{80} The religious element which was associated with it was little calculated to lighten the burden. I do not believe that the influence of the priest was at all considerable in the confined society I have just depicted, nor that he succeeded, to any great extent, in imparting a juster character to the relations between the servile population and the lord. The church has doubtless exercised an important influence on European civilisation, but it has done so by proceeding in a general manner, by operating a change on the general dispositions of men. Now when we narrowly scrutinise the petty feudal society, limiting the designation as I have previously done, we find the influence of the priest, as between the lord and the serfs, almost a nullity. In the majority of cases, he was himself as boorish and subservient as the serf, and in very poor condition and weak inclination to bear up against the arrogance of the superior. We can readily imagine that he, the sole instrument to sustain and develop any sort of moral life in the lower population, would be useful to it in that respect, and attract some regard; he would confer a modicum of consolation and enlightenment; but he neither could nor did effect much in his ministry. I have now examined the elementary feudal society, and brought forward the principal consequences that necessarily flowed from it, as affecting the possessor of the fief himself, his family, and the population gathered around him. We will now emerge from this narrow circle. The population of the fief was not alone on the face of the land; there were other societies, analogous or different, with which it had relations. The influence of this general society upon civilisation, therefore, becomes our present object of inquiry. Before entering upon it, I will hazard a short remark. It is true that the owner of the fief and the priest both belonged to a general society; at a distance, they had numerous and frequent relations. It was not so with the serfs: whenever we use a general word, as, for instance, the word 'people,' to designate the rural population at this epoch, which conveys the idea of a society, one and indivisible, we speak inaccurately. For this population there was no general society; its existence was purely local. Beyond the territory in which they had habitation, the serfs held communication or interests with no individual or thing. There was for them no common destiny or common country: they did not compose a people. Therefore when we speak of the feudal association in its entirety, reference is made to the owners of fiefs alone. Let us see, then, what were the relations of the lord of the isolated society with the general society in which he was involved and what consequences they brought to bear upon the development of civilisation. {81}