Among the unprinted matrimonial handbooks dating from the period before Luther’s time, and containing a like favourable teaching on marriage, are the “Booklet on the Rule of Holy Matrimony,”[427] “On the Sacrament of Matrimony,”[428] and the excellent “Mirror of the Matrimonial Order,” by the Dominican Marcus von Weida.[429] Fr. A. Ebert, the Protestant bibliographer, remarks of the latter’s writings: “They effectually traverse the charges with which self-complacent ignorance loves to overwhelm the ages previous to the Saxon Reformation,” and what he says applies particularly to the teaching on marriage.[430] To come now to the preachers. We must first mention Johann Herolt, concerning whose influence a recent Protestant writer aptly remarks, that his “wisdom had been listened to by thousands.”[431] The passage already given, in which he describes marriage as an Order instituted by Christ (p. 129 f.), is but one instance of his many apt and beautiful sayings. In the very next sermon Herolt treats of the preparation which so great a Sacrament demands. In the same way that people prepare themselves for their Easter Communion, so they, bride and bridegroom, must prepare themselves for matrimony by contrition and confession; for “marriage is as much a Sacrament as the Eucharist.” A similar view prevailed throughout Christendom. One of the most popular of Italian preachers was Gabriel Barletta, who died shortly after 1480. Amongst his writings there is a Lenten sermon entitled: “_De amore conjugali vel de laudibus mulierum_.” In this he speaks of the “cordial love” which unites the married couple. He points out that marriage was instituted in Paradise and confirmed anew by Christ. Explaining the meaning of the ring, he finds that it signifies four things, all of which tend to render Christian marriage praiseworthy. He declares that a good wife may prove an inestimable treasure. If he dwells rather too much on woman’s physical and mental inferiority, this does not prevent him from extolling the strength of the woman who is upheld by Christian virtue, and who often succeeds in procuring the amendment of a godless husband.[432]