The treatises of Gordonius on Diseases of the Kidneys, of Gerard de Solo on Hygiene, of Raymond de Vinario on the Plague, indicate to the medical scholar the extraordinary accomplishments of the members of the Faculty of Montpellier. The great work of Guy de Chauliac on General Surgery was the main reliance of European operators for two hundred and fifty years. The mad extravagance of the Provençal nobility, their lavish expenditures, the pomp of their retinues, their efforts to surpass in prodigality and luxury the splendid festivals of imperial Rome, aroused the wonder of Europe. Their chargers were shod with silver. Their dogs wore collars set with precious jewels. It was an ordinary occurrence for a wealthy lord to scatter great sums to be scrambled for by the populace. One sowed like seed thirty thousand gold crowns in the neighborhood of his castle. Another enriched his noble guests by the bestowal of gifts of incalculable value. A third sacrificed upon a funeral pyre, in the presence of an immense assemblage, thirty of his finest horses. There was apparently no limit to the intoxication produced by the pride, the opulence. and the voluptuousness of Provençal society. In that society differences in rank were not so sharply defined as in those of other countries. The serf, indeed, retained his degradation; but the ordinarily intermediate class of burghers were practically the equals of the feudal aristocracy. Many of them boasted a purer and a more distinguished lineage. They used coats of arms. They had their mansions, their embattled castles, their bodies of organized retainers. They excelled in martial exercises, and it was no unusual occurrence for knights who had crossed swords with the infidels of Palestine to be worsted by them in the tournament. The title to noble rank was thus to a considerable extent connected with municipal residence. In the cities all was splendor, gayety, courtesy. Outside of them, the inhabitants were for the most part condemned to villeinage. In the Courts of Love, whose absurdity has caused them to be regarded as mythical by many subsequent writers, judicial decisions were rendered on every point of amorous casuistry. The mock solemnity with which such matters were propounded and determined was only exceeded by the dissolute tendency of the customs that governed the proceedings of these extraordinary tribunals. No greater proof of the prevalent laxity of morals could be desired than that furnished by their canons. They encouraged the violation of the marriage vow. They defined with minute and curious particularity the rules of intrigue. The nature of the questions debated by high-born ladies in the presence of a numerous auditory was such as cannot be even designated, still less described, in a modern book. The brazen coarseness which characterized these ridiculous controversies afforded a remarkable contrast to the refinement of manners otherwise displayed by those who participated in them.