wholly omits; Chrêtien's characters constantly invoke the saints, which Wolfram's knights never do; when Parzival is in imminent danger of death it is to his wife, and not to a patron saint, that he looks for aid. Wolfram is always a religious poet, but, if we compare his other important poem the _Willehalm_ with the _Parzival_, we cannot help feeling that the former is decidedly more in harmony with the thought of his day, and less curiously '_modern_' in tone than the latter. It is difficult to resist the conviction that some of the special peculiarities of the _Parzival_ are due to Wolfram's source quite as much as to Wolfram himself. It is a commonplace of history that one effect of the contact between heathen and Christian races brought about by the Crusades was the awakening of a spirit of tolerance between the brave men on either side. In a day when manly strength and courage were accounted of such value it was impossible that the existence of such qualities on the side of the heathen should not, in the opinion of many, go far to counterbalance their lack of Christianity; and it is certain that among those long resident in the East such tolerance eventually led to laxity in matters both of faith and practice. It was such laxity that was the ostensible reason for the fall of the Knights Templars. In the case of a poem, which otherwise gives indication of familiarity with Oriental custom and tradition, is it unreasonable to suggest that its peculiarities of religious treatment, its freedom from petty ecclesiastical details, the breadth and tolerance of its views, and the far more human ideal of virtue which it presents, may, at least in part, be due to the influence of the Crusading spirit which we know did, on the whole, make in these directions?