The narrow concentrated life of the feudal lord lent, undoubtedly, a great preponderance to domesticity in his affairs. The lord had his wife and children for his permanent society; they continually shared his interests, his destiny. It was in the bosom of the feudal family that woman gained her importance in civilisation. The system excited development of private character and passion that were, all things considered, noble. Chivalry was the daughter of feudalism. But from the social point of view feudalism failed to provide either legal order or political security. It contained elaborate obligations between the higher and the lower orders of the feudal hierarchy, duties of protection on the one side and of service on the other. But these obligations could never be established as institutions. There was no superior force to which all had to submit; there was public opinion to make itself respected. Hence the feudal system was without political guarantee to sustain it. Might alone was right. Feudalism was as much opposed to the establishment of general order as to the extension of general liberty. It was indispensable for the reconstruction of European society, but politically it was in itself a radically bad system. _III.--The Church_ Meanwhile the Church, adhering to its own principles, had steadily advanced along the route that it had marked out for itself in the early days of its organisation. It was during the feudal epoch the only power that made for civilised development. All education was ecclesiastical; all the arts were in the service of the Church. It had, during the Dark Ages, won the Barbarians to its fold by the gorgeous solemnity of its ritual; and, to protect itself against secular interference, it had declared the spiritual power to be independent of the temporal--the first great assertion, in the history of European civilisation, of the liberty of thought. In one set of respects the Church during the feudal epoch satisfied the conditions of good government; in another, it did not. Its power was uniformly distributed, it drew its recruits from all classes, and entrusted the rule to the most capable. It was in close touch with every grade of mankind; every colony of serfs, even, had its priest. It was the most popular and most accessible society of the time, the most open to all talents and all noble ambitions. But, on the other hand, it failed in that all-important requisite of good government, respect for liberty. It denied the rights of individual reason in spiritual matters, and it claimed the right to compel belief--a claim that placed it in some dependence upon the temporal powers, since as a purely spiritual body, governing by influence and not by force, it could not persecute without the aid of the secular arm.