The most conspicuous offspring of feudalism was chivalry, with its various orders of knighthood; but chivalry and the orders of knighthood gained little foothold in Italy, where the conditions necessary for the growth and development of such a social and military order were far from propitious. Knights, it is true, came and went in Italy, and performed their deeds of valor; fair maidens were rescued, and women and children were given succor; but the knights were foreign knights, and they owed allegiance to a foreign lord. So far, then, Italy was without the institution of chivalry, and, to a great degree, insensible to those high ideals of fealty and honor which were the cardinal virtues of the knightly order. Owing to the absence of these fine qualities of mind and soul, the Italian in war was too often of fierce and relentless temper, showing neither pity nor mercy and having no compassion for a fallen foe. Warriors never admitted prisoners to ransom, and the annals of their contests are destitute of those graceful courtesies which shed such a beautiful lustre over the contests of England and France. Stratagems were as common as open and glorious battle, and private injuries were revenged by assassination and not by the fair and manly _joust a l'outrance_. However, when a man pledged his word for the performance of any act and wished his sincerity to be believed, he always swore by the _parola di cavaliere_, and not by the _parola di cortigiano_, so general was the acknowledgment of the moral superiority of chivalry.