Note 685 — Chapter XV · THE MORAL LIFE OF EUROPE DURING THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

“There can be little doubt,” says Lecky, “that the Catholic reverence for the Virgin has done much to elevate and purify the ideal of woman and soften the manners of men” (History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. ii, p. 367). And so Professor Nathaniel Schmidt: “The chivalry of the medieval knight from which our modern treatment of woman so largely is derived cannot be regarded as solely a product of Christianity, for it has a deep root in the dreamy reverence for woman characteristic of our pagan ancestors. Yet it would not have become what it was but for the veneration accorded to the Virgin Mary” (The Prophet of Nazareth (1905), p. 324).