in Charlemagne, had done their work. The age of the ascetics began to fade. The age of the crusades and of chivalry succeeded it.

It is curious to observe the manner in which, under the influence of the prevailing tendency, the career of Charlemagne was transfigured by the popular imagination. This great emperor had, in fact, been in no degree actuated by the spirit of a crusader; his military enterprises had been chiefly directed against the Saxons, against whom he had made not less than thirty-two expeditions. With the Mahommedans he had but little contact. It was Charles Martel, not his grandson, who, by the great battle of Poictiers, had checked their career. Charlemagne made, in person, but a single expedition against them in Spain, and that expedition was on a scale that was altogether inconsiderable, and it was disastrous in its issue. But in the Carlovingian romances, which arose at a time when the enthusiasm of the Crusades was permeating all Christendom, events were represented in a wholly different light. Charles Martel has no place among the ideal combatants of the Church. He had appeared too early, his figure was not sufficiently great to fascinate the popular imagination, and by confiscating ecclesiastical property, and refusing to assist the Pope against the Lombards, he had fallen under the ban of the clergy. Charlemagne, on the other hand, is represented as the first and greatest of the crusaders. His wars with the Saxons were scarcely noticed. His whole life was said to have been spent in heroic and triumphant combats with the followers of Mahomet. Among the achievements attributed to him was an expedition to rescue Nismes and Carcassone from their grasp, which was, in fact, a dim tradition of the victories of Charles 1 Fauriel, Hist. de la Poésie provençale, tome ii. p. 252. VOL. II. U

Martel. He is even said to have carried his victorious arms into the heart of Palestine, and he is the hero of what are probably the three earliest extant romances of the Crusades. In fiction, as in history, his reign forms the great landmark separating the early period of the middle ages from the age of military Christianity.

On the verge of this great change I draw this history to a close. In pursuing our long and chequered course, from Augustus to Charlemagne, we have seen the rise and fall of many types of character, and of many forms of enthusiasm. We have seen the influence of universal empire expanding, and the influence of Greek civilisation intensifying, the sympathies of Europe. We have surveyed the successive progress of Stoicism, Platonism, and Egyptian philosophies, at once reflecting and guiding the moral tendencies of society. We have traced the course of progress or retrogression in many fields of social, political, and legislative life; have watched the cradle of European Christianity, examined the causes of its triumph, the difficulties it encountered, and the priceless blessings its philanthropic spirit bestowed upon mankind. We have also pursued step by step the mournful history of its corruption, its asceticism, and its intolerance, the various transformations it produced or underwent when the turbid waters of the barbarian invasions had inundated the civilisations of Europe. It remains for me, before concluding this work, to investigate one class of subjects to which I have, as yet, but briefly adverted—to examine the effects of the changes I have described upon the character and position of woman, and upon the grave moral questions concerning the relations of the sexes.

1 Ibid. p. 258.

* Le Grand D'Aussy, Fabliaux, préf. p. xxiv. These romances were accounts of his expeditions to Spain, to Languedoc, and to Palestine.

CHAPTER V.

THE POSITION OF WOMEN.

IN the long series of moral revolutions that have been described in the foregoing chapters, I have more than once had occasion to refer to the position that was assigned to woman in the community, and to the virtues and vices that spring directly from the relations of the sexes. I have not, however, as yet discussed these questions with a fulness at all corresponding to their historical importance, and I propose, in consequence, before concluding this volume, to devote a few pages to their examination. Of all the many questions that are treated in this work, there is none which I approach with so much hesitation, for there is probably none which it is so difficult to treat with clearness and impartiality, and at the same time without exciting any scandal or offence. The complexity of the problem, arising from the very large place which exceptional institutions or circumstances, and especially the influence of climate and race, have had on the chastity of nations, I have already noticed, and the extreme delicacy of the matters with which this branch of ethics is connected must be palpable to all. The first duty of an historian, however, is to truth, and it is absolutely impossible to present a true picture of the moral condition of different ages, and to form a true estimate of the moral effects of different religions, without adverting to the department of morals,

which has exhibited most change, and has probably exercised most influence.

It is natural that, in the period when men are still perfect barbarians, when their habits of life are still nomadic, and when war and the chase, being their sole pursuits, the qualities that are required in these are their sole measure of excellence, the inferiority of women to men should be regarded as undoubted, and their position. should be extremely degraded. In all those qualities which are then most prized, women are indisputably inferior. The social qualities in which they are especially fitted to excel have no sphere for their display. The ascendency of beauty is very faint, and even if it were otherwise, few traces of female beauty could survive the hardships of the savage life. Woman is looked upon simply as the slave of man, and as the minister to his passions. In the first capacity, her life is one of continual, abject, and unrequited toil. In the second capacity, she is exposed to all the violent revulsions of feeling that follow, among rude men, the gratification of the animal passions.

Even in this early stage, however, we may trace some rudiments of those moral sentiments which are destined at a later period to expand. The institution of marriage exists. The value of chastity is commonly in some degree felt, and appears in the indignation which is displayed against the adulterer. The duty of restraining the sensual passions is largely recognised in the female, though the males are only restricted by the prohibition of adultery.

The two first steps which are taken towards the elevation of woman are probably the cessation of the custom of purchasing wives, and the construction of the family on the basis of monogamy. In the first periods of civilisation, the marriage contract was arranged be

tween the bridegroom and the father of the bride, on the condition of a sum of money being paid by the former to the latter. This sum, which is known in the laws of the barbarians as the mundium,'1 was in fact a payment to the father for the cession of his daughter, who thus became the bought slave of her husband. It is one of the most remarkable features of the ancient laws of India, that they forbade this gift, on the ground that the parent should not sell his child; 2 but there can be little doubt that this sale was at one time the ordinary type of marriage. In the Jewish writings we find Jacob purchasing Leah and Rachel by the performance of certain services for their father, and this custom, which seems to have been at first general in Judea,3 appears in the age of Homer to have been general in Greece. At an early period, however, of Greek history, the purchase-money was replaced by the dowry, or sum of money paid by the father of the bride for the use of his daughter, and this, although it passed into the hands of the husband, contributed to elevate the wife, in the first place, by the dignity it gave her, and in the next place, by special laws, which both in Greece and Rome secured it to her in

1 The dva of the Greeks.

2 Legouvé, Histoire morale des Femmes, pp. 95-96.

3 Gen. xxix. xxxiv. 12; Deut. xxii. 29; 1 Sam. xviii. 25.

The history of dowries is briefly noticed by Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. pp. 112–113; and more fully by Lord Kames, in the admirable chapter 'On the Progress of the Female Sex,' in his Sketches of the History of Man, a book less read than it deserves to be. M. Legouvé has also devoted a chapter to it in his Hist. morale des Femmes. See, too, Legendre, Traité de l'Opinion, tome ii. pp. 329-330. We find traces of the dowry, as well as of the dva, in Homer. Penelope had received a dowry from Icarus, her father. M. Michelet, in one of those fanciful books which he has recently published, maintains a view of the object of the dva which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere, and which I do not believe. He says: 'Ce prix n'est point un achat de la femme, mais une indemnité qui dédommage la famille du père pour les enfants futurs, qui ne profiteront pas à cette famille mais à celle où la femme va entrer.'-La Femme, p. 166,