From Moorish sources, through intercourse with the Hispano-Arabs and the medium of French and Sicilian conquest, were derived those maxims of chivalry which modified the turbulent barbarism of feudal Europe, the courteous gallantry of the tournament, idolatrous devotion to the female character, a high sense of honor and personal dignity, and the refining amenities of social life. From these originals sprang the germ of modern literature and the earliest models of modern poetry. The Arabs were unrivalled masters of improvisation, an art which attained an extraordinary degree of popularity in the Middle Ages; and the employment of rhyme, the most important and striking characteristic of modern versification, was familiar to the Bedouin centuries before the appearance of Mohammed. The vagrant bard of the Desert was the literary progenitor of the troubadour, as was the Arabian buffoon and story-teller the prototype of his companion the jongleur, whose broad pleasantry and suggestive antics diverted the appreciative and not over-delicate assemblies of the Provençal and Sicilian courts. Through the schools of Montpellier and Salerno, contemporaneous seats of learning and both dominated by Arabian influence, the philosophy of Averroes, the botany of Ibn-Beithar, the surgery of Abulcasis, the agriculture of Ibn-al-Awam, the histories of Ibn-al-Khatib, became familiar to the benighted and priest-ridden people of Europe. It was, however, in the impetus it gave to the assertion of the right of private interpretation in religious matters that Moorish influence was most marked and permanent. One of the principal tenets of the Moslem creed was toleration. On the other hand, the first duty of the Christian was unquestioning obedience to his spiritual advisers. The rapid and almost miraculous development of the human mind during the thirteenth century was the inevitable consequence of a policy based upon those principles whose application had promoted the wonderful progress of every nation ruled by the enlightened successors of Mohammed.