Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent

a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a

disorderly crowd of the meaner Barbarians. In the morning the

royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his

fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the

report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of

Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy

sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was

led into the Turkish divan, and commanded to kiss the ground

before the lord of Asia. He reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan,

starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the

neck of the Roman emperor. 36 But the fact is doubtful; and if,

in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the

national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise

of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most

civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the

ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy,

assured him, that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the

hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his

equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the divan, Romanus

was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp

and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice each day,

seated him in the place of honor at his own table. In a free and

familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of

insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the

unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the

hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some

errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In

the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what

treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of

the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. “If you are cruel,”

said he, “you will take my life; if you listen to pride, you will

drag me at your chariot-wheels; if you consult your interest, you

will accept a ransom, and restore me to my country.” “And what,”

continued the sultan, “would have been your own behavior, had

fortune smiled on your arms?” The reply of the Greek betrays a

sentiment, which prudence, and even gratitude, should have taught

him to suppress. “Had I vanquished,” he fiercely said, “I would

have inflicted on thy body many a stripe.” The Turkish conqueror

smiled at the insolence of his captive; observed that the

Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness of

injuries; and nobly declared, that he would not imitate an

example which he condemned. After mature deliberation, Alp Arslan

dictated the terms of liberty and peace, a ransom of a million,

361 an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty thousand pieces

of gold, 37 the marriage of the royal children, and the

deliverance of all the Moslems, who were in the power of the

Greeks. Romanus, with a sigh, subscribed this treaty, so

disgraceful to the majesty of the empire; he was immediately

invested with a Turkish robe of honor; his nobles and patricians

were restored to their sovereign; and the sultan, after a

courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich presents and a

military guard. No sooner did he reach the confines of the

empire, than he was informed that the palace and provinces had

disclaimed their allegiance to a captive: a sum of two hundred

thousand pieces was painfully collected; and the fallen monarch

transmitted this part of his ransom, with a sad confession of his

impotence and disgrace. The generosity, or perhaps the ambition,

of the sultan, prepared to espouse the cause of his ally; but his

designs were prevented by the defeat, imprisonment, and death, of

Romanus Diogenes. 38

36 (return) [ This circumstance, which we read and doubt in

Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by

Nicephorus and Zonaras.]

361 (return) [ Elmacin gives 1,500,000. Wilken, Geschichte der

Kreuz-zuge, vol. l. p. 10.—M.]

37 (return) [ The ransom and tribute are attested by reason and

the Orientals. The other Greeks are modestly silent; but

Nicephorus Bryennius dares to affirm, that the terms were bad and

that the emperor would have preferred death to a shameful

treaty.]

38 (return) [ The defeat and captivity of Romanus Diogenes may be

found in John Scylitzes ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 835-843.

Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 281-284. Nicephorus Bryennius, l. i. p.

25-32. Glycas, p. 325-327. Constantine Manasses, p. 134. Elmacin,

Hist. Saracen. p. 343 344. Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 227.

D’Herbelot, p. 102, 103. D Guignes, tom. iii. p. 207-211. Besides

my old acquaintance Elmacin and Abulpharagius, the historian of

the Huns has consulted Abulfeda, and his epitomizer Benschounah,

a Chronicle of the Caliphs, by Abulmahasen of Egypt, and Novairi

of Africa.]

In the treaty of peace, it does not appear that Alp Arslan

extorted any province or city from the captive emperor; and his

revenge was satisfied with the trophies of his victory, and the

spoils of Anatolia, from Antioch to the Black Sea. The fairest

part of Asia was subject to his laws: twelve hundred princes, or

the sons of princes, stood before his throne; and two hundred

thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan disdained

to pursue the fugitive Greeks; but he meditated the more glorious

conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of the house of Seljuk.

He moved from Bagdad to the banks of the Oxus; a bridge was

thrown over the river; and twenty days were consumed in the

passage of his troops. But the progress of the great king was

retarded by the governor of Berzem; and Joseph the Carizmian

presumed to defend his fortress against the powers of the East.

When he was produced a captive in the royal tent, the sultan,

instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate

folly: and the insolent replies of the rebel provoked a sentence,

that he should be fastened to four stakes, and left to expire in

that painful situation. At this command, the desperate Carizmian,

drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne: the guards

raised their battle-axes; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan,

the most skilful archer of the age: he drew his bow, but his foot

slipped, the arrow glanced aside, and he received in his breast

the dagger of Joseph, who was instantly cut in pieces.

The wound was mortal; and the Turkish prince bequeathed a dying

admonition to the pride of kings. “In my youth,” said Alp Arslan,

“I was advised by a sage to humble myself before God; to distrust

my own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe.

I have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been

deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the

numbers, the discipline, and the spirit, of my armies, the earth

seemed to tremble under my feet; and I said in my heart, Surely

thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible

of warriors. These armies are no longer mine; and, in the

confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an

assassin.” 39 Alp Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a

Mussulman; his voice and stature commanded the reverence of

mankind; his face was shaded with long whiskers; and his ample

turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the

sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and

the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: 40

“O ye who have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the

heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the

dust.” The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself,

more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.

39 (return) [ This interesting death is told by D’Herbelot, (p.

103, 104,) and M. De Guignes, (tom. iii. p. 212, 213.) from their

Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit

of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen p. 344, 345.)]

40 (return) [ A critic of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,)

who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in

this sublime inscription at the words “repair to Maru,” since the

reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the

inscription.]

During the life of Alp Arslan, his eldest son had been

acknowledged as the future sultan of the Turks. On his father’s

death the inheritance was disputed by an uncle, a cousin, and a

brother: they drew their cimeters, and assembled their followers;

and the triple victory of Malek Shah 41 established his own

reputation and the right of primogeniture. In every age, and more

especially in Asia, the thirst of power has inspired the same

passions, and occasioned the same disorders; but, from the long

series of civil war, it would not be easy to extract a sentiment

more pure and magnanimous than is contained in the saying of the

Turkish prince. On the eve of the battle, he performed his

devotions at Thous, before the tomb of the Imam Riza. As the

sultan rose from the ground, he asked his vizier Nizam, who had

knelt beside him, what had been the object of his secret

petition: “That your arms may be crowned with victory,” was the

prudent, and most probably the sincere, answer of the minister.

“For my part,” replied the generous Malek, “I implored the Lord

of Hosts that he would take from me my life and crown, if my

brother be more worthy than myself to reign over the Moslems.”

The favorable judgment of heaven was ratified by the caliph; and

for the first time, the sacred title of Commander of the Faithful

was communicated to a Barbarian. But this Barbarian, by his

personal merit, and the extent of his empire, was the greatest

prince of his age. After the settlement of Persia and Syria, he

marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest

of Turkestan, which had been undertaken by his father. In his

passage of the Oxus, the boatmen, who had been employed in

transporting some troops, complained, that their payment was

assigned on the revenues of Antioch. The sultan frowned at this

preposterous choice; but he miled at the artful flattery of his

vizier. “It was not to postpone their reward, that I selected

those remote places, but to leave a memorial to posterity, that,

under your reign, Antioch and the Oxus were subject to the same

sovereign.” But this description of his limits was unjust and

parsimonious: beyond the Oxus, he reduced to his obedience the

cities of Bochara, Carizme, and Samarcand, and crushed each

rebellious slave, or independent savage, who dared to resist.

Malek passed the Sihon or Jaxartes, the last boundary of Persian

civilization: the hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy:

his name was inserted on the coins, and in the prayers of

Cashgar, a Tartar kingdom on the extreme borders of China. From

the Chinese frontier, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or

feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of

Georgia, the neighborhood of Constantinople, the holy city of

Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of

resigning himself to the luxury of his harem, the shepherd king,

both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the

perpetual motion of the royal camp, each province was

successively blessed with his presence; and he is said to have

perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which

surpassed the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these

expeditions, the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of

Mecca: the freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by

his arms; the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the

profusion of his alms; and the desert was cheered by the places

of relief and refreshment, which he instituted for the use of his

brethren. Hunting was the pleasure, and even the passion, of the

sultan, and his train consisted of forty-seven thousand horses;

but after the massacre of a Turkish chase, for each piece of

game, he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight

atonement, at the expense of the people, for the cost and

mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of

his reign, the cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and

hospitals with moschs and colleges; few departed from his Divan

without reward, and none without justice. The language and

literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; 42 and if

Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself,

43 his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets.

The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the

reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general

assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet,

the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar

months; in Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of

the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival; 44

but after the fall of the Magian empire, the intercalation had

been neglected; the fractions of minutes and hours were

multiplied into days; and the date of the springs was removed

from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign of Malek was

illustrated by the Gelalaean aera; and all errors, either past or

future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses

the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian, style.

45

41 (return) [ The Bibliotheque Orientale has given the text of

the reign of Malek, (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655;) and the

Histoire Generale des Huns (tom. iii. p. 214-224) has added the

usual measure of repetition emendation, and supplement. Without

those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the

Eastern world.]

42 (return) [ See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir

William Jones’s History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the

poets, Amak, Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliotheque

Orientale. ]

43 (return) [ His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed

round his sopha, and as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls

of gold and silver to the poets, (D’Herbelot, p. 107.) All this

may be true; but I do not understand how he could reign in

Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder

could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the

beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true aera of

his reign.]

44 (return) [ See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.]

45 (return) [ The Gelalaean aera (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith,

was one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the

xvth of March, A. H. 471, A.D. 1079. Dr. Hyde has produced the

original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians, (de Religione

veterum Persarum, c. 16 p. 200-211.)]

In a period when Europe was plunged in the deepest barbarism, the

light and splendor of Asia may be ascribed to the docility rather

than the knowledge of the Turkish conquerors. An ample share of

their wisdom and virtue is due to a Persian vizier, who ruled the

empire under the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son. Nizam, one of

the most illustrious ministers of the East, was honored by the

caliph as an oracle of religion and science; he was trusted by

the sultan as the faithful vicegerent of his power and justice.

After an administration of thirty years, the fame of the vizier,

his wealth, and even his services, were transformed into crimes.

He was overthrown by the insidious arts of a woman and a rival;

and his fall was hastened by a rash declaration, that his cap and

ink-horn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine

decree with the throne and diadem of the sultan. At the age of

ninety-three years, the venerable statesman was dismissed by his

master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic: 451

the last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder

of Malek’s life was short and inglorious. From Ispahan, the scene

of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Bagdad, with

the design of transplanting the caliph, and of fixing his own

residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble

successor of Mahomet obtained a respite of ten days; and before

the expiration of the term, the Barbarian was summoned by the

angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in

marriage a Roman princess; but the proposal was decently eluded;

and the daughter of Alexius, who might herself have been the

victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. 46

The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Moctadi,

with the imperious condition, that, renouncing the society of his

wives and concubines, he should forever confine himself to this

honorable alliance.

451 (return) [ He was the first great victim of his enemy, Hassan

Sabek, founder of the Assassins. Von Hammer, Geschichte der

Assassinen, p. 95.—M.]

46 (return) [ She speaks of this Persian royalty. Anna Comnena

was only nine years old at the end of the reign of Malek Shah,

(A.D. 1092,) and when she speaks of his assassination, she

confounds the sultan with the vizier, (Alexias, l. vi. p. 177,

178.)]

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.

The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the

person of Malek Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by his

brother and his four sons; 461 and, after a series of civil wars,

the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a

lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and

principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger

dynasties were those of Kerman, of Syria, and of Roum: the first

of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, 47 dominion on

the shores of the Indian Ocean: 48 the second expelled the

Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus; and the third, our

peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The

generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he

allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had

vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their

ambition; nor was he displeased that they should draw away the

more ardent spirits, who might have disturbed the tranquillity of

his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the

great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his

royal brethren: the thrones of Kerman and Nice, of Aleppo and

Damascus; the Atabeks, and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia,

erected their standards under the shadow of his sceptre: 49 and

the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the Western Asia.

After the death of Malek, the bands of union and subordination

were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house

of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms;

and, in the Oriental style, a crowd of princes arose from the

dust of their feet. 50

461 (return) [ See Von Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p.

16. The Seljukian dominions were for a time reunited in the

person of Sandjar, one of the sons of Malek Shah, who ruled “from

Kashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of

Babelmandel.”—M.]

47 (return) [ So obscure, that the industry of M. De Guignes

could only copy (tom. i. p. 244, tom. iii. part i. p. 269, &c.)

the history, or rather list, of the Seljukides of Kerman, in

Bibliotheque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of

the xiith century.]

48 (return) [ Tavernier, perhaps the only traveller who has

visited Kerman, describes the capital as a great ruinous village,

twenty-five days’ journey from Ispahan, and twenty-seven from

Ormus, in the midst of a fertile country, (Voyages en Turquie et

en Perse, p. 107, 110.)]

49 (return) [ It appears from Anna Comnena, that the Turks of

Asia Minor obeyed the signet and chiauss of the great sultan,

(Alexias, l. vi. p. 170;) and that the two sons of Soliman were

detained in his court, (p. 180.)]

50 (return) [ This expression is quoted by Petit de la Croix (Vie

de Gestis p. 160) from some poet, most probably a Persian.]

A prince of the royal line, Cutulmish, 501 the son of Izrail, the

son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan and the

humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons,

strong in arms, ambitious of power, and eager for revenge,

unsheathed their cimeters against the son of Alp Arslan. The two

armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the

majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his

venerable mediation. “Instead of shedding the blood of your

brethren, your brethren both in descent and faith, unite your

forces in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and

his apostle.” They listened to his voice; the sultan embraced his

rebellious kinsmen; and the eldest, the valiant Soliman, accepted

the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and

hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from

Arzeroum to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the West.

51 Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates; the

Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaieh in

Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as

the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the

empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the

transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and

Saracens; but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for

the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks,

who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the

captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia had

trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the

provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a

double rebellion: of either chief Nicephorus was the common name;

but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the

European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their

promises, were weighed in the Divan; and, after some hesitation,

Soliman declared himself in favor of Botoniates, opened a free

passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and

joined the banner of the Crescent to that of the Cross. After his

ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was

hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari;

and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to

whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the

defeat and captivity of his rival, Bryennius. But the conquest of

Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia:

Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the

provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular

progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and

mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another

candidate implored the aid of the sultan: Melissenus, in his

purple robes and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish

camp; and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a

Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of

the Barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of

peace with the emperor Alexius: his fear of Robert compelled him

to seek the friendship of Soliman; and it was not till after the

sultan’s death that he extended as far as Nicomedia, about sixty

miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman

world. Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and

mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient

character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a

Christian empire.

501 (return) [ Wilken considers Cutulmish not a Turkish name.

Geschicht Kreuz-zuge, vol. i. p. 9.—M.]

51 (return) [ On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. De Guignes has

derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who

produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are

unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints

from Scylitzes, (p. 860, 863,) Nicephorus Bryennius, (p. 88, 91,

92, &c., 103, 104,) and Anna Comnena (Alexias, p. 91, 92, &c.,

163, &c.)]

Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of

the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable loss

which the church and empire had sustained. By the propagation of

the Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the name of Gazi, a holy

champion; and his new kingdoms, of the Romans, or of Roum, was

added to the tables of Oriental geography. It is described as

extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black

Sea to the confines of Syria; pregnant with mines of silver and

iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and

productive of cattle and excellent horses. 52 The wealth of

Lydia, the arts of the Greeks, the splendor of the Augustan age,

existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in

the eyes of the Scythian conquerors. Yet, in the present decay,

Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and,

under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in

numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the sultan, Nice,

the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and

fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum was planted

one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ

was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been

pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity

of God, and the mission of Mahomet, were preached in the moschs;

the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the Cadhis judged

according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish manners and

language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps were

scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard

conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might

enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy

churches were profaned; their priests and bishops were insulted;

53 they were compelled to suffer the triumph of the Pagans, and

the apostasy of their brethren; many thousand children were

marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives

were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. 54

After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive

allegiance to Christ and Caesar; but the solitary province was

separated from all Roman aid, and surrounded on all sides by the

Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared

the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been

prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nicene palace, and

offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Soliman.

The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights

(for he reposed in the day) performed a march of six hundred

miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his

enterprise; and the dependent cities, as far as Laodicea and the

confines of Aleppo, 55 obeyed the example of the metropolis. From

Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm of St. George, the

conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days’ journey in

length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen, between the rocks of

Lycia and the Black Sea. 56 The Turkish ignorance of navigation

protected, for a while, the inglorious safety of the emperor; but

no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by

the hands of the captive Greeks, than Alexius trembled behind the

walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over

Europe, to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the

danger, the weakness, and the riches of the city of Constantine.

57

52 (return) [ Such is the description of Roum by Haiton the

Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of

Ramusio and Bergeron, (see Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p.

301-305.)]

53 (return) [ Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse

episcopum, (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. l. i. p. 468.) It is

odd enough, that we should find a parallel passage of the same

people in the present age. “Il n’est point d’horreur que ces

Turcs n’ayent commis, et semblables aux soldats effrenes, qui

dans le sac d’une ville, non contens de disposer de tout a leur

gre pretendent encore aux succes les moins desirables. Quelque

Sipahis ont porte leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi

de la synagogue, et celle de l’Archeveque Grec.” (Memoires du

Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)]

54 (return) [ The emperor, or abbot describe the scenes of a

Turkish camp as if they had been present. Matres correptae in

conspectu filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus

vexabantur; (is that the true reading?) cum filiae assistentes

carmina praecinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad

filias, &c.]

55 (return) [ See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anna

Comnena, (Alexius, l. vi. p. 168, 169,) with the notes of

Ducange.]

56 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635) gives the

most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish

conquests.]

57 (return) [ In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexius

seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it

is approved by Ducange, (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 335, &c.,) and

paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The

Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might

say with Guibert, (p. 475,) verbis vestita meis, a privilege of

most indefinite latitude.]

But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that

of Jerusalem, 58 which soon became the theatre of nations. In

their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the

assurance of their religion and property; but the articles were

interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute;

and in the four hundred years of the reign of the caliphs, the

political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of

storm and sunshine. 59 By the increase of proselytes and

population, the Mahometans might excuse the usurpation of three

fourths of the city: but a peculiar quarter was resolved for the

patriarch with his clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of

gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ,

with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands

of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and

respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages

to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by

the conquest of the Arabs; and the enthusiasm which had always

prompted these perilous journeys, was nourished by the congenial

passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the

East and West continued to visit the holy sepulchre, and the

adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the festival of Easter;

and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the

Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained

the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective

communions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the

worship of so many nations in the common temple of their

religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and

peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was imbittered by

hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah,

who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and

persecute their spiritual brethren. The preeminence was asserted

by the spirit and numbers of the Franks; and the greatness of

Charlemagne 60 protected both the Latin pilgrims and the

Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and

Jerusalem, was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor; and

many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his

liberal devotion. Harun Alrashid, the greatest of the Abbassides,

esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius

and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent

intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without

resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with

the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of

Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the

republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion

in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the

coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful

imports, the favor and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs: 61 an

annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary: and the Italian

merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of

Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order, which

has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the

Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet,

the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have

imitated, their piety: but these rigid Unitarians were

scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and

resurrection, of a God; the Catholic images were branded with the

name of idols; and the Moslems smiled with indignation 62 at the

miraculous flame which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the

holy sepulchre. 63 This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth

century, 64 was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is

annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and

Coptic sects, 65 who impose on the credulous spectators 66 for

their own benefit, and that of their tyrants. In every age, a

principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of

interest: and the revenue of the prince and his emir was

increased each year, by the expense and tribute of so many

thousand strangers.

58 (return) [ Our best fund for the history of Jerusalem from

Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original

passages of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. 1-10, l. xviii.

c. 5, 6,) the principal author of the Gesta Dei per Francos. M.

De Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur le Commerce

des Francois dans le de Levant avant les Croisades, &c. (Mem. de

l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467-500.)]

59 (return) [ Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida

plerum que nubila recepit intervalla, et aegrotantium more

temporum praesentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate, (l. i.

c. 3, p. 630.) The latinity of William of Tyre is by no means

contemptible: but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to

the recovery of Jerusalem, precedes the true account by 30

years.]

60 (return) [ For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy

Land, see Eginhard, (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79-82,)

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administratione Imperii, l. ii.

c. 26, p. 80,) and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13,

14, 15.)]

61 (return) [ The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis

viris amicis et utilium introductoribus, (Gesta Dei, p. 934.) The

trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a

title, unless we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman,

who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini)

for the Venetians and Parisians.]

62 (return) [ An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman.

Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 268, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the

unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene

presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of

this perpetual miracle.]

63 (return) [ In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the

learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle,

(tom. ii. p. 214-306,) de lumine sancti sepulchri.]

64 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (l. iv. c. 2, p. 209) quotes

the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited

Jerusalem A.D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim

some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the

Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.]

65 (return) [ Our travellers, Sandys, (p. 134,) Thevenot, (p.

621-627,) Maundrell, (p. 94, 95,) &c., describes this extravagant

farce. The Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle ended

and the trick began.]

66 (return) [ The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and

plead necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier

D’Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20;)

but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our

travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at

Naples.]

The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides

to the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the

Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the

importance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were

less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the

third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem, 67 a

frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism

from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a wild

mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs

of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement; the

restraint excited the clamors of both sexes; their clamors

provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the

flames and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a

bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous

Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges:

twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at

his expense in letters of gold; and his edict extirpated the

vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered

by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above the

fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the

Most High God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at

length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the

lord of the living and the dead, every knee was bent in religious

adoration: his mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo:

sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and

at the present hour, a free and warlike people, the Druses of

Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman

and tyrant. 68 In his divine character, Hakem hated the Jews and

Christians, as the servants of his rivals; while some remains of

prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of

Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton

persecution made some martyrs and many apostles: the common

rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally

disregarded; and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of

strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the

church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations;

the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane

labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which

properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this

sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted:

but instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they

contented themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews, as the

secret advisers of the impious Barbarian. 69 Yet the calamities

of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy

or repentance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed

for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was

assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding

caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy: a free

toleration was again granted; with the pious aid of the emperor

of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins; and,

after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase

of appetite to the spiritual feast. 70 In the sea-voyage of

Palestine, the dangers were frequent, and the opportunities rare:

but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between

Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of

his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren; 71

and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred

miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of

pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the

roads were covered with multitudes of either sex, and of every

rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they

should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and

prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers

of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which

marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About

thirty years before the first crusade, the arch bishop of Mentz,

with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, undertook

this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan; and the

multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons.

At Constantinople, they were hospitably entertained by the

emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault

of the wild Arabs: they drew their swords with scrupulous

reluctance, and sustained siege in the village of Capernaum, till

they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir.

After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only

a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land.

Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion

of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sailed from Normandy,

thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed

the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand,

and the wallet at their back. 72

67 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411,)

Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390, 397, 400, 401,)

Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-323,) and Marei, (p. 384-386,) an

historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German,

and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.]

68 (return) [ The religion of the Druses is concealed by their

ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to

the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar

Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally conform to the

worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighborhood.

The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the

industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354-357,) and the

second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de

Volney. * Note: The religion of the Druses has, within the

present year, been fully developed from their own writings, which

have long lain neglected in the libraries of Paris and Oxford, in

the “Expose de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy.”

Deux tomes, Paris, 1838. The learned author has prefixed a life

of Hakem Biamr-Allah, which enables us to correct several errors

in the account of Gibbon. These errors chiefly arose from his

want of knowledge or of attention to the chronology of Hakem’s

life. Hakem succeeded to the throne of Egypt in the year of the

Hegira 386. He did not assume his divinity till 408. His life was

indeed “a wild mixture of vice and folly,” to which may be added,

of the most sanguinary cruelty. During his reign, 18,000 persons

were victims of his ferocity. Yet such is the god, observes M. de

Sacy, whom the Druses have worshipped for 800 years! (See p.

ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant actions were

interpreted by his followers as having a mystic and allegoric

meaning, alluding to the destruction of other religions and the

propagation of his own. It does not seem to have been the

“vanity” of Hakem which induced him to introduce a new religion.

The curious point in the new faith is that Hamza, the son of Ali,

the real founder of the Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful

title,) was content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was

God, the one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It was

not in his “divine character” that Hakem “hated the Jews and

Christians,” but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he displayed

in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous persecution, and

the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem,

belong entirely to that period; and his assumption of divinity

was followed by an edict of toleration to Jews and Christians.

The Mahometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and

contempt, being far the most numerous, were his most dangerous

enemies, and therefore the objects of his most inveterate hatred.

It is another singular fact, that the religion of Hakem was by no

means confined to Egypt and Syria. M. de Sacy quotes a letter

addressed to the chief of the sect in India; and there is

likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constantine, son of

Armanous, (Romanus,) and the clergy of the empire. (Constantine

VIII., M. de Sacy supposes, but this is irreconcilable with

chronology; it must mean Constantine XI., Monomachus.) The

assassination of Hakem is, of course, disbelieved by his

sectaries. M. de Sacy seems to consider the fact obscure and

doubtful. According to his followers he disappeared, but is

hereafter to return. At his return the resurrection is to take

place; the triumph of Unitarianism, and the final discomfiture of

all other religions. The temple of Mecca is especially devoted to

destruction. It is remarkable that one of the signs of this final

consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is that

Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance over

Mahometanism. As for the religion of the Druses, I cannot agree

with Gibbon that it does not “deserve” to be better known; and am

grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and

occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full

examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration which

ever extensively affected the mind of man. The worship of a mad

tyrant is the basis of a subtle metaphysical creed, and of a

severe, and even ascetic, morality.—M.]

69 (return) [ See Glaber, l. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of

Baronius and Pagi, A.D. 1009.]

70 (return) [ Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis

multitudo coepit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis,

quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris

plebis.... mediocres.... reges et comites..... praesules .....

mulieres multae nobilis cum pauperioribus.... Pluribus enim erat

mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur,

(Glaber, l. iv. c. 6, Bouquet. Historians of France, tom. x. p.

50.) * Note: Compare the first chap. of Wilken, Geschichte der

Kreuz-zuge.—M.]

71 (return) [ Glaber, l. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum

Hungariae, tom. i. p. 304-311) examines whether St. Stephen

founded a monastery at Jerusalem.]

72 (return) [ Baronius (A.D. 1064, No. 43-56) has transcribed the

greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus,

and Lambertus.]

After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite

caliphs was invaded by the Turks. 73 One of the lieutenants of

Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, marched into Syria at the head

of a powerful army, and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword.

Hems, and the other cities of the province, acknowledged the

caliph of Bagdad and the sultan of Persia; and the victorious

emir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile: the

Fatimite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa; but the

negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a

desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of

Egypt. In his retreat he indulged the license of slaughter and

rapine: the judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his

camp; and their execution was followed by the massacre of three

thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon

punished by the sultan Toucush, the brother of Malek Shah, who,

with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the

dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned

about twenty years in Jerusalem; 74 but the hereditary command of

the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the

emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children,

after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the

borders of Armenia and Assyria. 75 The Oriental Christians and

the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the

regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on

their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the North. 76 In

his court and camp the great sultan had adopted in some degree

the arts and manners of Persia; but the body of the Turkish

nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed

the fierceness of the desert. From Nice to Jerusalem, the western

countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility;

and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a

doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the

slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims,

who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of

Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public

oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and

disease, before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulchre.

A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal, prompted the

Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect: the patriarch was

dragged by the hair along the pavement, and cast into a dungeon,

to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock; and the divine

worship in the church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by

the savage rudeness of its masters. The pathetic tale excited the

millions of the West to march under the standard of the cross to

the relief of the Holy Land; and yet how trifling is the sum of

these accumulated evils, if compared with the single act of the

sacrilege of Hakem, which had been so patiently endured by the

Latin Christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the more

irascible temper of their descendants: a new spirit had arisen of

religious chivalry and papal dominion; a nerve was touched of

exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of

Europe.

73 (return) [ See Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350) and

Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 237, vers. Pocock.) M. De Guignes

(Hist. des Huns, tom iii. part i. p. 215, 216) adds the

testimonies, or rather the names, of Abulfeda and Novairi.]

74 (return) [ From the expedition of Isar Atsiz, (A. H. 469, A.D.

1076,) to the expulsion of the Ortokides, (A.D. 1096.) Yet

William of Tyre (l. i. c. 6, p. 633) asserts, that Jerusalem was

thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic

chronicle, quoted by Pagi, (tom. iv. p. 202) supposes that the

city was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the

caliph of Bagdad, A. H. 463, A.D. 1070. These early dates are not

very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am sure,

that as late as A.D. 1064, the regnum Babylonicum (of Cairo)

still prevailed in Palestine, (Baronius, A.D. 1064, No. 56.)]

75 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252. ]

76 (return) [ Willierm. Tyr. l. i. c. 8, p. 634, who strives hard

to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus

from each pilgrim! The caphar of the Franks now is fourteen

dollars: and Europe does not complain of this voluntary tax.]

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.

Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin

Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek

Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The

Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon,

First King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin

Kingdom.

About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks,

the holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter,

a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy 1 in France. His

resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the

oppression of the Christian name; he mingled his tears with those

of the patriarch, and earnestly inquired, if no hopes of relief

could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The

patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors of

Constantine. “I will rouse,” exclaimed the hermit, “the martial

nations of Europe in your cause;” and Europe was obedient to the

call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with

epistles of credit and complaint; and no sooner did he land at

Bari, than Peter hastened to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff.

His stature was small, his appearance contemptible; but his eye

was keen and lively; and he possessed that vehemence of speech,

which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul. 2 He was

born of a gentleman’s family, (for we must now adopt a modern

idiom,) and his military service was under the neighboring counts

of Boulogne, the heroes of the first crusade. But he soon

relinquished the sword and the world; and if it be true, that his

wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw, with

the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to

a hermitage. 211 In this austere solitude, his body was

emaciated, his fancy was inflamed; whatever he wished, he

believed; whatever he believed, he saw in dreams and revelations.

From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but

as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban

the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious

design, promised to support it in a general council, and

encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.

Invigorated by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous

missionary traversed. with speed and success, the provinces of

Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his prayers long and

fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand, he

distributed with the other: his head was bare, his feet naked,

his meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore and

displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was

sanctified, in the public eye, by the service of the man of God.

He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets,

and the highways: the hermit entered with equal confidence the

palace and the cottage; and the people (for all was people) was

impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms. When he

painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine,

every heart was melted to compassion; every breast glowed with

indignation, when he challenged the warriors of the age to defend

their brethren, and rescue their Savior: his ignorance of art and

language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and ejaculations;

and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent

appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of

paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. 212 The most

perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his

eloquence; the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he

felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the counsels and

decrees of the supreme pontiff.

1 (return) [ Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of

Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date later

than A.D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first

applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the

University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and

Flanders, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447, Longuerue.

Description de la France, p. 54.)]

2 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11, p. 637, 638) thus

describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis

ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens

ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p.

482. Anna Comnena in Alex isd, l. x. p. 284, &c., with Ducarge’s

Notes, p. 349.]

211 (return) [ Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p.

47.)—M.]

212 (return) [ He had seen the Savior in a vision: a letter had

fallen from heaven Wilken, (vol. i. p. 49.)—M.]

The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already

embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor of

his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles: from either

side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the

banner of St. Peter; 3 and his successor reveals his intention of

marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet.

But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in person,

this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second, 4 the

most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of the

East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and

fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with

Urban for the name and honors of the pontificate. He attempted to

unite the powers of the West, at a time when the princes were

separated from the church, and the people from their princes, by

the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had

thundered against the emperor and the king of France. Philip the

First, of France, supported with patience the censures which he

had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage.

Henry the Fourth, of Germany, asserted the right of investitures,

the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the

ring and crosier. But the emperor’s party was crushed in Italy by

the arms of the Normans and the Countess Mathilda; and the long

quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son

Conrad and the shame of his wife, 5 who, in the synods of

Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to

which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor

and his own. 6 So popular was the cause of Urban, so weighty was

his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia 7

was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgandy,

Swabia, and Bavaria. Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty

thousand of the laity, attended this important meeting; and, as

the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the

multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent

to the city. The ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Alexius

Comnenus, were introduced to plead the distress of their

sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided

only by a narrow sea from the victorious Turks, the common

enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they

flattered the pride of the Latin princes; and, appealing at once

to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the

Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in

the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of

their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most

eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek

ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and

powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the

larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem;

but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second

synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in

the autumn of the same year. The short delay would propagate the

flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a nation of

soldiers 8 still proud of the preeminence of their name, and

ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, 9 who, in the

popular romance of Turpin, 10 had achieved the conquest of the

Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence

the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of

Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne

of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province;

nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to

revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious

scenes of our youth.

3 (return) [ Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in

expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in

inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente

pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31, in tom. xii. 322,

concil.)]

4 (return) [ See the original lives of Urban II. by Pandulphus

Pisanus and Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom.

iii. pars i. p. 352, 353.]

5 (return) [ She is known by the different names of Praxes,

Eupraecia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a

Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh.

(Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p. 340.)]

6 (return) [ Henricus odio eam coepit habere: ideo incarceravit

eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium

hortans ut eam subagitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot.

apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is

described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: quae se tantas et tam

inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse

conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer

suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo

cognoverit papa cum sancta synodo. Apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4,

1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope

and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle

of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings

and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was

tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous

stories of herself and her husband.]

7 (return) [ See the narrative and acts of the synod of

Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]

8 (return) [ Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and

valor of the French nation, the author and example of the

crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida

.... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus

videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He

owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into

petulance among foreigners, (p. 488.) and vain loquaciousness,

(p. 502.)]

9 (return) [ Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex

Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1.

Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. l. i. p. 33, &c.)]

10 (return) [ John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of

Rheims, A.D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed

in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and

such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes

himself as a fighting and drinking priest! Yet the book of lies

was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus II., (A.D. 1122,) and

is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great

Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric Bibliot. Latin Medii Aevi, edit.

Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)]

It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should

erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from whence he hurled

his anathemas against the king; but our surprise will vanish so

soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the

eleventh century. 11 Philip the First was the great-grandson of

Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline

of Charlemagne’s posterity, added the regal title to his

patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass,

he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the rest of

France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the

feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and

hereditary power, 12 who disdained the control of laws and legal

assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged

by the disobedience of their inferior vassals. At Clermont, in

the territories of the count of Auvergne, 13 the pope might brave

with impunity the resentment of Philip; and the council which he

convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than

the synod of Placentia. 14 Besides his court and council of Roman

cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two

hundred and twenty-five bishops: the number of mitred prelates

was computed at four hundred; and the fathers of the church were

blessed by the saints and enlightened by the doctors of the age.

From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights

of power and renown attended the council, 15 in high expectation

of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity,

that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of

November, erected their tents or huts in the open field. A

session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for

the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced

against the license of private war; the Truce of God 16 was

confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the

week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the

church; and a protection of three years was extended to

husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military

rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot

suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent

efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to

appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of

war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of

Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone forth among the

nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese

the merit and glory of the deliverance of the Holy Land; and when

the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of

Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and

impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was

vehement, his success inevitable. The orator was interrupted by

the shout of thousands, who with one voice, and in their rustic

idiom, exclaimed aloud, “God wills it, God wills it.” 17 “It is

indeed the will of God,” replied the pope; “and let this

memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be

forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion

and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol

of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external

mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred

and irrevocable engagement.” The proposal was joyfully accepted;

great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their

garments the sign of the cross, 18 and solicited the pope to

march at their head. This dangerous honor was declined by the

more prudent successor of Gregory, who alleged the schism of the

church, and the duties of his pastoral office, recommending to

the faithful, who were disqualified by sex or profession, by age

or infirmity, to aid, with their prayers and alms, the personal

service of their robust brethren. The name and powers of his

legate he devolved on Adhemar bishop of Puy, the first who had

received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal

chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the

council excused the absence, and pledged the honor, of their

master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the

champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous

admonition to invite their countrymen and friends; and their

departure for the Holy Land was fixed to the festival of the

Assumption, the fifteenth of August, of the ensuing year. 19

11 (return) [ See Etat de la France, by the Count de

Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180-182, and the second volume of the

Observations sur l’Histoire de France, by the Abbe de Mably.]

12 (return) [ In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the

first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all

sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and

Flanders, contracted the same and limits of the proper France.

See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]

13 (return) [ These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of

Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their

country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually

became princes of the city. Melanges, tires d’une grand

Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.]

14 (return) [ See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil.

tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]

15 (return) [ Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri

potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae

superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p.

31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480.

Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]

16 (return) [ The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first

invented in Aquitain, A.D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an

occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to

their privileges (Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.)]

17 (return) [ Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of

the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By

the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom,

it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron.

Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.

tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and

Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a

very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100,

very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont,

(p. 15, 16.)]

18 (return) [ Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk,

or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were

red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while

green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the

English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever

appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our

military ensigns and uniforms.]

19 (return) [ Bongarsius, who has published the original writers

of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title

of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose

to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in

folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this

collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.

I. Gesta Francorum.

II. Robertus Monachus.

III. Baldricus.

IV. Raimundus de Agiles.

V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.

VII. Guibertus.

VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,

IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,

(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,)

X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,

(tom. vii. p. 664-848.)

The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has

given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades,

(Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141,) and most of whose

judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late

before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected

by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de

Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been

transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The

Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p.

890-912,) is of small value or account. * Note: Several new

documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the

industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and

Wilken.—M.]

So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of

violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation,

the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national

hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more

rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants

of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction,

unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the

necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined

from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our

conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of

our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both

of the East and West, were persuaded of their lawfulness and

merit; their arguments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of

Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of

natural and religious defence, their peculiar title to the Holy

Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. 20

I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and

spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that

danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the

malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has

been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other

religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is

refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Mussulman conquerors,

and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian

worship. But it cannot be denied, that the Oriental churches are

depressed under their iron yoke; that, in peace and war, they

assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and

that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are

continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In

the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented

a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued,

in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as

Jerusalem and the Hellespont; and the Greek empire tottered on

the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their

brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of

Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West; and the

privilege of defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel,

an impending assault. But this salutary purpose might have been

accomplished by a moderate succor; and our calmer reason must

disclaim the innumerable hosts, and remote operations, which

overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. 2011

20 (return) [ If the reader will turn to the first scene of the

First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of

Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes

of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind,

greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent

from his creed.]

2011 (return) [ The manner in which the war was conducted surely

has little relation to the abstract question of the justice or

injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be

conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the

wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation

and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the

liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the

aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the

right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of

overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole

continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror

into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human

folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe,

waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer

reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human

wisdom?—M.]

II. Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the

Latins; and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the

conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians

affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had

been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior; it was their

right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust

possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the

pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the

preeminence of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Palestine, have

been abolished with the Mosaic law; that the God of the

Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem

or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the

violation of the moral precepts of the gospel. Such arguments

glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition; and the

religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred

ground of mystery and miracle.

III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of

the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindostan,

require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It

has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a

difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility; that

obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of

the cross; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as

well as of mercy. 2012 Above four hundred years before the first

crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire

had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by

the Barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had

legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks; but in the eyes

of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still

tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might

be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. 21

2012 (return) [ “God,” says the abbot Guibert, “invented the

crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and

to merit salvation.” This extraordinary and characteristic

passage must be given entire. “Deus nostro tempore praelia sancta

instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui vetustae

Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum reperirent

salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut fieri

assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet

professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta

licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus

gratiam consequerentur.” Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol. i.

p. 63.—M.]

21 (return) [ The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical

History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of

the causes and effects of the crusades.]

As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline

of penance 22 was enforced; and with the multiplication of sins,

the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a

voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In

the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the

criminal; compelled him to account for his thoughts, words, and

actions; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God.

But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by

indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to

inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of

legislation was invented by the Greeks; their penitentials 23

were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church; and, in the

time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided

with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of

the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments,

each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the

experience or penetration of the monks; some sins are enumerated

which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason

cannot believe; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and

adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were

expiated by a penance, which, according to the various

circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years.

During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the

criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and

prayers: the disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and

remorse; and he humbly abstained from all the business and

pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws

would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city; the

Barbarians of the West believed and trembled; but nature often

rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored without

effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal

accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of

adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide

might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was

separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a

modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years.

His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a

year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi 24 of

silver, about four pounds sterling, for the rich; at three

solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were

soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from

the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and

dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred

pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the

scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of

land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are

expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of

the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay

with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by

the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic

arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes;

25 and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St.

Dominic of the iron Cuirass, 26 that in six days he could

discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred

thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of

both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy

disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his

benefactors. 27 These compensations of the purse and the person

introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of

satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens

of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban

the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a

plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of

the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt

for all that might be due of canonical penance. 28 The cold

philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression

that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of

their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by

thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the

same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian

brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by

offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none

were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were

the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the

best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their

pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did

not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; 29

and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the

delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their

blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their

salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence

into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their

safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the

difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of

Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land.

Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers

would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest

cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the

sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for

the destruction of the infidels?

22 (return) [ The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages

are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,

tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709-768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres

sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p.

478-556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition

are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and

peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]

23 (return) [ Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p.

211-220, 452-462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino

in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year,

five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]

24 (return) [ Till the xiith century, we may support the clear

account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling;

and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound

sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a

fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]

25 (return) [ Each century of lashes was sanctified with a

recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment

of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]

26 (return) [ The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus

was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See

Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96-104. Baronius, A.D. 1056,

No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even among

ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation (purgatorii

genus) was grown.]

27 (return) [ At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho

Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman.

I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16-29)

a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these artists.]

28 (return) [ Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel

pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem

profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur.

Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum

salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the

subject. * Note: See note, page 546.—M.]

29 (return) [ Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and

such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des

Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of

their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits

of martyrdom.]

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.

Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I

will dare to affirm, that all were prompted by the spirit of

enthusiasm; the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the

assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded, that in many

it was not the sole, that in some it was not the leading,

principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to

stem, they are strong and irresistible to impel, the stream of

national manners. Against the private wars of the Barbarians,

their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels,

the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more

easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to

drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to

sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the

merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War

and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins;

they were enjoined, as a penance, to gratify those passions, to

visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation

of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would

immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross; and

the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid

prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe, they

shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the

acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march

with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were

devoted to their arms; their fancy already grasped the golden

sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the

Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private

adventurer. Christendom, in her rudest state, must have yielded

to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and

their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the

tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The

vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every

wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and

treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper,

and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this

earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a

plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by

the extent of his wishes. 30 Their vassals and soldiers trusted

their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish

emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the

flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, 31 were

temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession,

of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful

incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or

ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and

burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might

escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their

families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself

from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the

accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and

outlaws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the

laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. 32

30 (return) [ The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the

adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de

Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and

ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he

should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo,

(Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]

31 (return) [ In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of

Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the

relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum

foeminarum voluptas, (p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert,

the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]

32 (return) [ See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom

from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their

perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]

These motives were potent and numerous: when we have singly

computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add

the infinite series, the multiplying powers, of example and

fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most

effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and

countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense,

of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly

drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The

martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of

cowardice; the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre

of Christ was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and

children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength;

and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their

companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in

their footsteps. The ignorance, which magnified the hopes,

diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish

conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs

themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and

the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the

people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the

limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that

was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors. Yet

the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they

should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna,

provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every

country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray,

according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes

alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles,

peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value

of property was depreciated by the eager competition of

multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an

exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. 33

Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched

by the epidemical disease: the sovereigns acquired at a cheap

rate the domains of their vassals; and the ecclesiastical

purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their

prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in

cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot

iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark;

and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his

breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest

benefices of Palestine. 34

33 (return) [ Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this

general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had

genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing

before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes

emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]

34 (return) [ Some instances of these stigmata are given in the

Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I

have not seen]

The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont

for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by

the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly

despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before

I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the

chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and

Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes

flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed

him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy

sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the

talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the

forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and

Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate,

and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy

soldier, conducted a van guard of pilgrims, whose condition may

be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen

thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely

pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had

swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages

of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred

thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who

mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine,

prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the

head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the

multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may

we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried

in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an

infusion of the divine spirit. 35 Of these, and of other bands of

enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the

Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of

the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich;

and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the

bishops, the free exercise of their religion. 36 At Verdun,

Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy

people were pillaged and massacred: 37 nor had they felt a more

bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was

saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned

and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed

their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed

their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and

their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the

malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

35 (return) [ Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac

congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis,

anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam

non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae

fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these

peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in

Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend

ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile

allegory. * Note: A singular “allegoric” explanation of this

strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the

charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently

made against the Templars. “We have no doubt that they were

Manichee or Gnostic standards.” (The author says the animals

themselves were carried before the army.—M.) “The goose, in

Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant ‘divine

Son,’ or ‘Son of God.’ The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we

have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as

standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders.

Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have

been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?” Account of

the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is,

at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in

connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician

opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so

inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any

explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]

36 (return) [ Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his

Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich,

generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the

Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy

years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these

massacres.]

37 (return) [ These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which

were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true,

that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the

Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt

trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival

monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He

stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]

Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine

monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of

six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary 38

and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers;

but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread

to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his

dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments

of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native

princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor;

but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was

rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of

the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and

languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and

timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of

hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely

demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the

first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and

revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of

discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of

Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 381 at the trumpet of the

Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects

bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was

insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was

unrelenting and bloody. 39 About a third of the naked fugitives

(and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian

mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and

succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys

to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their

brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses;

but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment,

than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor,

and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from

their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to

pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind

impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had

assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied

the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had

withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant,

Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command,

attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence

among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and

themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a

rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils

of his capital, Soliman 391 tempted the main body to descend into

the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows;

and a pyramid of bones 40 informed their companions of the place

of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand

had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the

infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had

completed the preparations of their enterprise. 41

38 (return) [ See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho

of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum

Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]

381 (return) [ The narrative of the first march is very

incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and

Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the

kingdom of Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed

with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes

of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of

Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to

Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an

accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat.

Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86—M.]

39 (return) [ The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius,

are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a

single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the

writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient

and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson;

Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith;

Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de

Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19-53.)]

391 (return) [ Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle

against Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and

Antioch. It was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David,

surnamed Kilidje Arslan, the “Sword of the Lion,” who reigned in

Nice. Almost all the occidental authors have fallen into this

mistake, which was detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th

edit. and Extraits des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M.

Reinaud Paris, 1829, p. 3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes

to the Euphra tes, and as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan

must uniformly be substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le

Beau, tom. xv. p. 311.—M.]

40 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this

as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks

themselves as the materials of a wall.]

41 (return) [ See table on following page.]

“To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the

particular references to the great events of the first crusade.”

[See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]

None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in

the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed

to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was

occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent

conquest; the kin`gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic war

against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland,

Denmark, 42 Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the

passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was more

strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an

important place in the feudal system. Their situation will

naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their

names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition,

by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are

the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first

rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of

Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they

had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished

hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was

descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of

the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine,

43 was the inheritance of his mother; and by the emperor’s bounty

he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been

improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the

Ardennes. 44 In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the

great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the

breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who

ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps

his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early

resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but

a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation;

his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a

camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent.

Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his

enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom

by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged

by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon 45 was accompanied by his two

brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county

of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more

ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine, was alike celebrated on

either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education, he was

equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the

barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine, assembled their vassals;

and the confederate force that marched under his banner was

composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse.

II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king’s

presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh,

count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who

assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied,

not so much to his merit or possessions, (though neither were

contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king

of France. 46 Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of

William the Conqueror; but on his father’s death he was deprived

of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity

of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an

excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced

him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality

impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency

multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of

a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For

the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy

during his absence to the English usurper; 47 but his engagement

and behavior in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of

manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.

Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in

this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France,

England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the

Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot

the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois,

and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the

number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and

sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature;

and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen 48 was

chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four

were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the

pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who

were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a

contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war. 49 III. In the

south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of

Puy, the pope egate, and by Raymond count of St. Giles and

Thoulouse who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and

marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike

qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran

warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who

consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but

to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience

and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp,

whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to

relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the

Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and

associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper

haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample

patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion,

was not exempt from avarice and ambition. 50 A mercantile, rather

than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, 51 a

common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and

Languedoc, 52 the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.

From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hardy

adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians

flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one

hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to

enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the

greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting

farewell. IV. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard,

was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor;

but his father’s will had reduced him to the principality of

Tarentum, and the remembrance of his Eastern trophies, till he

was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It

is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the

coolest policy and ambition, with a small allay of religious

fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly

directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with

astonishment and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, his example and

discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he

instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous

candidates, and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the

head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several

princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and

his cousin Tancred 53 was the partner, rather than the servant,

of the war.

In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the

virtues of a perfect knight, 54 the true spirit of chivalry,

which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man

far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of

the times.

42 (return) [ The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted,

and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of

Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by

Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of

Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111-115.)]

43 (return) [ The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or

Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of

the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter

has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p.

283-288.)]

44 (return) [ See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de

Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part

ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold

or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]

45 (return) [ See the family character of Godfrey, in William of

Tyre, l. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;)

his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]

46 (return) [ Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his

nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last

articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred

years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the

ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]

47 (return) [ Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in

Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part

of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to

five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields

fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des

Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]

48 (return) [ His original letter to his wife is inserted in the

Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d’Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the

Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]

49 (return) [ Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum

dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem

Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and

interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]

50 (return) [ It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a

second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should

shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna

Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p.

129.)]

51 (return) [ Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et

Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero

Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci

dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]

52 (return) [ The town of his birth, or first appanage, was

consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first

crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St.

Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and

the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation

of Raymond, (Melanges tires d’une Grande Bibliotheque, tom.

xxxvii. p 51.)]

53 (return) [ The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great

Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is

singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a

person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures

that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises

of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]