It was particularly offensive to Christians as tending to dishonour the Creator who is set over against the serpent as bad against good.
Peter"; at least one case in which a beautiful Roman matron appealed, not in vain, to the better feelings of the Gothic soldier who attempted her dishonour; but even these exceptional instances show that Rome was not entirely spared those scenes of horror which usually accompany the storming of a besieged city.
The three ends proposed by the church in such discipline are there stated to be, (1) that those who lead scandalous lives may not to the dishonour of God be numbered among Christians, seeing that the church is the body of Christ; (2) that the good may not be corrupted by constant association with the wicked; (3) that those who are censured or excommunicated, confounded with shame, may be led to repentance.
The seat of authority in Discipline, the means by which the church strives to preserve the Christian standard of living from serious dishonour in its own members, is the touch-stone of church politics.
The Crusade ended in the double disaster of military defeat and martial dishonour (1147-1149); and Sugers death in 1151 deprived Louis of a counsellor who had exercised the regency skilfully and with success, just at the very moment when his divorce from Eleanor was to jeopardize the fortunes of the Capets.
