‘It is natural to the human mind,’ says Dr. Robertson, ‘to view those
places which have been distinguished by being the residence of any
celebrated personage, or the scene of any great transaction, with some
degree of delight and veneration. To this principle must be ascribed
the superstitious devotion with which Christians, from the earliest
ages of the church, were accustomed to visit that country which the
Almighty had selected as the inheritance of his favorite people, and
in which the Son of God had accomplished the redemption of mankind. As
this distant pilgrimage could not be performed without considerable
expense, fatigue, and danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and
came to be considered as an expiation for almost every crime. An
opinion which spread with rapidity over Europe about the close of the
tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, and which gained
universal credit, wonderfully augmented the number of credulous
pilgrims, and increased the ardor with which they undertook this
useless voyage. The thousand years mentioned by St. John [Rev. xx. 2,
3, 4] were supposed to be accomplished, and the end of the world to be
at hand. A general consternation seized mankind; many relinquished
their possessions, and, abandoning their friends and families, hurried
with precipitation to the Holy Land, where they imagined that Christ
would quickly appear to judge the world.
While Palestine continued subject to the caliphs, they had encouraged
the resort of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and considered this as a
beneficial species of commerce, which brought into their dominions
gold and silver, and carried nothing out of them but relics and
consecrated trinkets. But the Turks having conquered Syria about the
middle of the eleventh century, pilgrims were exposed to outrages of
every kind from these fierce barbarians. This change happening
precisely at the juncture when the panic terror which I have mentioned
rendered pilgrimages most frequent, filled Europe with alarm and
indignation. Every person who returned from Palestine related the
dangers he had encountered in visiting the holy city, and described
with exaggeration the cruelty and vexations of the infidel Turks.
Among the most notorious of those who had returned with these
accounts, was a monk known by the name of Peter the Hermit. By all
accounts this individual seems to have been a weak-minded and
contemptible being. He is represented as running from city to city,
and from kingdom to kingdom, bareheaded, with naked arms and legs, and
bearing aloft a ponderous crucifix in his hand, imploring and
preaching with an enthusiastic madness on the necessity of wresting
the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels. In a more enlightened
age, Peter the Hermit would probably have been confined as a
troublesome lunatic; in this, however, he was not only allowed to go
on, but was encouraged and abetted in his career. The ambitious
Hildebrande had expressed a strong desire to send armed forces from
Europe to exterminate the Mohammedans from Palestine, in order that
another country might be brought under his spiritual subjection; and
Urban II, who at this time occupied the chair of St. Peter, warmly
seconded the efforts of the enthusiastic monk. Nor was Peter’s success
small. Vast multitudes proclaimed themselves ready to engage in the
undertaking. Two great councils of the church, one of them held at
Placentia, and the other at Clermont, in Auvergne, attended by
prelates, princes, and immense multitudes of the common people,
declared enthusiastically for the war (1095). The pope himself
attended at the last, and Peter and he having both addressed the
multitude, they all exclaimed, as if impelled by an immediate
inspiration, ‘It is the will of God! it is the will of God!’ These
words were thought so remarkable, that they were afterwards employed
as the motto on the sacred standard, and came to be looked upon as the
signal of battle and rendezvous in all the future exploits of the
champions of the cross. Persons of all ranks now flew to arms with the
utmost ardor. The remission of penance, the dispensation of those
practices which superstition imposed or suspended at pleasure, the
absolution of all sins, and the assurance, of eternal felicity, were
the rewards held out by the church to all who joined the enterprise;
and ‘to the more vulgar class,’ says Mr. Hallam, ‘were held out
inducements which, though absorbed in the overruling fanaticism of the
first Crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when it began to flag.
During the time that a Crusader bore the cross, he was free from suits
for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely abolished; he was
exempted, in some instances at least, from taxes, and placed under the
protection of the church, so that he could not be impleaded in any
civil court, except in criminal charges or questions relating to
land.’
It was in the spring of the year 1096, that Peter set out for Judea,
at the head of a promiscuous assemblage of 80,000 men, with sandals on
his feet, a rope about his waist, and every other mark of monkish
austerity. Soon after, a more numerous and better disciplined force of
200,000 followed, including some able and experienced leaders. Godfrey
of Bouillon, Robert, Duke of Normandy (son of William the Conqueror of
England), the Counts of Vermendois, Toulouse, and Blois, are a few of
the more illustrious. The progress of this immense mass of human
beings on their journey was marked by misery and famine. They had
vainly trusted to Heaven for a supernatural supply of their wants, and
in their disappointment they had plundered all that came in their way.
‘So many crimes and so much misery,’ says Mr. Hallam, ‘have seldom
been accumulated in so short a space, as in the three years of the
first expedition;’ and another historian says that a ‘fresh supply of
German and Italian vagabonds,’ received on the way, were even guilty
of pillaging the churches. It is certain that before the hermit
reached Constantinople, the number of his forces had dwindled down to
20,000. Alexis Comnenus, then emperor of Constantinople, who had
applied to the states of Europe for assistance, without much hope of
obtaining it, in order that he might be enabled to resist a threatened
attack by the Turks upon himself, was surprised and terrified at the
motley group of adventurers who had now reached the shore of his
dominions. He readily afforded them the means for transporting
themselves across the Bosphorus, and performed the same friendly
office to the larger force which followed under Godfrey and others;
glad, apparently, to have the barbarians of the north, as his subjects
called them, out of his dominions. The Sultan Solyman met the army of
the hermit, if army it could be called, and cut the greater part of it
to pieces on the plains of Nicea. The second host proved more
successful. In spite of their want of discipline, their ignorance of
the country, the scarcity of provisions, and the excess of fatigue,
their zeal, their bravery, and their irresistible force, enabled them
twice to overthrow old Solyman, to take his capital Nice, and after an
obstinate resistance, the city of Antioch also (1098). At length
(1099) they reached Jerusalem, much diminished in numbers, and broken
in spirit; but with persevering assiduity they proceeded to lay siege
to the city, and in six weeks they became its masters. Their cruel
conduct to the inhabitants attests the barbarous feelings of their
hearts. ‘Neither arms defended the valiant, nor submission the
timorous; no age nor sex was spared; infants on the breast were
pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored for mercy;
even a multitude of ten thousand persons who surrendered themselves
prisoners and who were promised quarters, were butchered in cold blood
by these ferocious conquerers. The streets of Jerusalem were covered
with dead bodies. The triumphant warriors, after every enemy was
subdued and slaughtered, turned themselves, with sentiments of
humiliation and contrition, towards the holy sepulchre. They threw
aside their arms, still streaming with blood; they advanced with
reclined bodies and naked feet and heads to that sacred monument; they
sung anthems to Him who had purchased their salvation by His death and
agony; and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place
where He had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in
tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment. So
inconsistent is human nature with itself, and so easily does the most
effeminate superstition ally both with the most heroic courage and
with the fiercest barbarity!’
With a becoming foresight, the Crusaders established a Christian
kingdom in the heart of Palestine; and at the head of it, by universal
consent was placed Godfrey, whose goodness and justice had signalized
him, and gained him respect in the midst of the general wickedness.
The pope, however, was too eager to enjoy the triumph to which he had
looked forward, and sending an ignorant and obtruding ecclesiastic to
assume this command, Godfrey retired; and thus was lost undoubtedly
the best chance that Europeans ever had of really posessing the Holy
Land. The Turks had now time to recover their strength and renew their
attacks: they did so: many of the Crusaders had in the meantime
returned home, and those of them who remained, surrounded and menaced
by such foes, at last implored aid from Christendom. There the spirit
which had been raised by Peter the Hermit was far from being
extinguished; and another, more eloquent and more learned than
Peter――namely, St. Bernard――had arisen to keep alive the flame of
devotion. Roused by his preachings, Europe sent forth a second Crusade
(1147). It consisted of 200,000 French, Germans, and English, in two
divisions, the first led on by Conrad III of Germany, and the second
by Louis VII of France. Strangely enough, both these leaders permitted
themselves to be drawn into a snare by false guides, furnished by the
Greek emperor; and both armies, one after another, were withdrawn
amidst the rocks of Laodicea, and after being nearly starved by
famine, they were cut to pieces by the Sultan of Iconium. This Crusade
proved the most disastrous of them all. ‘Thousands of ruined
families,’ says Russell, ‘exclaimed against St. Bernard for his
deluding prophecies: he excused himself by the example of Moses, who,
like him, he said, had promised to conduct the Israelites into a happy
country, and yet saw the first generation perish in the desert.’
It was shortly after this period that the illustrious Saladin appeared
(1180). Born among an obscure Turkish tribe, this individual fixed
himself by his bravery and conduct on the throne of Egypt and began to
extend his conquest in the East. The still existing, though
wretchedly-supported kingdom of the Christians in Palestine, proving
an obstacle to the progress of his arms, Saladin directed his power
against it, and assisted by the treachery of the Count of Tripoli, he
completely overcame the Christians in battle (1187). The holy city
itself fell into his hands after a feeble resistance; and except some
cities on the coast, nothing remained to the Christians of all that a
century before, it cost Europe so much to acquire. The followers of
the cross, however, were not yet wholly disheartened; and a third
great Crusade was entered into before the end of the twelfth century.
The three greatest sovereigns of Europe――Fredrick Barbarossa of
Germany, Philip Augustus of France, and Richard Cœur de Lion of
England――all took part in the scheme. The forces of Fredrick were
earliest in the field. He had passed through the unfriendly
territories of the Greek empire, crossed the Hellespont, and defeated
the infidels in several battles, before Richard or Philip had stirred
from home. The Christians of the East were beginning to look with hope
and pride on so great assistance; but they seemed fated to be
unfortunate. Fredrick died (1190) from having thrown his body, heated
by exertion, into the cold river of Cydnus; and his army, like the
others that had gone before it, dwindled into nothing. The united
armies of Richard and Philip followed. In their progress, the feelings
of envy and national hatred rose above the object which had brought
them together. Philip returned, disgusted or dismayed, shortly after
they reached their destination; and Richard was thus left alone to
uphold the glory of European arms. He did it nobly. With a mixed army
of French, German, and English soldiers, amounting in all to 30,000,
Richard performed feats of valor which have not been surpassed in the
history of any time or nation. On the plains of Ascalon, a tremendous
battle was fought with Saladin, and that brave and great man was
defeated, and 40,000 of his soldiers are said to have been left dead
upon the field of battle. But this conquest was unavailing, and the
followers of Richard began to fear that there would be no end to their
struggles. The zeal which had brought so many of them from their
homes, and sustained them so long in absence, at last abated. Saladin
readily concluded a treaty by which Christians might still be
permitted to visit the tomb of Christ unmolested, and Richard left the
Holy Land for ever. It is due to the memory of Saladin (who did not
long survive this period) to state that, after he made himself master
of Jerusalem, he never molested the Christians in their devotions――a
circumstance which, by contrast, reflects infinite disgrace on the
cruel barbarities of the first Crusaders. In his last will he ordered
alms to be distributed among the poor, without distinction of Jew,
Christian, or Mohammedan; intending by this bequest to intimate that
all men are brethren, and that when we would assist them, we ought not
to inquire what they believe, but what they feel――an admirable lesson
to Christians, though from a Mohammedan. But the advantages in
science, in moderation, and humanity, seem at this period to have been
all on the side of the Saracens.
There were no more great Crusades. Considerable bands of private
adventurers still continued to move eastward; but disaster and
disgrace attended every effort, and Europe at last became disheartened
when the bones of two millions of her sons lay whitened on the plains
of Asia, and so little had been accomplished. Nevertheless, in the
year 1202, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was able to raise another
considerable army for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre; but having
reached Constantinople at a time when there was a dispute in the
succession to the throne, he readily laid aside the project of the
Crusade, took part in the quarrel, and in the course of five months he
was himself the emperor. The citizens of Venice in Italy, who had lent
their vessels for this enterprise, shared in the triumphs of the
piratical Crusaders: they obtained the Isle of Candia, or Crete.
Baldwin, however, was soon driven from the throne, and murdered;
though the Latins, as his successors from the West were called, kept
possession of Constantinople for fifty-seven years.
At this period (1227) a great revolution took place in Asia. Ghenghis
Khan, at the head of a body of Tartars, broke down from the north upon
Persia and Syria, and massacred indiscriminately Turks, Jews, and
Christians, who opposed them. The European settlements in Palestine
must soon have yielded to these invaders, had not their fate been for
a while retarded by the last attempt at a Crusade under Louis IX of
France. This prince, summoned, as he believed, by Heaven, after four
years’ preparation set out for the Holy Land with his queen, his three
brothers, and all the knights of France (1248). His army began their
enterprise, and we may say ended it also, by an unsuccessful attack on
Egypt. The king went home, and reigned prosperously and wisely for
thirteen years; but the same frenzy again taking possession of him, he
embarked on a Crusade against the Moors in Africa, where his army was
destroyed by a pestilence, and he himself became its victim (1270).
Before the end of the thirteenth century (1291) the Christians were
driven out of all their Asiatic possessions. ‘The only common
enterprise,’ says Robertson, ‘in which the European nations were
engaged, and which they all undertook with equal ardor, remains a
singular monument of human folly.’