and law is the “general consent and practice of the whole body of
believers” (_consensus ecclesiæ_). The Arabic name for this mighty
principle is _ijma_. The general consent of the whole body of believers
on certain points of faith and law is of binding force, no less than
Scripture and tradition. Nay, even the authority of all the primary
sources of the Islamite religious system, as historically developed,
derives its force from this consensus, which constitutes its principal
title to recognition. The acceptance of such compilations of tradition
as are received as canonical, and subsequently of the standard juridical
codes, rests on no other legal basis than this general consent of the
whole body of believers, by which they have been invested with binding
authority. This great principle--which, if any man fail to realise and
rightly appreciate the development of Islam and Islamite institutions,
must remain a sealed book to him--was in process of time defined as the
doctrine accepted alike by all the four orthodox schools of thought.
This definition of the idea of ijma is the result of the self-imposed
limitation of the principle itself in practical application. In process
of time it was found impossible to verify this general consent by any
other method than by confining it to the well-defined sphere of the
schools of the law. Thus this free intellectual outlook lost the vital
force which might have made it an element of far-seeing and liberal
development.
The recognition of the principle of the ijma as a fundamental element
is a point on which all schools of orthodox Islam are at one. The
_schi’itic_ branch of Islam, however, has not adopted it as one of
its fundamental doctrines. It takes its stand on blind obedience to
authority. In its eyes the visible and invisible heads of the whole
body of true Islamites are the successors of ’Ali, the infallible
imams. They alone are the legitimate rulers of the faithful, both as
the rightful chiefs of the state, and as the true organs of the divine
will in matters of law and doctrine. To this sect every historical and
political development of Islam, which derives its title to authority
from the consensus, is a usurpation and an impiety which the last
imam, the Mahdi who is yet to come, will bring to a terrible end. From
their point of view the recognition of the consensus is mere error and
heresy, and the sentiment and will of the whole body of believers is
not entitled to be recognised as a criterion. In its stead they set the
word of the infallible imams, the lawful successors of the prophet and
the interpreters of his will, which is one with the divine will. Thus
perishes the last remnant of the autonomous authority which the body of
orthodox Islamites have assumed by the recognition of the principle of
the consensus.
FOOTNOTES
[43] I have treated this subject more fully in the address delivered
before the meeting of the _Congrès d’Histoire des Religions_ at Paris
(Sept. 6th, 1900) and entitled _Islamisme et Parsisme_, Actes I, pp.
119-147 and _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, XXII, pp. 1-29.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]
CHAPTER I. THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE
[b] JUSTIN, _History of the World abridged from Trogus_ (translated by J.
Turnbull).
[c] A. VON GUTSCHMID, _Geschichte Irans_.
CHAPTER II. THE EMPIRE OF THE SASSANIDS
[b] TH. NÖLDEKE, _Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte_.
[c] DION CASSIUS, _History of Rome_.
[d] A. VON GUTSCHMID, _op. cit._
CHAPTER III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE ARABS
[b] HERODOTUS, _The History of_.
[c] ARTEMIDORUS, _Geographica_.
[d] DIODORUS, _The Historical Library_.
[e] PLINY, _Historia Naturalis_.
[f] AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, _History of Rome_.
[g] ERATOSTHENES, _Chronographia_.
[h] The Holy Bible, according to the authorised version of King James I.
[i] Inscriptions of Tehutimes and Ramses I.
[j] Inscriptions of Tiglathpileser III, Sargon, Asshurbanapal, etc.
[k] MAX DUNCKER, _Geschichte des Alterthums_.
[l] W. G. PALGRAVE, article on “Arabia” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
CHAPTER IV. MOHAMMED
[b] L. A. SÉDILLOT, _Histoire générale des Arabes_.
[c] The _Koran_.
[d] E. GIBBON, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
[e] SIR WILLIAM MUIR, _The Life of Mahomet_.
[f] GEORG WEBER, _Weltgeschichte_.
[g] IBN SAAD, _Sirat_ or _Biography of Mohammed_.
CHAPTER V. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM
[b] S. OCKLEY, _History of the Saracens_.
[c] EL-MAKIN, _History of_.
[d] ABULFEDA, _Life of Mohammed_.
[e] GUSTAV WEIL, _Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre_.
[f] W. C. TAYLOR, _The History of Mohammedanism and its Sects_.
[g] E. GIBBON, _op. cit._
[h] ABUL-FARAJ, _Dynasties_.
[i] EUTYCHIUS, _Annales_.
[j] H. H. MILMAN, _Notes to Gibbon’s Rome_.
[k] AL-LATIF, _Historiæ Ægypti, Compendium Arabice et Latini_.
[l] JOSEPH WHITE, _Ægyptiaca_.
[m] MAKRIZI, _Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks de l’Égypte_.
[n] IBN KHALDUN, _History of the Beginnings of Nations_.
[o] HAJI KHALFA, _Takwim al-Tawarikh_ (“Revision of History”).
[q] J. A. ST. MARTIN, various articles.
[r] JOSEPH VON HAMMER-PURGSTALL, _History of the Assassins_ (translated
from the German by O. C. Wood).
[s] A. L. SILVESTER DE SACY, various writings.
[t] F. A. NEALE, _Islamism_.
CHAPTER VI. THE OMAYYADS
[b] F. A. NEALE, _op. cit._
[c] STANISLAS GUYARD, article on “The Eastern Caliphate” in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[d] G. WEBER, _op. cit._
CHAPTER VII. THE ARABS IN EUROPE
[b] “Ben-Hazil of Granada” in _Bibliothèque Arabico-Hispanica_.
[c] E. GIBBON, _op. cit._
[d] S. A. DUNHAM, _History of Spain and Portugal_.
[e] R. DOZY, _Essai sur l’histoire de l’Islamisme_.
CHAPTER VIII. THE ABBASIDS
[b] L. A. SÉDILLOT, _op. cit._
CHAPTER IX. THE DECLINE OF THE MOSLEMS IN SPAIN
[b] SAMPIRO, Bishop of Astorga, in “Regno Ordonii II,” etc. (in Florez,
_España Sagrada_).
[c] S. A. DUNHAM, _op. cit._
[d] L. A. SÉDILLOT, _op. cit._
CHAPTER X. ARAB CIVILISATION
[b] SIMON OCKLEY, _op. cit._
[c] R. DOZY, _op. cit._
[d] ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, _Cosmos_.
[e] GIRAULT DE PRANGEY, _Monuments Arabes et Mauresques_.
[f] EUSEBIUS OF CÆSAREA, _Life of Constantine_.
[g] L. A. SÉDILLOT, _op. cit._
[j] HAURÉAU, _Philosophie scholastique_.
[k] J. E. MONTUCLA, _Histoire des Mathématiques_.
[l] J. S. BAILLY, _Histoire de l’astronomie_.
[m] L. VIARDOT, _Histoire des Arabes et des Maures d’Espagne_.
[n] KIESEWETTER, _Die Musik der Araber_.
PART XIII
THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES
AND OF THE PAPACY
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
ABULFEDA, CHOISEUL D’AILLECOURT, BOHA AD-DIN, JAMES BRYCE, WILLIAM
DENTON, JOHN WM. DRAPER, EINHARD, EDWARD GIBBON, J. C. L.
GIESELER, HENRY HALLAM, HENRY C. LEA, J. F. MICHAUD,
CHARLES MILLS, H. H. MILMAN, J. L. VON MOSHEIM,
LEOPOLD VON RANKE, O. J. REICHEL,
GEOFFREY DE VILLEHARDOUIN
TOGETHER WITH A BRIEF STUDY OF
THE VALUE OF THE CRUSADES IN THE LIGHT OF
MODERN HISTORY
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM DENTON
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
C. BARONIUS, PHILIPPE DE BEAUMANOIR, STEPHEN DE BOURBON, J. BURCARDUS,
P. A. BAMBINO, CIACCONIUS, F. B. CORBO, RICHARD DEVIZES, J. J. I.
DÖLLINGER, VICTOR DURUY, K. F. EICHORN, C. FLEURY, OTTO VON
FREISING, THOMAS FULLER, GREGORY OF TOURS, GREGORY THE
GREAT, RICHARD GARNETT, THOMAS GREENWOOD, G. W. F.
HEGEL, J. G. VON HERDER, IMAD AD-DIN, S.
INFESSIORA, INNOCENT THE THIRD, JEAN DE
JOINVILLE, A. JOURDAIN, CHARLES KINGSLEY, LIUTPRAND, ANSELMO DI
LUCCA, MAKRISI, MATTHEW OF PARIS, J. BASS MULLINGER, MURATORI,
GUIBERT DE NOGENT, B. PLATINA, MARTINUS POLONUS, ROGER OF
HOVEDEN, PAUL VON ROTH, MARIANUS SCOTUS, SIGEBERT
OF GEMBLOURS, CARL SPANNAGEL, HENRY STEBBING,
J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, ANDREAS THIEL, GEOFFREY
DE VINSAUF, FR. WILKEN AND WILLIAM OF TYRE
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES AND THE PAPACY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK I.--THE CRUSADES
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THE VALUE OF THE CRUSADES IN THE LIGHT
OF MODERN HISTORY. BY THE REV. WILLIAM DENTON, M.A. 311
HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF THE CRUSADES 314
CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE CRUSADES 320
CHAPTER II. THE FIRST CRUSADE 338
CHAPTER III. THE SECOND CRUSADE 358
CHAPTER IV. THE THIRD CRUSADE 379
CHAPTER V. THE FOURTH TO THE SIXTH CRUSADES 410
CHAPTER VI. THE LAST CRUSADES 431
CHAPTER VII. CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRUSADES 467
APPENDIX A. FEUDALISM 481
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 502
BOOK II.--THE PAPACY
HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF THE PAPACY 503
CHAPTER I. ORIGIN AND RISE OF THE PAPACY 519
CHAPTER II. “THE NIGHT OF THE PAPACY,” CHARLEMAGNE TO OTTO THE
GREAT 555
CHAPTER III. THE HIGH NOON OF THE PAPACY 589
CHAPTER IV. FROM EXILE TO SUPREMACY 623
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 651
BOOK I. THE CRUSADES
_PREFATORY ESSAY_
THE VALUE OF THE CRUSADES IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN HISTORY
BY THE REV. WILLIAM DENTON, M.A.[44]
The interest with which we continue to regard the Crusades is, in
its way, as significant as the enthusiasm which led to their being
undertaken. It is easy now to underrate the dangers which they averted,
and to forget the obligations which the civilised world is under to
Charles Martel, to the crusaders, to Don John of Austria, and to John
Sobieski; yet to these men we owe it that Europe is not now Bulgaria; and
that Italy, France, and England--that the whole of the countries from the
Black Sea to the Atlantic, from Archangel to Sicily, are not trampled
upon and desolated as Syria is at this moment. It is not easy for us to
comprehend how recently the terror once inspired by the Turk has ceased.
We need to be reminded that down to the time of the Stuarts the English
and Irish channels were infested with Turkish corsairs, and our ports
blockaded by Turkish ships of war in quest of slaves.
It is only indeed since the eighteenth century that collections of money
to redeem English captives from the intolerable evils of Turkish slavery
have ceased to be made in our churches. That such captivity is not
national, and only occasional and individual, is one of the inestimable
fruits of the Crusades. At the time when these were undertaken, the
whole of Asia, from the borders of China to the Bosporus, was subject to
the Turks; and had these people been able to cross into Europe, and to
hold the countries on the south of the Danube as a basis for military
operations four hundred years earlier than they succeeded in doing,
or indeed at any time whilst the Moors of Spain and of Sicily were in
their full career of victory, the whole of Europe would inevitably have
fallen under the dominion of the Moslems, and industrial progress had
been stayed and civilisation extinguished. So recently has this danger
disappeared that, at the close of the seventeenth century, a statesman
as calm and unenthusiastic as Richelieu seriously meditated the renewal
of the Crusades, in order to avert the evil which even then threatened
to overwhelm the civilised world. That he did so is sufficient to remove
from the leaders and projectors of the Crusades the charge of being moved
by blind, unreflecting fanaticism.
In the eighteenth century, indeed, the school of historians represented
by Voltaire and Gibbon, which discredited all great efforts of past
times when prompted by religious zeal, treated the Crusades with
unphilosophical ridicule. It was an easy task to do this. We are arrested
in every page of their history with the lamentable consequences of
popular ignorance, with the selfishness of many of the leaders, with the
record of personal ambition and unworthy jealousy which too frequently
hindered the success of these expeditions. The whole, however, is not
heard when we have listened to accounts of popular fanaticism, of royal
insincerity, of military ambition, and of papal selfishness, which
chequer the history of the crusaders, as these faults chequered the
history of Europe at the time when the Crusades were undertaken. The
great, the imminent danger of Turkish conquest inspired the minds of
the people with fear before it induced the chieftains to combine in
averting the danger. The anarchy which pervaded Europe in the ages of
feudalism was, indeed, the chief source of danger in any advance of the
Turkish forces, and this was in a great measure cured by the enthusiasm
communicated from the people to the great landed proprietors, who, more
jealous of their independence than careful of their obligations to their
sovereign, yet felt the necessity of union and of submission to military
discipline in the hour of peril.
The First Crusade was one undertaken without sufficient leaders, with
but little preparation, and with smaller knowledge of the countries to
be traversed and the difficulties to be overcome. It was a spontaneous
effort of terror and of zeal, in which we can at least satisfy ourselves
of the reality of the fear which pervaded all men, and which we know to
have been warranted by the merciless character of the horde which, having
subjugated Asia, was on its way to attempt the subjugation of Europe.
Men have come to see that the Turk is now what he always has been; it is
well to bear in mind the correlative truth that essentially he always was
what he is now; and when we recall the massacres of the last century, the
bloody scenes of Scio and Aleppo, of Jiddah and of Lebanon, of Bosnia and
Bulgaria, we may without effort understand what he was when Asia lay at
his feet, and Europe was terrified at the rumours of his attempt to cross
the Bosporus.
It is too much the practice of those who would deprecate our obligation
to those who strove to arrest the progress of the Turks, to dwell upon
some instances of magnanimity or of mercy, of justice or chivalrous
conduct which lighten up the pages of the history of the Saracens, and
to insinuate from these instances that the Turks possess the same claim
to our admiration. The Turks, however, are not Arabs, neither have they
ever manifested any of that care for intellectual pursuits which has
thrown a lustre on the career of the Saracens of Asia and the Moors
of the Spanish peninsula. On the contrary, the career of the Osmanli
has been marked by deeds of savage atrocity, by an indifference to the
obligations of oaths, as well as by his brutal ignorance and hatred of
all intellectual progress; and at the present day his inferiority to the
Arab in statesmanship, in honesty, and in intelligence is acknowledged.
In estimating the effects of the Crusades the reader will do well to
consider the calm judgment and weighty words of a modern historian, who
thus expresses our obligation to the devotion and bravery of those men
whose deeds are here briefly recorded. “By arresting the progress of the
Turks,” says Mr. Sharon Turner, “by stunning them with blows which a less
hardy, fanatic, and profuse population could not have survived, and by
protracting their entry into Europe until its various states had grown up
into compacted kingdoms--until the feudal system had been substantially
overthrown; until free government and humanising law had blended and
concentrated individual energy and self-will into national unity and
co-operating strength; until polity had begun to be a science, and that
order of men whom we both venerate and revile (statesmen and politicians)
had everywhere arisen--the crusaders preserved Europe from Turkish
desolation, if not from conquest. And when the Ottoman power, recovering
from its alarms by their discontinuance, arose in renovated vigour to a
new struggle for the sovereignty of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries--though it conquered Greece, overran Hungary,
Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, attempted Russia and Poland, and
endangered Vienna--yet the rest of Europe had then become prepared to
resist its further progress; and has hitherto successfully kept it at
bay, notwithstanding its mighty population and desperate fanaticism,
until its political infirmity has become decided, the period of its
decrepitude arrived, and its political dissolution has commenced.”
Since these words were written the decrepitude of the Turks has
increased, though their cruelty has not diminished; nay, in some
instances, the periodical massacres of their Christian subjects, which
have ever marked the rule of this race, have been carried out more
systematically and with circumstances of greater horror than of old. We
are, indeed, no longer alarmed at the progress of their arms, and have
no fear for our own safety. We may gather, however, from the accounts of
the suffering of the Christians dwelling in our own days among the Turks,
how natural it was for Europe to be terrified at the prospect of their
invasion; and from the generous indignation which thrilled the heart of
England at the time of the Armenian massacres, we may faintly understand
why it was that Europe was so moved at the rude eloquence of Peter the
Hermit, as he detailed the sufferings of the Christians of Asia Minor
when first subjected to the yoke of the Turk.
FOOTNOTES
[44] [Reprinted by permission from _A History of the Crusades_ by W. E.
Dutton, to which work it is an introduction.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF THE CRUSADES
[Sidenote: [1096-1291 A.D.]]
Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which were in use from the earliest ages
of Christianity, had become very frequent about the beginning of the
eleventh century. The opinion which then very generally prevailed, that
the end of the world was at hand, induced vast numbers of Christians to
sell their possessions in Europe, in order that they might set out for
the Holy Land, there to await the coming of the Lord. So long as the
Arabs were masters of Palestine, they protected these pilgrimages, from
which they derived no small emoluments. But when the Seljukian Turks, a
barbarous and ferocious people, had conquered that country (1075), under
the caliphs of Egypt, the pilgrims saw themselves exposed to every kind
of insult and oppression. The lamentable accounts which they gave of
these outrages on their return to Europe excited the general indignation,
and gave birth to the romantic notion of expelling these infidels from
the Holy Land.
Gregory VII was the projector of this grand scheme. He addressed circular
letters to all the sovereigns of Europe, and invited them to make a
general crusade against the Turks. Meantime, however, more pressing
interests, and his quarrels with the emperor Henry IV, obliged him to
defer the projected enterprise; but his attention was soon recalled to
it by the representation of a pilgrim, called Peter the Hermit, a native
of Amiens in Picardy. Furnished with letters from the patriarch of
Jerusalem to the pope and the princes of the West, this ardent fanatic
traversed the whole of Italy, France, and Germany; preaching everywhere,
and representing, in the liveliest colours, the profanation of the sacred
places, and the miserable condition of the Christians and poor pilgrims
in the Holy Land. It proved no difficult task for him to impart to
others the fanaticism with which he was himself animated. His zeal was
powerfully seconded by Pope Urban II, who repaired in person to France,
where he convoked the council of Clermont (1095), and pronounced, in full
assembly, a pathetic harangue, at the close of which they unanimously
resolved on the Holy War. It was decreed that all who should enrol their
names in this sacred militia should wear a red cross on their right
shoulder; that they should enjoy plenary indulgence, and obtain remission
of all their sins.
From that time the pulpits of Europe resounded with exhortations to
the Crusades. People of every rank and condition were seen flocking in
crowds to assume the signal of the cross; and, in the following year,
innumerable bands of crusaders, from the different countries of Europe,
set out, one after another, on this expedition to the East. The only
exception was the Germans, who partook but feebly of this universal
enthusiasm, on account of the disputes which then subsisted between the
emperor and the court of Rome. The three or four first divisions of
the crusaders [comprising about 273,000 men, under the leadership of
Peter the Hermit, Walter de Pexejo, and Walter the Penniless] marched
without order and without discipline; pillaging, burning, and wasting the
countries through which they passed. Most of them perished from fatigue,
hunger, or sickness, or by the sword of the exasperated nations whose
territories they had laid desolate. [The four thousand that crossed
the Bosporus were annihilated by Kilidj Arslan, the sultan of Rum, or
Iconium.] To these unwarlike and undisciplined troops succeeded regular
armies, commanded by experienced officers, and powerful princes: the
Crusades proper were inaugurated.[45]
THE FIRST CRUSADE (1096-1099 A.D.)
1096 A well-organised military force of 200,000-300,000 men
sets out by different routes. Its leaders are:
(1) Godfrey de Bouillon--Duke of Lower Lorraine, with his
brothers (2) Baldwin, (3) Eustace.
(4) Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror.
(5) Robert, Count of Flanders.
(6) Stephen, Count of Chartres.
(7) Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse.
(8) Hugh of Vermandois.
(9) Bohemond, Duke of Tarentum.
(10) Tancred, his nephew.
Arriving at Constantinople, all except Raymond do homage to
Alexius Comnenus, the emperor. Crossing the Bosporus they
invade the territory of Kilidj Arslan, sultan of Rum, or
Iconium.
1097 With the help of the crusaders, Alexius recovers Nicæa.
Victory of the crusaders at Dorylæum. Siege of Antioch is
begun. Baldwin and Tancred attempt a private war over question
of precedence of their banners. Baldwin withdraws his troops
from the army, and answering an appeal for help from the Greek
or Armenian ruler of Edessa, marches thither, makes himself its
master, and founds the Latin county Edessa (_q.v._).
1098 Surrender of Antioch, betrayed to Bohemond by the
Armenian, Firuz. Kerboga, emir of Mosul besieges the crusaders
in Antioch but is defeated and driven off. The crusaders rest
in Antioch and quarrel among themselves.
1099 Siege and capture of Jerusalem. Foundation of the kingdom
of Jerusalem (_q.v._). The county of Antioch founded (_q.v._)
with Bohemond at its head.
THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM (1099-1291 A.D.)
1099 =Godfrey de Bouillon= elected king of the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem. He makes laws for its government. The military order
of the Knights Hospitallers founded. He defeats the Fatimites
at Askalon.
1100 Death of Godfrey. His brother, =Baldwin I=, summoned from
Edessa and made king.
1101 A large body of crusaders, headed by Welf of Bavaria and
William of Aquitaine arrives in Asia Minor, but is destroyed
and dispersed by Kilidj Arslan before it can reach Jerusalem,
together with another one that arrived the previous year. Death
of Stephen of Chartres at Ramla.
1104 Baldwin captures Acre (Ptolemais) from the Turks. The
Turks fail in an attempt to regain Jerusalem. Death of Raymond
of Toulouse.
1109 Baldwin, with the assistance of a Venetian fleet, captures
Tripolis. He afterwards takes Berytus and Sidon.
1118 Death of Baldwin. His cousin, =Baldwin (II) de Bourg=, of
Edessa succeeds. The order of Knights Templar founded by Sir
Hugh de Pagano.
1119 Baldwin defeats the Turks at Antioch. The Emperor Joannes
Comnenus wins a victory over the Knights Hospitaller on the
Mæander.
1122 The Saracens take Baldwin prisoner.
1124 Conquest of Tyre by the crusaders, assisted by the
Venetians. The latter have a third of the city allotted them.
1127 Baldwin ransomed. He attacks Aleppo and is defeated.
1131 Death of Baldwin, after being defeated near Damascus. He
bequeaths the kingdom to his son-in-law, Fulk of Anjou.
1144 Death of Fulk, by accident. His young son, =Baldwin III=,
succeeds, under the regency of Queen Melusina.
1148 The Second Crusade besieges Damascus and Askalon, but is
unable to take them.
1149 Defeat of the Christians by Nur ad-Din, near the Orontes.
1153 Capture of Askalon by Baldwin III. Nur ad-Din takes
Jerusalem.
1162 Death of Baldwin. His brother, =Almeric= or =Amaury I=,
succeeds.
1168 Almeric invades Egypt. Capture and sack of Heliopolis. He
is defeated by the generals Shirkuh and Saladin.
1173 Death of Almeric. His young son, =Baldwin IV=, a leper,
succeeds under the guardianship of Count Raymond III, of
Tripolis.
1183 Baldwin IV is compelled by his disease to resign his
crown in favour of his infant nephew, =Baldwin V=, still under
regency of Raymond.
1186 Death of Baldwin V. His mother, =Sybilla=, sister of
Baldwin IV, inherits the crown, which she shares with her
husband, =Guy de Lusignan=.
1187 Saladin attacks the kingdom of Jerusalem. Great defeat and
capture of Guy at Tiberias. Saladin takes Jerusalem and then
besieges Tyre, whence he is repelled by Conrad of Montferrat.
1188 Liberation of Guy, who renounces his title to Saladin.
Conrad defends Tripolis.
1189 The Third Crusade arrives. Guy besieges Acre, assisted by
a fleet of Danes, Frisians, and Flemings.
1191 Conquest of Cyprus by Richard Cœur de Lion, on his way
to the Holy Land. He adds it to the kingdom of Jerusalem.
Surrender of Acre. Defeat of Saladin at Azotus. Joppa and
Askalon surrender to the Christians. Murder of Conrad of
Montferrat, who by marriage with Sybilla’s sister, Isabella,
has acquired right of succession to the kingdom. Foundation of
the order of Teutonic Knights.
1192 Isabella marries =Henry of Champagne=, to whom Guy
relinquishes his title, retaining that of king of Cyprus.
1193 On death of Saladin, his sons give Acre to the Knights of
St. John--hence called St. John d’Acre.
1194 Death of Guy de Lusignan. His brother, Almeric succeeds as
king of Cyprus.
1196 Death of Henry. His widow marries =Almeric (II) de
Lusignan=, who reunites the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem.
1206 Death of Almeric. His son, Hugo I, succeeds in Cyprus.
Jerusalem falls to =Mary=, daughter of Isabella and Conrad of
Montferrat.
1210 Mary marries =Jean de Brienne=, who becomes king of
Jerusalem.
1217 The Turks take Jerusalem from the Saracens.
1218 Jean de Brienne leads the Christians into Egypt and
1219 captures Damietta.
1221 Destruction of the Christian army in Egypt. The Turks
regain Damietta.
1225 The emperor Frederick II declares that Jean de Brienne
has, since Mary’s death, no claim to his title, and that it
belongs to himself, since he has married Yolande, the daughter
of Mary.
1228 After many delays, Frederick starts for the Holy Land.
1229 =Frederick II= makes a treaty with the sultan Malik
al-Kamil, by which he recovers Jerusalem and other cities. He
is the recognised king of Jerusalem.
From this time on (see Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Crusades) the
Christian kingdom in Palestine may be considered a part of the
Holy Roman Empire until 1291, when the sultan Khalil takes Acre
and drives the last of the Christians out of Syria.
THE COUNTY OF ANTIOCH (1099-1268 A.D.)
A vassal state of the kingdom of Jerusalem founded 1099 by the
crusaders with =Bohemond of Tarentum= at its head. Bohemond
is captured by the Turks (1105) and Tancred goes to Antioch
to govern. Bohemond released the following year. The emperor
Alexius claims Antioch, but Bohemond successfully resists him.
He goes to Europe, and after various adventures dies there in
1111. Tancred dies the following year. For eight years the
principality is united to the kingdom of Jerusalem, but in 1126
Baldwin II of Jerusalem gives it to =Bohemond II=. =Bohemond
III= rules 1162 to 1201. Some of the princes of Antioch rule in
virtue of their wives’ right to the throne. In 1268 Bibars, the
sultan of Egypt, captures Antioch and the principality comes to
an end.
THE COUNTY OF TRIPOLIS (1109-1289 A.D.)
A vassal state or county of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1109,
when the city of Tripolis is captured by the crusaders and
=Raymond of Toulouse= placed at its head. The Christians rule
until 1289, when it falls into the hands of Kalaun, the sultan
of Egypt, who destroys the city.
THE COUNTY OF EDESSA (1097-1146 A.D.)
In 1097 =Baldwin I=, brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, in
consequence of a quarrel with Tancred, leaves the main body of
the crusaders, conquers Edessa, and founds the vassal state of
that name.
1100 Baldwin, made king of Jerusalem, gives Edessa to his
cousin, =Baldwin (II) de Bourg=.
1118 Baldwin II is made king of Jerusalem and =Jocelyn (I) de
Courtenai= takes his place in the county of Edessa. He wins
many victories over the Saracens.
1131 =Jocelyn II= succeeds.
1144 Capture of Edessa by Zenki, emir of Mosul.
1146 Jocelyn regains Edessa, but the same year Nur ad-Din,
Zenki’s son and successor, retakes and destroys it. End of the
county of Edessa. On account of this event Bernard of Clairvaux
preaches.
THE SECOND CRUSADE (1147-1149 A.D.)
1146 In the council of Vézelay, Louis VII of France assumes the
cross; the emperor, Conrad III, follows his example some months
later.
1147 The armies of Conrad and Louis start from Ratisbon and
Metz respectively, marching through Hungary to Asia Minor. The
German army in advance is nearly annihilated in Phrygia through
the treachery of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel, by Masud I, the
sultan of Rum. Conrad, with the remnant of his force, joins the
French army along the seacoast.
1148 Unsuccessful attempt of the Second Crusade to capture
Damascus and Askalon. Conrad, in ill health, returns to
Constantinople and thence to Germany.
1149 Louis returns to France. Bernard is reproached for the
failure of the crusade.
THE THIRD CRUSADE (1189-1192 A.D.)
The disastrous defeat and capture of Guy de Lusignan at
Tiberias by Saladin, and the latter’s capture of Jerusalem
(1187), reawakens the crusading spirit. Gregory VIII urges a
new crusade.
1188 William, archbishop of Tyre, induces Henry II of England
and Philip Augustus of France to assume the cross.
1189 Death of Henry. Richard (I) Cœur de Lion eagerly pursues
his father’s project. The emperor, Frederick (I) Barbarossa,
sets out with an army through Hungary. He spends the winter at
Hadrianopolis.
1190 Frederick reaches Asia Minor with assistance of Isaac
Angelus, and takes Iconium. Sudden death of Frederick. His son,
Frederick of Swabia, leads the crusaders to Acre, which Guy de
Lusignan, having regained his liberty, is besieging. Richard
and Philip Augustus start by sea for the Holy Land. They spend
the winter in Sicily, quarrel and are reconciled.
1191 Richard stops at and conquers Cyprus on his way to
the Holy Land. Richard and Philip arrive at Acre. Death of
Frederick of Swabia during the siege. Surrender of Acre.
Compact with Saladin, binding him to surrender the true cross
and pay a large sum. Philip quarrels with Richard and returns
to France.
1192 Richard makes unsuccessful attempt to take Jerusalem. He
relieves Joppa and makes truce with Saladin entitling pilgrims
to visit Jerusalem unmolested, for a short time. Richard sails
for England. Is shipwrecked near Aquileia. Seized near Vienna
by Leopold, duke of Austria, who surrenders him (1193) to the
emperor, Henry VI. Henry imprisons him, and he is released for
a large ransom in 1194 and returns to England.
THE FOURTH CRUSADE (1195-1198 A.D.)
The Knights of St. John start in 1193 to organise a crusade.
They are encouraged by Pope Celestine III, who hopes that the
troublesome emperor Henry VI will be induced to take part in
it. Henry also promotes the project, but has no idea of taking
part in it.
1195 Henry makes use of one division of the crusaders to
conquer the kingdom of Sicily. Two other divisions proceed to
Syria.
1196 Defeat of the Turks between Tyre and Sidon.
1197 The crusaders besiege the fortress of Thoron, but make a
disgraceful retreat on hearing of the approach of an army from
Egypt.
1198 The Saracens capture Joppa. The count of Montfort
concludes a three years’ truce with the Saracens. The crusade
leaders return to Europe.
THE FIFTH CRUSADE (1201-1204 A.D.)
Pope Innocent III, on his elevation (1198), with the assistance
of Fulk of Neuilly, preaches a new crusade.
1201 The company is organised by Simon de Montfort, Walter de
Brienne, and Geoffrey de Villehardouin. Boniface of Montferrat
chosen leader. The party proceeds to Venice. Treaty between
Venice and the leaders for transportation. Unable to pay sum
demanded, the doge, Dandolo, agrees to remit the sum lacking if
the crusaders will capture for him the town of Zara, taken from
Venice by the king of Hungary.
1202 Arrival at Venice of Alexius, son of the deposed emperor
Isaac, with whom the crusaders agree to restore Isaac. In spite
of Innocent’s protests the fleet sails for Zara, which is taken
and handed over to Venice.
1203 The crusaders proceed to Constantinople. Alexius III, the
reigning emperor, tries in vain to treat with them. Flight
of Alexius. The crusaders enter Constantinople. Isaac II and
Alexius IV restored. Constant friction between the emperor and
crusaders leads
1204 to the second capture of Constantinople. The reigning
family driven out. Foundation of the Latin Empire of Romania
and other states. (See “History of the Eastern Empire.”)
THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (1212 A.D.)
Seems to have arisen from the idea that the main cause of the
failure of the Crusades was the sinfulness of the pilgrims.
None but the innocent and pure could accomplish the mission.
In 1212, thirty thousand boys and girls set out under the boy,
Stephen, and twenty thousand from Germany, under Nicholas, a
peasant boy. Most of them perish on the way; and others are
sold into slavery.
THE SIXTH CRUSADE (1217-1229 A.D.)
When Innocent III crowns Frederick II emperor, in 1215, he
extracts a promise from Frederick to conduct a crusade, but the
latter, seeing in the pope’s action a plan to outwit him in
the then imminent struggle between emperor and pope, defers his
departure.
1217 Andrew II of Hungary, incited by Honorius III, Innocent’s
successor, sets out for Jerusalem. He is joined by the king of
Cyprus. The crusaders visit Tyre, Sidon, Acre, and Tripolis,
but the Saracens make such havoc in their numbers that Andrew
returns to Hungary.
1218-1221 Jean de Brienne’s expedition to Damietta. (See
“Kingdom of Jerusalem”).
1228 Frederick II, after many disputes with the pope, sets
out for Jerusalem, the throne of which he claims through his
marriage to Yolande.
1229 Frederick makes treaty with the sultan Kamil, receiving
Jerusalem and other places. Frederick crowns himself king of
Jerusalem, and returns to Europe.
THE SEVENTH CRUSADE (1239-1240 A.D.)
Gregory IX preaches a new crusade (1238). The sultan Kamil dies
that year.
1239 King Thibaut of Navarre leads an army to Palestine to
break the truce made between Kamil and the Templars. The sons
of Kamil defeat him and capture Jerusalem.
1240 Richard, earl of Cornwall, proceeds to Acre, and receives
offers of peace from the sultan of Egypt. Jerusalem, and other
places in Palestine, are restored to the Christians. Richard
returns to England.
THE EIGHTH CRUSADE (1248-1254 A.D.)
In 1244, Jerusalem is taken by the Khwarizmians, who have been
driven from their own country by Jenghiz Khan. This leads to a
new crusade. Louis IX of France, in a fit of illness, vows to
lead an army against the Khwarizmians.
1248 Departure of Louis and his crusaders. He winters in Cyprus.
1249 Louis proceeds to Egypt, and takes Damietta. He then sets
out for Cairo.
1250 Battle of Mansura. Defeat and capture of Louis by Turan
Shah, sultan of Egypt. Louis is released by the restoration of
Damietta, and the promise to abstain from further hostilities.
The crusaders return to St. Jean d’Acre. Louis remains four
years in Syria, fortifying Acre and other cities, and
1254 returns to France.
THE NINTH CRUSADE (1270-1272 A.D.)
In 1260, the mamelukes, on the death of their sultan, Ibeg,
choose Bibars as his successor. This vigorous warrior at once
drives the Khwarizmians out of Syria, and takes Damascus and
Jerusalem from them. He then proceeds to exterminate the
Christians in Syria; in consequence of which, by 1267, a new
crusade has been planned. Louis IX of France, and Prince Edward
of England, are among those who assume the cross.
1268 Antioch surrenders to Bibars without a siege.
1270 After many difficulties in raising an army, the crusaders
sail for the Holy Land. Stopping at Sardinia, Louis changes his
plans, and proceeds against the king of Tunis. Shortly after
reaching there, the plague breaks out, and Louis dies. King
Charles of Naples arrives and makes a truce with the Tunisians,
who pay him tribute. The whole fleet returns to Europe, and is
wrecked on the Sicilian coast. Charles plunders the French and
Genoese vessels. Prince Edward leaves the French in Tunis, and
proceeds to Acre.
1271 Edward besieged at Acre by Bibars. Edward drives the
mamelukes away and seizes Nazareth. An attempt is made to
assassinate Edward.
1272 Edward concludes a ten years’ truce with Bibars, and
returns to Europe.
1274 Gregory X fails in an attempt to start a new crusade.
Bibars and his successors, Kalaun and Khalil, continue the
process of exterminating the Christians.
1289 Tripolis is taken. Acre is the last important possession
of the Christians. The mamelukes make a treaty with the king of
Cyprus.
1291 Capture of Acre by Khalil. Tyre, Berytus, and other towns,
submit. The last possessions of the Christians in the Holy
Land are abandoned. Other crusades are planned, but they are
never carried to execution. The military orders are eventually
suppressed.
FOOTNOTES
[45] [From _The Revolutions of Europe: being an historical view of the
European nations from the subversion of the Roman Empire in the West to
the abdication of Napoleon_. By Christopher W. Koch, formerly professor
of Public Jurisprudence at Strasburg. Translated from the French by
Andrew Crichton. Second edition, London, 1839.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE CRUSADES
“God willeth it,” the whole assembly cry;
Shout which the enraptured multitude astounds!
The Council roof and Clermont’s towers reply;--
“God willeth it!” from hill to hill rebounds,
And, in awe-struck countries far and nigh,
Through “Nature’s hollow arch” that voice resounds.
--WORDSWORTH.
[Sidenote: [306-1096 A.D.]]
The history of the Middle Ages presents no spectacle more imposing than
the Crusades, in which are to be seen the nations of Asia and of Europe
armed against each other, two religions contending for superiority,
and disputing the empire of the world. After having been several times
threatened by the Moslems, and a long time exposed to their invasions,
all at once the West arouses itself, and appears, according to the
expression of a Greek historian (Anna Comnena), to tear itself from its
foundation, in order to precipitate itself upon Asia. All nations abandon
their interests and their rivalries, and see upon the face of the earth
but one single country worthy of the ambition of conquerors. One would
believe that there no longer exists in the universe any other city but
Jerusalem, or any other habitable spot of earth but that which contains
the tomb of Jesus Christ. All the roads which lead to the Holy City are
deluged with blood, and present nothing but the scattered spoils and
wrecks of empires.
In this general confusion we may contemplate the sublimest virtues
mixed with all the disorders of the wildest passions. The Christian
soldiers have at the same time to contend against famine, the influence
of climate, and enemies the most formidable; in the greatest dangers,
in the midst of their successes and their constant discords, nothing
can exhaust either their perseverance or their resignation. After four
years of fatigue, of miseries, and of victories, Jerusalem is taken by
the crusaders; but as their conquests are not the work of wisdom and
prudence, but the fruit of blind enthusiasm and ill-directed heroism,
they create nothing but a transient power.
The banner of the cross soon passes from the hands of Godfrey de
Bouillon into those of his weak and imbecile successors. Jerusalem, now
a Christian city, is obliged again to apply for succour to the West.
At the voice of St. Bernard, the Christians take arms. Conducted by
an emperor of Germany and a king of France, they fly to the defence of
the Holy Land; but they have no longer great captains among them, they
have none of the magnanimity or heroic resignation of their fathers.
Asia, which beholds their coming without terror, already presents a new
spectacle. The disciples of Mohammed awaken from their apathy; they are
at once seized with a frenzy equal to that which had armed their enemies;
they oppose enthusiasm to enthusiasm, fanaticism to fanaticism, and in
their turn burn with a desire to shed their blood in a religious war.
[Sidenote: [1147-1532 A.D.]]
The spirit of discord which had destroyed their power is no longer felt
but among the Christians. Luxury and the manners of the East weaken the
courage of the defenders of the cross, and make them forget the object
even of the holy war. Jerusalem, which had cost the crusaders so much
blood, falls again into the power of the infidels, and becomes the
conquest of a wise and warlike prince, who had united under his banner
the forces of Syria and Egypt.
The genius and fortune of Saladin inflict a mortal blow upon the
ill-assured power of the Christians in the East. In vain an emperor of
the West, and two kings celebrated for their bravery, place themselves at
the head of the whole powers of their states to deliver Palestine; these
new armies of crusaders meet everywhere with brave enemies and invincible
barriers, and all their united efforts produce nothing but illustrious
disasters. The kingdom of Jerusalem, for whose ruins they contend, is no
longer anything but a vain name; soon even the captivity and the miseries
of the Holy City cease to inspire the sentiments of piety and enthusiasm
that they had given birth to among the Christians. The crusaders, who
had taken up arms for its deliverance, suffer themselves to be seduced
by the wealth of Greece, and stop short to undertake the conquest of
Constantinople.
From that time the spirit of the crusaders begins to change; whilst a
small number of Christians still shed their blood for the deliverance
of the tomb of Jesus Christ, the princes and the knights are deaf to
everything but the voice of ambition. The popes complete the corruption
of the true spirit of the crusaders, by urging them on, by their
preaching, against other Christian people, and against their own personal
enemies. The holy wars then degenerate into civil wars, in which both
religion and humanity are outraged.
These abuses of the Crusades, and the dire passions which had mixed
themselves with them, plunge Europe in disorder and anarchy; when a
pious king undertakes once more to arm the powers of the West against
the infidels, and to revive among the crusaders the spirit which had
animated the companions of Godfrey. The two wars directed by this pious
chief are more unfortunate than all the others. In the first, the world
is presented with the spectacle of a captive army and a king in fetters;
in the second, that of a powerful monarch dying in its ashes. Then it is
that the illusion disappears, and Jerusalem ceases to attract all the
attention of the West.
Soon after, the face of Europe is changed; intelligence dissipates
barbarism; the Crusades no longer excite the same degree of enthusiasm,
and the first effect of the civilisation it begins to spread is to
weaken the spirit of the fanaticism which had given them birth. Some few
useless efforts are at times made to rekindle the fire which had burned
so fiercely in Europe and Asia. The nations are so completely recovered
from the pious delirium of the Crusades, that when Germany finds itself
menaced by the Mussulmans who are masters of Constantinople the banner of
the cross can with difficulty gather an army around it; and Europe, which
had risen in a mass to attack the infidels in Asia, opposes but a feeble
resistance to them on its own territories.
Such is, in a few words, the picture of the events and revolutions which
the historian of the Crusades has to describe.
We do not now require much sagacity to discover in our ancient chronicles
what is fabulous and what is not. A far more difficult thing is to
reconcile, upon some points, the frequent contradictory assertions of the
Latins, the Greeks, and the Saracens, and to separate, in the history of
the Crusades, that which belongs to religious fanaticism, to policy, or
to human passions.
In an age in which some value is set upon an opinion of the Crusades,
it will be first asked if the wars of the Crusades were just. Upon this
head we have but little to answer. Whilst the crusaders believed that
they were obeying God himself by attacking the Saracens in the East, the
latter, who had invaded a part of Asia possessed by Christian people, who
had got possession of Spain, who threatened Constantinople, the coasts of
Italy, and several countries of the West, did not reproach their enemies
with making an unjust war, and left to fortune and victory the care of
deciding a question almost always useless.
We shall think it of more importance here to examine what was the cause
and the nature of these remote wars, and what has proved to be their
influence on civilisation. The Crusades were produced by the religious
and military spirit which prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages.
The love of arms and religious fervour were two dominant passions which,
mingling in some way, lent each other a mutual energy. These two great
principles, united and acting together, gave birth to the holy war;
and carried, among the crusaders, valour, resignation, and heroism of
character to the highest degree of eminence. Some writers have seen
nothing in these great expeditions but the most deplorable excesses,
without any advantage to the ages that succeeded them; others, on the
contrary, maintain that we owe to them all the benefits of civilisation.
It is not, at present, our business to examine these two conflicting
opinions. Without believing that the holy wars have done either all the
good or all the harm that is attributed to them, it must be admitted that
they were a source of bitter sorrow to the generations that saw them or
took part in them; but, like the ills and tempests of human life, which
render man better and often assist the progress of his reason, they have
forwarded the experiences of nations; and it may be said that, after
having for a time seriously agitated and shaken society, they have, in
the end, much strengthened the foundations of it. This opinion, when
stripped of all spirit of exaggeration or system, will perhaps appear the
most reasonable.
EARLY CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGES
[Sidenote: [306-335 A.D.]]
From the earliest ages of the church, a custom had been practised
of making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Judea, full of religious
remembrances, was still the promised land of the faithful; the blessings
of heaven appeared to be in store for those who visited Calvary, the tomb
of Jesus Christ, and renewed their baptism in the waters of the Jordan.
Under the reign of Constantine, the ardour for pilgrimages increased
among the faithful; they flocked from all the provinces of the empire
to worship Jesus Christ upon his own tomb, and to trace the steps of
their God in that city which had but just resumed its name, and which
the piety of an emperor had caused to issue from its ruins. The Holy
Sepulchre presented itself to the eyes of the pilgrims surrounded by
a magnificence which redoubled their veneration. An obscure cavern had
become a marble temple, paved with precious stones and decorated with
splendid colonnades. To the east of the Holy Sepulchre appeared the
church of the Resurrection, in which they could admire the riches of
Asia, mingled with the arts of Greece and Rome. Constantine celebrated
the thirty-first year of his reign by the inauguration of this church,
and thousands of Christians came, on occasion of this solemnity, to
listen to the panegyric of Christ from the lips of the learned and holy
bishop Eusebius.
[Sidenote: [335-493 A.D.]]
St. Helena, the mother of the emperor, repaired to Jerusalem, at a very
advanced age, and caused churches and chapels to be built upon Mount
Tabor, in the city of Nazareth, and in the greater part of the places
which Christ had sanctified by his presence and his miracles. From this
period, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became much more frequent. The
pilgrims, no longer in dread of the persecutions of the pagans, could
now give themselves up, without fear, to the fervour of their devotion;
the Roman eagles, ornamented with the cross of Jesus Christ, protected
them on their march; they everywhere trampled under foot the fragments of
idols, and they travelled amidst the abodes of their fellow-Christians.
[Illustration: A FRENCH CRUSADER]
When the emperor Julian, in order to weaken the authority of the
prophecies, undertook to rebuild the temple of the Jews, numerous were
the prodigies related by which God confounded his designs, and Jerusalem,
for that attempt even, became more dear to the disciples of Jesus Christ.
The Christians did not cease to visit Palestine. St. Jerome, who, towards
the end of the fourth century, had retired to Bethlehem, informs us in
one of his letters that pilgrims arrived in crowds in Judea, and that
around the holy tomb the praises of the Son of God were to be heard,
uttered in many languages. From this period, pilgrimages to the Holy Land
were so numerous that several doctors and fathers of the church thought
it their duty to point out the abuses and danger of the practice. They
told Christians that long voyages might turn them aside from the path of
salvation; that their God was not confined to one city; that Jesus Christ
was everywhere where faith and good works were to be found; but such was
the blind zeal which then drew the Christians towards Jerusalem that the
voice of the holy doctors was scarcely heard. As soon as the people of
the West became converted to Christianity, they turned their eyes to the
East. From the depths of Gaul, from the forests of Germany, from all the
countries of Europe, new Christians were to be seen hastening to visit
the cradle of the faith they had embraced.
[Sidenote: [493-750 A.D.]]
When the world was ravaged by the Goths, the Huns, and the Vandals,
pilgrimages to the Holy Land were not at all interrupted. Pious
travellers were protected by the hospitable virtues of the barbarians,
who began to respect the cross of Christ, and sometimes even followed
the pilgrims to Jerusalem. In these times of trouble and desolation, a
poor pilgrim who bore his scrip and staff often passed through fields of
carnage, and travelled without fear amidst armies which threatened the
empires of the East and the West.
Illustrious families of Rome came to seek an asylum at Jerusalem, and
upon the tomb of Jesus Christ. Christians then found, on the banks of
the Jordan, that peace which seemed to be banished from the rest of the
world. This peace, which lasted several centuries, was not troubled
before the reign of Heraclius. Under this reign, the armies of Chosroes,
king of Persia, invaded Syria, Palestine, and Egypt; the Holy City fell
into the hands of the worshippers of fire; the conquerors bore away into
captivity vast numbers of Christians, and profaned the churches of Jesus
Christ. All the faithful deplored the misfortunes of Jerusalem, and shed
tears when they learned that the king of Persia had carried off, among
the spoils of the vanquished, the cross of the Saviour, which had been
preserved in the church of the Resurrection. Heraclius, after ten years
of reverses, triumphed, and brought back to Jerusalem the Christians
whose chains he had broken. Then was to be seen an emperor of the East,
walking barefooted in the streets of the Holy City, carrying on his
shoulders to the summit of Calvary the wood of the true cross, which he
considered the most glorious trophy of his victories.
But the joy of the faithful was not of long duration. Towards the
beginning of the seventh century there had arisen, in an obscure
corner of Asia, a new religion, opposed to all others which preached
dominion and war. Mohammed had promised the conquest of the world to
his disciples, who had issued almost naked from the deserts of Arabia.
By his passionate doctrine he was able to inflame the imagination of
the Arabs, and on the field of battle knew how to inspire them with his
own impetuous courage. His first successes, which must have greatly
exceeded his hopes, were like so many miracles, increasing the confidence
of his partisans and carrying conviction to the minds of the weak and
wavering. After the death of the prophet of Mecca, his lieutenants and
the companions of his first exploits carried on his great work.
JERUSALEM UNDER THE SARACENS
[Sidenote: [750-860 A.D.]]
Amidst the first conquests of the Saracens, they had turned their eyes
towards Jerusalem. According to the faith of the Moslems, Mohammed had
been in the city of David and Solomon; it was from Jerusalem that he
set out to ascend into heaven in his nocturnal voyage. The Saracens
considered Jerusalem as the house of God, as the city of saints and
miracles. The Christians had the grief of seeing the church of the Holy
Sepulchre profaned by the presence of the chief of the infidels. Although
Omar had left them the exercise of their worship, they were obliged to
conceal their crosses and their sacred books. The caliph ordered a mosque
to be erected on the spot whereon the temple of Solomon had been built.
In the meantime, the presence of Omar, of whose moderation the East
boasts, restrained the jealous fanaticism of the Moslems. After his death
the faithful had much more to suffer; they were driven from their houses,
insulted in their churches; the tribute which they had to pay to the new
masters of Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden to carry
arms or to mount on horseback. A leathern girdle, which they were never
allowed to be without, was the badge of their servitude; the conquerors
would not permit the Christians to speak the Arab tongue, sacred to the
disciples of the _Koran_; and the people who remained faithful to Jesus
Christ had not liberty even to pronounce the name of the patriarch of
Jerusalem, without the permission of the Saracens.
[Illustration: HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM]
All these persecutions could not stop the crowd of Christians who
repaired to Jerusalem, the sight of the Holy City sustaining their
courage as it heightened their devotion. There were no evils, no
outrages, that they could not support with resignation, when they
remembered that Christ had been loaded with chains and had died upon
the cross in the places they were about to visit. The Christians of
Palestine, however, enjoyed some short intervals of security during the
civil wars of the Mussulmans. The dynasty of the Omayyads, which had
established the seat of the Moslem empire at Damascus, was always odious
to the ever-formidable party of the Alids, and employed itself less in
persecuting the Christians than in preserving its own precarious power.
Merwan II, the last caliph of this house, was the most cruel towards the
disciples of Christ; and when he, with all his family, sank under the
power of his enemies, the Christians and the infidels united in thanks to
heaven for having delivered the East from his tyranny.
The Abbasids, established in the city of Baghdad which they had founded,
persecuted and tolerated the Christians by turns. The Christians, always
living between the fear of persecution and the hope of a transient
security, saw at last the prospect of happier days dawn upon them with
the reign of Harun ar-Rashid, the greatest caliph of the race of Abbas.
Under this reign the glory of Charlemagne, which had reached Asia,
protected the churches of the East. His pious liberality relieved the
indigence of the Christians of Alexandria, of Carthage, and Jerusalem.
The two greatest princes of their age testified their mutual esteem by
frequent embassies: they sent each other magnificent presents; and, in
the friendly intercourse of two powerful monarchs, the East and the West
exchanged the richest productions of their soil and their industry. There
was no doubt policy in the marks of esteem which Harun lavished upon
the most powerful of the princes of the West. He was making war against
the emperors of Constantinople, and might justly fear that they would
interest the bravest among Christian people in their cause. To take from
the Franks every pretext for a religious war, which might make them
embrace the cause of the Greeks, and draw them into Asia, the caliph
neglected no opportunity of obtaining the friendship of Charlemagne;
and caused the keys of the Holy City and of the Holy Sepulchre to be
presented to him.
Whilst the Arabians of Africa were pursuing their conquests towards the
West, whilst they took possession of Sicily, and Rome itself saw its
suburbs and its churches of St. Peter and St. Paul invaded and pillaged
by infidels, the servants of Jesus Christ prayed in peace within the
walls of Jerusalem. To the desire of visiting the tomb of Jerusalem
was joined the earnest wish to procure relics, which were then sought
for with eagerness by the devotion of the faithful. All who returned
from the East made it their glory to bring back to their country some
precious remains of Christian antiquity, and above all the bones of holy
martyrs, which constituted the ornament and the riches of their churches
and upon which princes and kings swore to respect truth and justice. The
productions of Asia likewise attracted the attention of the people of
Europe.
[Sidenote: [860-1050 A.D.]]
In short, the Christians of Palestine and the Moslem provinces, the
pilgrims and travellers who returned from the East, seemed no longer to
have any persecutions to dread, when all at once new storms broke out in
the East. The children of Harun soon shared the fate of the posterity of
Charlemagne, and Asia, like the West, was plunged into the horrors of
anarchy and civil war. The gigantic empire of the Abbasids crumbled away
on all sides, and the world, according to the expression of an Arabian
writer, was within the reach of him who would take possession of it. The
Greeks then appeared to rouse themselves from their long supineness,
and sought to take advantage of the divisions and the humiliation
of the Saracens. Nicephorus Phocas took the field at the head of a
powerful army, and recaptured Antioch from the Moslems. Deprived of the
powerful stimulus of fanaticism, Nicephorus found among the Greeks more
panegyrists than soldiers, and could not pursue his advantages against
the Saracens. His triumphs were confined to the taking of Antioch, and
only served to create a persecution against the Christians of Palestine.
Zimisces resolved to avenge the outrage inflicted upon religion and
the empire. On all sides preparations were set on foot for a fresh
war against the Saracens. The nations of the West were no strangers
to this enterprise, which preceded, by more than a year, the first of
the Crusades. After having defeated the Mussulmans on the banks of the
Tigris, and forced the caliph of Baghdad to pay a tribute, Zimisces
penetrated, almost without resistance, into Judea, took possession of
Cæsarea, of Ptolemais, of Tiberias, Nazareth, and several other cities of
the Holy Land.
After this first campaign, the Holy Land appeared to be on the eve
of being delivered entirely from the yoke of the infidels, when the
emperor died poisoned. His death at once put a stop to the execution of
an enterprise of which he was the soul and the leader. The Christian
nations had scarcely time to rejoice at the delivery of Jerusalem, when
they learned that the Holy City had again fallen into the hands of the
Fatimite caliphs, who, after the death of Zimisces, had invaded Syria
and Palestine. Hakim, the third of the Fatimite caliphs, signalised his
reign by all the excesses of fanaticism and outrage. Unfixed in his own
projects, and wavering between two religions, he by turns protected and
persecuted Christianity.
The inconstancy of Hakim, in a degree, mitigated the misfortunes of
Jerusalem, and he had just granted liberty to the Christians to rebuild
their churches, when he died by the hand of the assassin. His successor,
guided by a wiser policy, tolerated both pilgrimages and the exercise of
the Christian religion. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was not entirely
rebuilt till thirty years after its destruction; but the spectacle of its
ruins still inflamed the zeal and the devotion of the Christians. In the
eleventh century the Latin church allowed pilgrimages to suffice instead
of canonical penitences; sinners were condemned to quit their country
for a time, and to lead a wandering life, after the example of Cain.
There existed no crime that might not be expiated by the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. Even the weak and timid sex was not deterred by the perils of
a long voyage.[b]
CHARACTER OF THE PILGRIMS
[Sidenote: [1000-1050 A.D.]]
Though pilgrimages were generally considered acts of virtue, yet some of
the leaders of the church accounted them useless and criminal. Gregory,
bishop of Nyssa, in the fourth century, dissuades his flock from these
journeys. They were not conscientious obligations, he said, for in the
description of persons whom Christ had promised to acknowledge in the
next world the name of pilgrim could not be found. A migratory life was
dangerous to virtue, particularly to the modesty of women.
The necessity of making a pilgrimage to Rome and other places was often
urged by ladies, who did not wish to be mewed in the solitary gloom of
a cloister, “chaunting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.” In the
ninth century, a foreign bishop wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury,
requesting, in very earnest terms, that English women of every rank and
degree might be prohibited from pilgrimising to Rome. Their gallantries
were notorious over all the continent. “_Perpaucæ enim sunt civitates
in Longobardia, vel in Francia, aut in Gallia, in qua non sit adultera
vel meretrix generis Anglorum: quod scandalum est, et turpitudo totius
ecclesiæ._” Muratori, _Antiquitates Italiæ Med. Ævi, Dissert. 58_, vol.
V., p. 58. “There are few cities in Lombardy, in France, or in Gaul, in
which there is not an English adultress or harlot, to the scandal and
disgrace of the whole church.” Morality did not improve as the world
grew older. The prioress in Chaucer, demure as she is, wears a bracelet
on which was inscribed the sentence, “_Amor vincit omnia._” The gallant
monk, in the same pilgrimage, ties his hood with a true-lover’s knot.
Horror at spectacles of vice would diminish with familiarity, and
the moral principle would gradually be destroyed. Malice, idolatry,
poisoning, and bloodshed disgraced Jerusalem itself; and so dreadfully
polluted was the city that, if any man wished to have a more than
ordinary spiritual communication with Christ, he had better quit
his earthly tabernacle at once than endeavour to enjoy it in places
originally sacred, but which had been since defiled. Some years after the
time of Gregory, a similar description of the depravity at Jerusalem was
given by St. Jerome, and the Latin father commends a monk who, though a
resident in Palestine, had but on one occasion travelled to the city.
The opinions of these two venerable spiritual guides could not stem the
torrent of popular religion. The coffers of the church were enriched by
the sale of relics, and the dominion of the clergy became powerful in
proportion to the growth of religious abuses and corruptions. Pilgrims
from India, Ethiopia, Britannia, and Hibernia went to Jerusalem; and the
tomb of Christ resounded with hymns in various languages. Bishops and
teachers would have thought it a disgrace to their piety and learning if
they had not adored their Saviour on the very spot where his cross had
first shed the light of his Gospel.
[Illustration: A PILGRIM AND SHRINE]
The assertion, that “the coffers of the church were enriched by the
sale of relics,” requires some observations; because the sale of one
relic in particular encouraged the ardour of pilgrimages, and from the
ardour the Crusades arose. During the fourth century, Christendom was
duped into the belief that the very cross on which Christ had suffered
had been discovered in Jerusalem. The city’s bishop was the keeper
of the treasure, but the faithful never offered their money in vain
for a fragment of the holy wood. They listened with credulity to the
assurance of their priests that a living virtue pervaded an inanimate
and insensible substance, and that the cross permitted itself every day
to be divided into several parts, and yet remained uninjured and entire.
Thus Erasmus says, in his entertaining dialogue on pilgrimages, that “if
the fragments of the cross were collected, enough would be found for
the building of a ship.” It was publicly exhibited during the religious
festivities of Easter, and Jerusalem was crowded with pious strangers
to witness the solemn spectacle. But after four ages of perpetual
distribution, the world was filled with relics, and superstition craved
for a novel object. Accordingly, the Latin clergy of Palestine pretended
that on the vigil of Easter, after the great lamps in the church of the
Resurrection had been extinguished, they were relighted by God himself.
People flocked from the West to the East in order to behold this act
of the Divinity, and to catch some portion of a flame which had the
marvellous property of healing all diseases, mental as well as bodily, if
those who received it had faith.[c]
[Sidenote: [1050-1076 A.D.]]
The inclination to acquire holiness by the journey to Jerusalem became at
length so general that the troops of pilgrims alarmed by their numbers
the countries through which they passed, and although they came not as
soldiers they were designated “the armies of the Lord.” In the year 1054,
Litbert, bishop of Cambray, set out for the Holy Land, followed by more
than three thousand pilgrims from the provinces of Picardy and Flanders.
Ten years after, seven thousand Christians set out together from the
banks of the Rhine. This numerous caravan, which was the forerunner of
the Crusades, crossed Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Thrace, and was
welcomed at Constantinople by the emperor Constantine Ducas. After having
visited the churches of Byzantium, the pilgrims of the West traversed
Asia Minor and Syria without danger; but when they approached Jerusalem,
the sight of their riches aroused the cupidity of the Bedouin Arabs,
undisciplined hordes, who had neither country nor settled abode, and who
had rendered themselves formidable in the civil wars of the East. The
Arabs attacked the pilgrims of the West, and compelled them to sustain a
siege in an abandoned village; and this was on a Good Friday. The emir
of Ramala, informed by some fugitives, came happily to their rescue,
delivered them from the death with which they were threatened, and
permitted them to continue their journey. After having lost more than
three thousand of their companions, they returned to Europe, to relate
their tragical adventures, and the dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land.
THE TURKS IN POWER
[Sidenote: [1076-1088 A.D.]]
New perils and the most violent persecutions at this period threatened
both the pilgrims of the West and the Christians of Palestine. Asia was
once again about to change masters, and tremble beneath a fresh tyranny.
During several centuries the rich countries of the East had been subject
to continual invasions from the wild hordes of Tatary. The Turks, issuing
from countries situated beyond the Oxus, had rendered themselves masters
of Persia. Palestine yielded to the power of the Turks. The conquerors
spared neither the Christians nor the children of Ali, whom the caliph
of Baghdad represented to be the enemies of God. The Egyptian garrison
was massacred, and the mosques and the churches were delivered up to
pillage. The Holy City was flooded with the blood of Christians and
Mussulmans.
Other tribes of Turks, led by Suleiman, penetrated into Asia Minor.
They took possession of all the provinces through which pilgrims were
accustomed to pass on their way to Jerusalem. The standard of the prophet
floated over the walls of Edessa, Iconium, Tarsus, and Antioch. Thousands
of children had been circumcised. Everywhere the laws of the _Koran_ took
the place of those of the Evangelists and of Greece. The black or white
tents of the Turks covered the plains and the mountains of Bithynia and
Cappadocia, and their flocks pastured among the ruins of the monasteries
and churches. The Greeks had never had to contend against more cruel and
terrible enemies than the Turks. In the midst of revolutions and civil
wars, the Greek Empire was hastening to its fall.
Whilst the empire of the East approached its fall and appeared sapped by
time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy.
The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had
no relations with each other; and mistaking their political interests,
made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and
concluded peace without being at all aware whether it was advantageous
or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the
progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that
Europe was full of soldiers and covered with strong castles, the states
themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an
army to defend them.
Ten years before the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks, Michael
Ducas, the successor of Romanus Diogenes, had implored the assistance
of the pope and the princes of the West. He had promised to remove all
the barriers which separated the Greek from the Roman church, if the
Latins would take up arms against the infidels. Gregory VII then filled
the chair of St. Peter. The hope of extending the religion and the
empire of the holy see into the East made him receive kindly the humble
supplications of Michael Ducas. Excited by his discourses, fifty thousand
pilgrims agreed to follow Gregory to Constantinople, and thence to Syria;
but the affairs of Europe suspended the execution of his projects.
Every day the power of the popes was augmented by the progress of
Christianity, and by the ever-increasing influence of the Latin clergy.
Rome was become a second time the capital of the world, and appeared to
have resumed, under the monk Hildebrand, the empire it had enjoyed under
the cæsars. Armed with the two-edged sword of Peter, Gregory loudly
proclaimed that all the kingdoms of the earth were under the dominion
of the holy see, and that his authority ought to be as universal as the
church of which he was the head. These dangerous pretensions, fostered by
the opinions of his age, engaged him immediately in violent disputes with
the emperor of Germany. He desired also to dictate laws to France, Spain,
Sweden, Poland, and England; and thinking of nothing but making himself
acknowledged as the great arbiter of states, he launched his anathemas
even against the throne of Constantinople, which he had undertaken to
defend, and gave no more attention to the deliverance of Jerusalem.
After the death of Gregory, Victor III, although he pursued the policy
of his predecessor and had to contend against the emperor of Germany
and the party of the anti-pope Guibert (Clement III), did not neglect
the opportunity of making war against the Mussulmans. The Saracens,
inhabiting Africa, disturbed the navigation of the Mediterranean, and
threatened the coast of Italy. Victor invited the Christians to take
arms, and promised them the remission of all their sins if they went to
fight against the infidels. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and several
other cities, urged by their zeal for religion and their desire to defend
their commerce, equipped fleets, levied troops, and made a descent upon
the coasts of Africa, where, if we are to believe the chronicles of the
time, they cut in pieces an army of one hundred thousand Saracens.[b]
PETER THE HERMIT
[Sidenote: [1088-1095 A.D.]]
The true story of the first Crusade is, as Kugler[d] says, sufficiently
marvellous. It was a vast awakening in which religion, adventure, and
design forced the European peoples out of their narrow lines of life and
brought the West and East again in contact, and it grows in strangeness
as we trace the story in detail. But monkish, uncritical writings which
record the vague traditions of that great uprising have not rested
satisfied with the marvellous truth: they have added much that is
legendary. Among the legends that have failed to stand the test of recent
scholarship, is the famous one which made Peter the Hermit the originator
of the first Crusade. We may now feel sure that it was not Peter but
Urban II who set going the great impetus; but the legend of Peter the
Hermit has grown into the story of the first Crusade, and won its place
in history from the belief of centuries. The reader must, however, be
aware, as he reads it, that we have no authentic account of Peter’s
preaching before the Council of Clermont. He was probably one of the
preachers who scattered the enthusiasm of that council in northeastern
France. His preaching was likely limited to the land where he could be
understood in the vernacular, and his real influence is rather to be
estimated by the rabble that followed him and Walter the Penniless, to
leave their bones by the Danube or Bosporus. So much prefaced, let us
turn to the story.
As the legend runs, Peter, an obscure hermit, came from his retreat,
and followed into Palestine the crowd of Christians who went to visit
the holy places.[a] The sight of Jerusalem excited him much more than
any of the other pilgrims, for it created in his ardent mind a thousand
conflicting sentiments. In the city, which exhibited everywhere marks of
the mercy and the anger of God, all objects inflamed his piety, irritated
his devotion and his zeal, and filled him by turns with respect, terror,
and indignation. After having followed his brethren to Calvary and the
tomb of Christ he repaired to the patriarch of Jerusalem. The white
hairs of Simeon, his venerable figure, and above all the persecution
which he had undergone, bespoke the full confidence of Peter, and they
wept together over the ills of the Christians. The patriarch resolved to
implore, by his letters, the help of the pope and the princes of Europe,
and the hermit swore to be the interpreter of the Christians of the East
and to rouse the West to take arms for their deliverance.
[Illustration: A HERMIT OF THE MIDDLE AGES]
After this interview, the enthusiasm of Peter knew no bounds; he was
persuaded that heaven itself called upon him to avenge its cause. One
day, whilst prostrated before the Holy Sepulchre, he believed that he
heard the voice of Christ, which said to him: “Peter, arise! hasten to
proclaim the tribulations of my people; it is time that my servants
should receive help, and that the holy places should be delivered.” Full
of the spirit of these words, which sounded unceasingly in his ears, and
charged with letters from the patriarch, he quitted Palestine, crossed
the seas, landed on the coast of Italy, and hastened to cast himself at
the feet of the pope. The chair of St. Peter was then occupied by Urban
II, who had been the disciple and confidant of both Gregory and Victor.
Urban embraced with ardour a project which had been entertained by his
predecessors; he received Peter as a prophet, applauded his design, and
bade him go forth and announce the approaching deliverance of Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: [1095-1096 A.D.]]
Peter the Hermit traversed Italy, crossed the Alps, visited all parts of
France, and the greatest portion of Europe, inflaming all hearts with the
same zeal that consumed his own. He travelled mounted on a mule, with a
crucifix in his hand, his feet bare, his head uncovered, his body girded
with a thick cord, covered with a long frock, and a hermit’s hood of the
coarsest stuff. The singularity of his appearance was a spectacle for the
people, whilst the austerity of his manners, his charity, and the moral
doctrines that he preached caused him to be revered as a saint wherever
he went.
He went from city to city, from province to province, working upon the
courage of some and upon the piety of others; sometimes haranguing from
the pulpits of the churches, sometimes preaching in the high-roads or
public places. His eloquence was animated and impressive, and filled
with those vehement apostrophes which produce such effects upon an
uncultivated multitude. He described the profanation of the holy places,
and the blood of the Christians shed in torrents in the streets of
Jerusalem. He invoked, by turns, heaven, the saints, the angels, whom
he called upon to bear witness to the truth of what he told them. He
apostrophised Mount Zion, the rock of Calvary, and the Mount of Olives,
which he made to resound with sobs and groans. When he had exhausted
speech in painting the miseries of the faithful, he showed the spectators
the crucifix which he carried with him; sometimes striking his breast
and wounding his flesh, sometimes shedding torrents of tears. The people
followed the steps of Peter in crowds. The preacher of the holy war was
received everywhere as a messenger from God.
THE APPEAL OF THE EMPEROR ALEXIUS
In the midst of this general excitement, Alexius Comnenus, who was
threatened by the Turks, sent ambassadors to the pope, to solicit
the assistance of the Latins. “Without the prompt assistance of all
the Christian states,” he wrote, “Constantinople must fall under the
most frightful domination of the Turks.” He reminded the princes of
Christianity of the holy relics preserved in Constantinople, and conjured
them to save so sacred an assemblage of venerated objects from the
profanation of the infidels. After having set forth the splendour and
the riches of his capital, he exhorted the knights and barons to come
and defend them; he offered them his treasures as the reward of their
valour, and painted in glowing colours the beauty of the Greek women,
whose love would repay the exploits of his liberators. Thus, nothing was
spared that could flatter the passions or arouse the enthusiasm of the
warriors of the West.
COUNCILS OF PLACENTIA AND CLERMONT
In compliance with the prayers of Alexius and the wishes of the faithful,
the sovereign pontiff convoked a council at Placentia, in order there
to expose the dangers of the Greek and Latin churches in the East. The
preachings of Peter had so prepared the minds and animated the zeal of
the faithful, that more than two hundred bishops and archbishops, four
thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand of the laity obeyed the
invitation of the holy see. The council was so numerous that it was
obliged to be held in a plain in the neighbourhood of the city. The
Council of Placentia, however, came to no determination upon the war
against the infidels. The deliverance of the Holy Land was far from
being the only object of this council: the declarations of the empress
Adelaide, who came to reveal her own shame and that of her husband,
anathemas against the emperor of Germany and the anti-pope Guibert,
occupied, during several days, the attention of Urban and the assembled
fathers.
A new council assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne. Before it gave up its
attention to the holy war, the council at first considered the reform of
the clergy and ecclesiastical discipline; and it then occupied itself in
placing a restraint upon the license of wars among individuals. In these
barbarous times even simple knights never thought of redressing their
injuries by any other means than arms. It was not an uncommon thing to
see families, for the slightest causes, commence a war against each other
that would last during several generations; Europe was distracted with
troubles occasioned by these hostilities. In the impotence of the laws
and the governments, the church often exerted its salutary influence
to restore tranquillity; several councils had placed their interdict
upon private wars during four days of the week, and their decrees had
invoked the vengeance of heaven against disturbers of the public peace.
The Council of Clermont renewed the Truce of God, and threatened all who
refused “to accept peace and justice” with the thunders of the church.
One of its decrees placed widows, orphans, merchants, and labourers
under the safeguard of religion. They declared, as they had already
done in other councils, that the churches should be so many inviolable
sanctuaries, and that crosses, even, placed upon the high-roads, should
become points of refuge against violence.
Humanity and reason must applaud such salutary decrees; but the sovereign
pontiff, although he presented himself as the defender of the sanctity
of marriage, did not merit the same praises when he pronounced in this
council an anathema against Philip I. But such was then the general
infatuation, that no one was astonished that a king of France should be
excommunicated in the very bosom of his own kingdom. The sentence of
Urban could not divert attention from an object that seemed much more
imposing, and the excommunication of Philip scarcely holds a place in
the history of the Council of Clermont. The faithful, gathered from all
the provinces, had but one single thought; they spoke of nothing but
the evils the Christians endured in Palestine, and saw nothing but the
war which was about to be declared against the infidels. Enthusiasm and
fanaticism, which always increase in large assemblies, were carried
to their full height. Urban at length satisfied the impatience of the
faithful--impatience which he, perhaps, had adroitly excited, and which
was the surest guarantee of success.
The council held its tenth sitting in the great square or place of
Clermont, which was soon filled by an immense crowd. Followed by his
cardinals, the pope ascended a species of throne which had been prepared
for him; at his side was Peter the Hermit, clad in that whimsical and
uncouth garb which had everywhere drawn upon him the attention and the
respect of the multitude. Urban, who spoke after Peter, represented,
as he had done, the holy places as profaned by the domination of the
infidels.
As Urban proceeded, the sentiments by which he was animated penetrated to
the very souls of his auditors. When he spoke of the captivity and the
misfortunes of Jerusalem, the whole assembly was dissolved in tears; when
he described the tyranny and the perfidy of the infidels, the warriors
who listened to him clutched their swords, and swore in their hearts to
avenge the cause of the Christians. Urban redoubled their enthusiasm
by announcing that God had chosen them to accomplish his designs, and
exhorted them to turn those arms against the Moslems which they now bore
in conflict against their brothers. They were not now called upon to
revenge the injuries of men, but injuries offered to divinity; it was now
not the conquest of a town or a castle that was offered to them as the
reward of their valour, but the riches of Asia, the possession of a land
in which, according to the promises of the Scriptures, flowed streams of
milk and honey.
“Christian warriors,” he exclaimed, “who seek without end for vain
pretexts for war, rejoice, for you have to-day found true ones. You who
have been so often the terror of your fellow-citizens, go and fight
against the barbarians, go and fight for the deliverance of the holy
places; you who sell for vile pay the strength of your arms to the fury
of others, armed with the sword of the Maccabees, go and merit an eternal
reward. If you triumph over your enemies, the kingdoms of the East will
be your heritage; if you are conquered, you will have the glory of dying
in the very same place as Jesus Christ, and God will not forget that
he shall have found you in his holy ranks. This is the moment to prove
that you are animated by a true courage; this is the moment in which you
may expiate so many violences committed in the bosom of peace, so many
victories purchased at the expense of justice and humanity. If you must
have blood, bathe your hands in the blood of the infidels. I speak to
you with harshness, because my ministry obliges me to do so: soldiers of
hell, become soldiers of the living God! When Jesus Christ summons you to
his defence, let no base affections detain you in your homes; see nothing
but the shame and the evils of the Christians; listen to nothing but the
groans of Jerusalem, and remember well what the Lord has said to you: ‘He
who loves his father and his mother more than me, is not worthy of me;
whoever shall abandon his house, or his father, or his mother, or his
wife, or his children, or his inheritance, for the sake of my name, shall
be recompensed a hundredfold, and possess life eternal.’”
At these words the auditors of Urban displayed an enthusiasm that human
eloquence had never before inspired. The assembly arose in one mass
as one man, and answered him with a unanimous cry, “It is the will of
God! It is the will of God!”[46] Pity, indignation, despair, at the
same time agitated the tumultuous assembly of the faithful; some shed
tears over Jerusalem and the fate of the Christians; others swore to
exterminate the race of the Moslems; but, all at once, at a signal from
the sovereign pontiff, the most profound silence prevailed. Cardinal
Gregory, who afterwards occupied the chair of St. Peter under the name of
Innocent II, pronounced, in a loud voice, a form of general confession,
the assembly all fell upon their knees, beat their breasts, and received
absolution for their sins. All the faithful decorated their garments
with a red cross. From that time, all who engaged to combat the infidels
were termed “bearers of the cross,”[47] and the holy war took the name
of “Crusade.” The faithful solicited Urban to place himself at their
head; but the pontiff, who had not yet triumphed over the anti-pope
Guibert, who was dealing out at the same time his anathemas against the
king of France and the emperor of Germany, could not quit Europe without
compromising the power and the policy of the holy see. He refused to be
chief of the crusade, and named the bishop of Puy apostolic legate with
the army of the Christians.
THE FRENZY OF EUROPE
He promised to all who assumed the cross the entire remission of their
sins. Their persons, their families, their property, were all placed
under the protection of the church and of the apostles St. Peter and
St. Paul. The council declared that every violence exercised upon the
soldiers of Christ should be punished by anathema, and recommended its
decrees in favour of the bearers of the cross to the watchful care of
all bishops and priests. It regulated the discipline and the departure
of those who had enrolled themselves in the holy ranks, and for fear
reflection might deter any from leaving their homes, it threatened with
excommunication all those who did not fulfil their vows.
[Illustration: MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES]
It might be said that the French had no longer any other country than the
Holy Land, and that to it they were bound to sacrifice their ease, their
property, and their lives. This enthusiasm, which had no bounds, was
not long in extending itself to the other Christian nations; the flame
which consumed France was communicated to England, still disturbed by the
recent conquest of the Normans; to Germany, troubled by the anathema of
Gregory and Urban; to Italy, agitated by its factions; to Spain, even,
although it had to combat the Saracens on its own territory.
The devotion for pilgrimages, which had been increasing during several
centuries, became a passion and an imperative want for most Christians;
everyone was eager to march to Jerusalem, and to take part in the
crusade, which was, in all respects, an armed pilgrimage. The situation
in which Europe was then placed no doubt contributed to increase the
number of pilgrims. “All things were in such disorder,” says William of
Tyre, “that the world appeared to be approaching to its end, and was
ready to fall again into the confusion of chaos.” Everywhere the people
groaned under a horrible servitude; a frightful scarcity of provisions,
which had during several years desolated France and the greater part of
the kingdoms of the West, had given birth to all sorts of brigandage and
violence; and these proving the destruction of agriculture and commerce
increased still further the horrors of the famine. Villages, towns even,
became void of inhabitants, and sank into ruins. The people abandoned a
land which no longer nourished them, or could offer them either repose
or security: the standard of the cross appeared to them a certain asylum
against misery and oppression. According to the decrees of the Council
of Clermont, the crusaders were freed from all imposts, and could not
be pursued for debts during their voyage. At the name of the cross the
very laws suspended their menaces, tyranny could not seek its victims,
nor justice even the guilty, amidst those whom the church adopted for
its defenders. The assurance of impunity, the hope of a better fate, the
love of license, and a desire to shake off the most sacred ties, actuated
a vast proportion of the multitude which flocked to the banners of the
crusade.
Many nobles who had not at first taken the cross, and who saw their
vassals set out, without having the power to prevent them, determined
to follow them as military chiefs, in order to preserve some portion of
their authority. It was known that two or three hundred Norman pilgrims
had conquered Apulia and Sicily from the Saracens. The lands occupied by
the infidels appeared to be heritages promised to knights whose whole
wealth consisted in their birth, their valour, and their sword.
We should nevertheless deceive ourselves if we did not believe that
religion was the principle which acted most powerfully upon the greater
number of the crusaders. In ordinary times men follow their natural
inclinations, and only obey the voice of their own interest; but in the
times of the Crusades, religious fever was a blind passion which spoke
louder than all others. Religion permitted not any other glory, any
other felicity to be seen by its ardent defenders, but those which she
presented to their heated imagination. Love of country, family ties, the
most tender affections of the heart, were all sacrificed to the ideas and
the opinions which then possessed the whole of Europe. Moderation was
cowardice, indifference treason, opposition a sacrilegious interference.
The power of the laws was reckoned as nothing amongst men who believed
they were fighting in the cause of God. Subjects scarcely acknowledged
the authority of princes or lords in anything which concerned the holy
war; the master and the slave had no other title than that of Christian,
no other duty to perform than that of defending his religion, sword in
hand.
They whom age or condition appeared to detain in Europe, and whom the
council had exempted from the labours and perils of the crusade, caused
the heaven which called them to the holy war to speak aloud. Women and
children imprinted crosses upon their delicate and weak limbs, to show
the will of God. Monks deserted the cloisters in which they had sworn
to die, believing themselves led by a divine inspiration; hermits and
anchorites issued from forests and deserts, and mingled with the crowd of
crusaders. What is still more difficult to believe, thieves and robbers,
quitting their secret retreats, came to confess their crimes, and
promised, whilst receiving the cross, to go and expiate them in Palestine.
Europe appeared to be a land of exile, which everyone was eager to quit.
Artisans, traders, labourers, abandoned the occupations by which they
subsisted; barons and lords even renounced the domains of their fathers.
The lands, the cities, the castles, for which they had but of late been
at war, all at once lost their value in the eyes of their possessors, and
were given up, for small sums, to those whom the grace of God had not
touched, and who were not called to the happiness of visiting the holy
places and conquering the East.
Contemporary authors relate several miracles which assisted in heating
the minds of the multitude. Stars fell from the firmament; traces of
blood were seen in the heavens; cities, armies, and knights decorated
with the cross were pictured in the clouds. We will not relate all the
other miracles reported by historians, which were believed in an age in
which nothing was more common than prodigies, in which, according to the
remark of Fleury, the taste for the wonderful prevailed greatly over that
for the true. Our readers will find quite enough of extraordinary things
in the description of so many great events for which the moral world, and
even nature herself, seemed to have interrupted their laws. What prodigy,
in fact, can more astonish the philosopher, than to see Europe, which may
be said to have been agitated to its very foundations, move all at once,
and like a single man march in arms towards the East?
The Council of Clermont, which was held in the month of November,
1095, had fixed the departure of the crusaders for the festival of the
Assumption of the following year. During the winter nothing was thought
of but preparations for the voyage to the Holy Land. As soon as the
spring appeared, nothing could restrain the impatience of the crusaders,
and they set forward on their march to the places at which they were to
assemble. The greater number went on foot; some horsemen appeared amongst
the multitude; a great many travelled in cars; they were clothed in a
variety of manners, and armed, in the same way, with lances, swords,
javelins, iron clubs, etc. The crowd of crusaders presented a whimsical
and confused mixture of all ranks and all conditions; women appeared in
arms in the midst of warriors, prostitution not being forgotten among the
austerities of penitence. Old age was to be seen with infancy, opulence
next to misery; the helmet was confounded with the frock, the mitre with
the sword. Around cities, around fortresses, in the plains, upon the
mountains, were raised tents and pavilions; everywhere was displayed a
preparation for war and festivity. Here was heard the sound of arms or
the braying of trumpets; whilst at a short distance the air was filled
with psalms and spiritual songs. From the Tiber to the ocean, and from
the Rhine to the other side of the Pyrenees, nothing was to be seen
but troops of men marked with the cross, who swore to exterminate the
Saracens, and were chanting their songs of conquest beforehand. On all
sides resounded the war-cry of the crusaders: “It is the will of God! It
is the will of God!”
Families, whole villages, set out for Palestine, and drew into their
ranks all they met with on their passage. They marched on without
forethought, and would not believe that he who nourishes the sparrow
would leave pilgrims clothed with the holy cross to perish with want.
Their ignorance added to their illusion, and lent an air of enchantment
to everything they saw; they believed at every moment they were
approaching the end of their pilgrimage. The children of the villagers,
when they saw a city or a castle, asked if that was Jerusalem. Many of
the great lords, who had passed their lives in their rustic donjons, knew
very little more on this head than their vassals; they took with them
their hunting and fishing appointments, and marched with their falcons on
their wrists, preceded by their hounds. They expected to reach Jerusalem
enjoying themselves on the road, and to exhibit to Asia the rude luxury
of their castles.
In the midst of the general delirium, no sage caused the voice of reason
to be heard; nobody was then astonished at that which now creates so much
surprise. These scenes so strange, in which everyone was an actor, could
only be a spectacle for posterity.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[46] _Dieu le veut_ was pronounced in the language of the times _Dieu le
volt_, or _Diex le volt_.
[47] The cross which the faithful wore in this crusade was of cloth,
and sometimes even of red-coloured silk. Afterwards they wore crosses
of different colours. The cross, a little in relief, was sewed upon the
right shoulder of the coat or mantle, or else fastened on the front of
the helmet, after having been blessed by the pope or some bishop. The
prayers and ceremonies used on this occasion are still to be found in the
Romish ritual. On returning from the Holy Land, they removed this mark
from the shoulder and placed it on the back, or else wore it at the neck.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II. THE FIRST CRUSADE
There, armed and mounted, goes the pilgrim knight,
To meet the Saracen on Acre’s field:
The Cross is on his shoulders and his shield,
And on his banner and his helmet bright:
He knoweth not to truckle or to yield,
But valiantly for his dear Lord to fight;
For on his heart is this high purpose sealed,--
To see Jerusalem; O glorious sight!
To quench his thirst at Siloa’s sacred fount;
To bathe in Jordan’s stream without control;
To stand on Calvary’s thrice honoured mount,
And there the standard of the Cross unroll;
On that blest spot those sufferings to recount
Which He endured who died to save his sinful soul.
--JOHN HOLLAND.
[Sidenote: [1096-1147 A.D.]]
The 15th of August had been fixed in the Council of Clermont for the
departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless
and needy crowd of plebeians. Early in the spring, from the confines of
France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes,
flocked round the first missionary of the Crusades, and pressed him with
clamorous importunity to lead them to the Holy Sepulchre. The hermit,
assuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general,
impelled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks
of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to
separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though
needy soldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims, whose condition may be
determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot.
The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another
fanatic, the monk Godescal [or Gottschalk], whose sermons had swept
away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany.
Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most
stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion
a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts
and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horse, attended the motions
of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may
we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the
front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the
divine Spirit. Of these, and of other bands of enthusiasts, the first
and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of
God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies
were numerous and rich; and they enjoyed, under the protection of the
emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion. At Verdun,
Trèves, Mainz, Speier, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people
were pillaged and massacred; nor had they felt a more bloody stroke
since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of
their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion; but the
more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the
Christians, barricaded their houses, and precipitating themselves, their
families, and their wealth into the rivers or the flames, disappointed
the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.
PETER THE HERMIT AND HIS RABBLE