric regulations ascribed to the emperor Henry, and to
his most distinguished vassals, may not be genuine, they offer
nevertheless infallible proofs of the most ancient spirit of knighthood.
Henry ordained that no one should be created a knight who either by word
or by deed injured the holy Church; the Pfalzgraf Conrad added, "no one
who either by word or by deed injured the holy German empire"; Hermann
of Swabia, "no one who injured a woman or a maiden"; Berthold, the
brother of Arnulf of Bavaria, "no one who had ever deceived another or
had broken his word"; Conrad of Franconia, "no one who had ever run away
from the field of battle." These appear to have been, in fact, the first
chivalric laws, for they spring from the spirit of the times, while all
the regulations concerning nobility of birth, the number of ancestors,
the exclusion of all those who were engaged in trade, etc., are, it is
evident from their very nature, of a much later origin.

CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY THE FATIMITES

A.D. 969

STANLEY LANE-POOLE

(It was the fate of the religion which Mahomet founded, as it has been
of other great systems, to undergo many sectarian divisions, and to be
used as the instrument of conquest and political power. When Islam had
somewhat departed from the character which it first manifested in moral
sternness and fiery zeal, and had established itself in various parts of
the world on a basis of commerce or of science, rather than that of its
original inspiration, various off shoots of the faith began to assume
prominence. Among the sects which sprang up was one that claimed to
represent the true succession of Mahomet. This sect was itself the
result of a schism among the adherents of one of the two principal
divisions of the Moslems--the Shiahs. They maintained that Ali, a
relation and the adopted son of Mahomet and husband of his daughter
Fatima, was the first legitimate imam or successor of the prophet. They
regarded the other and greater division--the Sunnites, who recognized
the first three caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman--as usurpers. Ali
was the fourth caliph, and the Sunnites in turn looked upon his
followers, the Shiahs, as heretics.

The schism among the Shiahs grew out of the claim of the schismatics
that the legitimate imam or successor of the Prophet must be in the line
of descent from Ali. The sixth imam, Jaffer, upon the death