After Christianity, the character of Europe has, since the commencement of
the Middle Ages, been chiefly influenced by the Germanic race of northern
conquerors, who infused new life and vigour into a degenerated people. The
stern nature of the North drives man back within himself; and what is lost
in the free sportive development of the senses, must, in noble
dispositions, be compensated by earnestness of mind. Hence the honest
cordiality with which Christianity was welcomed by all the Teutonic
tribes, so that among no other race of men has it penetrated more deeply
into the inner man, displayed more powerful effects, or become more
interwoven with all human feelings and sensibilities.

The rough, but honest heroism of the northern conquerors, by its admixture
with the sentiments of Christianity, gave rise to chivalry, of which the
object was, by vows which should be looked upon as sacred, to guard the
practice of arms from every rude and ungenerous abuse of force into which
it was so likely to sink.

With the virtues of chivalry was associated a new and purer spirit of
love, an inspired homage for genuine female worth, which was now revered
as the acme of human excellence, and, maintained by religion itself under
the image of a virgin mother, infused into all hearts a mysterious sense
of the purity of love.

As Christianity did not, like the heathen worship, rest satisfied with
certain external acts, but claimed an authority over the whole inward man
and the most hidden movement of the heart; the feeling of moral
independence took refuge in the domain of honour, a worldly morality, as
it were, which subsisting alongside of, was often at variance with that of
religion, but yet in so far resembling it that it never calculated
consequences, but consecrated unconditionally certain principles of