The discord
was made worse by the feudal system which was adopted. Even within the
same race there was no brotherhood. In effect the clergy as a body did
not insist that the noble was a brother of the serf, and did not exact
fraternal treatment of the serf. Thus the phrase, "the brotherhood of
man," which had been a most prominent and active principle of early
Christianity, became little more than a useless theological thesis.
The solution of the difficulty would, of course, have been for the
clergy, as the supreme representatives of the doctrine of brotherhood,
to apply that doctrine boldly to every part of man's conduct; to
pronounce that all violence and bloodshed were immoral, and to devise a
humane means of settling international quarrels. I will consider in the
next chapter why the Christian leaders failed even to attempt this great
reform. For the moment it is enough to observe that the conditions of
modern times favoured a fresh assertion of the doctrine of brotherhood.
Great as the power of sincere moral idealism has always been, the
historian must recognise that economic changes have had a most important
influence upon the development or acceptance of moral ideas.
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