"Without confounding ranks, [chivalry] had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. It ... mitigated kings into companions, ... raised private men to be fellows with kings, ... subdued the fierceness of pride and power, ... oblidged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher of laws to be subdued by manners."
Chivalry as proper democratizer--I like it. Within the difference between kings and common men, there was an equality--an equality, we could say, before women.
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