Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.
THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.
From the hermitage of Archimago,
The true St. George had wandered far away,
Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
At last him chanced to meet upon the way
A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
He was, and cared not for God or man a point.
Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees.
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