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A chair was an object of consequence in the eyes of a mediaeval gentleman, for none but persons of high rank might sit on a chair; all others were relegated to a form, styled a bench when it had a back to it. Stools, however, were allowed to all.

Six weeks later St. Bernard followed him to the grave. It was not long before the papal act ratified the general opinion of Christendom, and in 1174 Alexander III placed his name among those which the Church desired to have in everlasting remembrance. Mediaeval learning, whether sacred or secular, was founded upon authority.

My acquaintance with weapons is limited to that circle which includes my collection of antique armor and several old flintlocks picked up at different times in New England and in the South. I confessed to the carpenter that I had in the house nothing suited to his bellicose purposes, unless he was willing to put up with a mediaeval battle axe or a Queen Anne musket.

To spend any of her money just on the mere getting to Italy would cause him indignation; what he would say if he knew she was renting part of a mediaeval castle on her own account Mrs. Wilkins preferred not to think. It would take him days to say it all; and this although it was her very own money, and not a penny of it had ever been his. "But I expect," she said, "your husband is just the same.

I shall oppose the partizans of this hypothesis with one single fact, the surprise experienced by the Arabs of Algeria when, by a somewhat unfortunate recollection of mediaeval tournaments, the ladies were entrusted with the presentation of prizes at the Beiram races. What to the knight appeared an unparalleled honour seemed to the Arabs a humiliation and almost an insult.

'If two independent visitors to different countries, say a mediaeval Mahommedan in Tartary and a modern Englishman in Dahomey, or a Jesuit missionary in Brazil and a Wesley an in the Fiji Islands, agree in describing some analogous art, or rite, or myth among the people they have visited, it becomes difficult or impossible to set down such correspondence to accident or wilful fraud.

The order and progress of Henry I.'s reign, which marks the transition from the mere military camp of the Conqueror to the mediaeval England I have to dwell upon, was followed by the period of mere confusion and misery which accompanied the accession of the princes of Anjou to the throne of England.

One of the surprises of our future will certainly be a return to beliefs and ideas long ago abandoned upon the mere assumption that they contained no truth, belief still called barbarous, pagan, mediaeval, by those who condemn them out of traditional habit.

From this summit we gain a wonderful prospect, vineyard, hill, and valley, with villages dotted here and there, picturesque mediaeval castles crowning many epochs, and far away the vast plain stretching from the Jura to Burgundy, and the majestic mountain ranges bounding on either side the east horizon.

A confusion of flourishing villages was scattered over its verdant meadows, and here and there on a jutting rock or mountain-spur a solitary mediaeval tower or imposing castle stood forth, the most conspicuous of all being a fortress situated on a natural bulwark of rock. Half around its base a little town, which appeared stunted in its growth by the course of the river, confidingly rested.