England under the guidance of William, were grateful to the Pope for
the assistance he had given them by prohibiting all opposition to their
conquest on the part of the English Church. Another branch of Normans
were still more useful in their support of the papal chair. A body of
pilgrims to Jerusalem, amounting to only forty men, had started from
Scandinavia in 1006, and, having landed at Salerno, were turned aside
from completing their journey by the equally meritorious occupation of
resisting the Saracens who were besieging the town. They defeated them
with great slaughter, and were amply rewarded for their prowess with
goods and gear. News of their gallantry and of their reward reached
their friends and relations at home. In a few years they were followed
by swarms of their countrymen, who disposed of their acquisitions in
Upper Italy to the highest bidder, and were remunerated by grants of
land in Naples for their exertion on behalf of Sergius the king. But
in 1037 a fresh body of adventurers proceeded from the neighbourhood
of Coutances in Normandy, under the command of three brothers of the
family of Hauteville, to the assistance of the same monarch, and,
with the usual prudence of the Norman race, when they had chased the
enemy from the endangered territory, made no scruple of keeping it
for themselves. Robert, called Guiscard, or the Wise, was the third
brother, and succeeded to the newly-acquired sovereignty in 1057. In
a short time he alarmed the Pope with the prospect of so unscrupulous
and so powerful a neighbour. His Holiness, therefore, demanded the
assistance of the German Emperor, and boldly took the field. The
Normans were no whit daunted with the opposition of the Father of
Christendom, and dashed through all obstacles till they succeeded
in taking him prisoner. Instead of treating him with harshness, and
exacting exorbitant ransom, as would have been the action of a less
sagacious politician, the Norman threw himself on his knees before the
captive pontiff, bewailed his hard case in being forced to appear so
contumacious to his spiritual lord and master, and humbly besought
him to pardon his transgression, and accept the suzerainty of all the
lands he possessed and of all he should hereafter subdue. [A.D. 1059.]
It was a delightful surprise to the Pope, who immediately ratified all
the proceedings of his repentant son, and in a short time was rewarded
by seeing Apulia and the great island of Sicily held in homage as
fiefs of St. Peter's chair. From thenceforth the Italian Normans were
the bulwarks of the papal throne. But, more powerful than the Normans
of England, and more devoted personally to the popes than the greedy
adventurers of Apulia, the Countess Matilda was the greatest support
of all the pretensions of the Holy See. Young and beautiful, the
holder of the greatest territories in Italy, this lady was the most
zealous of all the followers of the Pope. Though twice married, she on
both occasions separated from her husband to throw herself with more
undivided energy into the interests of the Church. With men and money,
and all the influence that her position as a princess and her charms as
a woman could give, the sovereign pontiff had no enemy to fear as long
as he retained the friendship of his enthusiastic daughter.
[A.D. 1060.]
Hildebrand was the ruling spirit of the papal court, and was laying his
plans for future action, while the world was still scarcely aware of
his existence. He began, while only Archdeacon of Rome, by a forcible
reformation of some of the irregularities which had crept into the
practice of the clergy, as a preparatory step to making the clergy
dominant over all the other orders in the State. He gave orders, in the
name of Stephen the Tenth, for every married priest to be displaced and
to be separated from his wife. For this end he stirred up the ignorant
fanaticism of the people, and encouraged them in outrages upon the
offending clergy, which frequently ended in death. The virtues of the
cloister had still a great hold on the popular veneration, in spite
of the notorious vices of the monastic establishments, both male and
female; and Hildebrand's invectives on the wickedness of marriage,
and his praises of the sanctity of a single life, were listened to
with equal admiration. The secular clergy were forced to adopt the
unsocial and demoralizing principles of their monkish rivals; and
when all family affections were made sinful, and the feelings of the
pastor concentrated on the interests of his profession, the popes had
secured, in the whole body of the Church, the unlimited obedience
and blind support which had hitherto been the characteristic of the
monastic orders. With the assistance of the warlike Normans, the
wealth and influence of the Countess Matilda, the adhesion of the
Church to his schemes of aggrandizement, he felt it time to assume in
public the power he had exercised so long in the subordinate position
of counsellor of the popes; and the monk seated himself on what he
considered the highest of earthly thrones, and immediately the contest
between the temporal and spiritual powers began. [A.D. 1073.] The King
of France (Philip the First) and the Emperor of Germany (Henry the
Fourth) were both of disreputable life, and offered an easy mark for
the assaults of the fiery pontiff. He threatened and reprimanded them
for simony and disobedience, proclaimed his authority over kings and
princes as a fact which no man could dispute without impiety, and had
the inward pleasure of seeing the proudest of the nobles, and finally
the most powerful of the sovereigns, of Europe, forced to obey his
mandates. The pent-up hatred of his race and profession was gratified
by the abasement of birth and power.
The struggle with the Empire was on the subject of investiture.
The successors of Charlemagne had always retained a voice in the
appointment of the bishops and Church dignitaries in their states;
they had even frequently nominated to the See of Rome, as to the other
bishoprics in their dominions. The present wearer of the iron crown
had displaced three contending popes, who were disturbing the peace
of the city by their ferocious quarrels, and had appointed others in
their room. There was no murmur of opposition to their appointment.
They were pious and venerable men; and of each of them the inscrutable
Hildebrand had managed to make himself the confidential adviser,
and in reality the guide and master. Even in his own case he waited
patiently till he had secured the emperor's legal ratification of his
election, and then, armed with legitimacy, and burning with smothered
indignation, he kicked down the ladder by which he had risen, and
wrote an insulting letter to the emperor, commanding him to abstain
from simony, and to renounce the right of investiture by the ring and
cross. These, he maintained, were the signs of spiritual dignity, and
their bestowal was inherent in the Pope. The time for the message
was admirably chosen; for Henry was engaged in a hard struggle for
life and crown with the Saxons and Thuringians, who were in open
revolt. Henry promised obedience to the pontiff's wish, but when his
enemies were defeated he withdrew his concession. The Pope thundered
a sentence of excommunication against him, released his subjects from
their oath of fealty, and pronounced him deprived of the throne.
The emperor was not to be left behind in the race of objurgation.
[A.D. 1076.] He summoned his nobles and prelates to a council at Worms,
and pronounced sentence of deprivation on the Pope. Then arose such
a storm against the unfortunate Henry as only religious differences
can create. His subjects had been oppressed, his nobility insulted,
his clergy impoverished, and all classes of his people were glad of
the opportunity of hiding their hatred of his oppressions under the
cloak of regard for the interests of religion. He was forced to yield;
and, crossing the Alps in the middle of winter, he presented himself
at the castle of Canossa. Here the Pope displayed the humbleness and
generosity of his Christian character, by leaving the wretched man
three days and nights in the outer court, shivering with cold and
barefoot, while His Holiness and the Countess Matilda were comfortably
closeted within. And after this unheard-of degradation, all that could
be wrung from the hatred of the inexorable monk was a promise that the
suppliant should be tried with justice, and that, if he succeeded in
proving his innocence, he should be reinstated on his throne; but if
he were found guilty, he should be punished with the utmost rigour of
ecclesiastical law.
Common sense and good feeling were revolted by this unexampled
insolence. Friends gathered round Henry when the terms of his sentence
were heard. The Romans themselves, who had hitherto been blindly
submissive, were indignant at the presumption of their bishop. None
continued faithful except the imperturbable Countess Matilda. He was
still to her the representative of divine goodness and superhuman
power. But her troops were beaten and her money was exhausted in
the holy quarrel. Robert Guiscard, indeed, came to the rescue, and
rewarded himself for delivering the Pope by sacking the city of Rome.
Half the houses were burned, and half the population killed or sold
as slaves. It was from amidst the desolation his ambition had caused
that the still-unsubdued Hildebrand was guarded by the Normans to
the citadel of Salerno, and there he died, issuing his orders and
curses to his latest hour, and boasting with his last breath that
"he had loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and that therefore
he expired in exile." [A.D. 1085.] After this man's throwing off the
mask of moderation under which his predecessors had veiled their
claims, the world was no longer left in doubt of the aims and objects
of the spiritual power. There seems almost a taint of insanity in
the extravagance of his demands. In the published collection of his
maxims we see the full extent of the theological tyranny he had in
view. "There is but one name in the world," we read; "and that is
the Pope's. He only can use the ornaments of empire. All princes
ought to kiss his feet. He alone can nominate or displace bishops and
assemble or dissolve councils. Nobody can judge him. His mere election
constitutes him a saint. He has never erred, and never shall err in
time to come. He can depose princes and release subjects from their
oaths of fidelity." Yet, in spite of the wildness of this language, the
ignorance of the period was so great, and the relations of European
nations so hostile, that the most daring of these assumptions found
supporters either in the superstitious veneration of the peoples or the
enmity and interests of the princes. The propounder of those amazing
propositions was apparently defeated, and died disgraced and hated; but
his successors were careful not to withdraw the most untenable of his
claims, even while they did not bring them into exercise. They lay in
an armory, carefully stored and guarded, to be brought out according
to the exigencies either of the papal chair itself, or of the king
or emperor who for the moment was in possession of the person of the
Pope. None of the great potentates of Europe, therefore, was anxious
to diminish a power which might be employed for his own advantage,
and all of them by turns encouraged the aggressions of the Papacy,
with a short-sighted wisdom, to be an instrument of offence against
their enemies. Little encouragement, indeed, was offered at this time
to opposition to the spiritual despot. Though Hildebrand had died a
refugee, it was remarked with pious awe that Henry the Fourth, his
rival and opponent, was punished in a manner which showed the highest
displeasure of Heaven. His children, at the instigation of the Pope,
rebelled against him. He was conquered in battle and taken prisoner by
his youngest son. [A.D. 1106] He was stripped of all his possessions,
and at last so destitute and forsaken that he begged for a subchanter's
place in a village church for the sake of its wretched salary, and
died in such extremity of want and desolation that hunger shortened
his days. For five years his body was left without the decencies of
interment in a cellar in the town of Spires.
But an immense movement was now to take place in the European mind,
which had the greatest influence on the authority of Rome. [A.D. 1095]
A crusade against the enemies of the faith was proclaimed in the
year 1095, and from all parts of Europe a great cry of approval was
uttered in all tongues, for it hit the right chord in the ferocious and
superstitious heart of the world; and it was felt that the great battle
of the Cross and the Crescent was most fitly to be decided forever on
the soil of the Holy Land.
From the very beginning of this century the thought of armed
intervention in the affairs of Palestine had been present in the
general mind. Religious difference had long been ready to take the form
of open war. As the Church strengthened and settled into more dogmatic
unity, the desire to convert by force and retain within the fold by
penalty and proscription had increased. As yet some reluctance was
felt to put a professing Christian to death on merely a difference
of doctrine, but with the open gainsayers of the faith no parley
could be held. Thousands, in addition to their religious animosities,
had personal injuries to avenge; for pilgrimage to Jerusalem was
already in full favour, and the weary wayfarers had to complain of the
hostility of the turbaned possessors of the Holy Sepulchre, and the
indignities and peril to which they were exposed the moment they came
within the infidel's domain. Why should the unbelievers be allowed any
longer to retain the custody of such inherently Christian territories
as the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane? Why should
the unbaptized followers of Mohammed, those children of perdition,
pollute with hostile feet the sacred ground which had been the
witness of so many miracles and still furnished so many relics which
manifested superhuman power? Besides, what was the wealth of other
cities--their gold and precious jewels--to the store of incalculable
riches contained in the very stones and woodwork of the metropolis and
cradle of the faith? Bones of martyrs--garments of saints--nails of the
cross--thorns of the crown--were all lying ready to be gathered up by
the faithful priesthood who would lead the expedition. And who could
be held responsible, in this world or the next, for any sins, however
grievous, who had washed them out by purifying the floors of Zion with
the blood of slaughtered Saracens and saying prayers and kneeling
in contemplation within sight of the Sepulchre itself? So Peter the
Hermit, an enthusiast who preached a holy war, was listened to as if
he spake with the tongues of angels. The ravings of his lunacy had a
prodigious effect on all classes and in all lands; and suddenly there
was gathered together a confused rabble of pilgrims, armed in every
variety of fashion--princes and beggars, robbers and adventurers--the
scum of great cities and the simple-hearted peasantry from distant
farms--upwards of three hundred thousand in number, all pouring down
towards the seaports and anxious to cross over to the land where so
many high hopes were placed. Vast numbers of this multitude found their
way from France through Italy; and luckily for Urban the Second--the
fifth in succession from Gregory--they took the opportunity of paying
a visit to the city of Rome, scarcely less venerable in their eyes
than Jerusalem itself. They were the soldiers of the Cross, and in
that character felt bound to pay a more immediate submission to the
Chief of Christianity than to their native kings. They found the city
divided between two rivals for the tiara, and, having decided in favour
of Urban, chased away the anti-pope who was appointed by the Imperial
choice. Terrified at the accession of such powerful supporters, the
Germans were withdrawn from Italy, and Urban felt that the claims
of Hildebrand were not incapable of realization if he could get
quit of unruly barons and obstinate monarchs by engaging them in a
distant and ruinous expedition. It needed little to spread the flame
of fanaticism over the whole of Christendom. The accounts given of
this first Crusade transcend the wildest imaginings of romance. An
indiscriminate multitude of all nations and tongues seemed impelled
by some irresistible impulse towards the East. Ostensibly engaged in
a religious service, enriched with promises and absolutions from the
Pope, giving up all their earthly possessions, and filled with the one
idea of liberating the Holy Land, it might have been expected that the
sobriety and order of their march would have been characteristic of
such elevating aspirations. But the infamy of their behaviour, their
debauchery, irregularity, and dishonesty, have never been equalled
by the basest and most degraded of mankind. Like a flood they poured
through the lands of Italy, Bohemia, and Germany, polluting the cities
with their riotous lives, and poisoning the air with the festering
corruption of their innumerable dead. They at last found shipping from
the ports, and presented themselves, drunk with fanatical pride, and
maddened with the sufferings they had undergone, before the astonished
people of Constantinople. That enervated and over-civilized population
looked with disgust on the unruly mass. Of the vast multitudes who had
started under the guidance of Peter the Hermit, not more than 20,000
survived; and of these none found their way to the object of their
search. The Turks, who had by this time obtained the mastery of Asia,
cut them in pieces when they had left the shelter of Constantinople,
and Alexis Comnenus, the Grecian emperor, had little hope of aid
against the Mohammedan invaders from the unruly levies of Europe.
But in the following year a new detachment made their appearance in
his states. This was the second ban, or crusade of the knights and
barons. Better regulated in its military organization than the other,
it presented the same astonishing scenes of debauchery and vice; and
dividing, for the sake of sustenance, into four armies, and taking four
different routes, they at length, in greatly-diminished numbers, but
with unabated hope and energy, presented themselves before the walls
of Constantinople. This was no mob like their famished and fainting
predecessors. All the gallant lords of Europe were here, inspired by
knightly courage and national rivalries to distinguish themselves in
fight and council. Of these the best-known were Godfrey of Bouillon,
Baldwyn of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, (William the Conqueror's
eldest son,) Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois, and Raymond of St.
Gilles. Six hundred thousand men had left their homes, with innumerable
attendants--women, and jugglers, and servants, and workmen of all
kinds. Tens of thousands perished by the way; others established
themselves in the cities on their route to keep up the communication;
and at last the Genoese and Pisan vessels conveyed to the Golden Horn
the strength of all Europe, the hardy survivors of all the perils of
that unexampled march--few indeed in number, but burning with zeal and
bravery. Alexis lost no time in diverting their dangerous strength from
his own realms. He let them loose upon Nicea, and when it yielded to
their valour he had the cleverness to outwit the Christian warriors,
and claimed the city as his possession. On pursuing their course, they
found themselves, after a victory over the Turks at Dorylæum, in the
great Plain of Phrygia. Hunger, thirst, the extremity of heat, and
the difficulty of the march, brought confusion and dismay into their
ranks. All the horses died. Knights and chevaliers were seen mounted
on asses, and even upon oxen; and the baggage was packed upon goats,
and not unfrequently on swine and dogs. Thirst was fatal to five
hundred in a single day. Quarrels between the nationalities added to
these calamities. Lorrains and Italians, the men of Normandy and of
Provence, were at open feud. And yet, in spite of these drawbacks, the
great procession advanced. Baldwyn and Tancred succeeded in getting
possession of the town of Edessa, on the Euphrates, and opened a
communication with the Christians of Armenia. [A.D. 1098.] The siege
of Antioch was their next operation, and the luxuries of the soil and
climate were more fatal to the Crusaders than want and pain had been.
On the rich banks of the Orontes, and in the groves of Daphne, they
lost the remains of discipline and self-command and gave themselves
up to the wildest excesses. But with the winter their enjoyment came
to an end. Their camp was flooded; they suffered the extremities of
famine; and when there were no more horses and impure animals to eat,
they satiated their hunger on the bodies of their slaughtered enemies.
Help, however, was at hand, or they must have perished to the last man.
Bohemund corrupted the fidelity of a renegade officer in Antioch, and,
availing themselves of a dark and stormy night, they scaled the walls
with ladders, and rushed into the devoted city, shouting the Crusaders'
war-cry:--"It is the will of God!" and Antioch became a Christian
princedom. But not without difficulty was this new possession retained.
The Turks, under the orders of Kerboga, surrounded it with two hundred
thousand men. There was neither entrance nor exit possible, and the
worst of their previous sufferings began to be renewed. But Heaven
came to the rescue. A monk of the name of Peter Bartholomew dreamt
that under the great altar of the church would be found the spear
which pierced the Saviour on the cross. The precious weapon rewarded
their toil in digging, and armed with this the Christian charge was
irresistible, and the Turks were cut in pieces or dispersed. Instead
of making straight for Jerusalem, they lingered six months longer in
Antioch, suffering from plague and the fatigues they had undergone.
When at last the forward order was given, a remnant, consisting of
fifty thousand men out of all the original force, began the march. As
they got nearer the object of their search, and recognised the places
commemorated in Holy Writ, their enthusiasm knew no bounds. The last
elevation was at length surmounted, and Jerusalem lay in full view.
"O blessed Jesus," cries a monk who was present, "when thy Holy City
was seen, what tears fell from our eyes!" Loud shouts were raised of
"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! God wills it! God wills it!" They stretched
out their hands, fell upon their knees, and embraced the consecrated
ground. But Jerusalem was yet in the hands of the Saracens, and the
sword must open their way into its sacred bounds. The governor had
offered to admit the pilgrims within the walls, but in their peaceful
dress and merely as visitors. This they refused, and determined to
wrest it from its unbelieving lords. On the 15th of July, 1099, they
found that their situation was no longer tenable, and that they must
conquer or give up the siege. The brook Kedron was dried up, the
sun poured upon them with unendurable heat, their provisions were
exhausted, and in agonies of despair as well as of military ardour
they gave the final assault. The struggle was long and doubtful. At
length the Crusaders triumphed. Tancred and Godfrey were the first to
leap into the devoted town. Their soldiers followed, and filled every
street with slaughter. The Mosque of Omar was vigorously defended, and
an indiscriminate massacre of Mussulmans and Jews filled the whole
place with blood. In the mosque itself the stream of gore was up to
the saddle-girths of a horse. The onslaught was occasionally suspended
for a while, to allow the pious conquerors to go barefoot and unarmed
to kneel at the Holy Sepulchre; and, this act of worship done, they
returned to their ruthless occupation, and continued the work of
extermination for a whole week. The depopulated and reeking town was
added to the domains of Christendom, and the kingdom of Jerusalem was
offered to Godfrey of Bouillon. With a modesty befitting the most
Christian and noble-hearted of the Crusaders, Godfrey contented himself
with the humbler name of Baron of the Holy Sepulchre; and with three
hundred knights--which were all that remained to him when that crowning
victory had set the other survivors at liberty to revisit their native
lands--he established a standing garrison in the captured city, and
anxiously awaited reinforcements from the warlike spirits they had left
at home.
TWELFTH CENTURY.
Emperors of Germany.
A.D.
HENRY IV.--(_cont._)
1106. HENRY V.
_House of Suabia._
1138. CONRAD III.
1152. FREDERICK BARBAROSSA.
1190. HENRY VI.
1198. PHILIP and OTHO IV., (of Brunswick.)
Kings of England.
A.D.
1100. HENRY I.
1135. STEPHEN.
1154. HENRY II.
1189. RICHARD I.
1199. JOHN.
Emperors of the East.
A.D.
ALEXIS I.--(_cont._)