ivilization--it was during a climacteric in human
history. Again the world was to revert to the rudeness necessarily
accompanying the vigorous strength which characterizes the setting forth
of a new race. The world began again--polished manners and social order
gave place to strenuosity and individualism. The strong hand again
became the one thing needful. Literature was silent, and art was
forgotten. Of the glory of classic civilization there remained only a
memory; and even this grew faint, for the struggle for existence became
exacting. Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there
remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization
there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among
other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a
belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman
shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman
manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of
the state; she wrested for herself some of those legal rights to which,
by virtue of her humanity at least, she is indubitably entitled.

VIII

WOMEN OF THE FRANKISH CHURCH

We may now consider ourselves to have nearly passed the transition
period between the Classic and the Middle Ages, and to have begun to
enter that indefinite range of history known as Mediaevalism--indefinite
as to character rather than extent of period. A new world opens to our
view; a world which we examine under the influence of the romanticist
more than under that of the philosopher. In the age to which our
researches have now brought us we find that the life of woman has wholly
changed. Evolution has taken a new beginning. In place of the state as
the symbol and the object of power and progress individualism has come
to the front and asserted itself. There is now more play for personal
initiation on the part of the multitude. The activity of the individual
is more directly attributable to his personal motives and culminates
more fully in his own desires. Consequently, though woman is still held
down to an inferior level, and is hampered by unequal laws, she has more
room in which to assert herself, and she plays a stronger part in
historical events. Practically, though not theoretically, she is still
given in marriage without her consent; but she is no longer regarded as
a mere possession. Her surroundings also have wonderfully c