could not remain quiet for so long a time. They would, in all probability,
have fallen upon each other, had there been no Turks in Palestine upon
whom they might vent their impetuosity. Godfrey proceeded to Edessa, to
aid his brother Baldwin in expelling the Saracens from his principality,
and the other leaders carried on separate hostilities against them as
caprice or ambition dictated. At length the impatience of the army to be
led against Jerusalem became so great that the chiefs could no longer
delay, and Raymond, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy marched forward with
their divisions, and laid siege to the small but strong town of Marah.
With their usual improvidence, they had not food enough to last a
beleaguering army for a week. They suffered great privations in
consequence, till Bohemund came to their aid and took the town by storm.
In connexion with this siege, the chronicler, Raymond d'Agilles (the same
Raymond the chaplain who figured in the affair of the Holy Lance), relates
a legend, in the truth of which he devoutly believed, and upon which Tasso
has founded one of the most beautiful passages of his poem. It is worth
preserving, as shewing the spirit of the age and the source of the
extraordinary courage manifested by the Crusaders on occasions of extreme
difficulty. "One day," says Raymond, "Anselme de Ribeaumont beheld young
Engelram, the son of the Count de St. Paul, who had been killed at Marah,
enter his tent. 'How is it,' said Anselme to him, 'that you, whom I saw
lying dead on the field of battle, are full or life?'--'You must know,'
replied Engelram, 'that those who fight for Jesus Christ never die.' 'But
whence,' resumed Anselme, 'comes that strange brightness that surrounds
you?' Upon this Engelram pointed to the sky, where Anselme saw a palace of
diamond and crystal. 'It is thence,' said he, 'that I derive the beauty
which surprises you. My dwelling is there; a still finer one is prepared
for you, and you shall soon come to inhabit it. Farewell! we shall meet
again to-morrow.' With these words Engelram returned to heaven. Anselme,
struck by the vision, sent the next morning for the priests, received the
sacrament, and although full of health, took a last farewell of all his
friends, telling them that he was about to leave this world. A few hours
afterwards, the enemy having made a sortie, Anselme went out against them
sword in hand, and was struck on the forehead by a stone from a Turkish
sling, which sent him to heaven, to the beautiful palace that was prepared
for him."
[Illustration: SHRINE OF THE NATIVITY.]
New disputes arose between the Prince of Antioch and the Count of Toulouse
with regard to the capture of this town, which were with the utmost
difficulty appeased by the other chiefs. Delays also took place in the
progress of the army, especially before Archas, and the soldiery were so
exasperated that they were on the point of choosing new leaders to conduct
them to Jerusalem. Godfrey, upon this, set fire to his camp at Archas, and
marched forward. He was immediately joined by hundreds of the Provençals
of the Count of Toulouse. The latter, seeing the turn affairs were taking,
hastened after them, and the whole host proceeded towards the holy city,
so long desired amid sorrow, and suffering, and danger. At Emmaus they
were met by a deputation from the Christians of Bethlehem, praying for
immediate aid against the oppression of the infidels. The very name of
Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Saviour, was music to their ears, and
many of them wept with joy to think they were approaching a spot so
hallowed. Albert of Aix informs us that their hearts were so touched that
sleep was banished from the camp, and that, instead of waiting till the
morning's dawn to recommence their march, they set out shortly after
midnight, full of hope and enthusiasm. For upwards of four hours the
mail-clad legions tramped stedfastly forward in the dark, and when the sun
arose in unclouded splendour, the towers and pinnacles of Jerusalem
gleamed upon their sight. All the tender feelings of their nature were
touched; no longer brutal fanatics, but meek and humble pilgrims, they
knelt down upon the sod, and with tears in their eyes, exclaimed to one
another "_Jerusalem! Jerusalem!_" Some of them kissed the holy ground,
others stretched themselves at full length upon it, in order that their
bodies might come in contact with the greatest possible extent of it, and
others prayed aloud. The women and children who had followed the camp from
Europe, and shared in all its dangers, fatigues, and privations, were more
boisterous in their joy; the former from long-nourished enthusiasm, and
the latter from mere imitation,[9] and prayed, and wept, and laughed till
they almost put the more sober to the blush.
[9] Guibert de Nogent relates a curious instance of the
imitativeness of these juvenile Crusaders. He says that,
during the siege of Antioch, the Christian and Saracen boys
used to issue forth every evening from the town and camp in
great numbers, under the command of captains chosen from among
themselves. Armed with sticks instead of swords, and stones
instead of arrows, they ranged themselves in battle order,
and, shouting each the war-cry of their country, fought with
the utmost desperation. Some of them lost their eyes, and many
became cripples for life from the injuries they received on
these occasions.
[Illustration: THE PILGRIMS AT THE FIRST SIGHT OF JERUSALEM.]
The first ebullition of their gladness having subsided, the army marched
forward, and invested the city on all sides. The assault was almost
immediately begun; but after the Christians had lost some of their bravest
knights, that mode of attack was abandoned, and the army commenced its
preparations for a regular siege. Mangonels, moveable towers, and
battering-rams, together with a machine called a sow, made of wood, and
covered with raw hides, inside of which miners worked to undermine the
walls, were forthwith constructed; and to restore the courage and
discipline of the army, which had suffered from the unworthy dissensions
of the chiefs, the latter held out the hand of friendship to each other,
and Tancred and the Count of Toulouse embraced in sight of the whole camp.
The clergy aided the cause with their powerful voice, and preached union
and goodwill to the highest and the lowest. A solemn procession was also
ordered round the city, in which the entire army joined, prayers being
offered up at every spot which gospel records had taught them to consider
as peculiarly sacred.
The Saracens upon the ramparts beheld all these manifestations without
alarm. To incense the Christians, whom they despised, they constructed
rude crosses, and fixed them upon the walls, and spat upon and pelted them
with dirt and stones. This insult to the symbol of their faith raised the
wrath of the Crusaders to that height that bravery became ferocity, and
enthusiasm madness. When all the engines of war were completed, the attack
was recommenced, and every soldier of the Christian army fought with a
vigour which the sense of private wrong invariably inspires. Every man had
been personally outraged, and the knights worked at the battering-rams
with as much readiness as the meanest soldiers. The Saracen arrows and
balls of fire fell thick and fast among them, but the tremendous rams
still heaved against the walls, while the best marksmen of the host were
busily employed in the several floors of the moveable towers in dealing
death among the Turks upon the battlements. Godfrey, Raymond, Tancred, and
Robert of Normandy, each upon his tower, fought for hours with unwearied
energy, often repulsed, but ever ready to renew the struggle. The Turks,
no longer despising the enemy, defended themselves with the utmost skill
and bravery till darkness brought a cessation of hostilities. Short was
the sleep that night in the Christian camp. The priests offered up solemn
prayers in the midst of the attentive soldiery for the triumph of the
cross in this last great struggle; and as soon as morning dawned, every
one was in readiness for the affray. The women and children lent their
aid, the latter running unconcerned to and fro while the arrows fell fast
around them, bearing water to the thirsty combatants. The saints were
believed to be aiding their efforts, and the army, impressed with this
idea, surmounted difficulties under which a force thrice as numerous, but
without their faith, would have quailed and been defeated. Raymond of
Toulouse at last forced his way into the city by escalade, while at the
very same moment Tancred and Robert of Normandy succeeded in bursting open
one of the gates. The Turks flew to repair the mischief, and Godfrey of
Bouillon, seeing the battlements comparatively deserted, let down the
drawbridge of his moveable tower, and sprang forward, followed by all the
knights of his train. In an instant after, the banner of the cross floated
upon the walls of Jerusalem. The Crusaders, raising once more their
redoubtable war-cry, rushed on from every side, and the city was taken.
The battle raged in the streets for several hours, and the Christians,
remembering their insulted faith, gave no quarter to young or old, male or
female, sick or strong. Not one of the leaders thought himself at liberty
to issue orders for staying the carnage, and if he had, he would not have
been obeyed. The Saracens fled in great numbers to the mosque of Soliman,
but they had not time to fortify themselves within it ere the Christians
were upon them. Ten thousand persons are said to have perished in that
building alone.
Peter the Hermit, who had remained so long under the veil of neglect, was
repaid that day for all his zeal and all his sufferings. As soon as the
battle was over, the Christians of Jerusalem issued forth from their
hiding-places to welcome their deliverers. They instantly recognised the
Hermit as the pilgrim who, years before, had spoken to them so eloquently
of the wrongs and insults they had endured, and promised to stir up the
princes and people of Europe in their behalf. They clung to the skirts of
his garments in the fervour of their gratitude, and vowed to remember him
for ever in their prayers. Many of them shed tears about his neck, and
attributed the deliverance of Jerusalem solely to his courage and
perseverance. Peter afterwards held some ecclesiastical office in the holy
city, but what it was, or what was his ultimate fate, history has
forgotten to inform us. Some say that he returned to France and founded a
monastery, but the story does not rest upon sufficient authority.
[Illustration: SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.]
The grand object for which the popular swarms of Europe had forsaken their
homes was now accomplished. The Moslem mosques of Jerusalem were converted
into churches for a purer faith, and the mount of Calvary and the
sepulchre of Christ were profaned no longer by the presence or the power
of the infidel. Popular frenzy had fulfilled its mission, and, as a
natural consequence, it began to subside from that time forth. The news of
the capture of Jerusalem brought numbers of pilgrims from Europe, and,
among others, Stephen count of Chartres and Hugh of Vermandois, to atone
for their desertion; but nothing like the former enthusiasm existed among
the nations.
Thus then ends the history of the first Crusade. For the better
understanding of the second, it will be necessary to describe the interval
between them, and to enter into a slight sketch of the history of
Jerusalem under its Latin kings, the long and fruitless wars they
continued to wage with the unvanquished Saracens, and the poor and
miserable results which sprang from so vast an expenditure of zeal, and so
deplorable a waste of human life.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM.]
The necessity of having some recognised chief was soon felt by the
Crusaders, and Godfrey de Bouillon, less ambitious than Bohemund or
Raymond of Toulouse, gave his cold consent to wield a sceptre which the
latter chiefs would have clutched with eagerness. He was hardly invested
with the royal mantle before the Saracens menaced his capital. With much
vigour and judgment he exerted himself to follow up the advantages he had
gained, and marching out to meet the enemy before they had time to besiege
him in Jerusalem, he gave them battle at Ascalon, and defeated them with
great loss. He did not, however, live long to enjoy his new dignity, being
seized with a fatal illness when he had only reigned nine months. To him
succeeded his brother, Baldwin of Edessa. The latter monarch did much to
improve the condition of Jerusalem and to extend its territory, but was
not able to make a firm footing for his successors. For fifty years, in
which the history of Jerusalem is full of interest to the historical
student, the Crusaders were exposed to fierce and constant hostilities,
often gaining battles and territory, and as often losing them, but
becoming every day weaker and more divided, while the Saracens became
stronger and more united to harass and root them out. The battles of this
period were of the most chivalrous character, and deeds of heroism were
done by the handful of brave knights that remained in Syria, which have
hardly their parallel in the annals of war. In the course of time,
however, the Christians could not avoid feeling some respect for the
courage, and admiration for the polished manners and advanced civilisation
of the Saracens, so much superior to the rudeness and semi-barbarism of
Europe at that day. Difference of faith did not prevent them from forming
alliances with the dark-eyed maidens of the East. One of the first to set
the example of taking a Paynim spouse was King Baldwin himself, and these
connexions in time became not only frequent, but almost universal, among
such of the knights as had resolved to spend their lives in Palestine.
These Eastern ladies were obliged, however, to submit to the ceremony of
baptism before they could be received to the arms of a Christian lord.
These, and their offspring, naturally looked upon the Saracens with less
hatred than did the zealots who conquered Jerusalem, and who thought it a
sin deserving the wrath of God to spare an unbeliever. We find, in
consequence, that the most obstinate battles waged during the reigns of
the later kings of Jerusalem were fought by the new and raw levies who
from time to time arrived from Europe, lured by the hope of glory or
spurred by fanaticism. The latter broke without scruple the truces
established between the original settlers and the Saracens, and drew down
severe retaliation upon many thousands of their brethren in the faith,
whose prudence was stronger than their zeal, and whose chief desire was to
live in peace.
[Illustration: BIBLE OF BALDWIN'S QUEEN.]
Things remained in this unsatisfactory state till the close of the year
1145, when Edessa, the strong frontier town of the Christian kingdom, fell
into the hands of the Saracens. The latter were commanded by Zenghi, a
powerful and enterprising monarch, and, after his death, by his son
Nourheddin, as powerful and enterprising as his father. An unsuccessful
attempt was made by the Count of Edessa to regain the fortress, but
Nourheddin with a large army came to the rescue, and after defeating the
count with great slaughter, marched into Edessa and caused its
fortifications to be razed to the ground, that the town might never more
be a bulwark of defence for the kingdom of Jerusalem. The road to the
capital was now open, and consternation seized the hearts of the
Christians. Nourheddin, it was known, was only waiting for a favourable
opportunity to advance upon Jerusalem, and the armies of the cross,
weakened and divided, were not in a condition to make any available
resistance. The clergy were filled with grief and alarm, and wrote
repeated letters to the Pope and the sovereigns of Europe, urging the
expediency of a new Crusade for the relief of Jerusalem. By far the
greater number of the priests of Palestine were natives of France, and
these naturally looked first to their own country. The solicitations they
sent to Louis VII. were urgent and oft repeated, and the chivalry of
France began to talk once more of arming in defence of the birthplace of
Jesus. The kings of Europe, whose interest it had not been to take any
part in the first Crusade, began to bestir themselves in this; and a man
appeared, eloquent as Peter the Hermit, to arouse the people as that
preacher had done.
We find, however, that the enthusiasm of the second did not equal that of
the first Crusade; in fact, the mania had reached its climax in the time
of Peter the Hermit, and decreased regularly from that period. The third
Crusade was less general than the second, and the fourth than the third,
and so on, until the public enthusiasm was quite extinct, and Jerusalem
returned at last to the dominion of its old masters without a convulsion
in Christendom. Various reasons have been assigned for this; and one very
generally put forward is, that Europe was wearied with continued
struggles, and had become sick of "precipitating itself upon Asia." M.
Guizot, in his admirable lectures upon European civilisation, successfully
combats this opinion, and offers one of his own, which is far more
satisfactory. He says, in his eighth lecture, "It has been often repeated
that Europe was tired of continually invading Asia. This expression
appears to me exceedingly incorrect. It is not possible that human beings
can be wearied with what they have not done--that the labours of their
forefathers can fatigue them. Weariness is a personal, not an inherited
feeling. The men of the thirteenth century were not fatigued by the
Crusades of the twelfth. They were influenced by another cause. A great
change had taken place in ideas, sentiments, and social conditions. The
same desires and the same wants were no longer felt. The same things were
no longer believed. The people refused to believe what their ancestors
were persuaded of."
This is, in fact, the secret of the change; and its truth becomes more
apparent as we advance in the history of the Crusades, and compare the
state of the public mind at the different periods when Godfrey of
Bouillon, Louis VII., and Richard I., were chiefs and leaders of the
movement. The Crusades themselves were the means of operating a great
change in national ideas, and advancing the civilisation of Europe. In the
time of Godfrey, the nobles were all-powerful and all-oppressive, and
equally obnoxious to kings and people. During their absence along with
that portion of the community the deepest sunk in ignorance and
superstition, both kings and people fortified themselves against the
renewal of aristocratic tyranny, and in proportion as they became free
became civilised. It was during this period that in France, the grand
centre of the crusading madness, the _communes_ began to acquire strength,
and the monarch to possess a practical and not a merely theoretic
authority. Order and comfort began to take root, and, when the second
Crusade was preached, men were in consequence much less willing to abandon
their homes than they had been during the first. Such pilgrims as had
returned from the Holy Land came back with minds more liberal and expanded
than when they set out. They had come in contact with a people more
civilised than themselves; they had seen something more of the world, and
had lost some portion, however small, of the prejudice and bigotry of
ignorance. The institution of chivalry had also exercised its humanising
influence, and coming bright and fresh through the ordeal of the Crusades,
had softened the character and improved the hearts of the aristocratic
order. The _Trouvères_ and _Troubadours_, singing of love and war in
strains pleasing to every class of society, helped to root out the gloomy
superstitions which, at the first Crusade, filled the minds of all those
who were able to think. Men became in consequence less exclusively under
the mental thraldom of the priesthood, and lost much of the credulity
which formerly distinguished them.
The Crusades appear never to have excited so much attention in England as
on the continent of Europe; not because the people were less fanatical
than their neighbours, but because they were occupied in matters of graver
interest. The English were suffering too severely from the recent
successful invasion of their soil, to have much sympathy to bestow upon
the distresses of people so far away as the Christians of Palestine; and
we find that they took no part in the first Crusade, and very little in
the second. Even then those who engaged in it were chiefly Norman knights
and their vassals, and not the Saxon franklins and population, who no
doubt thought, in their sorrow, as many wise men have thought since, that
charity should begin at home.
Germany was productive of more zeal in the cause, and her raw uncivilised
hordes continued to issue forth under the banners of the cross in numbers
apparently undiminished, when the enthusiasm had long been on the wane in
other countries. They were sunk at that time in a deeper slough of
barbarism than the livelier nations around them, and took, in consequence,
a longer period to free themselves from their prejudices. In fact the
second Crusade drew its chief supplies of men from that quarter, where
alone the expedition can be said to have retained any portion of
popularity.
Such was the state of mind of Europe when Pope Eugenius, moved by the
reiterated entreaties of the Christians of Syria, commissioned St. Bernard
to preach a new Crusade. St. Bernard was a man eminently qualified for the
mission. He was endowed with an eloquence of the highest order, could move
an auditory to tears, or laughter, or fury, as it pleased him, and had led
a life of such rigid and self-denying virtue, that not even calumny could
lift her finger and point it at him. He had renounced high prospects in
the Church, and contented himself with the simple abbacy of Clairvaux, in
order that he might have the leisure he desired, to raise his powerful
voice against abuses wherever he found them. Vice met in him an austere
and uncompromising reprover; no man was too high for his reproach, and
none too low for his sympathy. He was just as well suited for his age as
Peter the Hermit had been for the age preceding. He appealed more to the
reason, his predecessor to the passions; Peter the Hermit collected a mob,
while St. Bernard collected an army. Both were endowed with equal zeal and
perseverance, springing in the one from impulse, and in the other from
conviction, and a desire to increase the influence of the Church, that
great body of which he was a pillar and an ornament.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF VEZELAI.]
One of the first converts he made was in himself a host. Louis VII. was
both superstitious and tyrannical, and, in a fit of remorse for the
infamous slaughter he had authorised at the sacking of Vitry, he made a
vow to undertake the journey to the Holy Land.[10] He was in this
disposition when St. Bernard began to preach, and wanted but little
persuasion to embark in the cause. His example had great influence upon
the nobility, who, impoverished as many of them were by the sacrifices
made by their fathers in the holy wars, were anxious to repair their
ruined fortunes by conquests on a foreign shore. These took the field with
such vassals as they could command, and in a very short time an army was
raised amounting to two hundred thousand men. At Vezelai the monarch
received the cross from the hands of St. Bernard, on a platform elevated
in sight of all the people. Several nobles, three bishops, and his queen,
Eleanor of Aquitaine, were present at this ceremony, and enrolled
themselves under the banner of the cross, St. Bernard cutting up his red
sacerdotal vestments, and making crosses of them, to be sewn on the
shoulders of the people. An exhortation from the Pope was read to the
multitude, granting remission of their sins to all who should join the
Crusade, and directing that no man on that holy pilgrimage should encumber
himself with heavy baggage and vain superfluities, and that the nobles
should not travel with dogs or falcons, to lead them from the direct road,
as had happened to so many during the first Crusade.
[10] The sacking of Vitry reflects indelible disgrace upon Louis
VII. His predecessors had been long engaged in resistance to
the outrageous powers assumed by the Popes, and Louis
continued the same policy. The ecclesiastical chapter of
Bourges, having elected an archbishop without his consent, he
proclaimed the election to be invalid, and took severe and
prompt measures against the refractory clergy. Thibault count
de Champagne took up arms in defence of the Papal authority,
and entrenched himself in the town of Vitry. Louis
immediately took the field to chastise the rebel, and he
besieged the town with so much vigour that the count was
forced to surrender. Upwards of thirteen hundred of the
inhabitants, fully one half of whom were women and children,
took refuge in the church; and, when the gates of the city
were opened, and all resistance had ceased, Louis inhumanly
gave orders to set fire to the sacred edifice, and a thousand
persons perished in the flames.