All these things, philosophy, art, personality, character, were the
product of the time, which, in its definiteness and consistency,
stands apart from all other epochs in history. The social system
was that of feudalism, a scheme of reciprocal duties, privileges
and obligations as between man and man that has never been excelled
by any other system that society has developed as its own method of
operation. As Dr. De Wulf has said in his illuminating book
"Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages" (a volume that
should be read by any one who wishes rightly to understand the
spirit and quality of Mediaevalism), "the feudal sentiment _par
excellence_ ... is the sentiment of the value and dignity of the
individual man. The feudal man lived as a free man; he was master
in his own house; he sought his end in himself; he was--and this is
a scholastic expression,--_propter seipsum existens_: all feudal
obligations were founded upon respect for personality and the given
word."

Of course this admirable scheme of society with its guild system of
industry, its absence of usury in any form and its just sense of
comparative values, was shot through and through with religion both
in faith and practice. Catholicism was universally and implicitly
accepted. Monasticism had redeemed Europe from barbarism and Cluny
had freed the Church from the yoke of German imperialism. This
unity and immanence of religion gave a consistency to society
otherwise unobtainable, and poured its vitality into every form of
human thought and action.

It was Catholicism and the spirit of feudalism that preserved men
from the dangers inherent in the immense individualism of the time.
With this powerful and penetrating coördinating force men were safe