throughout the whole kingdom. They infested the highroads, and put a
stop to all trade by plundering the merchants and travellers. Those who
dwelt in the open country they forced into their castles, and after
pillaging them of all their visible substance, these tyrants held them
in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to
extort a discovery of their hidden wealth. The lamentable representation
given by history of those barbarous times justifies the pictures in the
old romances of the castles of giants and magicians. A great part of
Europe was in the same deplorable condition. It was then that some
gallant spirits, struck with a generous indignation at the tyranny of
these miscreants, blessed solemnly by the bishop, and followed by the
praises and vows of the people, sallied forth to vindicate the chastity
of women and to redress the wrongs of travellers and peaceable men. The
adventurous humor inspired by the Crusade heightened and extended this
spirit; and thus the idea of knight-errantry was formed.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1138.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1139.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1141.]

Stephen felt personally these inconveniences; but because the evil was
too stubborn to be redressed at once, he resolved to proceed gradually,
and to begin with the castles of the bishops,--as they evidently held
them, not only against the interests of the crown, but against the
canons of the Church. From the nobles he expected no opposition to this
design: they beheld with envy the pride of these ecclesiastical
fortresses, whose battlements seemed to insult the poverty of the lay
barons. This disposition, and a want of unanimity among the clergy