At the first aspect, we only see in this custom a privilege and a

monstrous employment of physical force. But without this employment

of physical force, the world was perhaps likely to become the prey of

perjured, faithless men. We ought then to sigh less over this revolting

abuse than over the state of society in which it appeared necessary,

in order to prevent abuses still more revolting. It required much

trouble afterwards to reform the judicial combat. The prejudices most

difficult to be destroyed are those in which bravery and the point of

honour believe themselves interested. Neither the power of kings, nor

religion, nor philosophy, have been able to abolish duels among modern

nations; and duels, in some respects, are nothing but the justice which

was rendered by the sword in the middle ages.

We have not yet made known all the obstacles which the triumph of

justice met with in the manners and customs of these remote times. The

absence of laws caused great disorders; but the yoke of the laws was

more insupportable to the barons than anarchy itself. The confidence

which the barons felt in their arms, rendered them at least indifferent

to all kinds of legislation. In any society whatever, the men who have

power or force in their hands are seldom the first to appeal to laws;

because nobody can be unjust towards them with impunity, and they have

always the means of doing themselves justice.[114]

Judicial order, as we understand it now-a-days, could be nothing, in

the twelfth century, but an abstraction which did not enter into men’s

minds. The warlike nobility of Europe would have had nothing to do

with any kind of justice which did not present an image of war. The

barons could not form an idea that legislation might be a safeguard for

themselves as well as society. They only felt an injustice as they felt

a wound in the field of battle; and personal resentment was the only

motive which animated them to the pursuit of the guilty. Equity then

scarcely passed for a virtue, but revenge was a duty. There were no

laws against those who were unjust, but there were laws against those

who did not avenge themselves.

With these manners and this character, the barons were not able to

renounce the practice of private wars, which the Franks and other

barbarians had brought with them into Europe. Every noble who fancied

himself attacked in either his honour or his property, took arms to

defend his rights or avenge his quarrel. All the relations and vassals

of the belligerent parties were obliged to take part in the quarrel.

Fields were ravaged, towns and villages were burnt, and it was thus

they demanded or rendered justice. During many centuries Europe was

desolated by these intestine wars. Sanguinary discords, which were

transmitted from generation to generation, became an habitual state,

for which customs and regulations were invoked; and whilst society was

without laws, civil war had its jurisprudence.

It was not easy to remedy such vast disorders. How could force be

disarmed, and despoiled of a prerogative it seemed to prefer to all

other privileges? Society, such as it then was, had but one single

power capable of counterbalancing that of the warlike passions which

desolated Europe; this was the force of religious ideas and the

ascendancy of Christianity. The authority of councils was invoked

against private wars; the saints were made to speak; superstition

itself was called in; visions, revelations, and prodigies were had

recourse to. The Church put forth all its threats and launched all its

thunders. These means sometimes suspended the progress of the evil,

but the principle of discord always subsisted. It was not possible

to put an end to private wars, but they were at length suppressed

during certain days of the week; and all the good that such a powerful

religion could do was to bring about the adoption of the Truce of God.

It was here the crusades wonderfully seconded the zeal of the clergy.

Whenever war was declared against the Saracens, discords were all

at once appeased, as if by miracle, and Europe remained in profound

silence before the standard of the cross.

The efforts of the clergy, however, in conjunction with some other

favourable circumstances, were destined in the end to bring about the

triumph of justice and humanity. Before civil justice was established,

the Church possessed a holy jurisdiction which judged the faithful.

This justice stood in no need of pursuing the guilty; the guilty came

to give themselves up to its judgments: it was not blind, like human

justice; the most secret folds of the conscience developed themselves

before it: it met with no resistance, it excited no murmurs; those

whom it condemned, condemned themselves. To cause its laws to be

executed, and to sanction its decisions, it had the power of remorse,

the fear of an avenging God, the promises of heaven, the menaces of

hell. Such was the tribunal of penitence, which, in the absence of

civil laws, held the place sometimes of other tribunals, and watched

over public order, as a triumph of religion. A tribunal so formidable

necessarily increased the influence of the clergy, and contributed,

no doubt, to extend their jurisdiction even to affairs in which

evangelical morality was not at all interested. People, persuaded that

all justice comes from God, were likely to be led to believe that God

pronounced his least judgments by the organs of his ministers upon

earth. When the popes were reproached with interfering in the policy

of princes, they answered that the acts of that policy might be sins,

and thence these acts came under the pontifical jurisdiction. The

clergy usurped judicial authority in civil affairs, as the sovereign

pontiffs had usurped temporal authority.[115] In the middle ages the

clergy declared themselves arbiters of the just and the unjust; and

as their jurisdiction was much more favourable to humanity, more

conformable to reason than that of the barons, it made rapid progress.

Among the privileges which the popes granted to the Crusaders, that

of being judged by the ecclesiastical laws was placed in the first

rank. The clergy took advantage of the absence, the death, or the

ruin of the nobles who were gone to the crusades, to extend their

jurisdiction, as the commons availed themselves of this circumstance

to obtain their liberty, and kings to increase their power. At last

this jurisdiction became so powerful that it awakened the jealousy of

the feudal nobility. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the

nobles formed a league against the clergy, and in a manifesto, which

we still possess, they demanded that “they should render to Cæsar that

which belonged to Cæsar.” They forbade their vassals to appeal to the

ecclesiastical tribunals, except in cases of heresy, marriage, and

usury, and threatened delinquents with the loss of their property and

the mutilation of a member. “The clerks,” added they, “enriched at our

expense, shall be brought back to the state of the primitive church and

to a contemplative life, leaving to us the action which becomes us, and

presenting to us the miracles which we have not seen for a long time.”

As the influence of the clergy arose from Christianity, the nobles,

in their manifesto, wished to claim the advantage of having alone

converted the Gauls by their arms. All that they said in support of

this assertion gave reason to predict that they would not triumph in a

contest in which Victory would range herself on the side of knowledge

and intelligence.

This was not an ordinary war, but a veritable war of opinions; and as

the lords had, to sustain it, nothing but their swords, they were at

last obliged to renounce their pretensions.

The society of Europe, however, arrived at that period so fatal to

nations, at that crisis, almost always a sanguinary one, in which

new opinions and old opinions declare an obstinate war against each

other; in which all that is new ferments, and is agitated violently; in

which all that is ancient resists, and falls to pieces with a crash.

For a length of time old laws were powerless; and the laws which

were endeavoured to be established, had, in their execution, neither

the force that is acquired by habit, nor that which is conferred by

experience. A universal crisis was experienced throughout Europe; and

the West, troubled by revolutions and civil wars, was, for a moment,

upon the point of falling back into the darkness and chaos of the tenth

century.

It was at this period that was established in Germany the imperial

chamber, instituted for the purpose of appeasing discords and

repressing brigandage. In Arragon the tutelary authority of the

_justiza_ was created, who was armed against license with all the power

of a dictator. In all countries brotherhoods and associations were

formed against the excesses of anarchy. It was in France, above all,

that the necessity was felt to call in justice to the support of shaken

social order, and to place it under the safeguard of royalty. Royal

power was born, in some sort, amongst the perils and fears of society.

There is an instinct which, in moments of crisis, guides people towards

the authority which is to protect them; and this authority becomes

all-powerful, from the reason that its assistance is implored, and that

it is the object of all hopes.

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction had already dealt a mortal blow to

feudal justice. The study of the Roman law caused something of the

experience of the ancients to revive among nations scarcely escaped

from barbarism. A new judicial order sprang up in Europe, particularly

in France.[116] This judicial order was at first very complicated, in

consequence of that natural disposition of men of the pen and of the

robe to multiply forms in all affairs. To follow the clue through the

labyrinth of the new laws, the barons were deficient in knowledge, and

more particularly in patience. If it be true that lawyers complicated

legislation in order to remain the sole interpreters of it, their hopes

were not deceived; for they in the end took the places of the feudal

nobles in judicial functions.

It is true that seignorial justices were not abolished; but an appeal

was permitted from their decisions to the judgment of the crown. There

were, besides, cases in which the justice of the barons was found

incompetent, and as this incompetence was almost always judged of

by the jurisdiction of the king, the latter finished by attracting

to itself most of the causes of any weight or importance. As it is

otherwise important that justice should be protected by a force that

can make it respected, as the power of the barons declined, and as

that of the king increased daily, the royal jurisdiction prevailed,

and custom sanctioned the maxim that all justice emanates from the

king. When once this maxim was recognised and proclaimed in all

the provinces, Beaumanier was right in saying, “that the king was

sovereign over everything, and that he had by right the general

guardianship of the kingdom.”

It was at this period arose that French magistracy which afterwards

became so eminent. The parliaments exhibited the frankness and loyalty

of old times, united with the intelligence of modern times. They

sometimes defended the rights of the people against the crown, and were

often a buckler for the crown against factions. Perhaps their roots did

not strike deeply enough into the society whose rights they defended.

The fundamental laws of the kingdom had neither regulated their rights,

nor fixed with precision the limits of their power. Their authority

was due less to written constitutions than to that want of justice

which is felt among civilized people, than to that supreme ascendancy

which they almost always obtain whose function it is to be exponents of

the law. We have seen parliaments perish amidst public disorders, for

which they themselves gave the imprudent signal. They saw the faults

of administration, but they were deficient in positive knowledge to

point out the proper remedy: they appealed to the people, and factions

answered; they invoked liberty, and the revolution burst forth. Now,

when this magistracy no longer exists among us, and that it can have

no place in the order of things which events have given birth to, it

appears to us the moment is come for everybody to be just towards it,

and to praise that noble disinterestedness, that enlightened firmness,

that inflexible probity, which formed its principal character. “It is

for the observer of the present period,” says an English writer, “and

not for the historian of past times, to decide if those virtues which

distinguished the ancient French magistracy are sufficiently common

now-a-days, not to be remembered with great praise, and exhibited to

our contemporaries as useful examples.”

In the revolution which was effected, we are astonished that the barons

showed so little foresight; they opposed the privileges of an order of

things which no longer existed, when, without their intervention and

without their concurrence, a new order of things was established; the

greater that was their need of union to defend themselves, the more

obstinacy they showed for maintaining the too fatal privilege of making

war upon each other. The habit of warlike and feudal manners made

them prefer to all other functions the occupation of arms, which they

considered, with reason, as the most glorious career; but which ruined

them, kept them in their ignorance, and drove them from affairs, whilst

others enriched themselves in peaceful employments, exercised their

faculties usefully, and employed themselves exclusively with power.

In the end, the nobility, after the most generous sacrifices, became

nothing but an aristocracy without action in the government, whilst

those who lent a hand to the administration became really the masters.

The revolutions we have just described have made us for a moment

forget the crusades; the holy wars, however, may be reckoned

among the causes which ameliorated legislation. The departure of

the Crusaders gave occasion for a number of actions; precautions

against fraud were multiplied; public notaries were called in; the

use of charters,—called _chartres chirographaires_, or _chartres

parties_,—was adopted, or rather revived. We have already said that

many regulations were made to limit the numbers of the Crusaders, and

these regulations were so many laws added to those which existed. The

Crusaders, whilst passing through distant countries, might remark

many wise customs, which they brought back into their own country.

Villehardouin informs us with what astonishment the French nobles, on

their arrival at Venice, beheld the senate, the doge, and the people

deliberating in their presence. This spectacle could not fail to

enlighten them. When the Latins were masters of Constantinople, they

there became acquainted with the legislation of Greece; in Palestine,

the Assizes of Jerusalem gave them an idea of a legislation less

imperfect than their own; the code which for a long time governed

the Christian colonies led Louis IX. to think of making a collection

of laws, which he did not, it is true, put in practice, but which no

doubt spread much useful information. The example of St. Louis, and the

encouragement that jurisconsults received on his return from Egypt,

contributed to create among the people the love of justice; and this

love of justice, which began to be felt among all classes, was the best

guarantee of a nascent civilization.

Skilful writers have gone over before us this epoch, so abundant in

great events and in lessons of policy. They have shown how royalty

rose from the bosom of disorder; how legislation progressively

prevailed over anarchy; and how several states of Europe—particularly

France—attained that degree of strength and splendour in which we

have seen them during the eighteenth century. There would remain

but very little for us to say, after the great publicists who have

preceded us, if recent revolutions had not broken forth to enlighten

us. The experience of the present times has thrown a new light over

past ages; and we are better acquainted with the nature and origin of

old institutions, since we have seen them sink into ruins. The tree of

our ancient monarchy has not been able to resist the concussions which

have shaken society; its branches have strewed the earth, and its roots

have been laid bare. It then became easy for us to see by what secret

conduits strength and life had been circulated; how had grown, and how

had fallen,—

“That tree whose head approached to heaven,

And whose feet touched the empire of the dead.”[117]

After having gone through the different classes of society, and shown

the origins of our institutions during the crusades, we are about to

see what was, at the same period, the progress of navigation, commerce,

industry, the sciences, letters, the arts, and general knowledge.

Before the twelfth century, the seas of Europe and Asia, with the

exception of the Mediterranean, were scarcely frequented even by

the nations who dwelt upon their shores. At the period of the first

crusades, that which formed the kingdom of France had but two or three

ports upon the coast of Normandy, and had not a single one upon the

ocean, or the Mediterranean, when, in the seventh crusade, Louis IX.

caused that of Aigues-Mortes to be dug.[118] England was scarcely more

advanced; that kingdom abandoned the navigation of the seas which

surrounded it to pirates. It appeared that the world was not yet

large enough for the ambition and genius of the English nation, which

at the present day dominates over all the known seas. Some cities

on the shores of the Baltic, of Holland, Flanders, and Spain, made

maritime expeditions, but which scarcely deserve to be described in

the history of the crusades. When the crusades began, the spirit of

devotion, united with that of commerce, gave a new and more extended

direction to the voyages and labours of navigators. The inhabitants of

Denmark appeared in the seas of Syria; and Norwegians, who came by sea,

assisted at the taking of Sidon. Citizens of Lubeck and Bremen were

present at the siege of Ptolemaïs. From all the coasts of the West,

vessels and fleets transported pilgrims, provisions, and arms into the

kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Christian principalities established

in Asia by the victories of the Crusaders.

Thus navigators from all countries met in the seas of the East. It

was, in some sort, under the auspices of the cross, that advantageous

relations began to be established among the maritime nations of Europe.

At the commencement of the twelfth century, a fleet of Pisans, joined

with some other Italians, came to assist the Arragonese in conquering

the Balearic Isles. The navigators of Italy were so little acquainted

with the seas of Spain, that they took the coasts of Arragon for the

country of the Moors. This first alliance between distant nations was

the work of a crusade preached by Pope Pascal III., and seconded by a

great number of knights of Provence and Languedoc.

The navigators of Lubeck, Bremen, and Denmark, after having tried their

strength in long voyages, took advantage of the experience they had

gained, to visit the unknown seas of the Baltic. These new enterprises

presented to their pious zeal and their ambition a nearer sea, and

savage peoples which they might bring under their faith, and make

subservient to their commercial views. Maritime expeditions were mixed

with the crusades preached against nations still living in a state of

paganism. At the aspect of the cross and the flag of navigators, rich

cities sprang up, and barbarous regions began to be acquainted with the

blessings of civilization.

It was at this period that navigation opened for itself a new career,

and saw the theatre of its useful labours expand. Nothing could have

favoured its progress like the communication that was then established

between the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Spanish Ocean, and the seas

of the north. By uniting nations in pursuit of the same advantages,

it multiplied their relations, their ties, and their interests, and

redoubled their emulation. In this career thus opened to all the

nations of Europe, practical knowledge became rectified, was much

increased, and spread everywhere; the configuration of coasts, the

position of capes, ports, bays, isles, &c. &c., were all ascertained;

the depth of the ocean was fathomed; the direction of winds, currents,

and tides was observed; much information was gained upon all the

points of hydrography, and very soon that ignorance of the eleventh

and twelfth centuries was dispersed, which had occasioned so many

shipwrecks, that the chroniclers of the times of the first crusades, as

they tremblingly recount them, can only ascribe them to the anger of

Heaven.

We would here speak of the mariner’s compass, if the period of its

invention could be ascertained clearly. A passage of James of Vitry,

which we have elsewhere given, does not permit us to doubt that the

properties of the loadstone were known in the time of the crusades, and

that navigators derived great assistance from it in their long voyages;

but, on the other hand, there is nothing to prove that the use of the

mariner’s compass was then general. We may believe that so valuable a

discovery was still a secret for the vulgar, and that those who were

in possession of this secret, only sought to profit by it for their

own interest, without thinking of the advantages that might be drawn

from it for the progress of navigation. We will add that that which has

happened to the mariner’s compass, has happened also to most of the

inventions of industry, of which history can rarely assign the epochs,

because their authors, from a spirit of cupidity or jealousy, have not

only not promulgated them, but have concealed them carefully from the

knowledge of their contemporaries.

Naval architecture was much improved during the crusades. The vessels

were greatly enlarged, to enable them to contain the multitudes of

pilgrims to be transported. The dangers incidental to long voyages,

caused the ships destined for the East to be constructed in a more

solid manner. The art of setting up several masts in the same vessel,

the art of multiplying the sails, and of disposing them so as to

enable the ship to sail against the wind, were the happy fruit of the

emulation which then animated navigators.

Thus the activity and the genius of man triumphed over all obstacles,

commanded the elements, and took possession of the empire of the sea.

But this empire, like that of the land, was, in the middle ages, a prey

to brigandage and violence; tempests, contrary winds, shipwrecks, were

not the only evils to be apprehended in long voyages. On every sea no

right was known but the right of the strongest, and the absence of a

maritime code added greatly to the perils of distant navigation.

The necessity for a legislation that might assure the interests and the

freedom of navigators was strongly felt. It was Spain that furnished

the first model of one. At the commencement of the twelfth century a

code of maritime rights was drawn up by the ancient _prudhommes_[119]

of the Sea of Barcelona. The Venetians adopted it in an assembly held

at St. Sophia, in 1255. This code was afterwards adopted by the Pisans

and Genoese, and, under the name of the Consulat of the Sea, became the

common law or right of the eastern seas. Another code, published at

first by Eleanor of Guienne, and afterwards by Richard Cœur-de-Lion,

under the title of “Rolls of Oleron,” obtained the assent of several

maritime nations, and was at last accepted in all the seas of the West.

Protected by this code, navigators were enabled to gather the fruit of

their long labours, and soon disputed advantageously the empire of the

Mediterranean with the infidels. If Italy and several other countries

of the West escaped the yoke of the Saracens, they owed their safety

more to the superiority of their fleets than to that of their armies.

I have spoken in the preceding book of the discovery of America, and

of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. It is probable

that, without the crusades, the genius of navigators would, although

later, have surmounted the immense space and numberless dangers that

separated the Baltic and the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean,

and the Old World from the New. We may at least say that the distant

expeditions and the perilous enterprises undertaken beneath the banners

of the cross, prepared the way for the last prodigies of navigation,

by opening everywhere new routes for industry, and, above all, by

favouring the progress of commerce, the natural and necessary link

between the divers nations and the different countries of the globe.

Each climate has its productions; and this diversity of riches creates

for men an obligation for exchanges. This obligation for exchanges

produces communication among all nations, so that in time the most

widely-separated regions cannot remain unknown to each other. It may

truly be said, that Providence has thus placed various productions in

different climates, that it has denied to some countries what it has

granted to others, to create for men dispersed over the face of the

earth, the necessity for reciprocally seeking each other, for trading

to supply their mutual wants, for communicating their knowledge, and

for marching together towards civilization.

In the middle ages, the indolent and effeminate Greeks neglected

to bring into the West the merchandises of Asia. The Saracens only

anchored on the coasts of Europe, to bring thither the scourges of war.

The commerce of the West went to seek that which was not brought to it;

and frequent voyages to the East were all for the profit of the West.

A long time before the crusades, the merchandises of India and Asia

had arrived in Europe, sometimes by land, crossing the Greek empire,

Hungary, and the country of the Bulgarians; but more frequently by the

Mediterranean, in which were all the ports of Italy. These routes were

both made more familiar by the holy wars, and from that time nothing

could stop the rapid progress of commerce, protected in its march by

the standard of the cross.

Most of the maritime cities of the West not only got rich by furnishing

Europe with the productions of the East, but they found further a

considerable advantage in the transport of pilgrims and Christian

armies. Fleets followed along the coasts of the countries in which the

Crusaders were fighting, and sold them the munitions of war and the

provisions of which they always stood in need. Thus commerce brought

back into Europe a part of the treasures which the princes and barons,

who ruined themselves to go and fight the infidels, carried into Asia.

All the wealth of the maritime cities of Syria, and even of Greece,

belonged to merchants of the West. They were the masters of a great

part of the Christian cities of Asia; we know what was the share of the

Venetians after the taking of Constantinople. They possessed all the

isles of the Archipelago, and half of Byzantium. The Greek empire was

as another Venice, with its laws, its fleets, and its armies.

The Latins soon lost Constantinople, Jerusalem, and most of the

countries which submitted to their arms. Commerce, more fortunate,

preserved its conquests after the crusades. The city of Tana, built at

the mouth of the Tanais, became for Venice a colony, which opened for

her useful relations with Persia and Tartary, and which dominated in

the markets of Tauris, Trebizond, Bagdad, and Bassora. Some Genoese,

assembled in a little city of the Crimea,—Caffa, at the time even when

the Turks were threatening Europe, employed themselves in working the

mines of the Caucasus, and receiving the treasures of India by way of

Astracan. European commerce established stores even among nations that

made cruel war against the Christians. The terror which the Mamelukes

inspired did not prevent colonies of merchants establishing themselves

in Egypt. Africa, particularly the coast of the Mediterranean, was

all subservient to their mercantile ambition, and the places which

St. Louis had not been able to conquer, became tributaries to their

industry.

Whilst the commerce of all parts of the world was thus placed in the

hands of a few maritime cities, many of the great kingdoms of Europe

were still strangers to it. England, which had no other wealth but its

wools, gladly received in its capital the merchandises of Asia, brought

thither by Italian and Spanish merchants. The cities of France took but

little part in the commerce of the East. The crusades were the work

of the French; others gathered the fruits of them. Marseilles was, in

the middle ages, the only French city which kept up any relation with

distant nations. This city founded by the Phocians, for the sake of

the commerce with the Gauls, had never ceased to turn its eyes towards

the places of its origin, and have commercial relations with Syria

and Greece. Spain, whose industry developed itself early, took more

advantage from the crusades, and, towards the end of the holy wars, the

Spaniards had warehouses upon all the coasts of Asia.

No country, however, derived more advantage from the trade of the East

than Italy. This country, which dominated over the Mediterranean, and

which lay open to all parts of the known world, was placed in the most

favourable position. This position, which had formerly facilitated

the conquests of the Romans, assisted the nations of Italy in their

new enterprises, and subdued the world to their speculations, as it

had subdued it to their arms. Whilst their fleets set out for the

East, they sent into Europe, not legions and proconsuls, as Rome had

done, but caravans of merchants, who subdued the provinces they passed

through to the calculations and the wants of commerce. These merchants

disposed of, by their industrious traffic, all the money which then

circulated in the West. In all countries they had numerous colonies and

considerable establishments. Europe has no great cities in which the

name of the Lombards, given to a street, to a quarter, does not, even

at the present day, attest the long sojourn of the Italian merchants.

We cannot help admiring this power of commerce; but it had likewise its

principle of destruction. What rivalries, what jealous passions, did it

not give birth to daily! Pacific conquests were contended for without

ceasing, swords in hand. In this struggle many cities succumbed; Pisa

was destroyed by Genoa; Genoa, in her turn, could not maintain its

rivalry against Venice. Another rock for these commercial powers, was

the mobility of the commerce which had elevated them, and which carried

unceasingly its favours and its gifts from one place to another. If

commerce changed its route or its direction, that was quite enough to

make a city prosper, or to precipitate its fall. In the middle ages,

a crowd of cities disappeared, without discord or war having at all

contributed to their ruin. It appeared as if fortune took a pleasure

in destroying her own work, and as if she disdained on that account to

associate herself with human passions.

It is not possible to separate the progress of industry and even of

agriculture from that of commerce. To ascertain what industry and

agriculture could gain by relations with the East, it would perhaps be

sufficient to ascertain in what state these two sources of prosperity

then were among the Orientals. Among so many travellers, there were,

doubtless, some who had an interest in observing the usages and

practices of the distant countries they visited. We know that in the

expeditions of the Crusaders, such as were masters of a trade, or were

skilful in a mechanical art, were enrolled in preference to others.

These industrious pilgrims did not always make a voyage barren of

advantages for their country; and in those holy wars, in which the

knights of the cross only sought victory and renown, industry, if I

may venture to say so, had also its crusade, whose peaceful trophies

consisted in precious discoveries, stolen from the Greeks or the

Saracens, and in the happy imitation of that which they had admired in

the arts of the East.

The Saracens had manufactures of stuffs before the crusades. At

Damascus, and in the cities of Egypt, metals were worked with greater

perfection than in the West. Old chronicles inform us that the

Christians of Palestine went sometimes to Damascus to purchase arms.

Joinville relates that, being on a pilgrimage to our lady of Tortosa,

he bought at Tripoli some camlets, fabricated in that city. He sent

some pieces of them to Queen Marguerite, who, he tells us, at first

took them for relics, and fell on her knees to receive them; but upon

discovering her mistake arose, saying, “Mischief upon the seneschal!

who has made me kneel to his camlets.”[120] Joinville was directed by

Louis IX. to purchase a quantity of this stuff, which proves that the

manufactory in which it was fabricated had some reputation.

There were at this period, in the same city of Tripoli, and in several

cities of Greece, a great number of silk-looms, the produce of which

must have excited great attention in the merchants and pilgrims who

visited the East. About the middle of the twelfth century, Roger II.,

king of Sicily, caused several of these looms to be transported to

Palermo; this was the fruit of an expedition to the coasts of Greece.

The mulberry-tree flourished and multiplied under the beautiful sky of

Italy, as well as under that of the Morea, and this useful conquest

gave the Sicilians the means of soon surpassing the industry of the

Greeks. The principal workshop was placed in the palace of the kings,

as if to display the richness and magnificence of this new art.

Many useful inventions came to us at this period from the countries

of the East. Some writers affirm that windmills were known in Europe

before the crusades; but we should remember that they might have been

due to the early pilgrimages into Asia, which it is so difficult to

separate, upon such matters, from the holy wars.[121]

Tyre was at this time famous for its glass. The sand found in its

vicinity gave to the fabrication of glass a perfection unknown in other

countries. The use of glass was much more common in Palestine than in

the West. The Venetians obtained from Tyre the idea of their beautiful

works in glass, so celebrated in the middle ages.

The Crusaders, as has been seen in this history, always evinced great

surprise at witnessing the explosion of the Greek fire. But what

appears very strange, they never seemed to envy the Saracens this great

advantage. The Frank warriors, in the field of battle, preferred the

sword and lance to a means of fighting which, in their minds, took away

something from personal bravery. It is not at all improbable, however,

that the Greek fire, in the end, furnished the idea of gunpowder; an

invention fatal to humanity, but which placed a formidable weapon in

the hands of European society, when threatened by the Turks and Tartars.

We have already spoken of the maize, or Turkish wheat, sent into Italy

by Boniface of Montferrat, in the fourth crusade. The Damascus plum was

brought at the same time into Europe by a duke of Anjou, who visited

Jerusalem. Our gardens owe to the holy wars the ranunculus, so prized

by Orientals, and shalots, which take their name from Ascalon; the

knowledge, or rather the use of saffron, alum, and indigo, in Europe,

may be traced to the times of the crusades.

We may remember with what delight the Crusaders saw for the first time

the sugar-canes of the territory of Tripoli. The plant was transported

to Sicily, about the middle of the twelfth century. It is not correct,

however, to say that it passed from thence into the new world. If

the Spaniards afterwards transported the sugar-cane to the island

of Madeira, we may believe they found it in the kingdom of Granada,

whither the Moors had brought it from Africa. But it is also probable

that notice was only taken of this plant because the taste for sugar

was widely spread, and that the substance, which was brought from

Egypt, became an important branch of commerce. It is thus we may render

honour to the crusades.

Natural history, which is connected with the progress of industry and

agriculture, was enriched likewise by some useful notions. Distant

climates not only exchanged their vegetable productions, but the

crusades procured for Europe an acquaintance with several animals of

Africa and Asia. We have mentioned that the Mamelukes of Egypt sent

Louis IX. an elephant, of which the French monarch made a present to

the king of England. A short time after the first expedition of Louis

IX., Bibars sent to Mainfrey, son of Frederick II., several Mogul

prisoners, with their horses, which were of Tartar breed. Among the

Oriental productions which the Egyptian ambassadors were directed to

present to the king of Sicily, was a giraffe, an animal that had never

till that time been seen in the West.

The curious circumstances which we could further produce, would

add nothing to the opinion that must be already entertained of the

happy influence of the crusades upon the progress of agriculture and

industry. The riches of Asia, when brought into Europe, soon gave birth

to a desire for the cultivation of the arts which embellish life, and

of the sciences which double the faculties of man.

In the tenth century, architecture consisted in the construction of

towers, ramparts, and fortresses. In the habitations of the great,

everything was sacrificed to the necessity of providing defences

against an enemy; nothing could be afforded to comfort or magnificence.

The dwellings of the people, even in cities, scarcely protected them

from the injuries of weather or the intemperance of seasons. The

only architectural monuments were those which devotion raised to

ancestors. Before magnificent palaces for princes, or convenient houses

for the rich were thought of, edifices consecrated to religion were

constructed. It is scarcely possible to enumerate the churches and

monasteries built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. According to

the opinion of the time, the most certain mode of expiating sins, was

to build a church or a monastery. Thus architectural monuments arose at

the voice of repentance, and religious inspirations revived, in some

sort, the prodigies which fabulous antiquity attributed to the lyre of

Amphion.

In every city, in every town, the inhabitants made it their pride

to ornament their cathedral, and the altars at which they invoked

the saint whom the parish had chosen for its patron. It may be said

that there was something like patriotism in this pious zeal; for the

basilic, or paternal church, was then the most noble and the most

sensible image of the country.

At the commencement of the crusades, there existed a religious

confraternity composed of men practised in the labours of building;

they travelled about the world, offering their services to the faithful

to build or repair churches. Another confraternity was formed with the

useful design of constructing bridges for pilgrims and travellers. A

chapel or an oratory reminded passengers that the bridge they were

crossing was the work of charity.

The clergy, who were rich, and could only display their opulence in

buildings, made it their glory to erect churches. To complete their

work, they called in the aid of painting and sculpture, which, like

architecture, owed their first encouragement to piety, and whose

earliest masterpieces were consecrated to the ornamenting of the altars

of the Christian religion.

Nothing was more common than to see noble Crusaders, on their departure

for Palestine, or on their return to the West, found a monastery or a

church. Several pilgrims are named, who, on coming back from Jerusalem,

employed their treasures in constructing churches, the form of which

might offer them an image of the holy sepulchre they had visited.

The treasures conquered from the infidels were often appropriated

to such buildings. Before the first crusade, some cities of Italy

undertook an expedition into Africa, and the spoils were reserved

for the ornamenting of churches. We read in an Italian chronicle,

that the Pisans ceded to the Greek emperor Calo-John several cities

which belonged to them in Asia Minor, upon the condition that this

emperor would defray the expenses necessary for the building of the

archbishop’s palace at Pisa, and ornamenting the cathedral of Palermo.

During the crusades, the sight of the monuments of architecture which

were admired in the East, must have awakened the emulation of the

western pilgrims. Nothing could exceed the surprise of the Crusaders

at beholding the city of Constantine. Foucher de Chartres exclaimed in

his enthusiasm: “Oh, what a vast and beautiful city is Constantinople!”

The German historian Gunther likewise expresses his admiration, and

says that such magnificence could not be believed if it were not seen.

The marshal of Champagne relates that the French knights, on seeing

the beautiful towers and the superb palaces of Byzantium, could not

persuade themselves _that there could be such a rich city in all the

world_!

Italy, which derived such advantages from its relations with the

East, profited greatly by the masterpieces of Greece. The inhabitants

of Rome, and of several other cities founded and embellished by the

Romans, had before them remains of antiquity that might serve them as

models. The riches which their commerce brought them furnished them

with the means of encouraging industry and the arts, which assist

in the embellishment of cities. The cities of Italy,—Venice in

particular,—had palaces and sumptuous edifices before the crusades.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the taste for beautiful

architecture changed the face of Italy, and spread by degrees

throughout the rest of Europe.

We must add, however, that the fine arts, with the exception of

architecture, owed very little to the frequent communications with the

East. Painting was despised among the Mussulmans, to whom the Koran

forbade the reproduction of the images of man or of animated beings.

The Latins likewise, as our readers may remember, after the taking of

Constantinople, destroyed most of the monuments raised by the genius

of sculpture, and converted the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles

into pieces of coin.

The indolent and silent character of the orientals was not calculated

to carry music to perfection, as this art bespeaks a lively and warm

imagination in a people; and the Greeks had for a long time lost the

secret of those melodious songs which, in the times of Linus and

Orpheus, charmed the heights of Rhodope and the woods of Mænalus. The

history of music, then, has very little to do with that of the holy

wars. When Italy saw the fine arts revive, they sprang up as a natural

production of the soil, as plants indigenous to the climate; they owed

their splendour to the prosperous state of society, and followed, as a

consequence of the opulence and luxury which commerce and industry had

produced.[122]

The revival of the fine arts announced that of letters. But if it be

true that letters owed a part of their progress to the influence of

the crusades, it must be confessed that the Crusaders did not always

show themselves disposed to profit by them for themselves: nothing can

exceed the ignorance of the Crusaders who then set out for the East.

History informs us that after the taking of Jerusalem, they burnt

at Tripoli a library which contained the most precious monuments of

oriental literature: at the taking of Constantinople, a conflagration

devoured the literary treasures of ancient Greece. The Crusaders beheld

this misfortune with so much indifference, that not one of their

chronicles makes mention of it, and posterity would have been ignorant

of it but for the eloquent complaints of Nicetas.

The science which gained most by these distant expeditions was

doubtless geography. Before the crusades, this science was quite

unknown. Countries, the least distant from each other, had no

intercommunication. Burgundy was scarcely known at Paris; in Burgundy

Paris was considered as a very remote place. The Crusaders who

followed Peter the Hermit were not acquainted with the names of

the cities of Germany and Hungary which they passed through. They

experienced a defeat at Mersbourg, and the contemporary chronicles

that speak of it content themselves with calling the Hungarian city

_Malleville_, or the city of misfortune.

If the Franks scarcely knew their own country, what must have been

their ignorance of the countries of the East? We may judge by the

necessity they felt for taking their guides from among the Greeks, whom

they mistrusted, and by their extreme embarrassment whenever these

guides abandoned them. Several armies perished from want of knowing the

places to which victory conducted them. Most of the chroniclers knew no

more about the matter than the Crusaders; and this it is that renders

it so difficult to follow them in Asia Minor and Syria.

One most remarkable circumstance is, that out of more than two hundred

chronicles that speak of Egypt, we have not been able to find more

than one that makes mention of the Pyramids. James of Vitry, who

sojourned for a long time in Syria, and who appears to have possessed

as much knowledge as was then common to the learned, repeats, in his

descriptions of the East, the fables of Herodotus; such as the history

of the Amazons and that of the phœnix. We can scarcely forbear laughing

at the simple credulity of Joinville, who tells us gravely, in his

memoirs, that the trees of the terrestrial paradise produce cinnamon,

ginger, and cloves, and that these spices are fished out of the waters

of the Nile, whither they have been carried by the winds.

The Crusaders, constantly engaged in fighting, never entertained

the idea of making themselves acquainted with the countries subdued

by their arms. Nevertheless, in consequence of them, religion and

commerce,—the one led by the desire of spreading the Gospel, the

other by the hopes of gaining wealth, opened some new routes, and

gained useful notions concerning the East during the crusades. The

missionaries sent by the court of Rome and by St. Louis travelled over

the vast regions of Asia, and commerce either followed or went before

them in these distant journeys. The accounts of Rubruquis, Asselin,

John Plan Carpin, and Marco Paolo, contain observations of which the

truth and correctness are recognised at the present day.

We may add that the Crusaders, who went from all the countries of

Europe, became acquainted with each other beneath the standard of the

cross. Nations were no longer foreign to each other; which dissipated

the ignorance in which they had been regarding the names of the cities

and provinces of the West.

The geographical charts of this period neither give the configuration

of the globe, nor the extent of countries, nor the position or limits

of emperors; they merely trace, by vague designations, that which

struck travellers most forcibly,—such as the curiosities of each

country, the animals, the buildings, and the various dresses of men.

We have seen a map of the world, which is attached to the chronicle

of St. Denis, and which appears to have been made in the thirteenth

century: we do not find, as in modern maps, the names of the four

cardinal points set down, but on the four sides are written the names

of the principal winds, to the number of twelve. Jerusalem, according

to the opinion of the time, is placed in the centre of the three parts

of the known world; a large edifice surmounted by a cross represents

the holy city. Around this queen of cities, the author of the map has

figured, by other edifices, the cities of Palestine, Syria, Egypt,

&c.: the distances are marked without any attention to exactness; all

appears thrown at random on the paper: this confused mass of edifices

or houses, seems to be less a representation of the universe than the

shapeless picture of a great city, built without plan or regularity.

We may judge by this how completely geography was then in its infancy;

but, at the same time, it renders it evident that it was not quite

neglected, as till that time it had been. Thus, we have a right to

believe they would not stand still there, and that geographical

knowledge would soon advance. In the fourteenth century, the countries

of the East were already much better known, if we may judge by the

chart which Sanuti presented to the pope, and which may be seen in the

collection of the historians of the crusades by Bengars.

The sciences most useful to man, such as medicine, might have made some

progress during the crusades, if the Crusaders had profited by the

knowledge of the Orientals. In medicine particularly, the Arabians had

more positive knowledge than the Latins. At the siege of Ptolemaïs,

we have seen that Saladin sent his physicians to Richard; but we do

not learn that the king of England sent his to Saladin, when he fell

ill. In the first crusade of St. Louis, the physicians who accompanied

the army of the Crusaders understood nothing of the scurvy and other

epidemic diseases, which exercised such ravages in the camp of the

Christians. Their ignorance was not less fatal than the contagion: when

Louis IX. and his warriors became the prisoners of the Mussulmans, the

diseases which desolated them ceased all at once, because they were no

longer attended by their own physicians, but were placed under the care

of the Arabians.

The East then furnished Europe with several processes and remedies from

which modern medicine, for a length of time, derived great advantage.

Cassia and senna came from Asia, and became known in the West at the

period of the crusades. Theriaca, which played so great a part in the

medicine of the middle ages, was brought from Antioch to Venice. Robert

of Normandy, on his return from the Holy Land, after the taking of

Jerusalem, obtained from the school of Salerno a collection of Hygeian

precepts, which became proverbs among all the nations of Europe.

And yet these discoveries, and this knowledge of the Orientals, did

not much enlighten the West in the art of curing. Properly to receive

lessons of experience of this kind, preliminary studies were necessary,

and the physicians of Europe were then too ignorant to profit by the

learning of the Arabians. At this period, religious charity raised a

great number of open asylums for suffering humanity. But this charity,

however admirable, when its object was to attend the sick, and comfort

them in their sufferings, knew but very little of the symptoms or the

character of the numberless diseases which attack the life of man. It

may be safely said, that during the crusades, we received from the East

many more serious diseases than true instruction in medicine. We know

that there were numerous lazar-houses established in Europe in the time

of the crusades; but we know nothing of the remedies employed for the

cure of leprosy. Isolation appears to have been the only curative or

preservative means known for this malady, which many learned physicians

now look upon as mere prejudice. The spirit of devotion richly endowed

lepers, without doing anything for their cure. Leprosy, in the end,

disappeared without the assistance of medicine, and the property

bestowed upon lazar-houses was transferred to the hospitals; which was

advantageous to humanity, and may be set down as one of the benefits of

the crusades.[123]

We will say nothing of the other sciences, which owed still less than

geography and medicine to the holy wars.

The Saracens of Syria were very little enlightened in the middle ages.

In the East, the state of knowledge, like everything else, depended

upon the reign of a great prince; whilst this prince reigned, knowledge

flourished by his influence; at his death, everything returned to

darkness, as the natural state of countries governed by Islamism.[124]

The Franks gained more by their commerce with the Greeks than by that

with the Saracens. The Crusaders established continual relations

between the cities of Italy and the empire of Byzantium. Some sparks of

the genius of the Greeks were glimmering in Italy before the taking of

Constantinople by the Turks.

A college for young Greeks was established at Paris in the reign of

Philip Augustus. In the thirteenth century universities flourished at

Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, in which the Greek language was taught;

and later, the Oriental languages were added, by a decree of the

council of Vienna.

We find in a chronicle of St. Denis these remarkable words:—“This

year, 1257, William, a physician, brought some Greek books from

Constantinople.” Thus, the arrival of some volumes from Greece was an

event worthy of being recorded, and the importance attached to it,

already announced the disposition of men’s minds.

When the Turks became masters of Constantinople, the learned, exiled

from their country, came to establish themselves in Italy, where the

Greek muses formed an alliance with the Latin muses. The venerable

interpreters of antiquity were hailed everywhere with eagerness,

and the communication of their knowledge was repaid by generous

hospitality. Among the distinguished men to whom the muses of ancient

Greece owed an honourable protection, we must not forget Nicholas V.,

who, as the head of the Christians of the West, excommunicated the

Greek Church, and, as a scholar, seemed to have vowed a worship to the

genius of Homer and Plato.[125] Printing, which had then recently been

invented, was employed to preserve the literary treasures brought from

the East, and made them for ever safe from the scythe of Time, the

furies of war, or the hands of barbarians. The Iliad and the Odyssey

found readers in places which had inspired the Æneid; the orations of

Demosthenes were again read amid the wrecks of the forum, where the

learned might believe they still listened to the voice of Cicero. The

genius of the Italians, kindled by the masterpieces of ancient Rome

and of old Athens, produced fresh masterpieces; and Italy presented a

phenomenon which the world will, perhaps, never see again,—that of a

nation which, in the space of a few centuries, obtained twice the palm

of literature in two different languages.

It was from Constantinople we received the philosophy of Aristotle.

We can scarcely say to what extent the true friends of intelligence

ought to congratulate themselves on this head. Aristotle had disciples,

partisans, and martyrs; the philosopher of Stagyra was very near

being preferred to the Bible; the contemners of Aristotle were called

_Biblici_. At that period a mania for subtleties was introduced into

the schools, which dishonoured the teaching of philosophy. Reason was

no longer studied in the mind of man, but in a book; nature was no

longer studied in the universe, but in Aristotle. The schools became

like fencing-matches. In an age in which everything was decided by

violence, the human mind wished to have its species of warfare; so

that victory in most affairs was considered justice; and became, in

the schools, the only reason. We may believe that this philosophy did

not much assist the march of true wisdom; but we must admit, that if it

did, for a moment, lead the human mind astray, it did not quite arrest

its progress. It exercised the faculties of man, and by that means

assisted in their development. At the commencement of societies, it is

less the errors of the mind than its inaction that retains nations in

the darkness of barbarism.

Universities had never been so attended as at this period. The number

of students in the schools of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were said to

amount to ten thousand. The great privileges granted to universities,

prove the esteem in which learning was then held. The doctors disputed

for precedency with knighthood itself. If Bartholo is to be believed,

ten years’ teaching of the Roman law conferred the title of _knight_.

This dignity was called _the knighthood of learning_, and they who

attained it were called _knights-clerks_.

Among all the productions of mind, those which ought to be ranked

first, were such as had for object the preservation of the memory

of events. At all periods of the middle ages, chronicles appeared,

to which were consigned the important facts of history. In many

monasteries were kept registers or journals, in which was inserted

everything remarkable that happened in the various parts of the

world. Monks, in the general assemblies, sometimes communicated

these registers to each other, and this communication assisted them

in rendering their chronicles more complete. In ages less remote

from us, other cenobites have collected, with laborious care, these

same chronicles, concealed in the solitude of cloisters, and have

transmitted them to posterity as the most precious monuments of old

times.

The ancient chroniclers were simple and pious men; they considered

the least falsehood as a mortal sin; they were scrupulous in telling

the truth, when they were acquainted with it. Most of them would have

thought themselves deficient in the duties of an historian, if they had

not gone back to the creation of the world, or at least to the deluge.

Among the events which they relate, they never forgot such as would

strike the vulgar, and which struck themselves; as the revolutions of

nature, famines, prodigies, &c. According to the spirit of their age,

the foundation of a monastery holds a more conspicuous place in their

recitals than that of a kingdom or of a republic. Politics are quite

unknown to them; and everything which astonishes them, everything they

do not easily comprehend, they rarely fail to account for by a miracle.

Such is the character of our old chroniclers; and even when they do not

inform us of that which we desire to know, their simplicity touches us,

and their ingenuousness interests us. When they tell us of wonderful

things which were believed in their times, and of which they appear

fully persuaded, they do nothing but paint themselves and their age.

But we must beware of fancying the Oriental chronicles of the same

period more perfect than our own. We find in them the same spirit of

superstition and credulity, united to that spirit of fatalism which

characterizes the Mussulman faith.

It is quite in vain for us to seek in Arabian historians any of

those thoughts that instruct us in the knowledge of human passions

or political revolutions. They almost always neglect the most

important circumstances of events, in order to describe whimsical

particularities, or to enter into insignificant details; thus, obeying

the spirit of oriental despotism, which wills that man should be always

occupied with little things. When they relate the fall of an empire,

if asked why it has fallen, they reply: “God knows, God has willed

it so.” In all their chronicles which we have consulted, whenever

the Mussulmans triumph over the Christians, we never find any other

reflection but this: “God is God, and Mahomet is his prophet.” When the

Christians gain a victory, the Mussulman chronicles preserve a perfect

silence, contenting themselves with saying: “May God curse them!”

Oriental historical productions are very far from redeeming this

absence of remark by another merit, such as order, clearness, or

elegance; most of their accounts are nothing but a nomenclature of

facts confusedly arranged. Quotations from the Koran, verses made upon

the occurrence of an event, some comparisons which belong rather to

poetry than history,—such are the only ornaments of their narrations.

We see by this that our chronicles of the middle ages have nothing to

envy in those of the East. Most of them, it is true, are of an extreme

dryness, and have neither precision nor method. But still some few of

them do not appear unworthy of attracting the attention of scholars

and men of taste. As their authors wrote in Latin, we have reason to

believe that the great works of antiquity were not unknown to them, and

in many of their recitals, we may easily perceive they have had models.

History must have made some progress during the crusades. These long

wars between the Christians and the Mussulmans were like a great

spectacle at which Europe and Asia were present. The importance of

the events, and the lively interest which Christendom took in them,

inspired several writers with the desire of retracing the history of

them. A crowd of chroniclers arose in the West, among whom some were

not unworthy of the name of historians. Everybody is acquainted with

William of Tyre, who may be called the Livy of the crusades, Albert

d’Aix, Baudry, archbishop of Dol, Odo of Deuil, and particularly James

of Vitry, in whom we meet with vivid and animated descriptions, a

rapid and flowing style, and a narration almost always elegant:—and,

though last, not least, Villehardouin and Joinville, who wrote in the

French language, and whose memoirs are the earliest monuments of French

literature.

But all these events which presented to historians such rich pictures,

the wonders of nascent institutions, the prodigies of the social world

issuing from the chaos of barbarism, must not only have awakened the

curiosity, they must have struck vividly the minds of new generations.

This grand spectacle, without doubt, contributed to the development of

the faculties connected with the imagination. After having seen the

simple and faithful relations of events, the genius of poets was called

upon to add something to the truthful pictures of the chroniclers.

The troubadours who flourished during the crusades were not likely to

neglect the exploits of so many gallant knights. We hear their voices

constantly mingling with those of the preachers of the holy wars, and

find their poetical fictions everywhere confounded with the narrations

of history.

Among the warriors who went into the East to combat the infidels, a

great number of troubadours and trouvères distinguished themselves. We

have seen the romance of Raoul de Couci, and the verses of Thibault,

count of Champagne. We may add to these names known in the _fasti_ of

the French muses, those of the count of Poictiers, the count of Anjou,

the duke of Brittany, Frederick II., and Richard Cœur-de-Lion. Often

would these princely and lordly Crusaders charm the tediousness of a

long pilgrimage by poetical relaxations and remembrances. The count

of Soissons, when a prisoner with St. Louis, sang the praises of the

dames of France, in the presence and beneath the very swords of the

Saracens. One chronicle relates that at the end of the third crusade,

the duke of Burgundy made a satire against Richard, and that Richard

replied by a poem. The example of these princes was enough to arouse

the emulation of the poets; and as they composed their verses in the

French language, this language, which was then spoken at Jerusalem,

Constantinople, and many other places in the East, must have prevailed

over all contemporary idioms.

The muse of the troubadours celebrated chivalry, love, and beauty;

that of the trouvères, who dwelt on the banks of the Loire, and in

the provinces situated beyond that river, delighted in songs of a

more serious kind. The trouvères had rivals in England and Germany.

These poets had created for themselves an heroic and new world, which

inspired them with noble actions. They celebrated the lofty deeds

of Arthur and Rinaldo, the knights of the Round Table, Charlemagne,

Roland, and the twelve peers of France. They added to these names those

of Godfrey, Tancred, Richard, and Saladin, the remembrance of whom

vividly interested all the Christian nations of the middle ages.

The marvellous, among a people, belongs to their habits, to the effects

of climate, and to the great revolutions of society. In consequence of

the mixture and confusion of divers nations in the middle ages, the

wonderful traditions of the North became confounded with those of the

South, and produced a semi-barbarous mythology, which differed widely

from the laughing mythology of the Greeks. But the labours, the perils,

the exploits of a religious war, of a distant war, like those of the

crusades, must have given a more noble direction to the imagination of

poets, and preserved it from that which was common and whimsical in the

romantic conceptions of a gross age. That which was then passing upon

the real theatre of events, was more extraordinary than the inventions

of poetry; and the marvellous of that period was the more easy to be

seized, from being all to be found in actual history.

A new literature then was born, conforming with the genius of a new

state of society. If this literature, which, to employ the expression

of the learned Heren, bore a character of national and contemporary

originality, had produced great works like the Iliad and the Odyssey,

the muses would have opened for themselves a career unknown to the

ancients; language would have been, from that time enriched, perfected,

fixed by the masterpieces themselves; and history would have spoken of

the age of the crusades, as it speaks to us of the age of Augustus or

Pericles.

Unfortunately, our literature of the middle ages only produced

indifferent poems, which were not able to make us forget the great

works of antiquity. There were none but romantic productions, in which

the interest of the subject was not at all raised by talent, and poems

whose authors, though witty and ingenious, had none of that authority

of genius which carries away the opinions of an age, and even of

posterity.

We have more than one reason for regretting that the human mind did not

open for itself a new career at the period of the crusades. There is

no doubt that the ancients offer us the more perfect models of taste;

but in proportion as people, in the end, became impassioned for the

Greeks and the Latins, modern nations disdained their own antiquities

for those of Athens and Rome. With the study of masterpieces which had

nothing to do with our own glory, the remembrance of our own ancestors

was not at all mixed; and the knowledge they have given us has added

nothing to our patriotism. What an interest and what a value would the

remembrances of our country have had for us, if they had been traced by

a literature, formed according to the manners of the nation, and which

would, in some sort, have commenced with the nation itself!

Most of the romancers, and even the poets of these times, who had no

models and wanted taste, found no other means of interesting their

readers, than by exaggerating the sentiments of chivalry. Imitation,

pushed to the extreme, was taken for reality, and there were found

knights who wished to do that which they saw in romances and poems.

Thence came knight-errantry. Thus, in all times, the state of society

has acted upon literature, and literature, in its turn, has reacted

upon the state of society.

The romances which were consecrated to chivalry and the crusades,

underwent the modifications that manners and customs received; and

this species of composition has come down to our days, expressing, by

turns, the tastes, sentiments, and opinions of each age. This was quite

unknown to antiquity. It was born with the Romance language, whose name

it took; and they who now derive pleasure from it ought to be thankful

for it to the age of the crusades.

These kinds of productions, which attracted the curiosity and attention

of the vulgar, contributed to form the national language, which then

appeared to be scorned by the learned. The Latin language still

remained the language of the sciences and of learning. But it lost its

correctness and its purity. The Latin of the fifteenth century was more

corrupt than that of the twelfth. The Romance language and the Latin

language had a tendency to corrupt each other, by their mixture and

their reciprocal borrowings.

Knowledge, however, continued to increase and spread, and assisted

greatly in polishing the manners of the nations of Europe. One proof

that the crusades were not unconnected with these first steps of

civilization is, that knowledge and letters first flourished among

the peoples enriched by the commerce which the holy wars favoured, as

in Italy; and with the peoples who had most communication with the

Orientals, as the Spaniards. Two inventions were destined to complete

this happy revolution, and mark the commencement and the end of the

period of the crusades. The first was the invention of paper, which

became known in Europe just before the first expedition into the East;

the second, the invention of printing, which took place towards the end

of the holy wars.

There remains but little for us to say upon the results of the

crusades. Several distinguished writers have spoken of them before us,

and the information they have given upon this important subject, whilst

it facilitates our labour, only leaves us the advantage of expressing

an opinion which their authority has consecrated, and which has no

longer any need of being defended.

The better to explain and make clear all the good that the holy wars

brought with them, we have elsewhere examined what would have happened

if they had had all the success they might have had. Let us now attempt

another hypothesis, and let our minds dwell for a moment upon the state

in which Europe would have been, without the expeditions which the

West so many times repeated against the nations of Asia and Africa.

In the eleventh century, several European countries were invaded,

and others were threatened by the Saracens. What means of defence

had the Christian republic then, when most of the states were given

up to license, troubled by discords, and plunged in barbarism? If

Christendom, as M. De Bonald remarks, had not then gone out by all its

gates, and at repeated times, to attack a formidable enemy, have we not

a right to believe that this enemy would have profited by the inaction

of the Christian nations, and that he would have surprised them amidst

their divisions, and subdued them one after another?[126] Which of us

does not tremble with horror at thinking that France, Germany, England,

and Italy might have experienced the fate of Greece and Palestine?

We have said, when commencing our history, that the crusades offered

the spectacle of a sanguinary and terrible struggle between two

religions which contended for the empire of the world; the victory

to belong to that one of these two religions which would inspire its

disciples and defenders with the most generous sentiments, and which,

favouring among them the progress of civilization, would give them the

greater force and power to defend their territories and assure their

conquests.

In this formidable struggle, the true means of defence consisted in

superiority of knowledge and of social qualities. As long as the

ignorance of barbarism reigned over the nations of the West as well

as over those of Asia, victory continued uncertain; perhaps even the

greater strength was then on the side of the more barbarous people, for

they were already possessed of all the conditions of their political

existence. But when the dawn of civilization rose over Europe, she

became aware of her own security, and her enemies began to be sensible

of fear.

The Mussulman religion, by its doctrine of fatalism, appeared to

interdict all foresight to its disciples, and in days of mischance

contained nothing to revive the courage of its warriors. The

Christians, on the contrary, lost none of their faculties in reverses:

reverses often even redoubled their energy and activity. What is

most astonishing in the history of the crusades, is to observe that

the defeats of the Christians in Asia, excited, among the warlike

populations of Europe, much more enthusiasm than their victories.

The preachers of the holy wars, to persuade Christian warriors to

take up arms against the infidels, said nothing of the glory and the

power of Jerusalem; but endeavoured, in their pathetic lamentations,

to exaggerate the perils, the misfortunes, and the decline of the

Christian colonies.

We see by this what advantage Christianity had over the worship of

Mahomet, in the war between the East and the West.

Another vice of the Koran is, that it has a tendency to isolate men;

which is injurious to the development of their social qualities. Under

the empire of Islamism, there is nothing strong but despotism; but

the strength of despotism is, almost always, nothing but the weakness

of the nation it rules over. The Christian religion has another aim,

when it says to its disciples, _Love one another as brothers_. One of

its most admirable characteristics is the spirit of sociability with

which it inspires men. By all its maxims, it orders them to unite,

to help one another, to enlighten one another. It thus doubles their

strength, by placing them constantly in community of labours and

dangers, fears and hopes, opinions and feelings. It was this spirit

of sociability which gave birth to the crusades, and sustained them

during two centuries. If this spirit was unable to assure success, it

at least prepared the Christian republic, at a later period, to defend

itself with advantage. It made the nations of Europe like fasces that

cannot be broken. It created, in the midst of disorders even, a moral

force which nothing could conquer; and Christianity, defended by this

moral force, was at length able to say to the barbarians, masters of

Constantinople, that which God said to the waves of the sea: _You shall

go no further_.

Thus Christianity, and the heroic virtues with which it inspired

its disciples, were, in the middle ages, an invincible buckler for

Christian Europe. When the enthusiasm for crusades beyond the seas

began to die away, the heads of the Church still invoked the spirit

of the Gospel, to animate the nations against the Mussulmans, on the

point of invading Germany and Italy; and, still holding up to Christian

warriors the cross of Christ, sometimes succeeded in awakening in

hearts sentiments of a religious and patriotic heroism. It cannot then

be denied that the crusades contributed to save European societies from

the invasion of the barbarians; and this was, without doubt, the first

and greatest of the advantages which humanity derived from them.

Here I am, then, arrived at the termination of my labour. To resume my

opinions and render a last homage to truth, I must say, that, among the

results of the crusades, there are some which appear incontestable,

others which cannot be determined with precision. I ought to add, that

many circumstances concurred with the civil wars in assisting the

progress of knowledge and civilization. Nothing can be more complicated

than the springs which set modern societies in motion; and he who would

desire to explain the march of things by one single cause, must fall

into great error. The same events do not produce always or everywhere

similar effects; as may be seen by the picture we have traced of Europe

in the middle ages. The holy wars assisted, in France, in abasing the

great vassals, whilst feudal power received scarcely any injury from

it in Germany and other countries. During this period some states

were enlarged, others marched rapidly towards their fall. Among some

nations, liberty took deep root, and presided over young institutions;

among others, the power of princes was elevated, at times freeing

itself from all restraints, at others, being limited by wise laws. Here

flourished commerce, the arts and sciences; elsewhere industry made no

progress, and the human mind remained immersed in darkness. The germs

of civilization, in the times of the crusades, were like those seeds

which the storm carries with it, and scatters, some in barren places,

where they remain unknown and unproductive; others, upon propitious

land, where, the action of the sun, a happy temperature, and the

fecundity of the soil, favour their development, and cause them to bear

good fruits.

Every age has its dominant opinions; and when these opinions are

connected with great events, they leave their impress upon the

institutions of societies. Other events, other opinions come, in

their turn, to give a new direction to human affairs, and to modify,

ameliorate, or corrupt the morals and the laws of nations. Thus, the

political world is unceasingly renewed; by turns, disturbed by violent

shocks, and ruled by generally-spread truths or errors. If, in the

future, societies assume still another new face, there is no doubt

their institutions will, one day, be explained by the influence of

the revolutions we have seen, as we now explain the institutions of

times past, by the influence of the crusades. May posterity gather

and preserve the fruit of our misfortunes, better than we ourselves

have gathered and preserved the fruit of the experience and of the

misfortunes of our fathers![127]

SEE SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER, AT PAGE 549.

APPENDIX.

_No. 1.—Page 2, Vol. I._

IN the third and fourth century of the Christian era, pilgrimages

to the Holy Land became so frequent, that they led to many abuses.

St. Augustine, Serm. 3, de Martyr. Verb., expresses himself thus:

“Dominus non dixit, Vade in Orientem et quære justitiam: naviga

usque ad Occidentem, ut accipias indulgentiam.” The same saint says

elsewhere, Serm. 1, de Verb. Apost. Petri ad Christum: “Noli longa

itinera meditari; ubi credis, ubi venis; ad eum enim, qui ubique est,

amando venitur, non navigando.” St. Gregory of Nyssus, in a letter

which bears for title, “De Euntibus Hierosolymam,” speaks with still

greater vehemence against pilgrimages: he thinks that women, in

particular, would meet on their route with frequent opportunities for

sinning; that Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost were not in one place

more than another; he censures bitterly the morals of the inhabitants

of Jerusalem, who committed the greatest crimes, although they had

constantly before their eyes Calvary and all the places visited

by pilgrims. St. Jerome endeavoured to divert St. Paulinus from

the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, by a letter which is still preserved:

“De Hierosolymis,” said he, “et de Britannia equaliter patet aula

cœlestis.” He added, that an innumerable crowd of saints and doctors

enjoyed eternal life without ever having seen Jerusalem; that from the

reign of Hadrian to that of Constantine, an image of Jupiter received

the adorations of the pagans upon the rock of Calvary, and that fervent

worship was paid to Venus and Adonis within the walls of Bethlehem.

We add an extract from the pilgrimage of St. Eusebius of Cremona,

and his friend St. Jerome, taken from a notice, written by Francis

Ferrarius, vol. i. of the Bollandists, of the month of April, p. 276.

“(A.D. 390-423.) According to St. Jerome, St. Eusebius was born at

Cremona, of distinguished parents, who spared neither pains nor expense

for his education. They were rewarded by the rapid progress of their

son in knowledge, but particularly by the rare virtues which he showed

from his earliest childhood. Solely occupied with religious ideas,

Eusebius, when still young, abandoned his parents, his country, and

all the advantages which his birth and wealth promised him, to go to

Rome, and visit the sacred monuments contained in that city. Very soon

becoming united in a strict friendship with St. Jerome, who dwelt in

Rome, Eusebius determined to accompany him in a voyage which the latter

intended to make to Jerusalem.

“Having embarked, they visited the isle of Cyprus in their passage,

passed through Antioch, where they were received by St. Paulinus, who

was bishop of that city,[128] and arrived safely at Jerusalem. After

having performed their devotions in the spots sanctified with the

presence of Christ, they visited Bethlehem, Calvary, Mount of Olives,

and Mount Tabor, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the castle of Emmaüs, and

extended their pilgrimage as far as Egypt, to witness the fasts and

austerities to which the pious solitaries of the Thebaïs abandoned

themselves. Returning into Judæa, the city of Bethlehem particularly

fixed their attention, and they resolved to found a monastery there,

which was soon filled with religious men disposed to follow the rules

established by St. Jerome himself. But the crowd of pilgrims becoming

daily more considerable, and not knowing how to feed and lodge them,

the two friends were obliged to return to Italy, to sell the property

they had there, which they destined for these pious purposes. St.

Jerome, compelled by his affairs to go to Rome, there met with St.

Paulina, descended from the ancient family of the Gracchi. This lady,

learning the project that had brought him into Italy, determined

to follow his example: she abandoned her fortune, her country, and

her children, and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where she founded a

monastery for maidens, which she governed herself to the time of her

death. St. Jerome, after having employed the large sums he brought back

in the construction of an hospital for pilgrims, terminated his pious

career at Bethlehem, at an advanced age. Eusebius, who was named abbot

after the death of his friend, only survived him two years. Deeply

regretted by his monks, of whom he had constantly been the benefactor

and the father, he was interred, according to his desire, with St.

Jerome, close to the stable in which the Saviour was born. Thus

were united in the tomb, as they had been in life, and as they are,

without doubt, in heaven, where their virtues have placed them, two

men who renounced all they held most dear to strengthen the faith of

the faithful, and to become in a distant country the consolers of the

unfortunate.”

_No. 2.—Page 3, Vol. I._

_The Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem._

Although we do not think it necessary, at this time of day, to give, as

Mr. Michaud has done, in his “Pièces Justificatives,” the whole of this

celebrated Itinerary,[129] with remarks upon the places passed through

or by; we think we shall gratify the praiseworthy curiosity of many of

our readers by so far presenting the details, as to show the route by

which early pilgrims travelled to the Holy Land.

This Itinerary is deemed by learned men the most exact and correct that

has come down to modern times; it was printed for the first time, in

1588, by the care of the celebrated Pierre Pithon, from a manuscript

upon vellum in his own library; and which, when M. Michaud wrote this

history, was in the Imperial Library at Paris. This Itinerary was

composed about the year 333 of the Christian era. In fact, the author

of it informs us that he went from Constantinople to Chalcedon, and

that he returned to Constantinople under the consulship of Dalmatius

and Xenophilus, who, we learn from Cassiodorus and other authorities,

were consuls together in the year 333. The author was a Christian

of Bordeaux, whose aim, in this work, was to facilitate for his

compatriots the voyage to the Holy Land, which he himself had performed.

The example of the empress Helena, and the magnificence with which she

had ornamented the humble spot which gave our Saviour birth, singularly

excited, at this period, the zeal and curiosity of Christians for such

voyages. A passage from the Psalms, badly interpreted in the Greek,

was considered as a prophecy, and a commandment to all the faithful to

visit the holy places. In the Psalms was read: “Let us adore the Lord,

in the spot where his feet were placed,” and the bishops of that time

unceasingly repeated: “The psalmist has prophesied, and has said; Let

us adore the Lord on the spot where his feet were placed.” This is in

the 132nd Psalm, and Jerome, Eusebius, and others did not understand it

otherwise; the Vulgate translates it: _Adorabimus in loco ubi steterunt

pedes ejus_; but the Hebrew only says, _We will prostrate ourselves

before thy footstool_, that is to say, before the holy ark; and this is

the version in the English.

On leaving this famous city, our pilgrim directed his course towards

Thoulouse, passing by Auch—from Thoulouse to Narbonne, passing by

Carcassonne—and from Narbonne to Arles, passing by Beziers and Nîmes.

Arles was then a city of great note, being called the Little Rome of

the Gauls. He continues his route towards Italy, and after having

passed through the cities of Avignon, Orange, Valence, Die, Gap, and

Embrun, he arrives at the foot of the Cottian Alps (Alpes Cottiæ); at

Briançon he begins to climb Mount Genevre, and soon finds himself at

Susa in Italy. He afterwards enters Turin, follows the Po, traverses

the beautiful plains of Piedmont, which are north of that river,

till he gains Pavia; he re-ascends towards the north, and arrives at

Milan, then the city of Italy second only to Rome. Continuing his

route towards the East, the pilgrim passes through Bergamo, Brescia,

Verona, Vicenza, and arrives at Aquileia, then a great city, but

afterwards destroyed by Attila. He then ascends the Julian Alps, which

separate Friuli from Carniola. He arrives at _Æmona_ (Layback), and at

twenty-three miles beyond that place, marks the limits of Italy and

Norica; which limits were at that time the boundaries of the Western

and the Eastern empires.

Our pilgrim, after quitting the vicariat of Italy, or the ancient

Cisalpine Gaul, enters the diocese of Illyria, goes on to Cilley,

and reaches the city of Petau, in modern Styria. Crossing the river

Drave, he enters Lower, or Second Pannonia; but continues to follow

the northern banks of the Drave, or the southern frontiers of modern

Hungary, and traversing Pannonia Superior, he directs his course to the

south, and gains the banks of the Save at _Cibalis_, which was placed

where now the modern village of Svilaï stands, to the east of Brod.

Proceeding towards the East, he enters _Sirmium_, then one of the most

considerable cities of the Eastern empire, but of which there are now

scarcely any vestiges. At a short distance from Sirmium our pilgrim

comes to the confluence of the Save and the Danube, at _Singidunum_,

where Belgrade is at present, which city, he informs us, terminates

Pannonia Superior. Crossing the Save, he finds himself in Mœsia, now

Servia, and follows the course of the Danube. At _Viminacium_, now

in ruins, near Vi-Palanka and Ram, our pilgrim does not neglect to

remark that it was at this place Diocletian killed Carinus, which

agrees with the account of Eutropius of this event. After leaving

the banks of the Danube at Viminacium, he directs his course towards

the south-east, following the Roman way, which deviates little from

the banks of the Morava, and at about fifty miles before he comes to

Nissa, he points to a station called _Mansio Oromago_, as the limits of

Mœsia and Dacia; but which we must observe is the Dacia of Aurelian,

and not that of Trajan, of which he speaks. After having traversed

Nissa into Servia, he arrives at the city of _Sardica_, whose ruins

are now to be seen near Sophia, or Triaditza. Continuing to follow

the same route, which is that of the present day, from Belgrade to

Constantinople, he sets down the limits between Dacia and Thrace,

just beyond the _Mutatio Sencio_. From Philippopolis, or Felibra, our

pilgrim journeys to _Heraclia_, now Erekil, on the coast of the Sea

of Marmora, and, at length to Constantinople. From Constantinople,

says our traveller, you cross the Bosphorus, you arrive at Chalcedon,

and go through Bithynia. At Libyssa, near Gebyzeh, on the coast of

the Propontis, our pilgrim remarks, is the tomb of Hannibal; which is

confirmed by Pliny, Plutarch, Eusebius, &c. Tournefort and Belo, among

the moderns, say they have seen the tomb in this place. After arriving

in _Nicomedia_ (Isnikmid), our pilgrim continues his route, and passing

through Nice (Isnik) marks near Ceratæ the limits of Bithynia and

Galatia. Then on to _Ancyra_, near Angora—then to Andrapa, where he

places the limits of Galatia and Cappadocia. Proceeding still towards

the south-east, into the Karismania of the moderns, he gains Tyana,

which he tells us is the country of the magician Apollonius. Next is

a place called Pilas, and soon after Tarsus, which he does not fail

to tell us is the country of the apostle Paul. He then enters Cilicia

Secunda, which formed one of the divisions of the empire of the East.

At nine miles beyond Alexandria (or Scanderoun) he marks the limits

of Cilicia and Syria, and arrives at length at the city of Antioch

(Antakia). Our traveller then continues his route along the Roman

way which ran along the coast of Syria, and at _Balnea_ (Belnia),

indicates the limits of Syria and Phœnicia. On passing by a small

place called _Antaradus_ (Centre-Aradus), which is the Tortosa of

the time of the crusades, he takes care to observe that the city of

Aradus itself is only two miles from the coast. This powerful city was

built in the little island called Ruad by the moderns. Our traveler

crosses _Tripolis_ (Taraboles), then Berytus (Berouth), and arrives

at _Sidona_ (Saide). Next to Tyre (now the little village of Sour);

thence to Ptolemaïs (St. Jean d’Acre), and at Sycamenes be finds

himself at the foot of Mount Carmel. At eight miles from that place he

indicates the confines of Syria and Palestine, and arrives at Cæsarea

(Qaïsarich). On leaving Cæsarea, our pilgrim quits the direct road

that leads to Jerusalem. In order the better to fulfil the object of

his voyage, and visit Palestine, he directs his course to the East,

towards the revered waters of the Jordan. After interrupting his

Itinerary to make several Biblical remarks, he proceeds to the banks

of the Jordan, at a place called _Scythopolis_ or _Bethsan_, named by

the moderns Bisan; then going afterwards to the south of the side of

Jerusalem, he passes _Aser_, “in which was the house of Job,” and at

fifteen miles thence enters _Neapolis_ or _Sichem_, the Naboles of

the moderns. Here he ceases to follow any direct route, but visits

every place that the Old or New Testament has rendered memorable; and

gives an account of them in his journey from Neapolis to Jerusalem.

After seeing everything that could attract the attention of a pious

and well-informed Christian, he returns to Jerusalem, and resumes

his Itinerary with as much exactness as at first. As his homeward

journey begins by the same route he arrived, we will join company with

him at Erekil, on the coast of Marmora, where he begins to deviate.

He proceeds to the south of Mount Rhodope, the Despeto-dag of the

moderns; he passes through the city of Apris, which, after Theodosius,

took the name of Theodosiopolis. At a short distance from Apris, our

pilgrim indicates the limits of the province of Europa, and that of

Rhodope. To understand this, we must remember that at the period at

which the Aquitain pilgrim wrote, the diocese of Thrace was divided

into six provinces, amongst which were those of Europa and Rhodope;

the cities of Constantinople, Heraclea, and Apris were in the province

of Europa. Our pilgrim reaches Trajanopolis, which the Turks call

Orichovo, and keeping to the west, through Macedonia, or the Romania

of the moderns, and along the northern shores of the Sea of Marmora,

and of the Archipelago, he points out, near a place called Pardis, the

boundary of the provinces of Rhodope and Macedon—he crosses Neapolis,

now Cavale, and Philippi, which is in ruins. Shortly afterwards he

visits the celebrated Amphipolis on the Strymon, the ruins of which

are now near a little village called Jeni-Keni. Twenty miles farther

our pilgrim contemplates the tomb of the poet Euripides, at a station

named Arethusa, situated in a valley of the same name. He passes by

Thessalonica (Saloniki), which is still one of the most considerable

cities of these countries. He arrives at Pella, the celebrated capital

of Macedon, which presents nothing at the present day but ruins, known

by the name of Palatiæ, or the Palaces. Our pilgrim does not omit

to show his erudition by remarking that Alexander the Great was of

this city—_civitas Pelli, unde fuit Alexander Magnus Macedo_. Here

the pilgrim, directing his course towards the north-west, follows the

famous Egnatian way, constructed by the Romans through Macedon. This

way passes to Edessa, to Heraclea in Macedon, and there, discontinuing

its northward direction, it goes straight to the west to Dyrrachium;

but one branch of this way, before arriving at Dyrrachium, now Durazzo,

re-descends towards Apollonia, now in ruins under the name of Polina;

and it was this last that the pilgrim took. At thirty-three miles from

Heraclea, near a station called Brucida, he points out the limits of

Macedon and Epirus, two provinces which were then only subdivisions of

the great diocese of Macedon. At twenty-four miles from Apollonia, the

Aquitain traveller gains the coast at Aulona (Valena), at a place where

Epirus, or the coast of Albania of the moderns, comes nearest to Italy.

He then crosses the strait between Aulona and Hydruntum, near Otranto.

Upon his arrival in Italy, our pilgrim goes to Brindisi, and afterwards

takes the Appian way, of all the ways the best and the most frequented.

It led him first to Capua. From Capua he continues, by the same way,

to Rome, crossing the Pontine marshes. He quits Rome, and follows the

Flaminian way, which crosses the Apennines, and which leads out at

Ariminum (Rimini), by Spoleto, Fano, and Pesaro.

From Rimini our pilgrim takes the Emilian way, which traced and still

does trace a straight line; and traversing Bologna, Modena, Parma, and

Placentia, he arrives at last at Mediolanum (Milan); from whence he

returns to Bordeaux by the same route he took at starting.

_No. 3.—Page 25, Vol. I._

There is so much sameness, accompanied by such incredible marvels, in

the numerous pilgrimages described by M. Michaud, that we are certain

our readers will willingly dispense with them. The incident which he

promises to give of Foulque, count of Anjou, is this:—“Then the count

approached to kiss the Holy Sepulchre, and then the divine clemency

showed that the good zeal of the count was acceptable, for the stone,

which is hard and solid, at the kiss of the count became soft and

flexible as wax warmed at the fire. The count bit it, and took away a

large piece in his mouth, without the infidels perceiving it; and he

then, quite at his ease, visited the other holy places.”

There is, indeed, another incident to which we fear M. Michaud

alludes; but as the amusement or instruction it could afford would not

compensate for its indecency, we do not give it.

_No. 4.—Page 53, Vol. I._

Among the chroniclers who give an account of this very memorable event,

one of the most esteemed is William of Malmesbury, a monk of the order

of St. Bennet. From his learning he was called the Librarian, and his

particular study was history. He lived in the early part of the twelfth

century. Our author having transferred the spirit of all the chronicles

to his text, we deem it quite unnecessary to offer the whole that he

has quoted from them in his _Pièces Justificatives_; but there is a

curious passage of William of Malmesbury, which shows the character of

the writer and his times, that we shall not hesitate to give.

Having said that, after the council, every one retired to his home, he

continues thus:—“Immediately the fame of this great event being spread

through the universe, penetrated the minds of Christians with its mild

breath, and wherever it blew, there was no nation, however distant or

obscure it might be, that did not send some of its people. This zeal

not only animated the provinces bordering on the Mediterranean, but

all who had ever even heard of the name of a Christian in the most

remote isles, and among barbarous nations. Then the Welshman abandoned

his forests and neglected his hunting; the Scotchman deserted the

fleas with which he is so familiar; the Dane ceased to swallow his

intoxicating draughts; and the Norican turned his back upon his raw

fish.[130] The fields were left by the cultivators, and the houses by

their inhabitants; all the cities were deserted. People were restrained

neither by the ties of blood nor the love of country; they saw nothing

but God. All that was in the granaries or destined for food, was left

under the guardianship of the greedy agriculturist. The voyage to

Jerusalem was the only thing hoped for or thought of. Joy animated

the hearts of all who set out; grief dwelt in the hearts of all who

remained. Why do I say, of those who remained? You might have seen the

husband setting forth with his wife, with all his family; you would

have laughed to see all the penates put in motion and loaded upon cars.

The road was too narrow for the passengers, more room was wanted for

the travellers, so great and numerous was the crowd.”

_No. 5.—Page 82, Vol. I._

_Robert of Normandy._

Robert had, before the crusades, long and serious quarrels with his

father, William II. of Normandy and I. of England. In 1080, he quitted

his country and sought the protection of his uncles, Robert, count

of Flanders, Udo, archbishop of Trèves, and several other princes of

the houses of Lorraine, Germany, Aquitain, and Gascony. He made his

complaints to them, mingling falsehood with truth, and received great

assistance from them. But he squandered their gifts among actors,

parasites, and courtezans. He was so prodigal that he soon became

straitened again, and was obliged to have recourse to usurers. “Every

one,” says the chronicler Orderic Vital, “knew Duke Robert for an

indolent, weak prince. So the ill-intentioned, despising him, took

advantage of his character to excite trouble and factions. The duke

was bold, valiant, worthy of praise in many respects, and naturally

eloquent; but he was inconsiderate, prodigal in his bounty, free of

promises, light and imprudent in his falsehoods, allowing himself

to be easily prevailed upon by prayers; mild in character and slow

to punish crime; changeable in his decisions, too familiar in his

conversation, and by that means drawing upon himself the contempt of

the ill-disposed. He was stout, and short of stature, whence his father

named him Courte-Heuse. He was anxious to please everybody, and gave,

or promised, or granted, all that was asked of him. Prodigal of his

patrimony, he diminished it daily by giving imprudently to every one

what he desired. Thus he became poor, and furnished others with means

to act against him.” When the first crusade took place, Normandy,

ill-governed by such a prince, was in the most deplorable condition.

Duke Robert, in fear of the greatest evils, saw no better means of

avoiding them, than by pledging his duchy with his brother William

Rufus, for five years, for the sum of ten thousand marks, and setting

out for Jerusalem. With his exploits in the Holy Land our readers are

acquainted. In the year 1100, Robert, on his return from Palestine,

landed in Apulia, where he fell in love with Sibylla, daughter of

Geoffrey of Conversana, nephew of Duke Guiscard. He married her, and

took her into Normandy, obtaining from his father-in-law the means

of redeeming his duchy. He lived there eight years much in the same

fashion as before his pilgrimage. At the end of that period, and in

consequence of events foreign to our object, he was made prisoner

at Tinchebray in Normandy, by his brother Henry, who carried him to

London, where he remained confined twenty-seven years, but always

living amidst the enjoyments of life.

_No. 6._

_Charlemagne._

Whilst searching the Chronicles for passages illustrative of our work,

we met with a portrait of Charlemagne so exceedingly interesting, that

although he had nothing to do with the crusades, we cannot refrain from

presenting it to our readers, begging them to remember that Charlemagne

was considered, even in Asia, as the most powerful prince of Europe.

“Charlemagne, who attained the highest degree of celebrity and glory,

of a scrupulous and profound piety, was well informed in letters and

philosophy, was the avenger and ardent propagator of the Christian

religion, and the defender and supporter of justice and truth.

Charlemagne’s face was very white (at the time he was crowned by

the pope, Leo), his countenance was cheerful, and whether standing

or sitting, his carriage was equally majestic. Although his neck

was thick and rather short, and his belly too protuberant, all his

limbs were well proportioned. On days of festivity he wore a mantle

of gold tissue, and a chaussure ornamented with precious stones. His

_sagum_, or cloak, was fastened with a golden clasp, and his diadem

was enriched with gold and jewels. Towards the end of his career, he

was seized, on his return from Spain, with a fever, which lasted four

years, and rendered him lame. He followed rather his own inclinations

than the advice of his physicians, for whom he had a kind of aversion,

because they wished him to abstain from roast meat, of which he was

very fond, and to accustom himself to live on boiled meats. Charles

was called great on account of his great good fortune, in which he was

not inferior to his father, but was, on the contrary, more frequently

a conqueror and more illustrious. In his youth his hair was brown,

and his complexion ruddy; he was handsome, and had much dignity in

his carriage; he was very generous, very equitable in his judgments,

eloquent, and very well informed. He enjoyed every day the sports of

the chase and the exercise of riding on horseback; he was exceedingly

fond of tepid baths, to which he invited not only his children but

the lords of his court, his friends, and his guards, so that there

were often more than a hundred persons in the bath with him. He was

moderate in his eating, and still more so in his drinking; nevertheless

he often complained that fasts were injurious to him. He rarely gave

great banquets, except upon solemn occasions. There were, ordinarily,

not more than four dishes on his table, besides the roast meat which he

so greatly preferred. Whilst he ate, a person read to him histories and

accounts of the actions of the ancients, or else the book of the _City

of God_, by Saint Augustine, for which he had a great predilection.

During the repast he never drank more than three times. In summer, he

took fruit after dinner, and slept two or three hours, undressed as if

at night. His dress was that of the Franks, and he constantly wore a

sword; the sword-belt and baldric being of gold or silver. Sometimes he

wore two swords. He spoke several languages. He had around him doctors

of the seven liberal arts, who instructed him daily; that is to say,

a deacon of Pisa, in grammar; a Saxon, in rhetoric, dialectics, and

astronomy; and Albin, surnamed Alouin, in the other arts. He himself

made some reforms in the art of reading and in that of singing,

although he never read in public aloud, and never sang but with the

choir. He caused all the laws of his kingdom to be written, that

were not so before. He himself wrote the actions and the wars of the

ancients, and began a grammar of the language of his country. He had

every night a hundred and twenty guards around his bed. Ten were placed

at his head, ten at his feet, and ten on each side of him, and each of

these forty held a naked sword in one hand and a lighted torch in the

other.”

_No. 7.—Page 227, Vol. I._

_The Chronicle of Tours._

We think it our duty to give here the passage from Albert d’Aix in

its entirety, which contains the motives for the sentence of death

pronounced by the leaders of the Christian army against the Mussulmans

found in Jerusalem. At the end is the description of the massacres

which followed the taking of the city. For all who wish to appreciate

the spirit of the times, this document is important.

“Jerusalem civitas Dei excelsi, ut universi nôstis, magnâ difficultate,

et non sine damno nostrorum, recuperata, propriis filiis hodie

restituta est, et liberata de manu regis Babyloniæ jugoque Turcorum.

Sed modo cavendum est, ne avaritiâ, aut pigritiâ vel misericordiâ erga

inimicos habitâ, hanc amittamus, captivis et adhuc residuis in urbe

gentilibus, parcentes. Nam si forte à rege Babyloniæ in multitudine

gravi occupati fuimus. subito ab intus et extra impugnabimur, sicque

in perpetuum exilium transportabimur. Unde primum et fidele nobis

videtur consilium, quatenus universi Saraceni et Gentiles, qui captivi

tenentur, pecunia redimendi, aut redempti, sine dilatione in gladio

corruant, ne fraude aut ingenio illorum nobis aliqua occurrant adversa.

Consilio hoc accepto, tertio die post victoriam egressa est sententia

à majoribus; et ecce universi arma rapiunt, et miserabili cædi in omne

vulgus gentilium, quod adhuc erat residuum, exagunt, alios producentes

à vinculis, et decollantes; alios per vicos et plateas civitatis

inventos trucidantes, quibus antea pecuniæ causâ, aut humanâ pietate

pepercerant. Puellis tenellis detruncabant, aut lapidibus obruebant,

in nullis aliquam considerantes ætatem. E contra puellæ, mulieres,

matronæ, metu momentaneæ mortis angustatæ et horrere gravissimæ necis

concussæ, Christianos, in jugulum utriusque sexus debacchantes ac

sævientes, medios pro liberandâ vitâ amplexabantur, quædam pedibus

eorum advolvebantur, de vitâ et salute suâ illos mirum miserando

fletu et ejulatu sollicitantes. Pueri vero quinquennes aut triennes

matrum patrumque crudelem casum intuentes, unà miserum clamorem et

fletum multiplicabant; sed frustra hæc pietatis et misericordiæ signa

fiebant. Nam Christiani sic neci totum laxaverunt animum, ut non sugens

masculus aut fœmina, nedum infans unius anni vivens manum percussoris

evaderet. Unde plateæ totius civitatis Jerusalem, corporibus extinctis

virorum, mulierum, lacerisque membris infantium adeo stratæ et opertæ

fuisse referuntur, ut non solùm in vicis, soliis, et palatiis, sed

etiam in locis desertæ solitudinis, copia occisorum reperiebatur

innumerabilis.”—_Alb._ _Aq._ lib. 6, cap. 30, _ap._ _Bong_. pp. 282,

283.

_No. 8._

_Letter from Bohemond, Godfrey, Raymond, and Hugh the Great, upon the

Peace concluded with the Emperor, and the Victory gained over the

Infidels (anno 1097, ex Manuscript. St. Albani)._

Bohemond, son of Guiscard; Raymond, count of St. Gilles; Duke Godfrey,

and Hugh the Great; to all of the sect of the Catholic faith: may they

attain the eternal felicity which we wish them.

In order that the peace concluded between us and the emperor, as well

as the events that have happened to us since we have been in the lands

of the Saracens, be known to all the world, we despatch to you, very

dear brethren, an envoy, who will inform you of all it can interest you

to know. We have to tell you, that in the month of May, the emperor

promised us that from that time, pilgrims who came from the West to

visit the Holy Sepulchre, should be protected from all insults on the

lands of his dominions; pronouncing pain of death against whoever

should transgress against his orders, and giving us at the same time,

as hostages, his son-in-law and his nephew, as guarantees of his word.

But let us return to events more capable of interesting you. At the

end of the same month of May, we gave battle to the Turks, and, by the

grace of God, we conquered them. Thirty thousand were left upon the

field of battle. Our loss amounted to three thousand men, who, by that

glorious death, have acquired felicity without end. It is impossible

to value correctly the immense quantity of gold and silver, as well as

precious vestments and arms, that fell into our hands; Nice, a city of

importance, with the forts and castles which surround it, immediately

surrendered. We likewise fought a bloody battle in Antioch; sixty-nine

thousand infidels were killed in the place, whilst only ten thousand

of us had the good fortune to obtain eternal life upon this occasion.

Never was a joy equal to that which animates us, beheld; for, whether

we live, or whether we die, we belong to the Lord. On this subject

learn that the king of Persia has sent us a message, by which he

warns us of his intention of giving us battle towards the festival of

All-Saints. If he should prove the conqueror, his design is, he says,

with the help of the king of Babylon and many other infidel princes, to

make incessant war upon the Christians; but if he should be conquered,

he will be baptized with all those he can persuade to follow his

example. We beg you, then, very dear brethren, to redouble your fasts

and your alms, particularly the third day before the festival, which

will be on a Friday, the day of triumph of Jesus Christ, in which we

shall fight with much more hope of success, by preparing ourselves by

prayers and other acts of devotion.

P.S.—I, bishop of Grenoble,[131] send these letters, which have been

brought to me, to you archbishops and canons of the church of Tours,

in order that they may be known by all those who will repair to the

festival, and by those of the different parts of the earth into which

they shall return; and that some may favour this holy enterprise by

alms and prayers, whilst others, taking up arms, will hasten to take a

part in it.

_No. 9._

_Letter from Daimbert, Archbishop of Pisa, Godfrey of Bouillon, and

Raymond, Count of St. Gilles. They announce the Victories gained by

the Christian Armies in the Holy Land (anno 1100, ex Manuscript.

Signiensis Monasterii)._

I, archbishop of Pisa, and the other bishops; Godfrey, by the grace of

God now defender of the Holy Sepulchre, and all the army of the Lord,

at present in the land of Israel, to our holy father the pope, to

the Romish Church, to all bishops, and to all Christians, health and

benediction in our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has manifested his mercy by accomplishing by means of us, that

which he promised in ancient times. After the taking of Nice, our army,

three hundred thousand men strong, covered the whole of Romania. The

Saracen princes and kings having risen up against us, with the help of

God were easily conquered and annihilated; but as some of us became

vain-glorious upon these advantages, the Lord, to prove us, opposed

Antioch to us, a city against which human efforts could do nothing,

which stopped us nine months, and the resistance of which so humbled

our pride, that it compelled us to have recourse to penitence. God,

touched by our repentance, allowed a ray of his divine mercy to shine

upon us, introduced us into the city, and gave the Turks with all their

possessions up to us.

In our ingratitude, having a second time imputed this success to our

own courage, and not to the Omnipotent who had caused us to obtain

it, he permitted, for our chastisement, that an innumerable multitude

of Saracens should come and besiege us, so that nobody durst go out

of the city; we were soon given up to so cruel a famine, that some of

us, in their despair, did not appear averse to nourishing themselves

upon human flesh. It would be too long to make the recital of all

we suffered in this respect. At length the anger of the Lord became

appeased, and he so inflamed the courage of our warriors, that even

they who were weakened by disease and famine took up arms and fought

valiantly. The enemy was conquered; and as our army was fruitlessly

consuming itself within the walls of Antioch, we entered Syria, and

took from the Saracens the cities of Barra and Marra, as well as

several castles and strong places. A horrible famine which assailed our

army here, placed us under the cruel necessity of feeding upon the dead

bodies of the Saracens, already in a state of putrefaction. Happily,

the hand of the Lord aided us again, and opened to us the gates of

the cities and fortresses of the countries we passed through. At our

approach, they hastened to send us messengers loaded with provisions

and presents; they offered to surrender and accept the laws we might

please to dictate; but as we were few in number, and as the general

desire of the army was to march to Jerusalem, we continued our route,

after having required hostages of the cities, the smallest of which

contained more inhabitants than we had soldiers.

The news of these advantages induced a great number of our people who

had remained at Antioch and Laodicea, to join us at Tyre, so that,

under the all-powerful _ægis_ of the Lord, we arrived at Jerusalem. Our

troops suffered much in the siege of this place from the want of water.

The council of war being assembled, the bishops and principal leaders

ordered that the army should make a procession barefooted around the

city, in order that He who formerly humiliated himself for us, touched

by our humility, might open the gates to us, and give up his enemies to

our anger. The Lord, appeased by our action, gave up Jerusalem to us

eight days afterwards, precisely at the period at which the Apostles

composing the primitive Church separated to spread themselves over

the different parts of the earth, an epoch which is celebrated as a

festival by a great number of the faithful. If you desire to know what

we did to the enemies we found in the city, learn that in the portico

of Solomon, and in the temple, our horses walked up to their knees

in the impure blood of the Saracens. We already marked out those who

were to guard the place, and we had already granted to those whom a

love of country or a desire to see their families again recalled into

Europe, permission to return thither, when we were informed that the

king of Babylon was at Ascalon, with an innumerable army, announcing

haughtily his project of leading away into captivity the Franks who

guarded Jerusalem, and then rendering himself master of Antioch. It

was thus he spoke; but the God of heaven had ordained otherwise. This

news being confirmed to us, we marched to meet the Babylonians, after

leaving in the city our wounded and our baggage, with a sufficient

garrison. The two armies being in presence of each other, we bent our

knees, and invoked in our favour the God of armies, that it might

please Him, in His justice, to annihilate by our hands the power of the

Saracens and that of the demon, and by that means extend his Church

and the knowledge of the Gospel from one sea to the other. God granted

our prayers, and gave us such courage that those who could have seen

us rush upon the enemy, would have taken us for a herd of deer going

to quench the thirst that devours them in a clear fountain which they

perceive. Our army consisted of little more than five thousand horsemen

and fifteen thousand foot; the enemy, on the contrary, had more than

a hundred thousand horse and forty thousand foot soldiers. But God

manifested his power in favour of his servants. Our first charge alone

put to flight, even without fighting, this immense multitude. It might

be said they feared to offer the least resistance, and that they had

not arms upon which they could depend to defend themselves with. All

the treasures of the king of Babylon fell into our hands. More than a

hundred thousand Saracens fell beneath our swords; a great number were

drowned in the sea, and fear was so strong upon them, that two thousand

were stifled in the gates of Ascalon, by pressing to get in.

If our soldiers had not been occupied in pillaging the camp of the

enemies, scarcely, of such a number, enough would have escaped

to announce their defeat. We cannot pass by in silence a very

extraordinary event. On the day before that of the battle, we took

possession of several thousands of camels, oxen, and sheep. The leaders

commanded the soldiers to leave them, in order to march towards the

enemy. A wonderful thing to relate, these animals accompanied us still,

stopping when we stopped, advancing when we advanced; the clouds even

sheltered us from the ardour of the sun, and the zephyrs blew to

refresh us. We offered up thanks to the Lord for the victory he had

enabled us to gain, and we returned to Jerusalem. The count of St.

Gilles, Robert duke of Normandy, and Robert count of Flanders, left

Duke Godfrey there, and came back to Laodicea. A perfect concord having

been reëstablished between Bohemond and our leaders by the archbishop

of Pisa, the Count Raymond prepared to return to Jerusalem for the

service of God and his brethren. In consequence we wish for you, heads

of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, and first of the Latin people;

and you all, bishops, clerks, monks, and laymen, that in favour of the

courage and admirable piety of your brethren, it may please the Lord

to pour his blessings upon you, to grant you the entire remission of

your sins, and to make you sit at the right hand of God, who lives

and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, from all

eternity. So be it.

We pray you and supplicate you by our Lord Jesus Christ, who was always

with us, and who has preserved us through all our tribulations, to show

gratitude towards our brethren who return to you, to do them kindness,

and pay them that which you owe them, in order by that means to render

yourselves agreeable to the Lord, and to obtain a part in the favours

they have merited from divine goodness.

No. 10.

_Letter of the principal Crusaders to Pope Urban. (See Foulcher de

Chartres, pages 394, 395, of the Collection of Bongars.)_

We are all desirous that you should know how great the mercy of God has

been towards us, and by what all-powerful help we have taken Antioch;

how the Turks, who had loaded with outrages our Lord Jesus Christ, have

been conquered and put to death, and how we have avenged the injuries

done to our God; how we have at last been besieged by the Turks from

Corasan, Jerusalem, Damascus, and many other countries; and how at

length, by the protection of Heaven, we have been delivered from a

great danger.

When we had taken Nice, we routed, as you have learnt, a great

multitude of Turks who came out against us. We beat the great Soliman

(Kilidge-Arslan), we made a considerable booty, and being masters of

all Romania, we laid siege to Antioch. We suffered much in this siege,

both on the part of the Turks shut up in the city, and on the part of

those who came to succour the besieged. At length, the Turks being

conquered in all the battles, the cause of the Christian religion

triumphed in the following manner. I, Bohemond (_ego Bohemundus_),

after having made an agreement with a certain Saracen, who agreed to

give up the city to me, I applied ladders to the walls towards the end

of the night, and we thus made ourselves masters of the place which

had so long resisted Jesus Christ. We killed Accien, the governor

of Antioch, with a great number of his people, and we had in our

power their wives, their children, their families, and all that they

possessed. We could not, however, get possession of the citadel; and

when we were about to attack it, we saw an infinite number of Turks

arrive, whose approach had been announced to us for some time; we saw

them spread over the country, covering all the plains. They besieged

us on the third day; more than a hundred of them penetrated to the

citadel, and threatened to invade the city from within.

As we were placed upon a hill opposite to that on which the fort stood,

we guarded the road which led into the city, and forced the infidels,

after several combats, to reënter the citadel. As they saw they could

not execute their project, they surrounded the place in such a manner

that all communication was cut off; at which we were greatly afflicted

and desolated. Pressed by hunger and all sorts of miseries, many among

us killed their horses and their asses which they brought with them,

and ate them; but at last the mercy of God came to our assistance; the

apostle Andrew revealed to a servant of God the place in which the

lance was with which Longinus pierced the side of the Saviour. We found

this holy lance in the church of the apostle Peter. This discovery, and

several other divine revelations, restored our strength and courage to

such a degree, that those who were full of despair and fright became

full of ardour and audacity, and exhorted each other to the fight.

After having been besieged during three weeks and four days, on the

day of the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, full of confidence in

God, having confessed all our sins, we marched out of the city in order

of battle. We were in such small numbers, in comparison with the army

of the Saracens, that the latter might well believe we meant to fly,

instead of to provoke them to fight. Having made our dispositions, we

attacked the enemy wherever they appeared in force. Aided by the divine

lance, we put them at once to flight. The Saracens, according to their

custom, began to disperse on all sides, occupying the hills and roads,

with the design of surrounding us and destroying the whole Christian

army; but we had learnt their tactics. By the grace and mercy of God,

we succeeded in making them unite at one point, and when they were

united, the right hand of God fought with us; we forced them to fly and

abandon their camp, with all that was in it. After having conquered

them and pursued them the whole day, we returned full of joy into

Antioch. The citadel surrendered; the commander and most of his people

being converted to the Christian faith. Thus our Lord Jesus Christ

beheld all the city of Antioch restored to his law and his religion;

but as something sorrowful is always mixed with the joys of this world,

the bishop of Puy, whom you gave us for your apostolic vicar, died

after the conquest of the city, and after a war in which he had gained

much glory. Now your children, deprived of the father you gave them,

address themselves to you who are their spiritual father. We pray you,

you who have opened to us the way we are following, you, who by your

discourses have made us quit our homes and all we held dearest in our

own countries, who have made us take the cross to follow Jesus Christ

and glorify his name, we conjure you to complete your work by coming

into the midst of us, and by bringing with you all you can bring. It

was in the city of Antioch that the name of Christian took its origin;

for when St. Peter was installed in that church which we see every day,

those who had called themselves Galileans named themselves Christians.

What can be more just or more suitable than to see him who is the head

of the Church come to this city, which may be regarded as the capital

of Christendom? Come, then, and help us to finish a war which is yours.

We have conquered the Turks and the Pagans; we cannot in the same way

combat heretics, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and Jacobites; we conjure

you to do so; we conjure you, holy Father, with earnestness. You, who

are the father of the faithful, come amongst your children; you, who

are the vicar of St. Peter, come and take your seat in his church; come

and mould our hearts to submission and obedience; come and destroy by

your supreme and sole authority all kinds of heresies; come and lead

us in the road you have marked out for us, and open to us the gates of

the one and the other Jerusalem; come, and with us deliver the tomb of

Jesus Christ, and make the name of Christian prevail over all other

names. If you yield to our wishes, if you come amongst us, every one

will obey you. May He who reigns in all ages bring you amongst us, and

make you sensible to our prayers. Amen.

_No. 11._

_Council of Naplouse, held by the Authority of Garamond, Patriarch of

Jerusalem, to reform the Morals of the Christians of Palestine, in the

Presence of Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, in the year of our Lord 1120,

in the Pontificate of Calixtus II._

This is the manner in which William of Tyre, book xii. of the _Holy

War_, chap. xiii. relates summarily the cause and the acts of the

council.

The same year, that is to say the year 1120 of the incarnation of the

Word, the kingdom of Jerusalem being tormented, on account of its sins,

with many troubles, and in addition to the calamities inflicted by

their enemies, a multitude of locusts and gnawing rats destroying the

harvests to such a degree that it was feared bread would be wanting;

the seigneur Garamond, patriarch of Jerusalem, a man religious and

fearing God; the king Baldwin, the prelates of the churches, and

the great men of the kingdom, repaired to Naplouse, a small city of

Samaria, and held a public assembly and a general court. In a sermon

addressed to the people, it was said, that as it appeared plain that

it was the sins of the people which had provoked the Lord, it was

necessary to deliberate in common upon the means of correcting and

repressing excesses, in order that, returning to a better life, and

worthily satisfying for their remitted sins, the people might render

themselves acceptable to Him who desireth not the death of a sinner,

but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live. Terrified,

then, by the menacing signs of Heaven, by frequent earthquakes, by

successive defeats, by the pangs of famine, by perfidious and daily

attacks of their enemies; seeking to win back the Lord by works of

piety, they have, to restore and preserve discipline in morals,

decreed twenty-five acts, which shall have the force of laws. If any

one be desirous of reading them, they will be easily found in the

archives of many churches.

Present at this council, Garamond, patriarch of Jerusalem; the logician

Baldwin, second king of the Latins; Ekmar, archbishop of Cæsarea;

Bernard, bishop of Nazareth; the bishop of Liddes; Gildon, abbot elect

of St. Mary of the Valley of Jehoshaphat; Peter, abbot of Mount Tabor;

Achard, prior of Mount Sion; Payen, chancellor of the king; Eustace

Granier; William de Buret; Batisan, constable of Jaffa; and many others

of the two orders, of whom we forget the number and the names.

“The synod,” says Baronius, “towards the end of 1120 succeeded in

effecting such a reformation in morals, that by the mercy of Heaven,

in the following year, 1121, the leader of the Turks, coming against

Antioch with considerable strength, was struck with apoplexy and died.”

CHAP. 1.—As it is necessary that things which commence by God should

finish in him and by him, with the intention of beginning this holy

council and terminating it by the Lord, I, Baldwin, second king of the

Latins at Jerusalem, opening this holy assembly by God, I render and

I grant, as I have ordered, to the holy Church of Jerusalem, and to

the patriarch here present, Garamond, as well as to his successors,

the tenths of all my revenues, as far as concerns the extent of this

diocese; that is to say, the tenths of my revenues of Jerusalem,

Naplouse, and Ptolemaïs, which is further called Accon. They are the

benefits of my royal munificence, in order that the patriarch, charged

with the duty of praying the Lord for the welfare of the state, may

have wherewithal to subsist on. And if, one day, in consequence of

the progress of the Christian religion, he, or one of his successors,

should ordain a bishop in one of these cities, he may dispose of the

tenths as well for the king as for the Church.

CHAP. 2.—I, Bohemond, in the presence of the members of this council,

with the consent of the personages of the assembly and of my barons,

who will do the same by their tenths, according to the extent of their

ecclesiastical powers, I make restitution of the tenths, as I have

said; and agreeing with them as to the injustice with which they and I

have retained them, I ask pardon.

CHAP. 3.—I, Patriarch Garamond, on the part of the all-powerful God,

by my power and that of all the bishops and brethren here present,

I absolve you upon the said restitution of the tenths, and I accept

charitably with them the tenths you acknowledge to owe to God, to me,

and to your other bishops, according to the extent of the benefices of

the brethren present or absent.

CHAP. 4.—If any one fears being ill-treated by his wife, let him go

and find him whom he suspects, and let him forbid him, before legal

witnesses, entrance to his house and all colloquy with his wife. If,

after this prohibition, he or any one of his friends should find them

in colloquy in his house or elsewhere, let the man, without any cutting

off of his members, be submitted to the justice of the Church; and if

he purges himself by ardent fire, let him be dismissed unpunished.

But when he shall have undergone some disgrace for being surprised in

colloquy, let him be dismissed unpunished and without vengeance for

having violated the prohibition.

M. Michaud inserts the whole of these laws; but we omit the next

twelve, as more likely to create disgust than to afford instruction or

amusement.

CHAP. 16.—The male or female Saracen who shall assume the dress of the

Franks shall belong to the state.

CHAP. 17.—If any man, already married, has married another woman, he

has, to the first Sunday of Lent of our year, to confess himself to the

priest and perform penance; afterwards he has but to live according to

the precepts of the Church. But if he conceals his crime longer, his

goods will be confiscated; he will be cut off from society and banished

from this land.

CHAP. 18.—If any man, without knowing it, marries the wife of another,

or if a woman marries, without knowing it, a man already married,

then let the one that is innocent turn out the guilty one, and be in

possession of the right of marrying again.

CHAP. 19.—If any man, wishing to get rid of his wife, says he has

another, or that he has taken her during the lifetime of the first, let

him submit to the ordeal of red-hot iron, or let him bring before the

magistrates of the Church, legal witnesses, who will affirm by oath

that it is so. What is here said of men is applicable to women.

CHAP. 20.—If a clerk take up arms in his own defence, there is no

harm in it; but if, from a love of war, or to sacrifice to worldly

interests, he renounces his condition, let him return to the Church

within the time granted, let him confess and conform afterwards with

the instructions of the patriarch.

CHAP. 21.—If a monk or regular canon apostatize, let him return to his

order or go back to his country.

CHAP. 22.—Whoever shall accuse another without being able to prove the

fact, shall undergo the punishment due to the crime he has accused him

of.

CHAP. 23.—If any one be convicted of robbery above the value of six

sous, let him be threatened with the loss of his hand, his foot, or

his eyes. If the theft be below six sous, let him be marked with a hot

iron on the forehead, and be whipped through the city. If the thing

stolen be found, let it be restored to him to whom it belongs. If the

thief has nothing, let his body be given up to him he has injured. If

he repeats the offence, let him be deprived of all his members, and of

his life.

CHAP. 24.—If any one under age commits a theft, let him be kept until

the King’s court shall decide what shall be done with him.

CHAP. 25.—If any baron surprises a man of his own class in the act of

theft, the latter is not to be subject to the loss of his members, but

let him be sent to be judged in the King’s court.

_No. 12._

_Bull of Pope Eugenius III. for the Second Crusade._

We here give a translation of the bull of Eugenius III., published

in 1145, for the second crusade. It is taken from “Bullarum Romanum

Novissimum,” the first volume.

“The servant of the servants of God, to his dear son Louis, illustrious

and glorious king of the French, to his dear sons the princes, and

to all the faithful of the kingdom of France, health and apostolic

benediction.

“We know by the history of times past, and by the traditions of our

fathers, how many efforts our predecessors made for the deliverance

of the Church of the East. Our predecessor, Urban, of happy memory,

sounded the evangelic trumpet, and employed himself with unexampled

zeal, in summoning the Christian nations from all parts of the world

to the defence of the Holy Land. At his voice, the brave and intrepid

warriors of the kingdom of the Franks, and the Italians, inflamed

with a holy ardour, took arms, and delivered, at the cost of their

blood, the city in which our Saviour deigned to suffer for us, and

which contains the tomb, the monument of His passion. By the grace

of God, and by the zeal of our fathers, who defended Jerusalem, and

endeavoured to spread the Christian name in those distant countries,

the conquered cities of Asia have been preserved up to our days, and

many cities of the infidels have been attacked and their inhabitants

have become Christians. Now, for our sins, and those of the Christian

people (which we cannot repeat without grief and lamentation), the city

of Edessa,—which in our own language is called Rohas, and which, if we

can believe the history of it, when the East was subjected to the Pagan

nations, alone remained faithful to Christianity,—the city of Edessa

is fallen into the hands of the enemies of the cross.

“Several other Christian cities have shared the same fate: the

archbishop of that city with his clergy, and many other Christians

have been killed; relics of saints have been given up to the insults

of the infidels, and dispersed. The greatest danger threatens the

Church of God and all Christendom. We are persuaded that your prudence

and your zeal will be conspicuous on this occasion; you will show

the nobleness of your sentiments and the purity of your faith. If

the conquests made by the valour of the fathers are preserved by the

valour of the sons, I hope you will not allow it to be believed that

the heroism of the French has degenerated. We warn you, we pray you,

we command you, to take up the cross and arms. I warn you for the

remission of your sins,—you who are men of God,—to clothe yourselves

with power and courage, and stop the invasions of the infidels, who

are rejoicing at the victory gained over you; to defend the Church

of the East, delivered by our ancestors; to wrest from the hands of

the Mussulmans many thousands of Christian prisoners who are now in

chains. By that means the holiness of the Christian name will increase

in the present generation, and your valour, the reputation of which is

spread throughout the universe, will not only preserve itself without

stain, but will acquire a new splendour. Take as your example that

virtuous Mattathias, who, to preserve the laws of his ancestors, did

not hesitate to expose himself to death with his sons and his family;

did not hesitate to abandon all he held dear in the world, and who,

with the help of Heaven, after a thousand labours, triumphed over his

enemies. We, who watch over the Church and over you, with a parental

solicitude, we grant to those who will devote themselves to this

glorious enterprise the privileges which our predecessor Urban granted

to the soldiers of the cross. We have likewise ordered that their wives

and their children, their worldly goods, and their possessions, should

be placed under the safeguard of the Church, of the archbishops, the

bishops, and the other prelates. We order, by our apostolic authority,

that those who shall have taken the cross shall be exempt from all

kinds of pursuit on account of their property, until their return, or

until certain news be received of their death. We order, besides, that

the soldiers of Jesus Christ should abstain from wearing rich habits,

from having great care in adorning their persons, and from taking

with them dogs for the chase, falcons, or anything that may corrupt

the manners of the warriors. We warn them, in the name of the Most

High, that they should only concern themselves with their war-horses,

their arms, and everything that may assist them in contending with the

infidels. The holy war calls for all their efforts, and for all the

faculties they have in them; they who undertake the holy voyage with

a right and pure heart and who shall have contracted debts, shall

pay no interest. If they themselves, or others for them, are under

obligations to pay usurious interest, we release them from them by

our apostolic authority. If the lords of whom they hold, will not, or

cannot lend them the money necessary, they shall be allowed to engage

their lands or possessions to ecclesiastics, or any other persons. As

our predecessor has done, by the authority of the all-powerful God,

and by that of the blessed St. Peter, prince of the apostles, we grant

absolution and remission of sins, we promise life eternal to all those

who shall undertake and terminate the said pilgrimage, or who shall die

in the service of Jesus Christ, after having confessed their sins with

a contrite and humble heart.”

_Given at Viterbo, in the month of December, 1145._

_No. 13._

_A Letter from Saladin, drawn up by the Cdi Alfadhel, to the Imaum

Nassir Del-din-illah Aboul Abbas Ahmed, containing the account of the

Conquest of Jerusalem, and of the Battle of Tiberias._

After devout wishes for the caliph, he enters thus on his subject:—