REFLECTIONS UPON THE STATE OF EUROPE, UPON THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF
SOCIETY, AND UPON THE PROGRESS Of NAVIGATION, INDUSTRY, ARTS, AND
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, DURING AND AFTER THE CRUSADES.
A.D. 1571-1685.
WE have made known the origin, the spirit, and the character of the
crusades; it is now our task to show their influence on the state
of society. Before giving our opinion upon the results of the holy
wars, it has appeared to us desirable to lay before our readers, in
a few words, the judgments that others have passed upon them. In
the seventeenth century, so abounding in men of genius, the heroic
bravery of the Crusaders was admired, their reverses were deplored,
and, without a question as to the good or evil which these distant
expeditions had brought about, the pious motives which had made the
warriors of the West take arms were respected. The eighteenth century,
which had adopted all the opinions of the Reformation, and exaggerated
them,—the eighteenth century did not spare the crusades, and did
not fail to accuse the ignorance, barbarity, and fanaticism of our
ancestors as the causes of them.[93]Voltaire published a history of
the crusades, in 1753; the subject he had chosen was at that time so
low in public opinion, and he himself cast so much ridicule upon the
events he described, that his book created no curiosity, and found no
readers. Nothing can equal the violence with which the authors of the
_Encyclopédie_, a short time afterwards, surpassed even the acerbity
of Voltaire. This manner of judging the crusades became so general,
that the panegyrists of St. Louis allowed themselves to be drawn into
it, and several among them, in their discourses, were scarcely inclined
to pardon the pious monarch for his exploits and his misfortunes in
Egypt and before Tunis.
A philosophy, however, enlightened by the spirit of research and
analysis, traced events to their causes, studied their effects, and,
from holding truth as the only object worthy of inquiry, neglected
declamation and despised satire. The judicious Robertson, in his
introduction to the History of Charles V., gave it as his opinion,
that the crusades had favoured the progress of liberty and the
development of the human mind. Whether this perception flattered some
of the opinions of the time, or whether it exercised over the public
the natural ascendancy of truth, it met with a sufficient number of
partisans; and from that time the expeditions of the Crusaders into the
East have been judged with less severity.
A few years ago the Institute of France proposed a question, by which
they invited the learned to point out all the advantages society
had derived from the crusades; and if we may judge by the memorials
which obtained the prize in this learned contest,[94] the holy wars
brought more benefits for posterity in their train, than they produced
calamities for the generations contemporary with them. Thus, opinions
upon the crusades had changed several times in less than two centuries;
a great lesson for those who pronounce with so much assurance upon the
revolutions which we have seen begin, but which we shall not see end;
when there is so much difficulty in judging of revolutions long ago
accomplished, and whose results are all before our eyes!
Perhaps we are arrived at the favourable moment for appreciating with
some truth the influence of the crusades, and the opinions of those who
have reflected upon them before us: we may say, that the revolutions
of the present age are for us a torch which enlightens the history of
past times; none of the lessons which are afforded by great political
concussions have been wanting for the present generation, and on that
account, no doubt, our age will some day merit the title of the age of
enlightenment.
We may safely say, that that which the crusades were deficient in, in
order to have found more indulgent judges, was success; let us suppose
for a moment that the crusades had succeeded, as they who undertook
them hoped they would, and let us see, in that case, what would
have been their results. Egypt, Syria, and Greece would have become
Christian colonies; the nations of the East and the West would have
pursued together the great march of civilization; the languages of
the Franks would have penetrated to the extremes of Asia; the Barbary
coast, now inhabited by pirates, would have received the morals and
the laws of Europe; and the interior of Africa would not have been
for a long time a land impenetrable to the relations of commerce and
the researches of learned men and travellers. In order to judge what
nations under the same laws and the same religion would have gained
by this union, we have but to remember the state of the Roman world
under the successors of Augustus, forming, as it were, one people,
living under the same law, speaking the same language. All the seas
were free, and the most distant provinces communicated with each other
by easy and commodious routes; cities exchanged the objects of their
arts and their industry, climates their various productions, nations
their knowledge. If the crusades had subdued the East to Christianity,
it is fair to believe that this grand spectacle, which the human race
had only once beheld, would have been repeated in modern times, and
opinions would not now be divided as to the advantages of the holy
wars. Unfortunately, the Crusaders were unable to extend or preserve
their conquests. The results of the crusades are thus more difficult to
seize, and the good attributed to them does not strike all minds with
equal force.
Among the results of the crusades, impartial history cannot pass over
the evils they caused humanity to undergo; but these evils were felt
in the time itself of the holy wars; and the faithful picture of that
period has been quite sufficient to make us acquainted with them.
As to the good the crusades produced, it has been like the germ,
which remains a long time concealed in the earth, and develops itself
slowly. After the account of each crusade, our readers will remember
that, in a short summary, we have pointed out the immediate results
of it. Now we will embrace all the epochs of the Eastern expeditions
in a general review. When the ages to which the events of which we
have spoken belonged become better known, the spirit of these events
and their consequences will be better understood and better judged
of: we are about to exhibit societies such as they were in the middle
ages, and the progress they have made towards civilization; leaving to
enlightened readers the care of appreciating that which belongs to the
crusades.
We will in the first place examine the state of the different powers of
Europe, and will begin with France.
When we remember the state of weakness and decay in which the
commencement of the twelfth century found the French monarchy, we
are astonished at the degree of prosperity and splendour it attained
in subsequent ages. Skilful negotiations, successful wars, useful
alliances, the decay of the feudal system, and the progressive
enfranchisement of the commons, favoured the dynasty of the Capets,
in the aggrandizement of their states, and in the increase of their
authority. Several centuries were employed in consummating this great
work of fortune and policy; and the more slowly that this revolution
was operated, the more durable proved its effects. One plan of conduct,
followed up by all the princes of one same family, and the success it
obtained in the prosperity and aggrandizement of the kingdom, and the
glory and independence of the nation, at the present day, merit all
the attention of history. Frenchmen cannot help feeling both gratitude
and admiration when they reflect that the union of so many rich
provinces—that this French monarchy, which has grown from age to age,
and which finished by extending from the Rhine to the Pyrenees; that
this beautiful France, in a word, such as we see it, is the work of the
august family which governs it at the present day.[95]
The policy of our kings was no doubt seconded by the great events of
the crusades; it was natural that the nation which took the greatest
share in these events should profit more than others by it, in the
increase of its power and the amelioration of its social condition.
The glory which the French arms acquired beyond the seas gave a new
lustre to the monarchy; royal authority profited equally by the
exploits and the reverses of the numerous warriors whom the holy wars
attracted into Asia; the absence, the death, or the ruin of the great
vassals permitted royalty to rise from the bosom of feudal anarchy, and
establish order in the kingdom.
More than a century before the first crusade, the barons and prelates
had ceased to meet in general assembly to regulate the forms of
justice, and lend to the acts of royal authority the support of
their political influence. At the second crusade, there were several
assemblies of the great men of the kingdom, in which preparations
for the expedition, and measures for the maintenance of public order
and the execution of the laws during the absence of Louis VII., were
deliberated upon. In these meetings, which were very numerous, the
French might trace at least a faint image of those assemblies, so
celebrated under the first races, in which the kings and their subjects
deliberated together upon the means of securing the independence of the
nation and the safety of the throne.
Thus the crusades aided the kings of France in resuming their
legislative power, and the most enlightened part of the nation, in
recovering those ancient prerogatives which they had exercised under
the children of Clovis and Charlemagne.
It may be remembered, that after the accession of Hugh Capet, the great
vassals not only did no longer assemble around their prince, but had
entirely separated their cause from that of the crown; several even
scarcely acknowledged a king of France, and covering their opposition
with a pious pretext, they, in their public acts, designated the
year of the reign of Jesus Christ, instead of that of the king. This
opposition, which lasted more than a century, at last gave way to
other feelings, when they saw the French monarchs at the head of those
expeditions which attracted the attention of all Christendom, and in
which the cause of Jesus Christ himself, as well as of all Christian
nations, seemed interested. In order to perceive clearly what the kings
of France owed to the holy wars, and what in particular they gained by
taking part in them, it would suffice to compare Philip I., shut up in
his palace, in a melancholy manner, during the Council of Clermont,
excommunicated by Urban, condemned by the bishops, and abandoned by his
nobles, with Philip Augustus, in the first place conqueror of Saladin
in Syria, and afterwards triumphant at Beauvines, over the enemies
of his kingdom; or with Louis IX., surrounded in his reverses by a
faithful nobility, ever respected by the clergy and the people, revered
as the firmest support of the Church, and proclaimed by his own age the
arbiter of Europe.
We will speak hereafter of the changes which were then effected in the
different classes of society; we will confine ourselves here to saying
that the crusades were the signal for a new order of things in France,
and that this new order of things cast solid foundations during the
holy wars.
If royalty in France was weak at the period of the first crusade, in
England it was strong and powerful; royalty and feudalism oppressed
England with all the weight of the conquests of William; but an
authority founded upon victory, and sustained by violence, created at
an early period in men’s minds a feeling of opposition, which time
and circumstances were destined to develop. Military despotism had
been able to impose silence upon opinions; but it had not entirely
changed the manners of the English, or destroyed their attachment to
old customs. Passions suppressed by the sword broke out with greater
violence in the end.
An all-powerful monarchy exhibited a tendency to decline, and in
England was seen the contrary of that which had been seen in France.
Liberty made advances at the expense of royal authority. It does
not enter into our plan to explain in detail the causes of this
revolution. Several English monarchs allowed themselves to be led away
by an imprudent and passionate policy, which threw them into fatal
extravagances; their excesses, their violences, and particularly the
crimes of John Lack-land, alienated the minds of their subjects, and
united the whole nation in one feeling of resistance to absolute power.
Another cause of decline not less remarkable, and to which history
has not sufficiently drawn attention, was the ambition of the English
princes, which inspired them with the senseless project of conquering
the kingdom of France. The ruinous wars which they maintained against
an enemy they could not subdue, placed them at the discretion of the
barons and the English people, who furnished them with subsidies and
fought under their banners.
The crusades had, perhaps, less influence upon the civilization of
England than upon that of several other states of Europe. They might,
however, concur with many circumstances of that period in effecting the
changes which the English monarchy underwent.
Richard Cœur de Lion was more anxious to acquire the renown of a great
captain than the reputation of a great king; the glory of arms made him
forget the cares of his kingdom. It may be remembered that before his
departure he sold the charges, the prerogatives, and the domains of the
crown; he would have sold, as he himself said, the city of London, if
he could have found a purchaser; his reverses and his captivity ruined
his people, and his long absence kept up the spirit of faction among
his nobles, and more especially in his own family.
The English barons were several times desirous of going into the East,
against the will of the king; and the idea of opposing a monarch they
did not love, often added to their impatience to embark for Palestine.
Kings likewise took advantage of the opinions of their times, and
engaged themselves to set out for the crusades, with the sole view of
obtaining subsidies, which they employed in other enterprises. These
means, too often employed, drew contempt upon the policy of princes,
and only served to increase the public mistrust.
But that which completed the overthrow of the foundations of an
absolute monarchy in England, was the violent enterprises of the popes
against the English kings; enterprises which the spirit of religious
wars favoured. In the league of the barons against Henry III., the
rebels wore a cross, as in the wars beyond the seas; and the priests
promised the palms of martyrdom to those who should die in the cause
of liberty. One very curious circumstance is, that the head of the
league formed for the independence of the English nation, was a French
gentleman, the son of that count de Montfort so renowned[96] in the
crusade against the Albigeois.
But the long efforts of England to obtain liberty deserve so much the
more to fix the attention of history, from their having, in the end,
attained a positive and durable result. So many other nations, after
having contended for a long time, sometimes against license, sometimes
against tyranny, have only met with misery, shame, and slavery. If the
English revolution produced in the end salutary effects, it was because
all classes of society concurred together in it; because it was made
in the interests of all, according to the character and the manners of
the nation, and according to the spirit of Christianity, which then
presided over all which ought to last among men. Unanimity of opinions
and sentiments, the accordance of manners and laws, of policy and
religion, founded from that time that public spirit of which England
still offers us the model; and this public spirit became in the end the
most firm support and the most sure safeguard of liberty.
Whilst England was wresting liberty from its kings, and France was
requiring hers back again of royalty, Germany presented another
spectacle; the German empire, which had thrown out great splendour up
to the eleventh century, declined rapidly during the crusades.
The emperors, in order to resist the great vassals, granted several
advantages to the clergy, and bestowed privileges upon the cities. The
clergy employed these advantages in favour of the popes, who attacked
the imperial power; the cities profited by the concessions which were
made to found their independence. All the efforts of the emperors had
proved unable to prevent the crown continuing elective, whilst the
great fiefs became hereditary. Thus the heads of the empire depended
for their election upon the princes and nobles whom they themselves had
freed from all dependence. In the competition of the pretenders to the
throne, in a competition which was almost always decided by fortune,
intrigue, or victory, it may easily be supposed that ambition was
often more successful than moderation and virtue. Among the princes who
ascended the imperial throne, many were men of great character; but
their active and restless genius led them into adventurous and gigantic
enterprises, which exhausted their strength and hastened the decline of
the empire.
The memories of ancient Rome and of the power of the Cæsars were always
present to their imagination. One of the greatest errors of their
policy was turning their views towards Italy; they encountered on their
way thither the popes, who declared a war of extermination against
them; two families of emperors succumbed beneath the thunders of Rome;
they were never able to reign over Italy, and whilst they exhausted
themselves in vain efforts to establish their domination there, they
completed the loss of their influence in Germany.
It is a consoling remark for humanity, that most of the conquerors of
the middle ages weakened themselves by their undertakings, victory
itself only serving to bring about the ruin of their power. The kings
of France of this period evinced, perhaps, less talent and genius than
the emperors of Germany; but their policy was wiser and more fortunate;
they confined themselves to conquering their own kingdom; their
conquests only tended to unite the scattered members of a large family;
and their authority became more popular in proportion with their being
considered as a natural tie between the French of all the provinces.
The glory which the emperors of Germany acquired by their conquests
was but a personal glory, and did not at all interest the German
people. This manifestation of their power had nothing in common with
the nations of which they were the head. As soon as this power was no
longer a bond or a support for the people, they separated themselves
from it, and every one sought his safety or his aggrandizement in his
own strength.
A state of things arose from this which was, perhaps, more fatal to
Germany than the absolute authority of the emperors; upon the ruins of
the imperial grandeur arose a crowd of states, opposed to each other by
diversity of laws and the spirit of rivalry. All those ecclesiastical
and secular principalities in which the spirit of monarchy prevailed;
those cities in which the spirit of liberty fermented; that nobility
animated by the pretensions of aristocracy, could not possibly have the
same interests or the same policy to direct their efforts towards one
common and salutary aim.
The popes, after having weakened the power of the emperors, wished to
dispose of the broken sceptre of Charlemagne, and offered it to all
who appeared likely to promote their scheme of vengeance. A crowd of
princes then started up as pretenders to the empire thus held out by
the popes, and the greater the number of these, the more rapidly the
empire declined. Amidst civil discords, Germany completed the loss of
its political unity, and at last its religious unity.
In order to judge to what a degree it was difficult to put in
motion that enormous mass called the German confederation, it is
only necessary to contemplate, in the history of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, those numerous diets which assembled to deliberate
upon the war against the Turks, in which the presence of imminent peril
even was never able to produce one energetic decision for the safety of
Germany.
The popes sometimes made use of the pretext of the crusades to drive
the emperors to a distance, and to precipitate them into disastrous
expeditions; thus the enthusiasm for the holy wars, which had a
tendency to establish union among Christian nations, had no power to
bring together the members of the German nation, and only served to
keep up trouble and disorder in the bosom of the empire. We must,
however, repeat here what has been read in this history; it was under
the auspices and by the influence of the court of Rome, when occupied
seriously by a crusade, that the family of Rodolph of Hapsburg arose,
a family whose power restored the empire to something of its ancient
splendour, and saved Europe from the invasion of the Turks.
We have likewise to add that, at the period of the crusades, Germany
augmented its territories and its population. The expeditions against
the infidels of the East gave birth to the idea of attacking the pagans
and idolaters, whose hordes inhabited the banks of the Vistula and
the coasts of the Baltic. These races, when subdued by the Crusaders,
entered into the Christian republic, and formed part of the German
confederation. At the aspect of the cross, such cities as Dantzic,
Thorn, Elbing, Kœnigsberg, &c., sprang up from the bosom of forests and
deserts. Finland, Lithuania, Pomerania, and Silesia became flourishing
provinces; new nations arose, new states were formed, and, to complete
these prodigies, the arms of the Crusaders marked the spot in which
a monarchy was to appear that did not exist in the middle ages, but
which the present age has seen all at once take its place in the rank
of the great powers of Europe. At the end of the thirteenth century,
the provinces from which the Prussian monarchy derives both its name
and its origin, were separated from Christendom by idolatry and savage
manners; the conquest and the civilization of these provinces were the
work of the holy wars.
If from Germany we pass into Italy, we there meet with other forms of
government, and other revolutions.
When the last columns of the Roman empire crumbled away, Italy was
covered with ruins. The Huns, the Franks, the Vandals, the Goths, the
Germans, and the Lombards, held over this beautiful country, in turns,
the scourge of their domination, and all left behind them traces of
their manners, their legislation, and their character.
In the tenth century, the emperors of Constantinople being unable any
longer to retain Italy, other powers arose, some from conquests, others
by good fortune, and others from circumstances which history has much
difficulty in indicating. The influence of the popes sometimes defended
the independence of Italy against the invasions and the yoke of the
German emperors; but the struggle was so long, and the war between
the two powers exhibited so many vicissitudes, that it only served to
perpetuate trouble and discord; during several centuries, the Guelphs
and the Ghibellines desolated Italy without defending it.
In every nation of Europe there was then a power, or rather a
preponderating authority, which was as a rallying-point, or centre,
around which society formed and united its forces to defend its
political existence.
Italy had not, like France and other countries, this precious means
of conservation. Nothing proves better the dissolution in which this
rich country was plunged, than the manner by which it endeavoured to
establish its independence in the middle ages. That division into many
states, that parcelling out of territory, that numerous population
split into a thousand fractions, all announced the absence of any tie,
of any common centre. Italy comprised many nations; twenty republics
had each their own laws, their own interests, and their own history.
Those perpetual wars between the citizens of the same cities; those
animosities between republic and republic; that necessity of the
inhabitants for calling in strangers in their internal quarrels; those
mistrusts which bore harder upon the citizens than upon the stipendiary
adventurers, tended to efface the true sentiment of patriotism, and at
length caused even the name of the Italian nation to be forgotten.
The feudal system was abolished earlier in Italy than elsewhere; but
with feudalism departed the ancient honour of brave knights, and the
virtues of chivalry. In republics defended by mercenaries, bravery, and
all the generous sentiments that accompany it, ceased to be esteemed.
Violent passions had no longer any check, either in the laws or in the
opinions of men; it was at this unhappy period that those hatreds and
vengeances displayed themselves which appear so improbable to us in
our tragedies; no spectacle can be more afflicting than that of Italy
in the fourteenth century; and we may safely say that Dante had but to
look around him to find the model for his Hell.
Society, always ready to split to pieces, appeared to have no other
motive but the fury of parties, no other principle of life but discord
and civil war; there was no other guarantee against license but
tyranny; or against tyranny, but the despair of factions, and the
poniard of conspirators. As the strength of most of the little states
which covered Italy was seldom equal to their ambition; and as princes
and citizens, by the same reason that they were weak, wanted both
moderation and courage; they sought their elevation or their safety
in all the means that treachery and perfidy could suggest. Plots,
political stratagems, odious crimes, everything appeared right to them;
everything seemed properly available that could sustain their quarrels,
and satisfy their ambition or their jealousy. At length, all morality
disappeared; and it was then that school of policy was formed, which
is to be found in the lessons, or rather in the satire, of Machiavel’s
book.
It is said that the Italians were the first to form the idea of what
publicists call the balance of power. We do not think that Italy merits
such a glory; that which is understood by the balance of power is not
an invention: it is nothing but the natural resource of the weakness
which seeks a support. If we follow the progress of events, we shall
find that this system, so long boasted, became fatal to Italy, by
calling thither conquerors, who made it, even up to our own days, the
theatre of most sanguinary wars.
At the period of the crusades, the cities of Lombardy, and the
republics of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, had attained great prosperity;
and that which gave them this prosperity was the commerce of the East,
which Italy carried on before the crusades, and persevered in, with all
the advantages accruing from the expeditions beyond the seas.
But these republics, which contended for the empire of the sea, and
only occupied a little corner of land upon the Mediterranean,—which
had their eyes constantly fixed upon Syria, Egypt, and Greece,—which
left to strangers the care of defending their territories, and only
armed their citizens for the defence of their commerce,—these
mercantile republics were much better calculated to enrich Italy than
to keep up the sentiment of a true independence among the Italian
nations.
We cannot, however, refrain from admiring that republic of Venice,
whose power everywhere preceded the arms of the Crusaders, and which
the nations of the middle ages looked upon as the queen of the East.
The decline of this great republic did not begin before the period at
which the progress of navigation, that it had so much contributed to,
at length opened the route to India, and led to the discovery of a new
world. Most of the other republics of Italy neither displayed the same
splendour nor enjoyed the same duration; many among them—particularly
those in which democracy prevailed—had disappeared at the end of the
crusades, in the chaos and tumult of discords and civil wars. In their
place arose dukes and princes, who substituted the intrigues of policy
for popular passions, and sometimes made it their ambition to favour
the revival of arts and letters, the true glory of Italy.
The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, situated at the extremity of Italy,
was for the Crusaders the road to Greece and the East. The riches of
this country, which appeared never to have any guardians,—a territory
which its inhabitants were never able to defend, must have often
tempted the cupidity and the ambition of the princes and even of the
knights who went to seek their fortunes in Asia. The history of this
fine country is mixed up during two centuries with that of the holy
wars, the crusades often furnishing a pretext or an opportunity for the
conquest of it. The wars undertaken for the kingdom of Naples,—those
wars which produced more monstrous crimes than glorious exploits,
more revolts than battles, completed the corruption of the Neapolitan
character, in which has always been remarked, on the one part, an
inclination to shake off the yoke of present domination, and, on the
other, an extreme resignation in submitting to the yoke of victory.
Whilst glancing thus at the principal states of Europe, we are
particularly struck with the great diversity that exists in the
manners, the institutions, and the destinies of nations. How is it
possible to follow the march of civilization amidst so many republics
and monarchies, some bursting with splendour from the bosom of
barbarism, others sinking into ruins? And how is it possible to point
out the influence of the crusades through so many revolutions, which
have often the same causes, but whose effects are so different, and
sometimes so opposite? Spain, to which we are now about to turn our
attention, will present us with other pictures, and must furnish fresh
subjects for meditation.
During the course of the crusades, we see Spain occupied in its own
boundaries with defending itself against those same Saracens whom
the other nations of Europe went to contend with in the East; in the
north of the Peninsula, some Christian sovereignties had maintained
themselves, which began to be formidable under Sancho the Great, king
of Castile and Arragon. The valour of the Castilians, sustained by the
example of the Cid, and by the influence of chivalric manners, and
seconded by warriors from all the provinces of France, took Toledo,
before the end of the eleventh century. But the conquests of the
Spaniards did not afterwards correspond with the splendour of their
early triumphs; as fast as they retook provinces from the Moors, they
made separate kingdoms of them; and the Spanish power, thus divided,
became, in some sort, weakened by its own victories.
The invasion of the Moors in Spain bore some resemblance to that of
the Franks in Asia. It was the religion of Mahomet that animated the
Saracen warriors to the fight, as the Christian religion inflamed
the zeal and ardour of the soldiers of the cross. Africa and Asia
often answered to the appeal of the Mussulman colonies in Spain, as
Europe did to the cries of alarm of the Christian colonies in Syria.
Enthusiasm gave birth on both sides to prodigies of heroism, and held
fortune for a long time suspended between the two inimical nations and
the two inimical religions.
A spirit of independence naturally grew up among the Spaniards, during
a war in which the state had need of all its citizens, and in which
every citizen, by that means, acquired a great degree of importance.
It has been remarked, with reason, that a people that has done great
things, that an entire people called to the defence of its country,
experiences an exaggerated sentiment of its rights, shows itself more
exacting, sometimes more unjust towards those who govern, and often
feels tempted to employ against its sovereigns the strength it had
employed against its enemies. Thus we may see in the Spanish annals,
that the nobility and the people were more turbulent than in other
countries, and that monarchy was there at first more limited than among
the other nations of Europe.
The institution of the Cortes, the enfranchisement of the commons,
and a crowd of privileges granted to cities, signalized very early,
among the Spaniards, the decay of the feudal system and of the
absolute authority of the monarchs. If we may judge by public acts of
legislation, we might believe that the Spanish people enjoyed liberty
before all the other nations of Europe. But, in times of trouble, we
must be guarded in judging of the liberty of a nation by that which is
said in political rostrums, or in charters and institutions, by turns
obtained by violence and destroyed by power, always placed between two
rocks,—anarchy and despotism. The history of Spain, at this period,
is full of crimes and monstrous deeds, that stain the cause of princes
as well as that of the people: which proves at least that morals did
not keep pace with laws, and that institutions, created among public
discords, did not soften the national character.
Amidst the revolutions which agitated Spain, political passions
sometimes caused even the domination of the Moors to be forgotten.
When at the end of the thirteenth century, the Mussulmans, conquered
by James of Arragon, abandoned the Balearic isles and the kingdom of
Valencia and Murcia, the Spaniards all at once suspended the progress
of their arms. Whilst in the East, the victorious Mamelukes redoubled
their efforts to completely drive the Franks from the coast of Syria;
in the West, the Moors remained, during two centuries, in possession
of a part of Spain, without the Spaniards ever seriously attempting to
complete the conquest of their own country. The standard of Mahomet
floated over the cities of Granada, up to the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella. It was only at this period that the Spanish monarchy issued
all-powerful from the chaos of revolutions, and revived in the people
the warlike and religious enthusiasm which completed the expulsion of
the Moors. Then terminated the struggle which had lasted during eight
centuries, and in which, according to Spanish authors, three thousand
seven hundred battles were fought. So many combats, which were nothing
but one long crusade, must have been a school of bravery and heroism;
thus the Spaniards, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were
considered the most brave and warlike nation of Europe. Philosophers
have sought to explain by the influence of climate that spirit of
haughtiness and pride, that grave and austere character which to this
day distinguish the Spanish nation. It appears to us that a much more
natural explanation of this national character is to be found in a war
at once patriotic and religious, in which twenty successive generations
were engaged, the perils of which must have inspired serious thoughts
as well as noble sentiments.
The aversion for the yoke and the religion of the Moors, redoubled the
attachment of the people for their religion and their ancient customs.
The remembrance of that glorious struggle has not failed to animate the
ardour and courage of the Spaniards at a recent period;—fortunate had
it been for Spain if, at the moment at which I am speaking, she had not
forgotten her own examples!
Towards the end of the war against the Moors, Spain adopted the
Inquisition with more warmth than the other Christian nations. I will
not attempt to repel the reproaches which modern philosophers have
addressed to her; but it appears to me that sufficient account has not
been taken of the motives which would render more excusable in Spain
than elsewhere, those suspicions and those dark jealousies for all
which was not the national religion. How could they forget that the
standard of a foreign worship had so long floated over the Peninsula,
and that during many ages, Christian warriors had fought, not only for
the faith of their fathers, but for the very soil of their country
against the infidels? According to my opinion, may it not be believed,
that among the Spaniards, religious intolerance, or rather a hatred for
all foreign religion, had something in itself which was less a jealous
devotion than an ardent, restless patriotism?
Spain took no part in the crusades, till the spirit of these wars began
to die away in the rest of Europe. We must, however, remark, that
this kingdom derived some advantages from the Eastern expeditions. In
almost all the enterprises of Christendom against the Mussulmans of
Asia, a great number of the Crusaders stopped on the coast of Spain
to combat the Moors. Many crusades were published in the West against
the infidels who were masters of the Peninsula. The celebrated victory
of Tolosa over the Moors was the fruit of a crusade preached in
Europe, and particularly in France, by order of the sovereign pontiff.
Expeditions beyond the sea were likewise favourable to the Spaniards,
by retaining in their own country the Saracens of Egypt and Syria, who
might have joined those on the coast of Africa. It has been shown in
this history that the kingdom of Portugal was conquered and founded
by Crusaders. The crusades gave the idea of those orders of chivalry,
which, in imitation of those of Palestine, were formed in Spain, and
without the succour of which the Spanish nation would not perhaps have
triumphed over the Moors.
We may add, that Spain is the country in which the memory of the
crusades was preserved the longest. In the last century, the bull
called _Crusada_ was there published every year in all the provinces.
This solemn publication reminded the Spaniards of the triumphs they had
formerly obtained over the Mussulmans.
We have shown the state of the principal powers of Europe during the
crusades; it now remains for us to speak of a power which dominated
over all the others, and which was as a tie or centre to all the
powers;—we mean the authority of the heads of the Church.
The popes, as a temporal power and as a spiritual power, presented a
singular contrast in the middle ages. As sovereigns of Rome, they had
almost no authority, and were often banished from their own states:
as heads of Christendom, they exercised an absolute empire to the
extremities of the world, and their name was revered wherever the
Gospel was preached.
It has been said that the popes made the crusades; they who maintain
this opinion are far from being acquainted with the general movement
which then affected the Christian world; no power on earth could have
been able to produce such a great revolution; it only belonged to Him
whose will gives birth to and disperses tempests, to throw all at once
into human hearts that enthusiasm which silenced all other passions,
and drew on the multitude as if by an invisible power. In the first
book of this volume we have shown how the enthusiasm for the holy
wars developed itself by degrees, and how it broke forth towards the
end of the eleventh century, without any other influence but that of
the dominant ideas: it led away the whole of society, and the popes
were led away as nations of people were; one proof that the sovereign
pontiffs did not produce this extraordinary revolution is, that they
were never able to revive the spirit of the crusades, when that spirit
became extinct among Christian nations.
It has likewise been said that the crusades very much increased the
authority of the popes; we shall soon see what truth there is in that
assertion. Among the causes which contributed to the growth of the
pontifical authority, we may name the invasion of the barbarians of the
North, who overthrew the empire of the West, and the progress of the
Saracens, who would not allow the emperors of the East leisure to turn
their attention towards Italy, or even to preserve any domination over
that country. The popes thus found themselves freed from two powers
upon which they depended; and remained in possession of the city of
Rome, which appeared to have no other master. Other circumstances added
from that time to the authority of the successors of St. Peter. However
it may be, everybody knows that this authority had already made immense
progress before the crusades; the head of the most powerful monarchs
had already bowed before the thunders of the Vatican; and Christendom
seemed to have already adopted the maxim of Gregory VII., that “the
pope, in quality of Vicar of Jesus Christ, ought to be superior to
every human power.”
It cannot be doubted that a religious war was calculated to favour the
development of the pontifical authority. But this war itself produced
events, and gave rise to circumstances which were less a means of
aggrandizement for the power of the popes, than a rock against which
that power was dashed and injured. But it is positive, that the end of
the crusades left the sovereign pontiffs less powerful than they had
been at the commencement of the holy wars.
Let us, in the first place, say a few words of the advantages which the
heads of the Church derived from the expeditions against the infidels.
Recourse was always had to the sovereign pontiffs when the question of
a crusade was agitated; the holy war was preached in their name, and
carried on under their auspices. Warriors enrolled under the banners of
the cross, received from the pope privileges which freed them from all
other dependence but that of the Church; the popes were the protectors
of the Crusaders, the support of their families, the guardians of their
properties; it was to the popes the Crusaders submitted all their
differences, and confided all their interests.
The sovereign pontiffs were not at first aware of the advantages they
might derive from the crusades. In the first crusade, Urban, who had
enemies to contend with, did not think of asking the assistance of the
warriors he had persuaded to take the cross; it was not till the second
crusade that the popes perceived the ascendancy the holy wars must
give them. At this period a king of France and an emperor of Germany
were, in a manner, lieutenants of the Holy See; in the third crusade,
the pope compelled Henry II. to take the cross, to expiate the murder
of Thomas à Becket. After the death of Henry, his son Richard set out
for the East, at the signal of the sovereign pontiff. In consequence
of this crusade, great disorders, as we have related, disturbed the
kingdom of England; the popes took advantage of them to give laws to
the English people, and a few years after the death of Richard, his
brother and successor acknowledged himself the vassal of the court of
Rome.
The crusades were for the popes a pretext to usurp, in all the states
of Europe, the principal attributes of sovereignty; they became
possessed, in the name of the holy war, of the right of levying
everywhere both armies and imposts; the legates they employed in all
the countries of Christendom exercised supreme authority in their
name; the presence of these legates inspired respect and fear; their
wills were laws. Armed with the cross, they commanded all the clergy
as masters; and as the clergy, among all Christian nations, had
the greatest ascendancy, the empire of the popes had no longer any
opposition or limits.
It may be perceived that we have forgotten none of the advantages the
heads of the Church found in the crusades: here are the obstacles and
the rocks they met with in the exercise of their power.
It must be allowed that the empire of the popes received but very
little increase in Asia during the holy wars; the quarrels and disputes
which constantly disturbed the Christian colonies in the East, and in
which they were obliged to interfere, multiplied their embarrassments,
without adding to their power.
Their voice was not always listened to by the multitude of the
Crusaders; sometimes even the soldiers of the cross resisted the will
and despised the counsels of the pontiffs. The legates of the Holy See
were frequently in opposition to the leaders of the army, and their
character was not always respected in camps. As the popes were supposed
to direct the crusades, they were, in some sort, responsible for the
misfortunes and disorders they had no power to prevent: this moral
responsibility exposed them sometimes to be judged with rigour, and
was injurious to their reputation for wisdom and ability.
By an abuse of the spirit of the crusades, the popes were dragged into
wars in which their ambition was often more interested than religion;
they then thought of their temporal power, and that was their weakest
point; they were never strong but when they depended upon a higher
support; the crusades became for them as a lever, which they employed
to elevate themselves; but it must be allowed that they depended upon
it too much, and when this lever failed them, their authority trembled.
Seeking to regain what they had lost, the popes made, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, incredible efforts to revive the spirit of
the crusades; the question then being no longer to go and fight the
Saracens in Asia, but to defend Europe against the invasion of the
Turks. Amidst the perils of Christendom, the conduct of the popes
merited the greatest praise, and the zeal they displayed has not been
sufficiently appreciated by historians. But the time of the fervour for
crusades was past. The success obtained by the sovereign pontiffs was
never proportionate with their efforts, and the uselessness of their
attempts necessarily weakened the idea entertained of their ascendancy
and their power.
The crusade against the Albigeois procured them very little advantage;
the intolerance which gave birth to that war proceeded from the
crusades; the Inquisition, which arose from it, awakened more passions
than it suppressed. By the Inquisition, the Church assumed in this
world a jurisdiction which partook too strongly of humanity; her
decrees were much more respected when they were referred to heaven or
to a future life.
Nothing can equal the enormity of the tributes that were imposed upon
the clergy for carrying on the holy wars. The tenths were not only
levied for the crusades, but for every attempt at a crusade; not only
for expeditions to the East, but for every enterprise against the
enemies of the court of Rome. They were at length levied under the most
vain pretexts; all Europe addressed warm remonstrances to the popes;
at first the rigour with which the agents collected the tributes was
complained of; and afterwards their infidelity in the application of
the treasures extorted from the faithful became equally a subject of
scandal. Nothing could be more injurious to the pontifical authority
than these complaints, which arose from all quarters, and which, in the
end, furnished weapons for the formidable heresy of Luther.
The history of the popes in the middle ages completes the proof of that
which we have said. Their domination went on constantly increasing
during a century up to Innocent III.; it after that period declined
during another century, down to Boniface VIII., at which time crusades
beyond the seas ended.
In latter days, publicists have said a great deal about the power of
the heads of the Church; but they have judged rather according to
systems than according to facts,—more after the spirit of our own age
than that of the middle ages. The genius of the sovereign pontiffs
has been much lauded, particularly for the purpose of placing their
ambition in a stronger light. But if the popes really had the genius
and the ambition attributed to them, we must believe they would have
been principally employed in aggrandizing their states, and increasing
their authority as sovereigns. Nevertheless, they did not succeed in
this, or else they never attempted it. In fact, what could men do, who
were mostly arrived at the age of decrepitude?—what could princes
do, who merely passed over the throne, to strengthen their authority,
and master the passions belonging to the infancy and the youth of
societies? Among the crowd of popes who succeeded each other, many were
endowed with a superior genius, whilst others only possessed a moderate
capacity; men of all characters and all turns of mind occupied, in
succession, the chair of St. Peter; nevertheless, these men, so
different by their tastes, their passions, and their talents, all aimed
at and all did the same thing; they had, therefore, an impulsion which
was not in themselves, the motive of which must be sought elsewhere
than in the vulgar policy of princes.
That would be a curious history which would trace, in the same picture,
the spiritual empire and the temporal empire of the popes. Who would
not be surprised at seeing in it, on one side, a force which nothing
could resist, which moves the very world,—a will always the same,
which is transmitted from pontiff to pontiff, like a deposit, or like
a sacred heritage; on the other, a policy weak and changeable, like
man,—a power which can scarcely defend itself against the lowest of
its enemies, and which at every moment the breath of revolutions has
power to shake? In this parallel, the imagination would be dazzled
when such an empire should be presented to it as has never been seen
upon earth, and which would lead to the belief that the popes did
not belong to this fragile and transitory world,—a power which hell
cannot pull down,—which the world cannot corrupt,—which, without the
help of any army, and by the simple ascendancy of a few words, subdues
things sooner, and proves itself more formidable, than ancient Rome,
with all her victories. What more magnificent spectacle can the history
of empires present to us? But, in the other part of the picture, who
would not be moved to pity at beholding a government without vigour,
an administration without foresight,—that people, descended from
_the king people_, led by an indolent, timid old man, the eternal
city falling into ruins, and as hidden beneath the grass? When we
see—so near to a power almost supernatural—weakness, uncertainty, the
fragility common to things below, and humanity with all its miseries,
why may we not be permitted to compare the double power of the popes
to Jesus Christ himself, of whom they were the vicars and images upon
earth,—to Jesus Christ, whose double nature presents us, on one side,
a God beaming with splendour, and on the other a simple mortal, loaded
with the cross, and crowned with thorns?
If the principal features of this picture are not wanting in
truthfulness, how can we believe in the policy of the popes as it is
represented to us?—is it not more natural to think that the sovereign
pontiffs, in all they did that was great, followed the spirit of
Christianity? In the middle ages, which was the period of their power,
they were much more directed by this spirit than they directed it
themselves; later, and when popes entertained projects like those that
are attributed to their genius and ambition, their power declined. We
have but to compare Gregory VII., giving himself up to the spirit of
his age, and supporting himself by the ascendancy of the Church, with
Julius II., whom Voltaire calls a great prince, and who only employed
the known combinations of policy.
The pontifical authority was the only one that had its bases and roots
in opinions and beliefs. This power gave the world, or, rather, the
world asked of it, laws, knowledge, and a support. The popes were right
in the famous comparison of the two great luminaries. The authority of
the heads of the Church was much more in advance towards civilization
than the authority of princes. In order that the world might be
civilized, it was important for the popes to have great power; and the
need that was felt for their power favoured the progress of it.
As long as the world was governed by opinions and beliefs, rather
than by civil laws and political authorities, the popes exercised
the greatest influence; when the interests and rights of princes and
nations became better regulated; when the world passed from the empire
of opinions to that of laws; when, in a word, temporal power was well
established in Europe, and prevailed over the spiritual of society, the
pontiffs necessarily lost their ascendancy. Such is the history of the
origin, of the progress, and of the decay of the pontifical power in
the ages which have preceded us.
That which we have said of the popes clearly shows what influence
the Church exercised over the society of Europe in the middle ages;
but gross minds were not yet prepared to receive all the benefits of
Christianity. The alliance of barbarism with superstition retarded the
progress of true knowledge. The passions and customs of barbarians were
still mingled with some salutary institutions.
The Franks, the Germans, and Goths, when obtaining possession of the
richest countries of Europe, had employed all the rights of conquest,
and these rights had become the laws of European society. We may
form an idea of the government of the middle ages by representing to
ourselves a victorious army, which disperses itself throughout the
conquered country, shares the territory and those who inhabit it, and
is always ready to march at the signal of its officers and its supreme
general, to combat the common enemy, and defend its possessions.
As long as discipline and subordination subsisted in this military
colony, public order was not entirely disturbed; and this kind of
government might supply the place of wiser institutions. But as soon as
the relations of assistance and fidelity, obedience and protection,
became weakened, society—or rather the feudal government—no longer
presented anything but the aspect of an army given up to license,—of
an army whose officers and soldiers no longer acknowledged a head, were
no longer subject to direction, and fought at hazard under a thousand
different standards.
The vassals depended, in the first place, on the prince, because they
held their lands and their offices of him. These lands and these
offices becoming hereditary, their holders soon desired to render
themselves independent, and to arrogate to themselves privileges which
only belonged to the sovereign; such as coining money, holding a
jurisdiction, and making war in their own name. From that time there
remained scarcely any trace of subordination.
This decline of society, or, rather, this corruption of the feudal
system, is referrible to the end of the second race. Charlemagne, in
his endeavours to reëstablish the empire of the Cæsars, committed
violence upon the social compact, and his extraordinary efforts
exhausted the powers of royalty. The bow which he had too strongly
bent, broke in the hands of his successors, and his empire crumbled
away, when no longer sustained by the ascendancy of a great character.
Charlemagne wished to emancipate himself from the laws of feudalism;
under his feeble successors, feudalism, in its turn, was desirous of
emancipating itself from the crown. The greatest evil of the feudal
system was that it destroyed all protective power, all tutelary
legislation, which could watch over the order and safety of society.
The monarch, despoiled of all authority, could neither be the support
of innocence nor the avenger of crime; nor the mediator in war, nor the
arbitrator in disputes that disturbed peace. Sovereignty, exercised
by every man who wore a sword, was spread everywhere, without any one
acknowledging its power anywhere; such was the disorder and confusion
among those who disputed, sword in hand, for the wreck of sovereign
power.
Nothing is more afflicting than this picture; the excesses which
accompanied feudal anarchy no one is ignorant of. It does not form part
of our plan to speak of it to any extent; the task we have to perform
is a less painful one: if we turn our looks towards old times, it is
only in order to discover the origin of our institutions; and among
the revolutions of a barbarous age, we have only to make known what
they produced that is salutary and durable. Before we proceed further,
and in order to mix a few consolatory ideas with sad and painful
images, we will show, by the side of the abuses of feudalism, the
advantages contemporary society received from the feudal system, and
the happy germs of civilization which grew from it for the benefit of
following ages.
If the feudal government contained sources of disorder, it prevented
disorder being carried to its height, and the evil from remaining
without remedy. If it favoured anarchy and civil wars, it preserved
Europe from the fury of conquerors, and from that of despotism. Vassals
did not willingly consent to leave their lands; they were only bound to
follow their sovereign to war for a stipulated time. This condition of
the feudal compact, which was general in Europe, was found favourable
for the defence of territory, and placed obstacles in the way of
every project of invasion. Forces, spread about in all parts, served
to protect every country against a foreign enemy, and could not be
collected anywhere to assist the designs of an ambitious leader.
At a time in which passions did everything and laws were nothing, in
which no political interest bound people together, what could have
prevented a prince from assembling armies and ravaging Europe? What
could have prevented a conqueror from subduing several kingdoms, and
subjecting the people to all the excesses of tyranny, supported by the
force of arms alone? It was then to the spirit of resistance of the
feudal nobility that European society owed, in the midst of barbarism,
the advantage of not becoming a prey to Eastern despotism, and security
from wars of invasion.
Feudalism had rights and privileges to defend; the defence of these
rights and privileges naturally led to ideas of independence, and these
ideas of independence spread in the end through all classes of society.
It must not be forgotten that the English barons established liberty in
their country, whilst defending the privileges and rights of the feudal
compact.
The reciprocity of obedience and protection, of services and duties,
kept alive some generous sentiments. From feudal relations was born
that spirit of devotion and respect for the sovereign which is neither
the blind submission of the slave, nor the reasonable submission of
the republican. This sentiment, which was considered, up to modern
times, as the conservative principle of society in monarchies, became
particularly the distinctive character of the French nobility.
The history of the crusades presents us with several examples of this
devotion of the barons and knights to their monarch. When the kings of
France who took the cross, were in any dangers in the East, what proofs
of respect and love did they not receive from the gallant knights who
accompanied them? What spectacle can be more touching than that of the
imprisoned army in Egypt, forgetting its own captivity to deplore that
of Louis IX.! Who is not affected at seeing, upon the coast of Africa,
the French warriors overwhelmed with evils, but finding no tears in
their miseries but to weep for the death of a king of France?
These ties of fidelity, which arose from feudal relations, were so
powerful over men’s minds, that the preachers of the crusades sometimes
invoked them in their exhortations. They preached the duties of
feudalism concurrently with the precepts of the Gospel, and in order
to excite Christian warriors to take the cross, they called them “the
vassals of Jesus Christ.”
It is to the times of the feudal government we must go back, to find
in all its purity, that susceptibility upon the point of honour, that
inviolable fidelity to the word, which then supplied the absence of
laws, and which in polished societies often render men better than laws
themselves. All our ideas of military glory, that boundless esteem
which we accord to bravery, that profound contempt which, amongst us,
is attached to falsehood or felony, are to be traced to this remote
period. Feudalism was so completely mixed up with the spirit and
character of nations, that modern societies have no institutions that
have not some relation with it; and we have everywhere traces of it in
our habits, our manners, and even in our speech.
Let me be allowed to add here one single observation. It is in vain we
protest against our origin by our words; we are incessantly reminded of
it by our tastes, by our sentiments, and sometimes by our pleasures.
In fact, if, on one side, our reason, formed in the school of new
ideas, finds nothing that is not revolting in the middle ages, why, on
the other, does our imagination, moved by the spectacle of generous
passions, delight in representing to itself olden times, and mingling
with gallant knights and paladins? Whilst a severe philosophy heaps
measureless blame upon the barbarous customs of feudalism, and the
gothic manners of our ancestors, how is it that the remembrances which
these manners and these customs have left us inspire still our poets
with pictures which appear to us so full of charms? Why are these
remembrances revived every day with the same success, in our poems, in
our romances, and upon our stage? Would it be true to say that there
is more patriotism in our imagination than in our reason, since the
one would make us forget the history of our country, and the other
unceasingly reminds us of it?
The crusades assisted in destroying the abuses of the feudal system;
they served to preserve all that the system inspired of generous
sentiments, and concurred at the same time in developing that which
it contained that was favourable to civilization. We will finish our
sketch of the manners of feudalism and the salutary effects of the
crusades, by describing the revolution which operated at this time upon
the different classes of society. The nobility will fix our attention
in the first place.
Nobles are found in every nation where the memory of ancestors is
reckoned for anything. There can be no doubt that nobility was common
among the Franks and other barbarous people who invaded Europe. But in
what point of view was this nobility looked upon before the eleventh
and twelfth centuries? How was it at first constituted? How was the
illustration of races transmitted? We are in possession of very few
monuments to assist in deciding these questions; and when we have
thoroughly studied the history of the middle ages, we have nothing
better to do than to imitate the genealogists, who, when embarrassed in
explaining the origin of the most ancient families, content themselves
with assigning it to the night-time of the past.
When we reflect upon the rapidity with which generations pass away,
and how difficult it is, even in civilized times, for most families
to make out their own history during a single century, can we be
astonished that, in times of ignorance and barbarism, there have been
so few means of preserving the memory of the most illustrious families?
In addition to the almost entire absence of written documents, the
idea of true grandeur, the idea of that which constitutes heroic
illustration, did not yet strike men’s minds sufficiently forcibly to
make them preserve a long remembrance of it.[97] In these barbarous
times, men, and even princes, were most frequently only distinguished
by their physical qualities or their bodily defects. To be convinced
of this truth we have but to glance at the list of kings of the middle
ages, in which we find the names of Pepin-le-Bref (Pepin the Short),
Charles-le-Chauve (Charles the Bald), William-le-Roux (William Rufus,
or the Red), Louis-le-Gros (Louis the Fat), Frederick-Barbereusse
(Frederick Barbarossa, or Red Beard), and many others, whom their
age only designated by that which struck their eyes and was obvious
to the grossest perception. There are few things more curious for an
observer, than to see how old chronicles make us acquainted with the
personages whose actions they give an account of. They never omit in
their pictures, either the colour of the hair, or the stature, or the
countenance of the princes and heroes; and their historical portraits
(may I be allowed the comparison?) bear much less resemblance to a
passage of history, than to those descriptions which are now-a-days
written upon the passports of travellers.
If, as a writer has said, entire man was not yet understood, it cannot
be said that virtue was not known, as at any other period; but the idea
of virtue was then lost in that of duty, and with the single sentiment
of duty, which was but the voice of conscience or the modest instinct
of habit, they dreamt not of living in the memory of men.[98] The
desire for illustrating a name belongs to a nascent civilization. When
civilization threw forth its first rays, moral ideas of greatness were
attached to the name of ancient families; and it may be safely said
that nobility was not truly instituted before the value of glory began
to be felt. But what is very certain is, that in the crusades nobility
acquired an eminence that it had never before enjoyed. The exploits
of nobles in the cause of Christianity, were very different affairs
from those wars of castle against castle, with which they employed
themselves in Europe. Nobility from that time found its archives in
history, and the opinion the world entertained of its valour became its
loftiest title.
If we consult the most authentic facts and the most probable opinions,
we have reason to believe that the distinctions of nobility were at
first founded upon great offices, but principally upon property. It was
for the land or estate that, in the feudal system, the oath of fealty
or homage was taken, and the protection of the sovereign claimed. For
the man who was not a proprietor there was no contract, no privilege;
he had nothing to give, nothing to receive; in the times of Joinville,
nobles were called _rich men_. In France, a great proprietor was, by
right, noble; if he was ruined or despoiled, his descendants sank into
the crowd again: thus had the customs of a barbarous age established
it. A strange thing it is, that there are times in which extreme
civilization can make a nation revert to the same estate as extreme
barbarism. When political illusions shall be dispersed, and there shall
remain nothing but the mere substance of society, it is still property,
it is the estate which will establish pre-eminence and denote ranks.
Lands will no longer furnish soldiers, but they will pay taxes for the
support of them; they will no longer be held by the tenure of complying
with the duty of feudal aid; but they will still owe the sovereign the
support of their influence, in exchange for the protection they shall
receive from the sovereign authority.
If, in the middle ages, aristocracy was founded upon land, society
derived a great advantage from the circumstance; for territorial
property, which does not change, which is always the same, preserves
the institutions and manners of a people better than industrial
property, which most frequently belongs no more to one country than
another, and which, on that account, bears within itself the germs
of corruption. If it was for this reason that formerly nobility was
degraded by giving itself up to the speculations of commerce and
industry, it must be agreed that the usage thus established, had at
least a respectable aim, and arose from a salutary principle.[99]
Territorial property had then such an influence over the social
state, that it is quite enough to be acquainted with the changes it
experienced, to judge of the changes to which society was subjected.
“As soon as the state of the property of a certain period is
discovered,” says Robertson, “we may determine with precision what was
at the same time the degree of power then enjoyed by the king or the
nobility.” During the crusades, ecclesiastical and civil laws permitted
nobles to alienate their domains. A great number of them availed
themselves of this fatal privilege, and did not hesitate to sell their
lands; which displaced property, and consequently power. The nobility
thus lost its power, and the crown gained that which the aristocracy
lost.
The crusades, however, were not unproductive of good fruit for the
nobility; gentlemen acquired principalities in the East; most of the
cities of Greece and Syria became so many lordships, which recognised
as masters counts and barons enrolled under the banners of the holy
wars; some, still more fortunate, ascended the throne of David, or
that of Constantine, and took place among the greatest monarchs of
Christendom.
The military orders likewise presented the nobility with amends for
the losses they experienced in ruinous wars. These orders had immense
possessions in both the West and the East; they were for the European
nobility, an asylum in peace, and a school of heroism in war.
It was at this period that the use of surnames was introduced, and
coats of arms were assumed. Every gentleman added to his own name
the name of his estate, or the title of the lordship he possessed;
he placed in his coat of arms a sign which distinguished his family
and marked his nobility; genealogy became a science, and consecrated,
by its researches, the illustration of races. Whatever value may be
now-a-days attached to this science, it must be admitted that it often
threw a great light upon the history of illustrious families, and
sometimes upon the general history of a country to which these families
belonged.
Everything leads us to believe that the origin of surnames,[100] but
more particularly of coats of arms, is due to the Crusaders. The lord
stood in no need of a mark of distinction when he did not go off his
own manor; but he became aware of the necessity for distinguishing
himself from others when he found himself at a distance from home,
and confounded in the crowd of the Crusaders: a great number of
families ruined themselves, or became extinct, in the holy wars. Such
as were ruined attached themselves more strongly to the remembrance
of their nobility, the only wealth that was left them; after the
extinction of families, the necessity for replacing them was felt; it
was under Philip-le-Hardi that the practice of creating nobles was
introduced.[101] As soon as there were new nobles, it became of more
consequence to be considered ancient ones. Property did not appear
sufficient to preserve and transmit a name which itself became a
property, consecrated by history and acknowledged by society. It was
then that nobility attached more value to marks of distinction.
At the end of the feudal government, the nobility, it is true, still
constituted, in a great degree, the strength of the army; but it served
the state in a new character; it conformed more with the spirit of
chivalry than with that of feudalism. A gentleman no longer paid homage
to his sovereign for his estate, but he swore upon his sword to be
faithful to him.
As soon as feudal services ceased to be required, the nobility
increased in zeal for personal service. Kings eagerly welcomed them
when they were no longer formidable; thus they recovered in the favour
of courts a great portion of the advantages they had lost. As they
still held the first rank in society, and preserved a great ascendancy
over the other classes, they continued, by their example, to polish
the spirit and the manners of the nation; and it is by their means
particularly, that those elegant manners were formed which have so long
distinguished the French among all the nations of Europe.
It is difficult, however, to say with precision what the nobility
gained and what they lost by the changes that were effected. Their
existence, doubtless, had something more brilliant in it, but also
something less solid. The honorary prerogatives which they retained,
without giving them any real strength, armed more jealous passions
against them than territorial power had done; for it may be remarked,
that man’s self-love endures riches and power in others, with a better
grace than it endures distinctions.
We must add, likewise, that as society progressed, new means of
illustration, new kinds of notability arose; the moral power of
opinion, which had been attached exclusively to nobility, communicated
itself by degrees to those who contributed to the prosperity of society
by their talents, their knowledge, or their industry.
We have seen the brilliant side of feudalism; we have now to speak
of the state in which the inhabitants of the cities and the country
groaned. Most of the villages and cities depended upon some baron,
whose protection they purchased, and who exercised an arbitrary
jurisdiction over them. Man, reduced to servitude, or rather slavery,
had no law which guarded him against oppression; the produce of labour,
the wages of his sweat, did not belong to him; he was himself a
property which could be claimed anywhere, if he fled away from his
home. Chained to the glebe, he must often have envied the animal who
helped him to trace the furrow, or the palfrey, the noble companion of
his master. The serf had no other hope but that which religion afforded
him, and left nothing to his children but the example of his patience
in suffering. He could neither make a contract during his lifetime, nor
a testament at the hour of death. His last will was not recognised by
law; it died with him. To excuse the barbarity of this gross age, we
must remember the still more frightful fate of slaves among the Greeks
and Romans. We have no need to point out the obstacles this state of
things must have opposed to the development of the industry and the
social faculties of man. Thus the country was covered with forests,
and most of the cities presented nothing but an aspect of poverty and
misery.
The cities of Lombardy, and a great part of Italy, were the first
places that shook off the yoke of feudalism. The emperors of Germany,
as we have seen, were almost always at variance with the popes. The
cities took advantage of these quarrels, to arrogate rights which no
one disputed. Others purchased them of the emperors, who believed they
made a good bargain when they sold that which they had not the power
to refuse. Towards the middle of the eleventh century, the clergy
and nobility had already no more influence in the cities of Italy.
According to the evidence of Otho of Freisengen, a contemporary author,
Italy was full of free cities, all of which had obliged their bishops
to reside within their walls; there was scarcely a noble who was not
subject to the laws and government of a city. In Germany the cities
obtained their freedom at a later period. These Germans, who, according
to Tacitus, considered dwelling in cities as a mark of servitude, not
only in the end built cities, but sought liberty in them. The cities
of the Rhine appear to have been made free by the emperors in the
eleventh century. But most of these cities were poor, they contained
but few inhabitants, and were not able to defend themselves against
the German oligarchy. At the commencement of the fourteenth century,
several free cities, enriched by the commerce of the East, and by the
communications opened by the crusades, formed a confederation, and by
that means made their independence respected.
In England, the spirit of liberty did not take its spring before the
holy wars; the cities, with the exception of that of London, which
had obtained several privileges, scarcely dreamt of independence; the
Britons, as in the times of Virgil, appeared still separated from the
rest of the world. It may be said that liberty in the English nation
was not an affair of locality, but a general affair, which was to be
decided at a later period.
In Spain, the war against the Moors, as we have already said, favoured
the independence of the commons. We are in possession of historical
documents of the eleventh century, which prove that several Spanish
cities enjoyed certain immunities at this period. But the first of
these cities which were summoned to the Cortes, urged by a spirit of
jealousy, refused to admit the others, which was very injurious to the
development and progress of liberty in Spain.
In the south of France, the archives of the communes present us with
some traces of liberty, a long time before the period of the crusades.
The influence of a fine climate, the vivacity which animated the
inhabitants, with some traditions of the Roman law, preserved, in the
provinces which border on Spain and Italy, habits of independence which
might serve as models or examples. When the kings of France thought of
enfranchising some communes, it was from the south of the kingdom they
must have taken the idea.
These enfranchisements of the southern cities, however, were rather
consecrated by custom than by positive laws. According to the best
opinions, the formal and legal enfranchisement of communes in France
dates from Louis-le-Gros, who granted privileges to some cities
situated within the domains of the crown. The example of Louis-le-Gros
was followed by Louis VII. and Philip Augustus. A great number of
cities saw all sorts of slavery excluded from their walls, chose their
own magistrates, levied their own taxes, kept up a military force, and
had a jurisdiction entirely their own. Such was the first blow given in
France to the feudal government.
Before this period it was customary to implore the aid of the barons
against violence and robbery. This support was abandoned as soon as
another tutelary power arose. The serfs, and even the freemen, who had
at first sought safety in castles, soon sought it in cities, against
their former protectors, the castellans; the first engagements of the
inhabitants of cities were mutual defence and reciprocal protection.
The liberty of cities began by the corporations; men could only be
strong when united. This necessity for union in moments of crisis
or peril is so natural, that when society is disturbed, factions
and parties are formed which are like corporations. The spirit of
a public body, or the spirit of party, in whatever way it may be
considered, holds essentially with the social character. Liberty was
much more considered in relation with the community than in relation
with individual man; it was considered a benefit that could only be
enjoyed in common. Thus society did not find itself subordinate to
the individual, but the individual to society. Isolated man could do
nothing; strength lay with the association, which effectually protected
the rights of all, and watched over the conservation of individual
liberty and public liberty.
When cities situated within the royal domains had obtained their
franchises, the spirit of independence soon possessed the other
cities of the kingdom. The communes which succeeded in gaining their
enfranchisement, did not all obtain the same advantages; they were,
more or less, favoured by circumstances. Here, liberty was purchased
of the lord; there, the yoke was shaken off by force; in other places,
treaties were effected, in which the spirit of liberty and feudal power
made mutual concessions.
During the crusades, the long absence of the barons must have
multiplied, for the communes, opportunities of enfranchising
themselves. Most of the lords who ruined themselves for the holy wars,
exchanged, for the money of which they stood in need, all their rights
over the cities which depended upon them—rights which they yielded the
more willingly from hoping to win principalities in Asia.
This enfranchisement of communes produced a very different effect for
the great vassals and the crown. It weakened the authority of the
lords, because the spirit of liberty was against them; it increased
the royal authority, because the cities which were free, or had a
desire to be so, looked to the king. Cities, when their independence
was threatened, implored the king’s protection. We find in old
chronicles, that Philip Augustus granted letters of protection to
cities dependent upon barons. Thus kings became the hope of all the
communes of the kingdom, and liberty supported itself by royalty.
This is why the cities of France, to defend their franchises, formed
no league, as they did in other countries; for they found a natural
defence in royal power.
The revolution which was destined to destroy feudalism, appeared to act
as of itself. There is, in the possession of a newly-acquired good, a
restlessness, an anxiety, a fear of losing it, which kept the communes
always on the alert; there is, on the contrary, in the possession of
an anciently-acquired good, an indolent security, which did not permit
the barons to see the true state of things. The lords only opposed new
ideas by a short-sighted disdain, and believed they had lost nothing as
long as they retained their swords by their sides.
If, however, we may judge by the complaints of Guibert, abbot of
Nogent, a contemporary historian, the enfranchisement of the communes
met with some opposition. There was no want of sour spirits, who
considered it a dangerous and destructive innovation. But we may
believe that these complaints were only inspired by that natural
repugnance which the greater part of men entertain for seeing anything
change which is consecrated by time, and by that vague mistrust
which novelty produces, under whatever form it may appear. The truth
is, that nobody knew, or could possibly judge, of the extent of the
changes that were then in operation. Revolutions, whatever may be their
object or their character, are never thoroughly understood before they
have finished their course, and never reveal their secret at their
commencement.
A century after Louis-le-Gros, Louis VIII. pretended to have the right
of immediate sovereignty over all the communes. This was a signal for
all the cities to complete their emancipation from the barons; this was
the mortal blow to the feudal aristocracy. This great revolution of
the social state went on so rapidly, that history can with difficulty
follow its progress, and cannot assign the part which the crusades bore
in it.
Happy had it been for society if that spirit of liberty which then set
it in motion, and which advanced without ceasing, sowing blessings and
evils on its route, had produced none but wise institutions; if, always
confined within just bounds, it had not frequently kindled bloody
discords, and had not at last mingled itself with the blind passions
of the multitude! What a picture were that which should exhibit the
consequences of this revolution up to modern times, which should
represent monarchy rising from the ruins of feudalism and then itself
succumbing in a new revolution! What a subject for serious thoughts in
the historian, when, embracing with a rapid glance ancient and modern
times, he sees the two most active forces of society, at the revival
of civilization,—royalty and liberty, marching constantly one towards
the other, demanding of each other reciprocal support, overthrowing
all the barriers that separated them, destroying all they found in
their passage; at last, after several ages of endeavours, meeting face
to face upon the ruins accumulated round them, taking each other at
first sight for enemies, declaring war against each other, and falling
together on the same field of battle![102]
God forbid that I should here be thought to present discouraging
images! I have only wished to show the fragility of human affairs, and
the want of foresight in those who direct societies. The revolution we
have beheld is, perhaps, less the work of liberty than of the equality
which is seen to figure, for the first time, in the political world.
This equality, such as the moderns have constituted it, was scarcely
known in the ancient republics, of which the language had no word to
express it. The first book that spoke of equality was the Gospel.
Christianity constantly represents all men as equal before God. The
object of the Gospel was to lower the pride of the great; which was
salutary. I know not what false philosophy made use of equality to
raise the pride of the low;—and then society was shaken to its very
foundations.
The great revolution which has been effected in the manners and laws
of Europe, and which began at the times of the crusades, may be
divided into two principal epochs. At first it was desirable to wrest
from the feudal lords a power which they abused: that was the first
epoch,—that was the revolution of liberty. When the feudal lords had
nothing left but distinctions, these distinctions irritated pride and
jealousy, which, in the end, persuaded themselves that every political
superiority was a tyranny, which must be brought low. This was the
second epoch,—the revolution of equality; much more terrible than
the first, because it had for motive, passions much more difficult to
satisfy than the love of liberty.
But the peasants and serfs of the country, whilst the cities were
in the enjoyment of liberty, still groaned in slavery. Up to the
fourteenth century, this numerous class found no abatement in the
rigours of their servitude. The greatest advantage the crusades could
have bestowed upon the peasants, was the momentary cessation of
brigandage, and the peace which reigned in the country, all the time
the wars against the Saracens were being carried on.
It is probable that serfs in Europe were not better treated, according
to the legislation and customs of the West, than they were in the Holy
Land, according to the _Assizes of Jerusalem_. There is no doubt that
peasants taken from the glebe for the crusade became free men; but most
of them perished by misery or by the swords of the Mussulmans. What
became of the few who revisited their homes cannot be ascertained.
A population dispersed and scattered about a country did not present,
as in cities, a formidable mass, capable of resistance. Peasants rarely
communicated with each other, and could not support any demand, or
establish any common right. Man requires some intelligence to make
him sensible of the advantages of liberty, and the peasant class was
then brutified by ignorance. We must likewise add, that the love of
independence came with riches; and this is why it arose earlier in
cities than in the country, and earlier in flourishing cities than in
poorer ones. The serfs of the country were poor; they would not have
known what use to make of liberty. Liberty is of little value to him
who is in want of the first necessaries of life. Among warlike and
barbarous hordes, who entertained a repugnance for labour, it was
natural that they should be despised who gave themselves up to the
painful toil of cultivating the earth. This repugnance was necessarily
more strong among nomad nations, like those that conquered Europe. The
contempt felt in the middle ages for the peasantry was injurious to
their liberty; and this contempt even survived their servitude. People
felt, in some sort, forced to treat as slaves men who performed a task
which was considered necessary, but which every free man disdained.
The inhabitant of the country, abandoned to his own resources, did
not aspire to independence; the only good he could pretend to was
the choice of slavery. As the Church inspired more confidence than
the nobles, a crowd of unfortunate beings took refuge, in a manner,
at the foot of the altars, and devoted their liberty and that of
their children to this church or that monastery, to which they
looked for protection. Nothing is more curious than the formulæ by
which the clergy received this sacrifice of individual liberty. They
congratulated the new serfs with having preferred “the domination of
Jesus Christ to the liberty of the age;” they added, that “to serve
God was to reign,” and that “a holy servitude was true independence.”
These words must have been in harmony with the manners and ideas of the
times, since a multitude of men and women were seen every day flocking
to the monasteries, and conjuring the Church to admit them among “the
serfs of Jesus Christ.” That they should believe themselves, on that
account, much more free than other men, we may at the present day be
astonished; but was there not a sort of liberty in wearing chains they
had chosen, and with which they had fettered themselves?
Some free cities of Germany contributed to the enfranchisement of the
peasants of their territory. The same thing happened in Italy and in
Spain, where the territory of cities was considerable; in England, the
peasantry waited a long time for any amelioration of their fate. But
nothing is more difficult than to ascertain with certainty the destiny
which, during many ages, this multitude of men who covered the plains
of Europe underwent; in the darkness of the middle ages, numberless
generations of serfs passed over the earth, without leaving any traces
in history. We can with difficulty catch, in old chronicles and acts of
administration, here and there a few scattered gleams to throw a light
upon our researches.
In France, it is not till the commencement of the fourteenth century
that any ordinances of the kings upon the enfranchisement of the
serfs are to be found. In an ordinance of 1315, Louis X. made use of
these remarkable words: “Many persons among our common people are
enchained in the bonds of servitude, which displeases us greatly....
Our kingdom,” he added, “is called and named the kingdom of the Franks;
we are desirous that the thing should in truth be in accordance with
its name,” &c. In this ordinance, made only for the royal domains, the
king of France pressed the nobles to follow his example. “We are in
possession of a letter-patent of the same king, by which commissaries
were commanded to transport themselves to the bailiwick of Senlis, and
“to give freedom to all who required it,” on condition, nevertheless,
of paying a sum for the rights of servitude, which reverted to the
crown.
All the historical documents of this period prove, more and more, that
the kings had placed themselves at the head of the general movement
of society. In all they then did, their motive, doubtless, was to
reëstablish order in the kingdom, and to found their authority upon
the protection granted to those who suffered from the violences and
excesses of feudal anarchy. If, however, we may judge by the ordinance
just quoted, and by many other similar ones, their policy was not
always disinterested, and, like most of the barons, they sometimes sold
rather than granted the freedom of the serfs and the communes.
Many peasants showed themselves but little disposed to receive a
liberty which was to be sold to them. Some from poverty, others from
mistrust, a great number from unwillingness to change their condition,
refused the benefit that was offered to them. Such is the spirit of
man, that they resolved to remain serfs, because they were condemned to
be such no longer. In several provinces, even disorders were created by
their resistance. This was slaves fighting, with their chains, against
Liberty herself. At a later period, the _jaquerie_ proved that it was
more easy to kindle the passions of a gross people, than to make them
free; and that it was far, as regarded the serfs, from impatience under
the yoke and hatred for their masters, to the true love of liberty.
When we are desirous of breaking the chains of the multitude, it is
never to the multitude that we must address ourselves; in order that
the fate of the lower classes should be ameliorated, the amelioration
must come from the superior classes, by whom knowledge is spread and
institutions are established. This is what happened at the period of
which we are speaking. The servitude of the country was much softened
by the maxims of the clergy, but more particularly by the influence
of that French magistracy which had arisen contemporaneously with
civilization.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, some serfs of Catalonia,
who had taken refuge in France, being claimed by their lords, the
parliament of Thoulouse declared that every man who entered into the
kingdom crying _France!_ became free. Mezerai,[103] who relates this
fact, adds: “Such is the kingdom of France, that its air communicates
liberty to those who breathe it, and our kings are so august that they
only reign over free men.”
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, scarcely a trace of
servitude could be found in the cities or the country. History could
but applaud this revolution, if the fall even of feudalism, whilst
destroying ancient abuses, had not placed governments in antagonism
with difficulties which had not been foreseen, and whose consequences
were destined to be deplorable. When the feudal government, which cost
the people nothing,[104] was quite overthrown, it became necessary
to provide for the expenses of a new administration; when the state
had lost the defenders which the feudal laws provided for it, others
were to be sought, and their services to be remunerated. Thence came
the necessity for stipendiary armies and regular and permanent taxes.
To provide the money wanted, the coinage was debased, the Jews were
persecuted, violence was had recourse to, and justice was sold,—all
of which tended to corrupt both the government and the nation. The
embarrassment of the finances, and the disorders it produced, have only
increased up to the present day. To remedy this, the moral strength and
life of society have often been neglected, and means of raising money
have constituted the whole policy of states. To have credit, or not to
have it, that is, now-a-days, life or death for governments. _Credit_,
_deficit_, _bankruptcy_, are three words, of which the ancients and the
middle ages were quite ignorant; but which are now constantly present
to the restless, uneasy minds of kings and ministers. These three words
will perhaps one day be sufficient to explain the decline and fall of
empires.
Whatever was the weight of the public impositions, it must be allowed
that the taxes gave rise to more frequent relations between governments
and the people, which proved advantageous to liberty. People gave more
attention to the administration which they paid for with the fruit of
their industry and labour. Sovereigns had more consideration for the
different classes of citizens of whom they demanded tribute; and were
constrained to consult them in certain circumstances, in order that the
people, says Pasquier, might not have occasion to be dissatisfied or
murmur. The origin of representative government, as it exists in many
European nations in our days, has been sought for in remote times; but
everything leads us to believe that it owed its birth to the relations
which the wants of states and the necessity for taxes naturally
established between peoples and governments.
That which most increased the embarrassments of the majority of
European monarchies, after the fall of feudalism, was the excessive
enlargement of their military establishments. At the moment I am
writing, there is no necessity to point out this fearful rock of
modern societies It is not a century since Montesquieu predicted that
Europe would perish by its armies.[105] God grant that this prophecy
be not about to be accomplished! The military force of Europe has
given us reason to dread all the evils it was intended to prevent. It
was to defend every kingdom from foreign invasions; and yet there is
not a kingdom in Europe that has not been invaded, or threatened with
invasion. It was deemed necessary to restrain the multitude by means of
armies; and armies have been raised to such numbers of men, that they
have become the multitude itself under arms. Can it be true, as has
been said, that there is no remedy for this evil? Deplorable state of
things, without which society cannot last, with which it cannot exist!
The crusades have been reproached with having given birth to the idea
of imposts; this idea is too simple not to have arisen without the
help of the crusades.[106] It is probable that the manner in which
the tenths were collected for the holy war, might serve as a model
for those who afterwards established regular contributions. As to
regular armies, the expeditions to the East might furnish the first
idea of them. It is certain that these distant expeditions changed
the conditions of the feudal service, and accustomed people to see
permanent armies maintained and commanded by princes.
Among the institutions which contended with the barbarism of the middle
ages, we will, in the first place, consider chivalry, the exploits of
which are much better known than its origin. At a time when everything
was decided by force, and everything was determined by the sword;—in
which, as Montesquieu says, to judge was to fight—women, children,
and orphans were not able to defend their rights, and were abandoned
a prey to iniquity. Generous warriors came forward to defend them;
their devotion was applauded,—their example was followed. Shortly the
order of Paladins was formed, who perambulated the world, seeking for
wrongs to redress, and felons to combat with. Such was, doubtless, the
origin of chivalry, which is so uselessly sought for in the forests of
Germany. This institution sprang from the extreme disorder of society,
and arose like a bulwark, which human generosity opposed to the
irruptions of license, and the passions of a barbarous age.
Chivalry was known in the West before the crusades. These wars, which
appeared to have the same aim as chivalry,—that of defending the
oppressed, serving the cause of God, and combating with infidels,—gave
this institution more splendour and consistency,—a direction more
extended and salutary.
Religion, which mingled itself with all the institutions and all the
passions of the middle ages, purified the sentiments of the knights,
and elevated them to the enthusiasm of virtue. Christianity lent
chivalry its ceremonies and its emblems, and tempered, by the mildness
of its maxims, the asperities of warlike manners.
Piety, bravery, and modesty were the distinctive qualities of chivalry:
“Serve God, and he will help you; be mild and courteous to every
gentleman, by divesting yourself of all pride; be neither a flatterer
nor a slanderer, for such people seldom come to great excellence. Be
loyal in words and deeds; keep your word; be helpful to the poor and to
orphans, and God will reward you.”[107] Thus said the mother of Bayard
to her son; and these instructions of a virtuous mother comprised the
whole code of chivalry.
The most admirable part of this institution was the entire abnegation
of self,—that loyalty which made it the duty of every knight to forget
his own glory, and only publish the lofty deeds of his companions in
arms. The deeds of valour of a knight were his fortune, his means
of living; _and he who was silent upon them was a robber of the
property of others_. Nothing appeared more reprehensible than for a
knight to praise himself. “If the squire,” says le Code des Preux,
“be vain-glorious of what he has done, he is not worthy to become a
knight.” An historian of the crusades offers us a singular example of
this virtue, which is not entirely humility, and might be called the
false modesty of glory, when he describes Tancred checking his career
in the field of battle, to make his squire swear to be for ever silent
upon his exploits.
The most cruel insult that could be offered to a knight, was to accuse
him of falsehood. Want of truth, and perjury, were considered the most
shameful of all crimes. If oppressed innocence implored the succour of
a knight, woe to him who did not respond to the appeal! Shame followed
every offence towards the weak, and every aggression towards an unarmed
man.
The spirit of chivalry kept up and strengthened among warriors the
generous sentiments which the military spirit of feudalism had given
birth to: devotion to his sovereign was the first virtue, or rather the
first duty, of a knight. Thus in every state of Europe grew up a young
military power, always ready for fight, and always ready to sacrifice
itself for prince or for country, as for the cause of justice and
innocence.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of chivalry, and that which
at the present day most strongly excites our surprise and curiosity,
was the alliance of religious sentiments with gallantry. _Devotion and
love_,—such was the principle of action of a knight: _God and the
ladies_,—such was his device.
To form an idea of the manners of chivalry, we have but to glance
at the tournaments, which owed their origin to it, and which were
as schools of courtesy and festivals of bravery. At this period,
the nobility were dispersed, and lived isolated in their castles.
Tournaments furnished them with opportunities for assembling; and it
was at these brilliant meetings that the memory of ancient gallant
knights was revived,—that youth took them for models, and imbibed
chivalric virtues by receiving rewards from the hands of beauty.
As the ladies were the judges of the actions and the bravery of the
knights, they exercised an absolute empire over the minds of the
warriors; and I have no occasion to say that this ascendancy of the
softer sex threw a charm over the heroism of the _preux_ and the
_paladins_. Europe began to escape from barbarism from the moment the
most weak commanded the most strong,—from the moment when the love of
glory, when the noblest feelings of the heart, the tenderest affections
of the soul, everything that constitutes the moral force of society,
was able to triumph over every other force.
Louis IX., a prisoner in Egypt, replies to the Saracens, that he will
do nothing without Queen Marguerite, “who is his lady.” The orientals
could not comprehend such deference; and it is because they did not
comprehend this deference, that they have remained so far in the rear
of the nations of Europe, in nobleness of sentiment, purity of morals,
and elegance of manners.
Heroes of antiquity wandered over the world to deliver it from scourges
and monsters; but these heroes were not actuated by religion, which
elevates the soul, nor by that courtesy which softens the manners.
They were acquainted with friendship, as in the cases of Theseus
and Pirithous, and Hercules and Lycas; but they knew nothing of the
delicacy of love. The ancient poets take delight in representing the
misfortunes of certain heroines abandoned by their lovers; but, in
their touching pictures, there never escapes from their plaintive
muse the least expression of blame against the hero, who thus caused
the tears of beauty to flow. In the middle ages, or according to the
manners of chivalry, a warrior who should have imitated the conduct of
Theseus to Ariadne, or that of the son of Anchises towards Dido, would
not have failed to incur the reproach of treachery.
Another difference between the spirit of antiquity and the sentiments
of the moderns is, that among the ancients love was supposed to
enervate the courage of heroes; and that in the days of chivalry, the
women, who were the judges of valour, constantly kept alive the love
of glory and an enthusiasm for virtue, in the hearts of the warriors.
We find in Alain Chartier, a conversation of several ladies, who
express their opinions upon the conduct of their knights, who had been
present at the battle of Agincourt. One of these knights had sought
safety in flight, and the lady of his thoughts exclaims: “According
to the law of love, I should have loved him better dead than alive.”
In the first crusade, Adela, countess of Blois, wrote to her husband,
who was gone to the East with Godfrey of Bouillon: “Beware of
meriting the reproaches of the brave.” As the count of Blois returned
to Europe before the taking of Jerusalem, his wife made him blush
at his desertion, and forced him to return to Palestine, where he
fought bravely, and found a glorious death. Thus the spirit and the
sentiments of chivalry gave birth to prodigies equally with the most
ardent patriotism of ancient Lacedæmon; and these prodigies appeared so
simple, so natural, that the chroniclers only repeat them in passing,
and without testifying the least surprise at them.
This institution, so ingeniously called “Fountain of courtesy, which
comes from God,” is still much more admirable when considered under the
all-powerful influence of religious ideas. Christian charity claimed
all the affections of the knight, and demanded of him a perpetual
devotion for the defence of pilgrims and the care of the sick. It was
thus that were established the orders of St. John, of the Temple, of
the Teutonic Knights, and several others, all instituted to combat the
Saracens and solace human miseries. The infidels admired their virtues,
as much as they dreaded their bravery. Nothing is more touching than
the spectacle of these noble warriors, who were seen by turns in the
field of battle and in the asylum of pain; sometimes the terror of
the enemy, and as frequently the consolers of all who suffered. That
which the paladins of the West did for beauty, the knights of Palestine
did for poverty and misfortune. The former devoted their lives to the
ladies of their thoughts; the latter devoted theirs to the poor and the
infirm. The grand-master of the military order of St. John took the
title of “Guardian of the poor of Jesus Christ,” and the knights called
the sick and the poor “Our lords.” It appears almost an incredible
thing, but the grand-master of the order of St. Lazarus, instituted for
the cure and the relief of leprosy, was obliged to be chosen from among
the lepers.[108] Thus the charity of the knights, in order to be the
better acquainted with human miseries, in a manner ennobled that which
is most disgusting in the diseases of man. Did not this grand-master
of St. Lazarus, who was obliged himself to be afflicted with the
infirmities he was called upon to alleviate in others, imitate, as much
as is possible on earth, the example of the Son of God, who assumed a
human form in order to deliver humanity?
It may be thought that there was ostentation in so great a charity; but
Christianity, as we have said, had subdued the pride of the warriors,
and that was, without doubt, one of the noblest miracles of the
religion of the middle ages. All who then visited the Holy Land could
but admire in the knights of St. John, the Temple, and St. Lazarus,
their resignation in suffering all the pains of life, their submission
to all the rigours of discipline, and their docility to the least
wish of their leader. During the sojourn of St. Louis in Palestine,
the Hospitallers having had a quarrel with some Crusaders who were
hunting on Mount Carmel, the latter brought their complaint before the
grand-master. The head of the Hospital ordered before him the brothers
who had outraged the Crusaders, and to punish them, condemned there
to eat their food on the ground upon their mantles. “It happened,”
says the sieur de Joinville, “that I was present with the knights who
had complained, and we requested the master to allow the brothers to
arise from their mantles, which he refused.” Thus the rigour of the
cloisters and the austere humility of cenobites had nothing repulsive
for these warriors. Such were the heroes that religion and the spirit
of the crusades had formed. I know that this submission and humility in
men accustomed to arms may be turned into ridicule; but an enlightened
philosophy takes pleasure in recognising the happy influence of
religious ideas upon the manners of a society given up to barbarous
passions. In an age when all power was derived from the sword, in which
passion and anger might have carried warriors to all kinds of excesses,
what more agreeable spectacle for humanity could there be than that of
valour humbling itself, and strength forgetting itself?
We are aware that the spirit of chivalry was sometimes abused, and
that its noble maxims did not govern the conduct of all knights. We
have described in the history of the crusades, the lengthened discords
which jealousy created between the two orders of St. John and the
Temple. We have spoken of the vices with which the Templars were
reproached towards the end of the holy wars. We could speak still more
of the absurdities of knight-errantry; but our task is here to write
the history of institutions, and not that of human passions. Whatever
may be thought of the corruption of men, it will always be true
that chivalry, allied with the spirit of courtesy and the spirit of
Christianity, awakened in human hearts virtues and sentiments of which
the ancients were ignorant.
That which proves that everything was not barbarous in the middle
ages is, that the institution of chivalry obtained, from its birth,
the esteem and admiration of all Christendom. There was no gentleman
who was not desirous of being a knight. Princes and kings took honour
to themselves for belonging to chivalry. In it warriors came to take
lessons of politeness, bravery, and humanity. Admirable school, in
which victory laid aside its pride, and grandeur its haughty disdain;
to which those who had riches and power came to learn only to make use
of them with moderation and generosity.
As the education of the people was formed upon the example of the
higher classes of society, the generous sentiments of chivalry spread
themselves by degrees through all ranks, and mingled with the character
of the European nations; gradually, there arose against those who were
wanting in their duties of knighthood, a general opinion, more severe
than the laws themselves, which was as the code of honour, as the cry
of the public conscience. What might not be hoped from a state of
society, in which all the discourses held in camps, in tournaments,
in meetings of warriors, was reduced to these words: “Evil be to him
who forgets the promises he has made to religion, to patriotism, to
virtuous love; evil be to him who betrays his God, his king, or his
lady?”
When the institution of chivalry fell by the abuse that was made of
it, or rather in consequence of the changes in the military system of
Europe; there remained still in European society some of the sentiments
it had inspired, in the same manner as there remains with those who
have forgotten the religion in which they were born, something of its
precepts, and particularly of the profound impressions which they
received from it in their infancy. In the times of chivalry, the
reward of good actions was glory and honour. This coin, which is so
useful to nations, and which costs them nothing, did not fail to have
some currency in following ages. Such is the effect of a glorious
remembrance, that the marks and distinctions of chivalry serve still in
our days to recompense merit and bravery.
Since it can with truth be said that the crusades added some lustre and
gave some ascendancy to chivalry, it must be agreed that they rendered
essential service to humanity.
If the institution of chivalry was a barrier against license and
barbarism, the institution of the clergy, founded upon more fixed and
durable principles, ought to have rendered still greater services to
civilization.
The ascendancy and wealth of the clergy placed them on an equality
with the nobility, in the feudal system; but it must be allowed that
the rank assigned them in this order of things was repugnant to
their character and to the state of society. We do not hesitate to
say that the feudal system had a tendency to corrupt the institution
of the clergy, as the clergy corrupted the feudal system. The clergy,
instructed in principles of peace, were not fit to carry out the
conditions of the military régime; on the other side, the military
régime was sure to change the pacific manners of the clergy. It was not
at all uncommon to see prelates clad in cuirass and helmet. Sometimes
country priests led to battle the flock which a religion of peace
had confided to them. This military spirit in ecclesiastics was much
increased by the crusades, in which their arms were sanctified by the
object of the war. The clergy, however, never became sufficiently
warlike to fulfil all the feudal engagements; and we may add likewise,
that they were not always sufficiently pacific to fulfil all their
religious duties.
It may be concluded, from what we have just said, that the
ecclesiastical order and the feudal government would, in the long run,
repel each other. If we consult the history of the middle ages, we
shall see that the barons and nobles often showed themselves jealous of
the power of the clergy, and that the clergy, in the end, contributed
to the ruin of the foundations of feudalism.
The existence of the clergy underwent many modifications, according
to times, places, and circumstances. In Italy, they enjoyed but very
little credit, and took part in most popular factions. In Germany, the
high clergy shared with the nobility the wrecks of imperial power. In
Spain, they contributed greatly to the expulsion of the Moors, and
the spoils of the vanquished added to their wealth. In England, the
clergy associated themselves with the barons, and contended with the
crown. In France, they attached themselves to royalty, and favoured the
constantly increasing power of the monarchs.
If we may judge by the councils which were held during the crusades,
most of which were occupied with reforming ecclesiastical discipline,
we have reason to believe that the morals of the clergy had then a
strong tendency to corruption. Old chronicles are particularly severe
against the Crusaders and the clergy of the East, whom they unceasingly
accuse of outraging morality and religion by their excesses. Some of
the chroniclers even, like James of Vitry, draw such hideous pictures,
that they are suspected of injustice, or at least of exaggeration. It
is not useless, for the sake of historical truth, to remark here, that
most of the historians of whom we now speak, belonged to the class of
preachers charged with the task of censuring their age, and who were
often obliged to darken their colours in order to move the multitude.
In all times, sacred orators have been seen exaggerating the vices it
was their object to combat; and if we were not aware of the charity
which animates them, we might sometimes mistake their discourses for
violent satires. This is an observation of which we ought not to lose
sight whilst reading the chronicles of the middle ages, which are
almost all drawn up by ecclesiastics, accustomed by their profession to
judge their contemporaries with severity. Another observation proved by
history is, that corruption is spoken of with more bitterness in times
in which it is scarcely known, than in times in which it has become
general. In ages in which some ideas of virtue still prevail, people
accuse themselves; and in ages quite corrupted, they praise themselves.
A chronicle of the time of the first crusades tells us, that the
iniquities of men had then reached their height; and, what at once
characterizes the spirit of the chronicler and that of his age, he adds
that these iniquities would have shortened the duration of the world,
“if it had not been that some new monastic congregations were formed.”
In fact, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more monasteries
were founded than in all the other centuries of the middle ages. The
enthusiasm for the holy wars, by exalting the imaginations of nations,
had produced a mental revolution; prodigies were everywhere seen that
had never been observed till that time; devotion itself believed that
it could no longer attain salvation by ordinary ways: whilst a crowd
of warriors precipitated themselves upon the East, many pious souls,
to perform penance, sought for private mortifications, and devoted
themselves to the rigours of a voluntary exile, or buried themselves in
deserts.
At the head of the monastic congregations which were formed at this
period, we must place that of the Brothers of Mercy, which had its
birth in the third crusade, and was instituted for the purpose of
delivering captives. These venerable cenobites, after the example
of the heroes of chivalry, sought for victims to console, and for
the miserable to succour. Like knights, they exposed themselves to
a thousand dangers, and braved death in the exercise of beneficence
and charity. It was during the sixth crusade that the two orders of
St. Dominic and St. Francis arose, orders which, according to the
expression of the abbot of Usberg, renewed the youth of the Church.
From the thirteenth century these two orders sent missions into the
East, and into the north of Asia. Whilst the Tartar hordes were
overturning empires, ravaging Europe, and threatening all Christendom,
poor priests traversed the solitudes of Tartary, penetrated even into
China; and, peaceful conquerors, armed with the Gospel, extended the
empire of Christianity, and planted the standard of the cross at the
extremities of the known world. The religious colonies which they then
founded in Asia lasted much longer than the colonies founded by the
Crusaders.
We will not attempt to enumerate all the services which religious
communities rendered society. They had regulations which might serve
for models in the infancy of political legislation. They were in all
respects like the corporations of cities. Whilst anarchy disturbed
cities, the woods had their legislation; and the germs of civilization
developed themselves in silence and in solitude.
It was in monasteries that were found the only schools in which letters
were taught, and that the Latin language, and the wonders it produced,
were preserved. It was in them that studious men kept a faithful
register of events, and employed themselves in transmitting to us those
historical documents without which the glory and the manners of our
ancestors would be unknown to us.
Besides that the clergy contributed greatly to the fertilizing of
uncultivated lands, they protected the labourers with the whole power
of the Church. The Truce of God, which was the work of the clergy,
placed under the safeguard of Heaven, the inhabitants of the fields,
the oxen, the companions of their labours, and even the instruments
of their tillage. The Church went still further; it multiplied the
festivals of the calendar, for the sake of the people. By augmenting
the number of religious solemnities, the Church had two motives: the
first, to bring more frequently to the foot of the altar an ignorant
and gross multitude, who there found the instruction necessary for
the amelioration of their morals and the consolation of their evils;
the second, to procure some days of repose for that crowd of serfs,
condemned by the avarice of their masters to labours which had no end,
and of which they did not gather the fruit.[109]
Amidst wars which revived without ceasing, the peasantry often found
an asylum near a monastery inhabited by peaceful men, and protected by
the opinions of the times. Nothing can prove better the ascendancy of
the Church, than seeing, on one side, the nobility shut up in their
strong castles, and on the other, cenobites dwelling in cloisters
scarcely closed, and defended only by faith and confidence. As might be
expected, the peace which reigned in the neighbourhood of monasteries
attracted a numerous population around them. Many towns, and even
cities, owed their origin to the vicinity of a monastery, whose name
they still preserve.
The maxims of the clergy, more perhaps than their example, contributed
to the enfranchisement of serfs. Gregory the Great, when giving liberty
to some slaves, said that the Redeemer came upon earth to release
men from slavery, and to substitute the rights of the people for the
code of servitude. In the middle ages, many charters of liberty were
granted for “the love of God,—for the salvation of the soul,—for the
remission of sins.” It was at the hour of death, and by testamentary
dispositions, that most enfranchisements were granted; from which we
may conclude that it was the work of the priests who assisted the
dying. The clergy represented the enfranchisement of slaves as a thing
agreeable to God; the ceremony of manumission was performed in the
church as a solemn religious act. It was at the foot of the altars
that the holy words were pronounced which broke the bonds of slavery.
Thus everything announced that the spirit of the Gospel was everywhere
mingled with the progress of civilization, and that the liberty of
modern nations was to be one of the blessings of Christianity.
There was another mode of gaining liberty, which was by entering into
holy orders, or to take vows in a monastery. So great a number of
slaves escaped by that means from the yoke of their masters, that this
custom was obliged to be restrained, and at last entirely abolished,
in almost all the states of Europe. The crusades often bestowed upon
the serfs the same privileges that the clergy did. Beneath the banners
of the cross, serfs found the enfranchisement they had before found in
monasteries. This facility which peasants possessed, of breaking their
chains by going to the Holy Land, would have depopulated the plains, if
new regulations had not placed restrictions and limits to it.
It has been said that the clergy became enriched by the crusades. This
assertion, which has been so often repeated by the writers of the last
century, requires to be examined by the impartiality of history. The
clergy were rich at the period of the first crusade. Their enemies
accused them for a long time of having usurped immense properties. In
France, under the two first races, their wealth had given umbrage to
the barons, who had several times despoiled them, under the pretext
that they did not defend the state, and that the property they held
belonged to them whose bravery watched over the safety of the kingdom.
If the crusades enriched the clergy, it might be supposed that the
clergy would be most rich in countries which took the greatest part in
the crusades. Now, the clergy of Germany, and several other states of
Europe, surpassed in wealth the clergy of the kingdom of France, where
the crusades excited so much enthusiasm, and caused so many warriors
to take arms. The clergy, it is true, found new possessions in the
East; but, after the crusades, nothing of them was left but vain titles.
The first crusade must have been, as we have said, very profitable to
the clergy; they were not obliged to pay the expenses of it; the zeal
of the faithful furnished them. Nevertheless they did take part in
this crusade; and the priests who set out, with the other Crusaders,
certainly did not enrich themselves in their pilgrimage. Many, no
doubt, shared the fate of Robert, abbot of St. Remi, the historian of
the first crusade, who, on his return from Jerusalem, was expelled by
his monks for having ruined his convent.
At the second crusade, contributions were levied upon the churches,
without any regard to the warm remonstrances of the ecclesiastics.
From that time an opinion, which became very injurious to the clergy,
was established throughout the Christian world, which was, that wars
undertaken for the glory of Jesus Christ and the deliverance of the
holy places, ought to be paid for by the Church. Tributes were at
once levied upon the clergy, without consulting any other authority,
or following any other regulations than those of necessity and
circumstances. To reckon from the third crusade, after the publication
of the _Saladin tenth_, more regular imposts were established, which
were fixed by the popes or councils, and which were collected with such
rigour, that churches were despoiled of their ornaments, and sometimes
the sacred vases were put up to sale. It is true that the clergy
sometimes received offerings and bequests from those who went to the
Holy Land, or had made a vow to go; but what did such tributes of piety
amount to when compared to the tributes they themselves were compelled
to pay? We do not hesitate to affirm that, in the space of two hundred
years, the clergy paid towards the holy wars more money than would
have been required to purchase all their property; and thus the zeal
of ecclesiastics for the deliverance of the holy places was observed
perceptibly to cool; and it may be said that the indifference which
followed among Christian nations the ardour for the crusades, began by
the clergy. In Germany, and many other countries, their discontent
was carried so far, that at last the popes did not dare to trust the
preaching of crusades to the bishops, and only gave this mission to the
mendicant orders, who possessed nothing, and had nothing to pay for the
expeditions against the infidels.[110]
It has been said that the clergy took advantage of the crusades to
buy at low prices the property of the nobility, as, in our days, we
have seen many people take advantage of a revolution, to purchase at
a moderate price the property of the clergy themselves. We find, in
fact, examples of such acquisitions in the first crusades; but these
examples must have been more rare in the holy wars, of which the
clergy were obliged to pay the expenses.[111] The great advantage that
the clergy had over the nobility was, that the nobles were able to
pawn or alienate their possessions, and that ecclesiastics were never
allowed to pledge or alienate their property. Another advantage the
clergy possessed was, that they formed a body always animated by the
same spirit, and always governed by the same laws. Whilst everything
changed around them, they never changed. It was thus they resisted the
revolution which was effected in property.
We have seen, that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a
great number of monasteries were established. By that means wild,
uncultivated places became fertile lands; and these conquests made
over the desert added to the domains of the clergy. We must likewise
add, that the jurisdiction of the clergy, which every day made fresh
progress, was for them a source of wealth. It was in the nature of
things, as we have already remarked, that the most enlightened
class should become the richest. The clergy had therefore no need of
profiting by the ruin of the Crusaders in order to become rich; their
knowledge, their spirit of order and economy, _with the ascendancy they
possessed over the people_, offered them ample means for increasing or
preserving their possessions.
Everybody, besides, had reason to rejoice at seeing the clergy acquire
wealth; for this wealth belonged to everybody. In fact, every man could
enter into the clergy, and the clergy belonged to all families. This
order, so powerful in the middle ages, was as a natural link, as an
intermediate point, which drew together and united all the classes of
society. In the quarrels which jealousy sometimes raised between the
clergy and the nobility, the great vassals reproached the ecclesiastics
with being _the children of serfs_. It was not uncommon to see men
who had issued from the lowest class of the people, in the highest
functions of the Church; a certain proof that the clergy offered
every one a way by which he might elevate himself, and that they thus
assisted in reëstablishing the harmony destroyed by feudal inequality.
The clergy—such as our fathers saw it—only now exists in the memory
of men.[112] In proportion as this institution, with all the advantages
we have spoken of, shall be further removed from us, we shall perhaps
become the more aware of its value. There are things of which we judge
more favourably when memory recalls them to us, than when they are
present.
After a revolution which has ruined so many families, in which so many
hopes have been deceived,—at a time in which a numerous youth is
crowded in the confined circle of public employments,—in which the
divers professions, among the enlightened class, by no means suffice
for the vast number of the candidates,—let me ask whether the Church,
with its riches and its consolatory morality, would not be as a port
in the storm,—as a refuge always open for those to whom the world has
nothing to give? At a time in which everything is uncertain, moving,
and transitory,—in which no man is sure of his destiny, who but must
envy those men whose fate never changed,—who lived always in the same
manner,—who saw the present without complaining,—to whom the future
gave no uneasiness, and who might justly be compared to the young
ones of the birds, of which Scripture speaks? If I durst utter all my
thought—and I speak less in the name of religion than in the names of
philosophy and humanity—I should even regret those austere retreats,
open to piety, and consecrated by peace and prayer. There, at least,
a shelter was found from the passions which disturb society, as they
trouble the heart of man. Why, in fact, should there not be hospitals
for the miseries of the soul, as there are for other human infirmities?
Why are not they who have suffered from the storms of life, and whose
heart is torn by deep wounds, to find a refuge against their ills, as
well as those whom indigence overtakes, or as well as the war-mutilated
soldier? Who does not know that great revolutions, like great griefs,
inspire a desire for concealing existence, and seeking repose in
solitude? “When the storm growls,” says Pythagoras, “worship echo.” Let
us look back to the times which preceded the middle ages,—to those
times in which the world was ready to fall to pieces with the Roman
empire: it was at this deplorable epoch that the deserts of the Thebais
were peopled with pious cenobites, who were no longer able to support
the spectacle of human passions. It was not only simple and vulgar
men who flocked to the solitudes of Cetteus and Memphis, but learned
men, warriors,—men who had been seen in the courts of emperors.
Whilst society was shaken to its foundations,—whilst disorder and
corruption spread their baneful influence everywhere, elevated minds,
whom this state of things drove to despair, went to bury themselves in
retirement, embracing the altars of that Christian religion which was
the only support left to unfortunate virtue, and was the last hope of
civilization.
The swords of knights and the maxims of the clergy, as we have seen,
contended with advantage against the excesses of barbarism; but no
institution had yet attained sufficient consistence to guarantee
the security of European societies. In spite of all efforts for the
reëstablishment of order, anarchy still subsisted. In order to know
what, either in an age or a people, is the spirit of civilization, it
is sufficient to be acquainted with the progress that has been made
in that same age, or among that same people, in the administration of
justice. Of all the monuments the human mind can raise, a civil and
criminal code is that which requires the most extensive knowledge, and
the profoundest acquaintance with the passions of man.
In the middle ages, society, immersed in darkness, had lost the lessons
and examples of antiquity in all which concerned judicial order; and
found itself, in a manner, reduced to the experience of the barbarians.
When the barons usurped from the crown the right of administering
justice, there were as many jurisdictions in France as there
were lordships. Judicial administration then lost that spirit of
_wholeness_, that uniformity, which gives weight and rectitude to its
decisions. Judgment was no longer given but according to local customs,
or uncertain traditions.[113] When, in the seventeenth century, the
judicial customs and traditions which had been found in preceding ages
were collected, there were found two hundred and eighty-five of them;
a certain proof that in the times of which we speak, there could be no
fixed rule, and that anarchy had invaded the sanctuary of justice.
Royalty could not watch over seignorial jurisdictions, and the
ordinances of the kings were powerless out of the domains of the crown.
The great vassals had no mutual understanding that might modify or
regulate legislation. It is a remarkable thing that France, after the
decline of the empire of Charlemagne, remained more than two centuries
without recognising any authority to which it could carry its griefs
and its complaints,—without having, either in the person of the
monarch or the assemblies of the great, a power which could establish
regulations, repair injustices, correct abuses, and consecrate the
maxims of experience. If the kingdom was able to subsist for so long
a time in this state, have we not reason to believe that there is in
every society an unknown force, which defends that society against its
own excesses, and saves the people in spite of their passions,—in
spite of all which seems calculated to bring on their ruin?
To decide in civil and criminal causes, there was no other guide, no
other intelligence, but the instincts and the conscience of the judges.
These feeble means were not competent, in complicated cases, to assign
to actions their true intention, or to appreciate the language of
innocence or the denegations of crime. All matters were then treated
according to verbal conventions, and judged according to unwritten
testimonies. Words, often ill-interpreted, sometimes partially
effaced from the memory, frequently contradicted or falsified, could
not enlighten justice. Good faith was implored; the consciences of
witnesses and parties were appealed to; but it was too frequently
perjury that answered, and which commanded the decisions of the judges.
At length, it was believed that an infallible means was discovered for
detecting falsehood and fraud; an appeal was made from the consciences
of men to the justice of Heaven. He who was accused, he whose evidence
was contradicted, submitted to the ordeals of fire, boiling water, or
red-hot iron. It was believed that Heaven would not permit injustice,
and that it would rather suspend the laws of nature than the laws of
society.
These proofs, however, were abandoned to the vulgar; judicial combat
was the ordeal of nobles or of freemen. This species of justice, in
which every warrior had only his own valour as the arbiter of his
destiny, conformed exceedingly well with the military spirit of the age.
So barbarous a custom was generally adopted: not satisfied with having
recourse to judicial combat in criminal cases, civil questions were
subject to its decisions. A gentleman had not only a right to defy
his adversary, he might also challenge the witnesses themselves, and
force sometimes even the judges to descend with him into the arena.
Justice was then only seen in victory, or rather victory became the
sole justice. Thus the Franks, in the crusades, often expressed their
astonishment that God should sometimes allow the Mussulmans to conquer
the Christians.
The sword decided everything; the places where justice pronounced
her decrees resounded with the cries of fury and hatred. They were
stained, by turns, with the blood of the innocent or with the blood
of the guilty, as skill, strength, or fortune favoured the arms of
the combatants. In the face of such combats, how was it possible to
preserve the idea of justice or injustice? Must not ferocity of manners
have increased, and education become unnatural?
We ought, however, to remember the circumstances which brought
about this custom, and which may render it excusable in the eyes of
enlightened philosophy. In the impossibility in which the judges
often found themselves of ascertaining the truth or pronouncing with
certainty, fraud, perjury, and falsehood triumphed over the laws, and
threatened to invade the whole of society. No better means could be
discovered to prevent this misfortune than to terrify imposture and
perfidy, by the preparations, “pomp, and circumstance,” of a judicial
combat. Justice, being unable to reveal herself amidst the darkness
of barbarism, surrounded herself with terrible images, and would only
allow her sanctuary to be approached with mistrust and fear. The terror
which the idea even of a judicial combat inspired, the uncertainty of
such a judgment, must have prevented many contests, and that was a
great advantage. No other more certain means, besides, were to be found
to appease quarrels, which could not be prolonged without perilling
the whole of society. In an age in which the passions were mixed with
everything, it was doubtless important for society that justice should
terminate debates in an equitable manner; but it was likewise important
that these debates should terminate promptly.