sentiments—among others, a nice sense of honor and an exalted consideration for the female sex—which found their noblest expression in Chivalry, of which institution and its good effects upon the social life of Europe we shall now proceed to speak.
2. Chivalry.
Chivalry defined: Origin of the Institution.—Chivalry has been aptly denned as the "Flower of Feudalism."
(Drawing by Alphonse de Neuville.)
It was a military institution, or order, the members of which, called knights, were pledged to the protection of the church, and to the defence of the weak and the oppressed. Although the germs of the system may be found in society before the age of Charlemagne, still Chivalry did not assume its distinctive character until the eleventh century, and died out during the fifteenth.
Chivalry seems to have had France for its cradle. That country at least was its true home. There it was that it exhibited
