As regards the difference between the work and influence of chivalry and monasticism, it is the same which always must exist between the physical and the moral--the one was a material and the other was a spiritual force. The orders of chivalry included all the physical strength of the country, its active material; but the monastery included all its spiritual power and thinking material. Chivalry was the instrument by which mighty deeds were done, but the intellect which guided, directed, and in {165} fact used that instrument was developed and matured in the seclusion of the cloister. By the adoption of a stringent code of honor as regards the plighted word, and a gallant consideration toward the vanquished and weak, chivalry did much toward the refinement of social intercommunication and assuaging the atrocities of warfare. By the adoption, also, of a gentle bearing and respectful demeanor toward the opposite sex, it elevated woman from the obscurity in which she lay, and placed her in a position where she could exercise her softening influence upon the rude customs of a half-formed society; but we must not forget that the gallantry of chivalry was, after all, but a glossing over with the splendors of heroism the excrescences of a gross licentiousness--a licentiousness which mounted to its crisis in the polished gallantry of the court of Louis XIV. Monasticism did more for woman than chivalry. It was all very well for _preux chevaliers_ to go out and fight for the honor of a woman's name whom they had never seen; but we find that when they were brought into contact with woman they behaved with like ruthless violence to her whatever her station may have been--no matter whether she was the pretty daughter of the herdsman, or the wife of some neighboring baron, she was seized by violence, carried off to some remote fortress, violated and abandoned. Monasticism did something better, it provided her when she was no longer safe, either in the house of her father or her husband, with an impregnable shelter against the licentious pursuit of these _preux chevaliers_; it gave her a position in the church equal to their own; she might become the prioress or the lady abbess of her convent; she was no longer the sport and victim of chivalrous licentiousness, but a pure and spotless handmaiden of the Most High--a fellow-servant in the church, where she was honored with equal position and rewarded with equal dignities--a far better thing this than chivalry, which broke skulls in honor of her name, whilst it openly violated the sanctity of her person. It may be summed up in a sentence. Monasticism worked long and silently at the foundation and superstructure of society, whilst chivalry labored at its decoration.