And in war, peace, or truce, the pilgrim's shallop was a passport through Christendom; he was under the special protection of the Pope, and to thwart his pious designs was to incur excommunication.
Even amid the terrors of invasion, the laborer was free to pursue his occupation, and his flocks and his herds were secure from molestation; for it was beneath the dignity of the man-at-arms to trample upon the person or property of the poor unarmed peasant.

Such were the principles recognized even in the eleventh century; and though we witness frequent departures from these admirable provisions, we must be careful not to mistake the exception for the rule, or to impute to the spirit of the age a violence and contempt of authority common to all times, and found alike in Norman and Frank, American and Mexican.

To balance these infringements of regular warfare or "blessed peace," we often meet with instances as beautiful as the march of Duke Louis, the husband of St.
Elizabeth, into Franconia, in 1225, to obtain reparation for injuries inflicted on a _peddler_.
"I hope the Baron of Stramen has lost none of his vigor," said the duke; "we were together at Hohenburg, and I may need him at my side again.

His son Henry, too, whom I knighted before the battle, and who won his spurs so nobly, how is he ?" "They were both well," replied Father Omehr, "when I saw them last, and were anxiously expecting a visit from their liege." "And the Lady Margaret, from whom not a knight can boast a token, though all are striving to obtain one ?" "She has not altered since you saw her," answered the priest; "she was always rather frail, but I do not see that she grows weaker." "You cannot imagine," interposed Rodolph, "how much it grieves me to be unable to reconcile these two families whom I so dearly love, and who, in the camp or in the chamber, have proved themselves so devotedly attached to me.

I cannot even ask of one in the hearing of the other, without giving offence or receiving a bitter answer.