This moral standard set for princes by Machiavelli was the dominant force in international affairs from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. During this period it debased the public morals not only of Italy but of every other land in Christendom. Its vicious principles were acted upon by every court of Europe.[707] Even to-day Machiavellism, though condemned in theory, is still too often followed in practice. It would not be an exaggeration to say that _The Prince_ has exercised a more baneful influence over the political morals of Europe than any other book ever written. It is instructive to contrast the influence of Machiavellism with that of Stoicism. Among the good effects of Roman Stoicism was its ennobling influence upon the imperial government. It gave the Roman Empire such a succession of high-minded and conscientious rulers as scarce is shown by the history of any other state ancient or modern. In contrast to the influence of this noble philosophy which apotheosized duty and exalted in rulers the virtues of clemency, truthfulness, magnanimity, and justice, Machiavellism filled, or contributed to fill, the thrones of Christendom with rulers whose moral sense was so blunted by its sinister doctrines that for generations truth speaking, sincerity, regard for the obligations of treaties, and respect for the rights of sister states were almost unknown in the diplomacy and mutual dealings of the governments of Europe. It is only after the lapse of more than three centuries that Christendom is freeing itself from the evil influence of Machiavelli’s teachings, and that there has been generated a new public conscience which recognizes that states like individuals are subjects of the moral law, and that the code which is binding on individuals is binding likewise on governments and communities. [Sidenote: The ethical value of the ideal of the courtier] We have already mentioned the ideal of the courtier as one of the ethical or semi-ethical products of the age of the Renaissance. This was a conception of perfect manhood which was nurtured in the socially brilliant and refined courts of the Italian princes of this period. It was a fusion and modification of selected virtues and qualities of the knight and of the scholar. The Christian theological virtues had no necessary place in it. It was the distinctive virtues of the knight, elevated and refined, which formed the heart and core of the ideal. Like the ideal of knighthood, the courtly ideal was an aristocratic one; the courtier, like the knight, must be “nobly born and of gentle race.”[708] Martial exploits were accounted to him as virtues; “his principal and true profession ought to be that of arms.”[709] As loyalty to his superior was a supreme virtue in the knight, so was absolute loyalty to his prince the pre-eminent virtue of the courtier. Not less prominent was the place accorded in the ideal to the knightly virtues of courage and courtesy.[710]