express in the general term of chivalry was the mediæval ideal of
virtue, and as such was in practice inevitably subject to imperfection
and inconsistency. The Roman _virtus_ was simply courage. Chivalry
meant courage and skill in arms, united to gentle birth, to courtesy,
to gallantry, and to a faithful observance of the laws of combat; the
whole inspired by military glory, religious enthusiasm, or devotion to
women. We should admire the greatness and nobility of this ideal,
standing out as it does against a background of lawlessness and
ignorance, rather than complain that in practice its valor often
degenerated into ferocity, its Christianity into narrow bigotry, its
worship of women into license and brutality. Chivalry, supplying a
standard of excellence adapted by its nature to excite the admiration
of men, did much to refine and civilize the rude age in which it arose;
and this result is not belittled by the fact that that standard was
pitched above the possibility of human attainment. Chivalry was the
spontaneous expression of what was best in the time, and gave sentiment
and charm to lives otherwise hard and barren. Its very exaggerations
and grotesqueness illustrate the eagerness with which it was received,
and the greatness of the want which it supplied. This was an ideal,
too, separate and distinct from any that had been known before,
possessing enduring characteristics of greatness and beauty which have
never ceased to command sympathy and admiration. Though changed in
outward form, and appearing under different manifestations, the
chivalry of the Middle Ages is essentially the chivalry of to-day, but
it now exerts a moral and intellectual, instead of a physical force.

The new dignity which woman assumed in connection with the growth of
chivalry was owing considerably to a cause separate from the Northern
sentiment concerning them, and as the position of women is an important
part of the social condition we are now examining, a glance at this