“Phantastic romanticists and calculating persons have endeavored to represent this period as the age of morality and sincere reverence for woman. * * * The ‘Service of Love’ preached by French, German, and Italian knights, was supposed to prove the high respect paid to the women of that day. On the contrary, this period succeeded in destroying the little respect for the female sex which existed at its commencement. The knights both in town and country were mostly coarse, licentious men. * * * The chronicles of the times swarm with tales of rape and violence on the part of nobles in the country, and still more in the towns where they were exclusive rulers up to the XIII. and XIV. centuries, while those subjected to this degraded treatment were powerless to obtain redress. In the towns the nobles sat on the magistrates bench, and in the country criminal jurisdiction was in the hands of the lord of the manor, squire or bishop.”