Further among the circumstances that made a more ordered and more human condition of society was the code of chivalry, demanding of all knights or “fully armoured and mounted men,” a high sense of honour, gallantry in battle and peace, and courtesy to women. Charlemagne had gathered round him twelve “paladins” or paragons of knightly virtue, and the fame of their example inspired to deeds not only of valour but of courtly grace. Thus, in Provence, Spain, and Northern Italy there flourished the graceful art of the Troubadour, which was paralleled in the Danube provinces by that of the Minnesingers. The troubadours, originally of noble birth, including princes in their ranks and one king, Richard the Lion-Hearted, invented and sang songs to music of their own composing, thus setting a model for the wandering troubadours and minstrels who later travelled professionally from castle to castle, not overlooking, we may be sure, audiences of people that might be gathered in the churches. Chivalry was turned to shrewd account by the Church. It could not curb the instinct of fighting but could direct it and did so by enjoining upon knightly penitents a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Such expeditions grew in number and size, travelling armed for protection on the journey, and out of them came the Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Spots in Palestine from the Moslem. These were far from being unmixed blessings to the people, but at least they diverted for a time the turbulence and left the cities freer opportunity of growth. And many a noble on returning home, would build the church or chapel that he had vowed, determined, perhaps, that it should rival in beauty some example he had seen upon his wanderings. In view even of the few particulars summarised above, how is it possible to relegate this period to “The Dark Ages” or even to dismiss it as negligible, summing it all up as part of the Middle Ages, between the fall of Rome and the revival of a knowledge of Classic learning and art in the fifteenth century? It is to the Italians of the Renaissance that we owe this distortion of history. Properly speaking there was no Renaissance or Rebirth; but at least from the time of Charlemagne onward a steady growth in civilisation, and how vigorous it was, notwithstanding the many setbacks, due to the continuing confusion, may be gathered from the architecture of the period. It is well to bear in mind that after the death of Charlemagne his empire gradually fell apart. A German empire extended from the Rhine to the Danube and was in constant conflict with the Popes to exert its sway over Northern Italy; the growth of the communes or free cities being perpetually disturbed by siding with one or other of the contestants--the Imperial or Ghibelline and the Papal or Guelph.