During the period,
however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and
enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by
which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.
The church was still the controlling intellectual influence. A dark
cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled
at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following
upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy,
who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they
sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular
wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was
neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry,
rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their
flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they
invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on
the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars
black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries
which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals
and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the
assemblage of the people.
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