Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

I think it was of them that the saying was first spoken: kinsmen behave worst toward their own. A man must be born to be a master, or he will turn out to be a harsh one. But if he has spent his childhood among servant men and women, then he will have an easier time understanding that without the commoners, we are in many ways helpless children all our days, and that for God’s sake as well as our own, we ought to serve them in turn with our knowledge and protect them with our chivalry. Never has it been possible to sustain a kingdom without noblemen who had the ability and the will to secure with their power the rights of those poorer than themselves.”