but well ware of what she says."

The second group presents mediaeval society to us under the influence
of chivalry. Suitably enough, we have beside each other most lifelike
pictures of the base and superstructure of the system. This, the man--
free, generous; that, the serf--vile, ungrateful, kept in order by
fear alone, but the necessary counterpart of the splendid figure of
his master. One of our writers today has regretted the absence of a
chapter in praise of the good man to set beside Solomon's picture of
the virtuous woman. Bartholomew has certainly endeavoured in the two
chapters quoted here, "Of a Man," and "Of a Good Lord," to picture the
ideal good man of chivalrous times. It may, however, be permitted
those of us who look at the system from underneath, to sympathise with
our fellows who struggled to free themselves from bondage under Tyler
and John Ball at least as much as with their splendid oppressors, and
to recognise that the feudal system, however necessary in the
thirteenth century, lost its value when its lords had ceased to be
such good lords as our author describes.

The third group would naturally consist of passages illustrating the
daily life of our ancestors, but the editor has found some difficulty
in getting together passages enough for the purpose without trenching
on the confines of other chapters. He has accordingly left them
scattered over the book, persuaded that the reader will feel their
import better when they are seen in their context. Such a book as this
is not open to the objections urged against pictures of mediaeval life
drawn from romances, that the situations are invented and the manners
suited to the situation. Here all is true, and written with no other
aim than that of utilising knowledge common to all. Everywhere through
these extracts little statements--a few words in most cases--crop up