The great external event of the Middle Ages was the Crusades,--
indeed, they were the only common enterprise in which Europe ever
engaged. Such an event ought to be very interesting, since it has
reference to conflicting passions and interests. Unfortunately, in
a literary point of view, there is no central figure in the great
drama which the princes of Europe played for two hundred years, and
hence the Crusades have but little dramatic interest. No one man
represents that mighty movement. It was a great wave of
inundation, flooding Asia with the unemployed forces of Europe,
animated by passions which excite our admiration, our pity, and our
reprobation. They are chiefly interesting for their results, and
results which were unforeseen. A philosopher sees in them the hand
of Providence,--the overruling of mortal wrath to the praise of Him
who governs the universe. I know of no great movement of blind
forces so pregnant with mighty consequences.
The Crusades were a semi-religious and a semi-military movement.
They represent the passions and ideas of Europe in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries,--its chivalry, its hatred of Mohammedanism,
and its desire to possess the spots consecrated by the sufferings
of our Lord. Their long continuance shows the intensity of the
sentiments which animated them. They were aggressive wars, alike
fierce and unfortunate, absorbing to the nations that embarked in
them, but of no interest to us apart from the moral lessons to be
drawn from them. Perhaps one reason why history is so dull to most
people is that the greater part of it is a record of battles and
sieges, of military heroes and conquerors. This is pre-eminently
true of Greece, of Rome, of the Middle Ages, and of our modern
times down to the nineteenth century. But such chronicles of
everlasting battles and sieges do not satisfy this generation.
Hence our more recent historians, wishing to avoid the monotony of
ordinary history, have attempted to explore the common life of the
people, and to bring out their manners and habits: they would
succeed in making history more interesting if the materials, at
present, were not so scanty and unsatisfactory.
The only way to make the history of wars interesting is to go back
to the ideas, passions, and interests which they represent. Then
we penetrate to the heart of history, and feel its life. For all
the great wars of the world, we shall see, are exponents of its
great moving spiritual forces. The wars of Cyrus and Alexander
represent the passion of military glory; those of Marius, Sylla,
Pompey, and Caesar, the desire of political aggrandizement; those
of Constantine and Theodosius, the desire for political unity and
the necessity of self-defence. The sweeping and desolating
inundations of the barbarians, from the third to the sixth century,
represent the poverty of those rude nations, and their desire to
obtain settlements more favorable to getting a living. The
conquests of Mohammed and his successors were made to swell the
number of converts of a new religion. The perpetual strife of the
baronial lords was to increase their domains. The wars of
Charlemagne and Charles V. were to revive the imperialism of the
Caesars,--to create new universal monarchies. The wars which grew
out of the Reformation were to preserve or secure religious
liberty; those which followed were to maintain the balance of
power. Those of Napoleon were at first, at least nominally, to
spread or defend the ideas of the French Revolution, until he
became infatuated with the love of military glory. Our first great
war was to secure national independence, and our second to preserve
national unity. The contest between Prussia and France was to
prevent the ascendency of either of those great States. The wars
of the English in India were to find markets for English goods,
employment for the sons of the higher classes, and a new field for
colonization and political power. So all the great passions and
interests which have moved mankind have found their vent in war,--
rough barbaric spoliations, love of glory and political
aggrandizement, desire to spread religious ideas, love of liberty,
greediness for wealth, unity of nations, jealousy of other powers,
even the desire to secure general peace and tranquillity. Most
wars have had in view the attainment of great ends, and it is in
the ultimate results of them that we see the progress of nations.
Thus wars, contemplated in a philosophical aspect, in spite of
their repulsiveness are invested with dignity, and really indicate
great moral and intellectual movements, as well as the personal
ambition or vanity of conquerors. They are the ultimate solutions
of great questions, not to be solved in any other way,--
unfortunately, I grant,--on account of human wickedness. And I
know of no great wars, much as I loathe and detest them, and
severely and justly as they may he reprobated, which have not been
overruled for the ultimate welfare of society. The wars of
Alexander led to the introduction of Grecian civilization into Asia
and Egypt; those of the Romans, to the pacification of the world
and the reign of law and order; those of barbarians, to the
colonization of the worn-out provinces of the Roman Empire by
hardier and more energetic nations; those of Charlemagne, to the
ultimate suppression of barbaric invasions; those of the Saracens,
to the acknowledgment of One God; those of Charles V., to the
recognized necessity of a balance of power; those which grew out of
the Reformation, to religious liberty. The Huguenots' contest
undermined the ascendency of Roman priests in France; the Seven
Years' War developed the naval power of England, and gave to her a
prominent place among the nations, and exposed the weakness of
Austria, so long the terror of Europe; the wars of Louis XIV. sowed
the seeds of the French Revolution; those of Napoleon vindicated
its great ideas; those of England in India introduced the
civilization of a Christian nation; those of the Americans secured
liberty and the unity of their vast nation. The majesty of the
Governor of the universe is seen in nothing more impressively than
in the direction which the wrath of man is made to take.
Now these remarks apply to the Crusades. They represent prevailing
ideas. Their origin was a universal hatred of Mohammedans. Like
all the institutions of the Middle Ages, they were a great
contradiction,--debasement in glory, and glory in debasement. With
all the fierceness and superstition and intolerance of feudal
barons, we see in the Crusades the exercise of gallantry, personal
heroism, tenderness, Christian courtesy,--the virtues of chivalry,
unselfishness, and magnanimity; but they ended in giving a new
impulse to civilization, which will be more minutely pointed out
before I close my lecture.
Thus the Crusades are really worthy to be chronicled by historians
above anything else which took place in the Middle Ages, since they
gave birth to mighty agencies, which still are vital forces in
society,--even as everything in American history pales before that
awful war which arrayed, in our times, the North against the South
in desperate and deadly contest; the history of which remains to be
written, but cannot be written till the animosities which provoked
it have passed away. What a small matter to future historians is
rapid colonization and development of material resources, in
comparison with the sentiments which provoked that war! What will
future philosophers care how many bushels of wheat are raised in
Minnesota, or car-loads of corn brought from Illinois, or hogs
slaughtered in Chicago, or yards of cloth woven in Lowell, or cases
of goods packed in New York, or bales of carpets manufactured in
Philadelphia, or pounds of cotton exported from New Orleans, or
meetings of railway presidents at Cincinnati to pool the profits of
their monopolies, or women's-rights conventions held in Boston, or
schemes of speculators ventilated in the lobbies of Washington; or
stock-jobbing and gambling operations take place in every large
city of the country,--compared with the mighty marshalling of
forces on the banks of the Potomac, at the call of patriotism, to
preserve the life of the republic? You cannot divest war of
dignity and interest when the grandest results, which affect the
permanent welfare of nations, are made to appear.
The Crusades, as they were historically developed, are mixed up
with the religious ideas of the Middle Ages, with the domination of
popes, with the feudal system, with chivalry, with monastic life,
with the central power of kings, with the birth of mercantile
States, with the fears and interests of England, France, Germany,
and Italy, for two hundred years,--yea, with the architecture,
commerce, geographical science, and all the arts then known. All
these principalities and powers and institutions and enterprises
were affected by them, so that at their termination a new era in
civilization began. Grasp the Crusades, and you comprehend one of
the forces which undermined the institutions of the Middle Ages.
It is not a little remarkable that the earliest cause of the
Crusades, so far as I am able to trace, was the adoption by the
European nations of some of the principles of Eastern theogonies
which pertained to self-expiation. An Asiatic theological idea
prepared the way for the war between Europe and Asia. The European
pietist embraced the religious tenets of the Asiatic monk, which
centred in the propitiation of the Deity by works of penance. One
of the approved and popular forms of penance was a pilgrimage to
sacred places,--seen equally among degenerate Christian sects in
Asia Minor, and among the Mohammedans of Arabia. What place so
sacred as Jerusalem, the scene of the passion and resurrection of
our Lord? Ever since the Empress Helena had built a church at
Jerusalem, it had been thronged with pious pilgrims. A pilgrimage
to old Jerusalem would open the doors of the New Jerusalem, whose
streets were of gold, and whose palaces were of pearls.
At the close of the tenth century there was great suffering in
Europe, bordering on despair. The calamities of ordinary life were
so great that the end of the world seemed to be at hand. Universal
fear of impending divine wrath seized the minds of men. A great
religious awakening took place, especially in England, France, and
Germany. In accordance with the sentiments of the age, there was
every form of penance to avert the anger of God and escape the
flames of hell. The most popular form of penance was the
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, long and painful as it was. Could the
pilgrim but reach that consecrated spot, he was willing to die.
The village pastor delivered the staff into his hands, girded him
with a scarf, and attached to it a leathern scrip. Friends and
neighbors accompanied him a little way on his toilsome journey,
which lay across the Alps, through the plains of Lombardy, over
Illyria and Pannonia, along the banks of the Danube, by Moesia and
Dacia, to Belgrade and Constantinople, and then across the
Bosphorus, through Bithynia, Cilicia, and Syria, until the towers
and walls of Tyre, Ptolemais, and Caesarea proclaimed that he was
at length in the Holy Land. Barons and common people swell the
number of these pilgrims. The haughty knight, who has committed
unpunished murders, and the pensive saint, wrapt in religious
ecstasies, rival each other in humility and zeal. Those who have
no money sell their lands. Those who have no lands to sell throw
themselves on Providence, and beg their way for fifteen hundred
miles among strangers. The roads are filled with these
travellers,--on foot, in rags, fainting from hunger and fatigue.
What sufferings, to purchase the favor of God, or to realize the
attainment of pious curiosity! The heart almost bleeds to think
that our ancestors could ever have been so visionary and misguided;
that such a gloomy view of divine forgiveness should have permeated
the Middle Ages.
But the sorrows of the pious pilgrims did not end when they reached
the Holy Land. Jerusalem was then in the hands of the Turks and
Saracens (or Orientals, a general name given to the Arabian
Mohammedans), who exacted two pieces of gold from every pilgrim as
the price of entering Jerusalem, and moreover reviled and
maltreated him. The Holy Sepulchre could be approached only on the
condition of defiling it.
The reports of these atrocities and cruelties at last reached the
Europeans, filling them with sympathy for the sufferers and
indignation for the persecutors. An intense hatred of Mohammedans
was generated and became universal,--a desire for vengeance,
unparalleled in history. Popes and bishops weep; barons and
princes swear. Every convent and every castle in Europe is
animated with deadly resentment. Rage, indignation, and vengeance
are the passions of the hour,--all concentrated on "the infidels,"
which term was the bitterest reproach that each party could inflict
on the other. An infidel was accursed of God, and was consigned to
human wrath. And the Mohammedans had the same hatred of Christians
that Christians had of Mohammedans. In the eyes of each their
enemies were infidels; and they were enemies because they were
regarded as infidels.
Such a state of feeling in both Europe and Asia could not but
produce an outbreak,--a spark only was needed to kindle a
conflagration. That spark was kindled when Peter of Amiens, a
returned hermit, aroused the martial nations to a bloody war on
these enemies of God and man. He was a mean-looking man, with
neglected beard and disordered dress. He had no genius, nor
learning, nor political position. He was a mere fanatic, fierce,
furious with ungovernable rage. But he impersonated the leading
idea of the age,--hatred of "the infidels," as the Mohammedans were
called. And therefore his voice was heard. The Pope used his
influence. Two centuries later he could not have made himself a
passing wonder. But he is the means of stirring up the indignation
of Europe into a blazing flame. He itinerates France and Italy,
exposing the wrongs of the Christians and the cruelties of the
Saracens,--the obstruction placed in the way of salvation. At
length a council is assembled at Clermont, and the Pope--Urban II.--
presides, and urges on the sacred war. In the year 1095 the Pope,
in his sacred robes, and in the presence of four hundred bishops
and abbots, ascends the pulpit erected in the market-place, and
tells the immense multitude how their faith is trodden in the dust;
how the sacred relics are desecrated; and appeals alike to chivalry
and religion. More than this, he does just what Mohammed did when
he urged his followers to take the sword: he announces, in fiery
language, the fullest indulgence to all who take part in the
expedition,--that all their sins shall be forgiven, and that heaven
shall be opened to them. "It is the voice of God," they cry; "we
will hasten to the deliverance of the sacred city!" Every man
stimulates the passions of his neighbor. All vie in their
contributions. The knights especially are enthusiastic, for they
can continue their accustomed life without penance, and yet obtain
the forgiveness of their sins. Religious fears are turned at first
into the channel of penance; and penance is made easy by the
indulgence of the martial passions. Every recruit wore a red
cross, and was called croise--cross-bearer; whence the name of the
holy war.
Thus the Crusades began, at the close of the eleventh century, when
William Rufus was King of England, when Henry IV. was still Emperor
of Germany, when Anselm was reigning at Canterbury as spiritual
head of the English Church, ten years after the great Hildebrand
had closed his turbulent pontificate.
I need not detail the history of this first Crusade. Of the two
hundred thousand who set out with Peter the Hermit,--this fiery
fanatic, with no practical abilities,--only twenty thousand
succeeded in reaching even Constantinople. The rest miserably
perished by the way,--a most disorderly rabble. And nothing
illustrates the darkness of the age more impressively than that a
mere monk should have been allowed to lead two hundred thousand
armed men on an enterprise of such difficulty. How little the
science of war was comprehended! And even of the five hundred
thousand men under Godfrey, Tancred, Bohemond, and other great
feudal princes,--men of rare personal valor and courage; men who
led the flower of the European chivalry,--only twenty-five thousand
remained after the conquest of Jerusalem. The glorious array of a
hundred and fifty thousand horsemen, in full armor, was a miserable
failure. The lauded warriors of feudal Europe effected almost
nothing. Tasso attempted to immortalize their deeds; but how
insignificant they were, compared with even Homer's heroes! A
modern army of twenty-five thousand men could not only have put the
whole five hundred thousand to rout in an hour, but could have
delivered Palestine in a few mouths. Even one of the standing
armies of the sixteenth century, under such a general as Henry IV.
or the Duke of Guise, could have effected more than all the
crusaders of two hundred years. The crusaders numbered many
heroes, but scarcely a single general. There was no military
discipline among them: they knew nothing of tactics or strategy;
they fought pell-mell in groups, as in the contests of barons among
themselves. Individually they were gallant and brave, and
performed prodigies of valor with their swords and battle-axes; but
there was no direction given to their strength by leaders.
The Second Crusade, preached half a century afterwards by Saint
Bernard, and commanded by an Emperor of Germany and a King of
France, proved equally unfortunate. Not a single trophy consoled
Europe for the additional loss of two hundred thousand men. The
army melted away in foolish sieges, for which the crusaders had no
genius or proper means.
The Third Crusade, and the most famous, which began in the year
1189, of which Philip Augustus of France, Richard Coeur de Lion of
England, and Frederic Barbarossa of Germany were the leaders,--the
three greatest monarchs of their age,--was also signally
unsuccessful. Feudal armies seem to have learned nothing in one
hundred years of foreign warfare; or else they had greater
difficulties to contend with, abler generals to meet, than they
dreamed of, who reaped the real advantages,--like Saladin. Sir
Walter Scott, in his "Ivanhoe," has not probably exaggerated the
military prowess of the heroes of this war, or the valor of
Templars and Hospitallers; yet the finest array of feudal forces in
the Middle Ages, from which so much was expected, wasted its
strength and committed innumerable mistakes. It proved how useless
was a feudal army for a distant and foreign war. Philip may have
been wily, and Richard lion-hearted, but neither had the
generalship of Saladin. Though they triumphed at Tiberias, at
Jaffa, at Caesarea; though prodigies of valor were performed;
though Ptolemais (or Acre), the strongest city of the East, was
taken,--yet no great military results followed. More blood was
shed at this famous siege, which lasted three years, than ought to
have sufficed for the subjugation of Asia. There were no decisive
battles, and yet one hundred battles took place under its walls.
Slaughter effected nothing. Jerusalem, which had been retaken by
the Saracens, still remained in their hands, and never afterwards
was conquered by the Europeans. The leaders returned dejected to
their kingdoms, and the bones of their followers whitened the soil
of Palestine.
The Fourth Crusade, incited by Pope Innocent III., three years
after, terminated with divisions among the States of Christendom,
without weakening the power of the Saracens (1202-4).
Among other expeditions was one called the "Children's Crusade"
(1212), a wretched, fanatical misery, resulting in the enslavement
of many and the death of thousands by shipwreck and exposure.
The Fifth Crusade, commanded by the Emperor Frederic II. of Germany
(1228-9), was diverted altogether from the main object, and spent
its force on Constantinople. That city was taken, but the Holy
Land was not delivered. The Byzantine Empire was then in the last
stages of decrepitude, or its capital would not have fallen, as it
did, from a naval attack made by the Venetians, and in revenge for
the treacheries and injuries of the Greek emperors to former
crusaders. This, instead of weakening the Mussulmans, broke down
the chief obstacle to their entrance into Europe shortly afterward.
The Sixth Crusade (1248-50) only secured the capture of Damietta,
on the banks of the Nile.
The Seventh and last of these miserable wars was the most
unfortunate of all, A. D. 1270. The saintly monarch of France
perished, with most of his forces, on the coast of Africa, and the
ruins of Carthage were the only conquest which was made. Europe
now fairly sickened over the losses and misfortunes and defeats of
nearly two centuries, during which five millions are supposed to
have lost their lives. Famine and pestilence destroyed more than
the sword. Before disheartened Europe could again rally, the last
strongholds of the Christians were wrested away by the Mohammedans;
and their gallant but unsuccessful defenders were treated with
every inhumanity, and barbarously murdered in spite of truces and
treaties.
Such were the famous Crusades, only the main facts of which I
allude to; for to describe them all, or even the more notable
incidents, would fill volumes,--all interesting to be read in
detail by those who have leisure; all marked by prodigious personal
valor; all disgraceful for the want of unity of action and the
absence of real generalship. They indicate the enormous waste of
forces which characterizes nations in their progress. This waste
of energies is one of the great facts of all history, surpassed
only by the apparent waste of the forces of nature or the fruits of
the earth, in the transition period between the time when men
roamed in forests and the time when they cultivated the land. See
what a vast destruction there has been of animals by each other;
what a waste of plants and vegetables, when they could not be
utilized. Why should man escape the universal waste, when reason
is ignored or misdirected? Of what use or value could Palestine
have been to Europeans in the Middle Ages? Of what use can any
country be to conquerors, when it cannot be civilized or made to
contribute to their wants? Europe then had no need of Asia, and
that perhaps is the reason why Europe then could not conquer Asia.
Providence interfered, and rebuked the mad passions which animated
the invaders, and swept them all away. Were Palestine really
needed by Europe, it could be wrested from the Turks with
less effort than was made by the feeblest of the crusaders.
Constantinople--the most magnificent site for a central power--was
indeed wrested from the Greek emperors, and kept one hundred years;
but the Europeans did not know what to do with the splendid prize,
and it was given to the Turks, who made it the capital of a vital
empire. All the good which resulted to Europe from the temporary
possession of Constantinople was the introduction into Europe of
Grecian literature and art. Its political and mercantile
importance was not appreciated, nor then even scarcely needed. It
will one day become again the spoil of that nation which can most
be benefited by it. Such is the course events are made to take.
In this brief notice of the most unsuccessful wars in which Europe
ever engaged we cannot help noticing their great mistakes. We see
rashness, self-confidence, depreciation of enemies, want of
foresight, ignorance of the difficulties to be surmounted. The
crusaders were diverted from their main object, and wasted their
forces in attacking unimportant cities, or fortresses out of their
way. They invaded the islands of the Mediterranean, Egypt, Africa,
and Greek possessions. They quarrelled with their friends, and
they quarrelled with each other. The chieftains sought their
individual advantage rather than the general good. Nor did they
provide themselves with the necessities for such distant,
operations. They had no commissariat,--without which even a modern
army fails. They were captivated by trifles and frivolities,
rather than directing their strength to the end in view. They
allowed themselves to be seduced by both Greek and infidel arts and
vices. They were betrayed into the most foolish courses. They had
no proper knowledge of the forces with which they were to contend.
They wantonly massacred their foes when they fell into their hands,
increased the animosity of the Mohammedans, and united them in a
concert which they should themselves have sought. They marched by
land when they should have sailed by sea, and they sailed by sea
when they should have marched by land. They intrusted the command
to monks and inexperienced leaders. They obeyed the mandates of
apostolic vicars when they should have considered military
necessities. In fact there was no unity of action, and scarcely
unity of end. What would the great masters of Grecian and Roman
warfare have thought of these blunders and stupidities, to say
nothing of modern generals! The conduct of those wars excites our
contempt, in spite of the heroism of individual knights. We
despise the incapacity of leaders as much as we abhor the
fanaticism which animated their labors. The Crusades have no
bright side, apart from the piety and valor of some who embarked in
them. Hence they are less and less interesting to modern readers.
The romance about them has ceased to affect us. We only see
mistakes and follies; and who cares to dwell on the infirmities of
human nature? It is only what is great in man that moves and
exalts us. There is nothing we dwell upon with pleasure in these
aggressive, useless, unjustifiable wars, except the chivalry
associated with them. The reason of modern times as sternly
rebukes them as the heart of the Middle Ages sickened at them.
In one aspect they are absolutely repulsive; and this in view of
their vices. The crusaders were cruel. They wantonly massacred
their enemies, even when defenceless. Sixty thousand people were
butchered on the fall of Jerusalem; ten thousand were slaughtered
in the Mosque of Omar. The Christians themselves felt safe when
they sought the retreat of churches, in dire calamities at home;
but they had no respect for the religious retreats of infidels.
When any city fell into their hands there was wholesale
assassination. And they became licentious, as well as rapacious
and cruel. They learned all the vices of the East. Even under the
walls of Acre they sang to the sounds of Arabian instruments, and
danced amid indecent songs. When they took Constantinople they had
no respect for either churches or tombs, and desecrated even the
pulpit of the Patriarch. Their original religious zeal was finally
lost sight of entirely in their military license. They became more
hateful to the orthodox Greeks than to the infidel Saracens. And
when the crusaders returned to their homes,--what few of them lived
to return,--they morally poisoned the communities and villages in
which they dwelt. They became vagabonds and vagrants; they
introduced demoralizing amusements, and jugglers and strolling
players appeared for the first time in Europe. All war is
necessarily demoralizing, even war in defence of glorious
principles, and especially in these times; but much more so is
unjust, fanatical, and unnecessary war.
But I turn from the record of the mistakes, follies, vices,
miseries, and crimes which marked the wickedest and most uncalled-
for wars of European history, to consider their ultimate results:
not logical results, for these were melancholy,--the depopulation
of Europe; the decimation of the nobility; the poverty which
enormous drains of money from their natural channels produced; the
spread of vice; the decline of even feudal virtues. These evils
and others followed naturally and inevitably from those distant
wars. The immediate effects of all war are evil and melancholy.
Murder, pillage, profanity, drunkenness, extravagance, public
distress, bitter sorrows, wasted energies, destruction of property,
national debts, exaltation of military maxims, general looseness of
life, distaste for regular pursuits,--these are the first-fruits of
war, offensive and defensive, and as inevitable and uniform as the
laws of gravity. No wars were ever more disastrous than the
Crusades in their immediate effects, in any way they may be viewed.
It is all one dark view of disappointment, sorrow, wretchedness,
and sin. There were no bright spots; no gains, only calamities.
Nothing consoled Europe for the loss of five millions of her most
able-bodied men,--no increase of territory, no establishment of
rights, no glory, even; nothing but disgrace and ruin, as in that
maddest of all modern expeditions, the invasion of Russia by
Napoleon.
But after the lapse of nearly seven hundred years we can see
important results on the civilization of Europe, indirectly
effected,--not intended, nor designed, nor dreamed of; which
results we consider beneficent, and so beneficent that the world is
probably better for those horrid wars. It was fortunate to
humanity at large that they occurred, although so unfortunate to
Europe at the time. In the end, Europe was a gainer by them.
Wickedness was not the seed of virtue, but wickedness was
overruled. Woe to them by whom offences come, but it must need be
that offences come. Men in their depravity will commit crimes, and
those crimes are punished; but even these are made to praise a
Power superior to that of devils, as benevolent as it is
omnipotent,--in which fact I see the utter hopelessness of earth
without a superintending and controlling Deity.
One important result of the Crusades was the barrier they erected
to the conquests of the Mohammedans in Europe. It is true that the
wave of Saracenic invasion had been arrested by Charles Martel four
or five hundred years before; but in the mean time a new Mohammedan
power sprang up, of greater vigor, of equal ferocity, and of a more
stubborn fanaticism. This was that of the Turks, who had their eye
on Constantinople and all Eastern Europe. And Europe might have
submitted to their domination, had they instead of the Latins taken
Constantinople. The conquest of that city was averted several
hundred years; and when at last it fell into Turkish hands.
Christendom was strong enough to resist the Turkish armies. We
must remember that the Turks were a great power, even in the times
of Peter the Great, and would have taken Vienna but for John
Sobieski. But when Urban II., at the Council of Clermont, urged
the nations of Europe to repel the infidels on the confines of
Asia, rather than wait for them in the heart of Europe, the Asiatic
provinces of the Greek Empire were overrun both by Turks and
Saracens. They held Syria, Armenia, Asia Minor, Africa. Spain,
and the Balearic Islands. Had not Godfrey come to the assistance
of a division of the Christian army, when it was surrounded by two
hundred thousand Turks at the battle of Dorylaeum, the Christians
would have been utterly overwhelmed, and the Turks would have
pressed to the Hellespont. But they were beaten back into Syria,
and, for a time, as far as the line of the Euphrates. But for that
timely repulse, the battles of Belgrade and Lepanto might not have
been fought in subsequent ages. It would have been an overwhelming
calamity had the Turks invaded Europe in the twelfth century. The
loss of five millions on the plains of Asia would have been nothing
in comparison to an invasion of Europe by the Mohammedans,--whether
Saracens or Turks. It may be that the chivalry of Europe would
have successfully repelled an invasion, as the Saracens repelled
the Christians, on their soil. It may be that Asia could not have
conquered Europe any easier than Europe could conquer Asia.
I do not know how far statesmanlike views entered into the minds of
the leaders of the Crusades. I believe the sentiment which
animated Peter and Urban and Bernard was pure hatred of the
Mohammedans (because they robbed, insulted, and oppressed the
pilgrims), and not any controlling fears of their invasion of
Europe. If such a fear had influenced them, they would not have
permitted a mere rabble to invade Asia; there would have been a
sense of danger stronger than that of hatred,--which does not seem
to have existed in the self-confidence of the crusaders. They
thought it an easy thing to capture Jerusalem: it was a sort of
holiday march of the chivalry of Europe, under Richard and Philip
Augustus. Perhaps, however, the princes of Europe were governed by
political rather than religious reasons. Some few long-headed
statesmen, if such there were among the best informed of bishops
and abbots, may have felt the necessity of the conflict in a
political sense; but I do not believe this was a general
conviction. There was, doubtless, a political necessity--although
men were too fanatical to see more than one side--to crush the
Saracens because they were infidels, and not because they were
warriors. But whether they saw it or not, or armed themselves to
resist a danger as well as to exterminate heresy, the ultimate
effects were all the same. The crusaders failed in their direct
end. They did not recover Palestine; but they so weakened or
diverted the Mohammedan armies that there was not strength enough
left in them to conquer Europe, or even to invade her, until she
was better prepared to resist it,--as she did at the battle of
Lepanto (A. D. 1571), one of the decisive battles of the world.
I have said that the Crusades were a disastrous failure. I mean in
their immediate ends, not in ultimate results. If it is probable
that they arrested the conquests of the Turks in Europe, then this
blind and fanatical movement effected the greatest blessing to
Christendom. It almost seems that the Christians were hurled into
the Crusades by an irresistible fate, to secure a great ultimate
good; or, to use Christian language, were sent as blind instruments
by the Almighty to avert a danger they could not see. And if this
be true, the inference is logical and irresistible that God uses
even the wicked passions of men to effect his purposes,--as when
the envy of Haman led to the elevation of Mordecai, and to the
deliverance of the Jews from one of their greatest dangers.
Another and still more noticeable result of the Crusades was the
weakening of the power of those very barons who embarked in the
wars. Their fanaticism recoiled upon themselves, and undermined
their own system. Nothing could have happened more effectually to
loosen the rigors of the feudal system. It was the baron and the
knight that marched to Palestine who suffered most in the
curtailment of the privileges which they had abused,--even as it
was the Southern planter of Carolina who lost the most heavily in
the war which he provoked to defend his slave property. In both
cases the fetters of the serfs and slaves were broken by their own
masters,--not intentionally, of course, but really and effectually.
How blind men are in their injustices! They are made to hang on
the gallows which they have erected for others. To gratify his
passion of punishing the infidels, whom he so intensely hated, the
baron or prince was obliged to grant great concessions to the towns
and villages which he ruled with an iron hand, in order to raise
money for his equipment and his journey. He was not paid by
Government as are modern soldiers and officers. He had to pay his
own expenses, and they were heavier than he had expected or
provided for. Sometimes he was taken captive, and had his ransom
to raise,--to pay for in hard cash, and not in land: as in the case
of Richard of England, when, on his return from Palestine, he was
imprisoned in Austria,--and it took to ransom him, as some have
estimated, one third of all the gold and silver of the realm,
chiefly furnished by the clergy. But where was the imprisoned
baron to get the money for his ransom? Not from the Jews, for
their compound interest of fifty per cent every six months would
have ruined him in less than two years. But the village guilds had
money laid by. Merchants and mechanics in the towns, whom he
despised, had money. Monasteries had money. He therefore gave new
privileges to all; he gave charters of freedom to towns; he made
concessions to the peasantry.
As the result of this, when the baron came back from the wars, he
found himself much poorer than when he went away,--he found his
lands encumbered, his castle dilapidated, and his cattle sold. In
short, he was, as we say of a proud merchant now and then,
"embarrassed in his circumstances." He was obliged to economize.
But the feudal family would not hear of retrenchment, and the baron
himself had become more extravagant in his habits. As travel and
commerce had increased he had new wants, which he could not gratify
without parting with either lands or prerogatives. As the result
of all this he became not quite so overbearing, though perhaps more
sullen; for he saw men rising about him who were as rich as he,--
men whom his ancestors had despised. The artisans, who belonged to
the leading guilds, which had become enriched by the necessities of
barons, or by that strange activity of trade and manufactures which
war seems to stimulate as well as to destroy,--these rude and
ignorant people were not so servile as formerly, but began to feel
a sort of importance, especially in towns and cities, which
multiplied wonderfully during the Crusades. In other words, they
were no longer brutes, to be trodden down without murmur or
resistance. They began to form what we call a "middle class."
Feudalism, in its proud ages, did not recognize a middle class.
The impoverishment of nobles by the Crusades laid the foundation of
this middle class, at least in large towns.
The growth of cities and the decay of feudalism went on
simultaneously; and both were equally the result of the Crusades.
If the noble became impoverished, the merchant became enriched; and
the merchant lived, not in the country, but in some mercantile
mart. The crusaders had need of ships. These were furnished by
those cities which had obtained from feudal sovereigns charters of
freedom. Florence, Pisa, Venice, Genoa, Marseilles, became centres
of wealth and political importance. The growth of cities and the
extension of commerce went hand in hand. Whatever the Crusades did
for cities they did equally for commerce; and with the needs of
commerce came improvement in naval architecture. As commerce grew,
the ships increased in size and convenience; and the products which
the ships brought from Asia to Europe were not only introduced, but
they were cultivated. New fruits and vegetables were raised by
European husbandmen. Plum-trees were brought from Damascus and
sugar-cane from Tripoli. Silk fabrics, formerly confined to
Constantinople and the East, were woven in Italian and French
villages. The Venetians obtained from Tyrians the art of making
glass. The Greek fire suggested gunpowder. Architecture received
an immense impulse: the churches became less sombre and heavy, and
more graceful and beautiful. Even the idea of the arch, some
think, came from the East. The domes and minarets of Venice were
borrowed from Constantinople. The ornaments of Byzantine churches
and palaces were brought to Europe. The horses of Lysippus,
carried from Greece to Rome, and from Rome to Constantinople, at
last surmounted the palace of the Doges. Houses became more
comfortable, churches more beautiful, and palaces more splendid.
Even manners improved, and intercourse became more polished.
Chivalry borrowed many of its courtesies from the East. There were
new refinements in the arts of cookery as well as of society.
Literature itself received a new impulse, as well as science. It
was from Constantinople that Europe received the philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle, in the language in which it was written,
instead of translations through the Arabic. Greek scholars came to
Italy to introduce their unrivalled literature; and after Grecian
literature came Grecian art. The study of Greek philosophy gave a
new stimulus to human inquiry, and students flocked to the
universities. They went to Bologna to study Roman law, as well as
to Paris to study the Scholastic philosophy.
Thus the germs of a new civilization were scattered over Europe.
It so happened that at the close of the Crusades civilization had
increased in every country of Europe, in spite of the losses they
had sustained. Delusions were dispelled, and greater liberality of
mind was manifest. The world opened up towards the East, and was
larger than was before supposed. "Europe and Asia had been brought
together and recognized each other." Inventions and discoveries
succeeded the new scope for energies which the Crusades opened.
The ships which had carried the crusaders to Asia were now used to
explore new coasts and harbors. Navigators learned to be bolder.
A navigator of Genoa--a city made by the commerce which the
Crusades necessitated--crosses the Atlantic Ocean. As the magnetic
needle, which a Venetian traveller brought from Asia, gave a new
direction to commerce, so the new stimulus to learning which the
Grecian philosophy effected led to the necessity of an easier form
of writing; and printing appeared. With the shock which feudalism
received from the Crusades, central power was once more wielded by
kings, and standing armies supplanted the feudal. The crusaders
must have learned something from their mistakes; and military
science was revived. There is scarcely an element of civilization
which we value, that was not, directly or indirectly, developed by
the Crusades, yet which was not sought for, or anticipated even,--
the centralization of thrones, the weakening of the power of feudal
barons, the rise of free cities, the growth of commerce, the
impulse given to art, improvements in agriculture, the rise of a
middle class, the wonderful spread of literature, greater
refinements in manners and dress, increased toleration of opinions,
a more cheerful view of life, the simultaneous development of
energies in every field of human labor, new hopes and aspirations
among the people, new glories around courts, new attractions in the
churches, new comforts in the villages, new luxuries in the cities.
Even spiritual power became less grim and sepulchral, since there
was less fear to work upon.
I do not say that the Crusades alone produced the marvellous change
in the condition of society which took place in the thirteenth
century, but they gave an impulse to this change. The strong
sapling which the barbarians brought from their German forests and
planted in the heart of Europe,--and which had silently grown in
the darkest ages of barbarism, guarded by the hand of Providence,--
became a sturdy tree in the feudal ages, and bore fruit when the
barons had wasted their strength in Asia. The Crusades improved
this fruit, and found new uses for it, and scattered it far and
wide, and made it for the healing of the nations. Enterprise of
all sorts succeeded the apathy of convents and castles. The
village of mud huts became a town, in which manufactures began. As
new wants became apparent, new means of supplying them appeared.
The Crusades stimulated these wants, and commerce and manufactures
supplied them. The modern merchant was born in Lombard cities,
which supplied the necessities of the crusaders. Feudalism ignored
trade, but the baron found his rival in the merchant-prince.
Feudalism disdained art, but increased wealth turned peasants into
carpenters and masons; carpenters and masons combined and defied
their old masters, and these masters left their estates for the
higher civilization of cities, and built palaces instead of
castles. Palaces had to be adorned, as well as churches; and the
painters and handicraftsmen found employment. So one force
stimulated another force, neither of which would have appeared if
feudal life had remained in statu quo.
The only question to settle is, how far the marked progress of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be traced to the natural
development of the Germanic races under the influence of religion,
or how far this development was hastened by those vast martial
expeditions, indirectly indeed, but really. Historians generally
give most weight to the latter. If so, then it is clear that the
most disastrous wars recorded in history were made the means--
blindly, to all appearance, without concert or calculation--of
ultimately elevating the European races, and of giving a check to
the conquering fanaticism of the enemies with whom they contended
with such bitter tears and sullen disappointments.