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181 " the here and now, to material life on earth, is one that the modern world does not share, no matter how devout some present-day Christians may be. The rupture of this principle and its replacement by belief in the worth of the individual and of an active life not necessarily focused on God is, in fact, what created the modern world and ended the Middle Ages. "
― Barbara W. Tuchman , A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
182 " royal ordinance stated rather ambiguously, “It is not proper for a noble to be an innkeeper. "
183 " Bourgeois might be forbidden to own a carriage or wear ermine, and peasants to wear any color but black or brown. Florence allowed doctors and magistrates to share the nobles’ privilege of ermine, but ruled out for merchants’ wives multicolored, striped, and checked gowns, "
184 " Expenditure of money by commoners pained the nobles not least because they saw it benefiting the merchant class rather than themselves. "
185 " the two lights of the world. "
186 " Theory, however, bends to convenience, "
187 " nuns of the Hôtel Dieu or municipal hospital, “having no fear of death, tended the sick with all sweetness and humility. "