=The Value and Influence of the University Training.=--Obviously the mediæval universities had most of the defects of their times. From a modern point of view, the content of their course of study was meager, fixed, and formal, and the methods of teaching were stereotyped and authoritative. They largely neglected the real literature of the classical age, and permitted but little that savored of investigation or thinking. Yet the universities were a product of the growing tendencies that later burst the fetters of mediævalism. They were a great encouragement to subtlety, industry, and thoroughness, and their efforts toward philosophic speculation contained the germs of the modern spirit of inquiry and rationality. They were even of immediate assistance in promoting freedom of discussion and advancing democracy, and to their arbitration were often referred disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers. Thus they aided greatly in advancing the cause of individualism and carrying forward the torch of civilization and progress. SUPPLEMENTARY READING Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. IX; Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 313-327. Standard works on the universities in general are Laurie, S. S., _The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities_ (Appleton, 1886), and the more complete and accurate _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895), by Rashdall, H. For a brief source account of the privileges, courses, methods, and student life of universities, see Norton, A. O., _Readings in the History of Education; Mediæval Universities_ (Harvard University, 1909), or Munro, D. C., _The Mediæval Student_ (Longmans, Green, 1899). For the history of individual universities, see Compayré, G., _Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities_ (Scribner, 1893); Lyte, H. C. M., _A History of the University of Oxford_ (Macmillan, 1886); Mullinger, J. B., _University of Cambridge_ (Longmans, London, 1888); and Paulsen, F., _The German Universities_ (Macmillan, 1895; Scribner, 1906). CHAPTER X THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY OUTLINE Owing to the weakness of the regular sovereignty after Charlemagne’s day, the feudal system sprang up, and by the middle of the twelfth century it had developed a code of manners known as chivalry. Out of this there arose a training for knighthood in religion, honor, and gallantry. Before becoming a knight, the boy was early trained at home, then at some castle, first as ‘page,’ and later as ‘squire.’ This chivalric education produced many contradictory results, but it tended to refine the times and to counteract ‘otherworldliness.’ [Sidenote: Dependence upon a powerful neighbor became a regular form of government.]