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. 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. 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 preÎminence 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. 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.
As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline of
penance 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_ 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_ 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; and
such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St. Dominic of the
iron Cuirass, 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. 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. 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; 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?
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. 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, 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. At Verdun, Treves, Mentz,
Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and
massacred: 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.
Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzan tine
monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of six
hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary 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 prÊfect of
Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 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. 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 tempted
the main body to descend into the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed
by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones 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.
"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.]