THE SEKFS. 305 



next age she was shunned by her own sex : the dis- 

 cipline of social life was established as it exists at the 

 present day. Though it might sometimes be relaxed 

 in a vicious court, at least the ideal of right was pre- 

 served. But in the period of the Troubadours, the 

 fair sinners resembled the pirates of the Homeric age. 

 Their pursuits were of a dangerous, but not of a dis- 

 honourable nature : they might sometimes lose their 

 lives ; they never lost their reputation. 



We must now descend from ladies and gentlemen 

 to the people in the field, who are sometimes forgotten 

 by historians. The castle was built on the summit of 

 a hill, and a village of serfs was clustered round its 

 foot. These poor peasants were often hardly treated 

 by their lords. Often they raised their brown and 

 horny hands and cursed the cruel castle which scowled 

 upon them from above. Humbly they made obei- 

 sance, and bitterly they gnawed their lips, as the 

 baron rode down the narrow street on his great war- 

 horse, which would always have its fill of corn, when 

 they would starve, followed by his beef-fed varlets 

 with faces red from beer, who gave them jeering looks, 

 who called them by nicknames, who contemptuously 

 caressed their daughters before their eyes. Yet it 

 was not always thus : the lord was often a true noble- 

 man, the parent of their village, the god-father of 

 their children, the guardian of their happiness, the 

 arbiter of their disputes. When there was sick- 

 ness among them, the ladies of the castle often came 

 down, bringing them soups and spiced morsels with 

 their own white hands ; and the castle was the home 

 of the good chaplain, who told them of the happier 

 world beyond the grave. It was there also that they 

 enjoyed such pleasures as they had. Sometimes they 



