Love Quote by Thomas Bulfinch

Medieval knighthood, in Bulfinch's telling, is less a romantic costume drama than a power technology: a merger of altar, throne, and hearth that turns violence into virtue. The sentence is engineered to show how “religion” doesn’t merely bless the social order; it fuses itself to the most adhesive human forces available - “loyalty and love” - and then reroutes ambition through a newly sanctified brand. The key move is institutional: knighthood “became” something with “sanctity,” borrowing the priesthood’s aura so thoroughly that the warrior class can claim moral authority without surrendering coercive force.

Bulfinch wrote in the 19th century, when Victorian culture was busy rehabilitating the Middle Ages as a moral reservoir: chivalry as manners, crusade as purpose, faith as social glue. His phrasing participates in that revival while quietly revealing its mechanism. “Religious awe” is a psychological asset; once attached to the “order,” it makes hierarchy feel natural and aspiration feel righteous. Even “the greatest sovereigns” are not above the spell - a subtle admission that legitimacy is never self-sufficient. Kings still crave consecration, a kind of narrative endorsement that elevates rule into destiny.

The subtext is almost anthropological: institutions endure when they recruit emotion. By linking ambition to sacred status, knighthood becomes a ladder that looks like a calling. Bulfinch’s insight lands because it demystifies the glamour without fully mocking it; he shows how the myth works, and why it was irresistible.