THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIMS.
Dulce mihi cruciari;
Parva vis doloris est:
Malo mori quam fædari:
Major vis amoris est.
_Hymn attributed to St. Augustine._
At what period in the history of Christianity began the practice of
going on pilgrimage it is difficult to decide. Probably the first
places held sacred were those of local martyrs and confessors to the
faith. Every part of the civilised world had these in abundance;
there was not a village where some saint had not fallen a victim to
persecution, not a town which could not boast of its roll of
martyrs. When the day of persecution was over, and stories of
miracles and wonderful cures at holy shrines began to grow, it was
natural that the minds of a credulous age should turn to the holiest
place of all, the city of Jerusalem. It had so turned even before
the Invention of the Holy Cross; for Helena herself was on a
pilgrimage when she made her discovery. But the story, noised
abroad, the building by Constantine of the church of the Martyrdom,
and the immediate fixing, without any hesitation, of all the sacred
sites recorded in the New Testament, were the causes of a vast
increase in the number of pilgrims who every year flocked to
Jerusalem. And then flames which burst from the foundations of the
Temple when Julian made his vain attempt to rebuild it were reported
throughout Christendom, and added to the general enthusiasm. For the
feeble faith of the nations had to be supported by miracles ever
new. Moreover, the dangers of the way were diminished; more
countries day by day became Christian; the Pagans, who had formerly
intercepted and killed the pilgrims on the road, were now themselves
in hiding; the Christians destroyed the old shrines and temples
wherever they found them; and all the roads were open to the pious
worshipper who only desired to pray at the sacred places.
But the passion for pilgrimages grew to so great an extent, and was
accompanied by so many dangers to virtue and good manners, that
attempts were made from time to time to check it. Augustine teaches
that God is approached better by love than by long travel. Gregory
of Nyssa points out that pilgrimage of itself avails nothing; and
Jerome declares that heaven may be reached as easily from Britain as
from Jerusalem, that an innumerable throng of saints never saw the
city, and that the sacred places themselves have been polluted by
the images of idols.
But this teaching was in vain. Going on pilgrimage served too many
ends, and gratified too many desires. Piety, no doubt, in greater or
less degree, had always something to do with a resolve to undertake
a long and painful journey. But there were other motives. The
curious man, by becoming a pilgrim, was enabled to see the world;
the lazy man to escape work; the adventurous man to find adventures;
the credulous and imaginative man to fill his mind with stories; the
vain man to gratify his vanity, and procure life-long honour at the
cost of some peril and fatigue; the sincere to wipe off his sins;
and all alike believed that they were doing an act meritorious in
itself and pleasing in the sight of heaven.
The doctors of the Church protested, but in vain. Indeed, they often
went themselves. St. Porphyry, afterwards Bishop of Gaza, was one of
those who went. He had betaken himself to the Thebaid at the age of
twenty, to become a hermit. There, after five years of austerities,
he became seized with an irresistible desire to see Jerusalem.
Afflicted with a painful disorder, and hardly able to hold himself
upright, he managed to crawl across the deserts to the city; as soon
as he arrived there, he sent his companion back to Thessalonica, his
native place, with injunctions to sell all that he had and
distribute the proceeds among the faithful. And then he laid himself
down to die. Mark departed; what was his astonishment, on returning,
his mission accomplished, to find his friend restored to health?
Porphyry went no more to the Thebaid, probably but a dull place at
best, even for a hermit, and betaking himself to a handicraft, he
preached the Gospel and became a bishop. St. Jerome himself, in
spite of his protests, went to Palestine, accompanied by Eusebius of
Cremona. The voice of calumny had attacked Jerome in revenge for his
exposure of the sins and follies of the day, and he was pleased to
leave Rome. The two future saints landed at Antioch, and after
seeing Jerusalem went on to Bethlehem, and thence to the Thebaid,
where they solaced themselves with admiring the austerities of the
self-tormentors, the hermits there. Returning thence to Bethlehem,
they resolved on selling their property and forming a monastery in
that town. This they accomplished by the assistance of Paula and
Eudoxia, two noble ladies, mother and daughter, who followed them to
Palestine, and passed their lives like Jerome himself, under a rigid
rule of prayer and labour. Paula died in Bethlehem. Her daughter and
Jerome, less happy, were turned out of their peaceful retreat by a
band of Arabs, bribed, we are told, by the heretics in Jerusalem,
who burned and pillaged the monastic houses, dispersed the monks and
nuns, and drove the venerable Jerome, then past the age of seventy
years, to a bed from which he never rose again.
The story of the pilgrimage of Paula is useful because it shows that
the multiplication of the sacred sites was not due entirely to the
invention of later times. At Cæsarea she saw the house of Cornelius
the centurion, turned into a church; and here, also, was the house
of Saint Philip, and the chambers of his four virgin daughters,
prophetesses; on Mount Zion she saw the column where our Lord was
scourged, still stained with His blood, and supporting the gallery
of a church; she saw, too, the place where the Holy Spirit descended
on the apostles; at Bethphage they showed her the sepulchre of
Lazarus, and the house of Mary and Martha; on Mount Ephraim she saw
the tombs of Joshua and Eleazar; at Shechem the well of Jacob, and
the tombs of the twelve patriarchs, and at Samaria the tombs of
Elisha and John the Baptist. Hither were brought those possessed
with devils, that they might be exorcised, and Paula herself was an
eye-witness of the miraculous cure effected. With regard to
miracles, indeed, Antoninus Martyr, to whose testimony on the site
of the church of the Holy Sepulchre we have referred in another
place,[41] relates many which he himself pretends to have seen. If
you bring oil near the true cross, he says, it will boil of its own
accord, and must be quickly removed, or it will all escape; at
certain times a star from heaven rests on the cross. He tells us,
too, that there is on Sinai an idol, fixed there by the infidels, in
white marble, which on days of ceremony changes colour and becomes
quite black.
Footnote 41:
See Appendix.
The impending fall of the empire, and the invasion of the hordes of
barbarians, proved but a slight check to the swarms of pilgrims. For
the barbarians, finding that these unarmed men and women were
completely harmless, respected their helplessness and allowed them
to pass unmolested. When, as happened shortly after their settlement
in Italy and the West, they were gradually themselves brought within
the pale of the Christian faith, they made laws which enforced the
protection and privileges of pilgrims. These laws were not, it is
true, always obeyed.
The route was carefully laid down for the pilgrims by numerous
Itineraries, the most important of which is that called the
Itinerary of the Bordeaux Pilgrim. The author starts from Bordeaux,
perhaps because it is his own city, perhaps because it was then the
most considerable town in the West of Europe. He passes through
France by Auch, Toulouse, Narbonne, thence to Beziers, Nîmes, and
Arles. At Arles he turns northwards, and passes through Avignon,
Orange, and Valence, when he again turns eastwards to Diez, Embrun
and Briançon; thence he crosses the Alps and stops at Susa. In Italy
he passes through the towns of Turin, Pavia, Milan (not because
Milan was on his way, but because it would be a pity to lose the
opportunity of seeing this splendid city), to Brescia, Verona, and
Aquileia, a town subsequently destroyed by Attila, at the head of
the Gulf of Trieste. Crossing the Italian Alps he arrives at the
frontiers of the empire of the East. His course lies next through
Illyria, Styria, and along the northern banks of the river Drave,
which he leaves after a time and follows the course of the Save, to
its confluence with the Danube at Belgrade. He now follows the
Danube until he comes to the great Roman road, which leads him to
Nissa. Thence, still by the road, to Philippopolis, Heraclia, and
Constantinople. Across Asia Minor he passes through Nicomedia,
Nicæa, across what is now Anatolia to Ancyra, thence to Tyana and
Tarsus. From Tarsus he goes to Iskanderoon, thence to Antioch,
Tortosa, Tripoli (along the Roman road which lay by the Syrian
sea-board), Beyrout, Sidon, Tyre, Acre, and Cæsarea. Here he leaves
the direct and shortest way to Jerusalem in order first to visit the
Jordan and other places.
It is instructive to follow the route of the pilgrim, because this
was doubtless the road taken by the hundreds who every year flocked
to Jerusalem, and because, as we shall see, nearly the same road was
subsequently taken by the Crusaders.
Palestine, during some centuries, enjoyed a period of profound
peace, during which the sword was sheathed, and no voice of war,
save that of a foray of Arabs, was heard in the land. Thither
retreated all those who, like Saint Jerome, were indisposed
altogether to quit the world, like the hermits of Egypt, but yet
sought to find some quiet spot where they could study and worship
undisturbed. Thither came the monks turned out of Africa by
Genseric; and when Belisarius in his turn overcame the barbarians,
thither were brought back the spoils of the Temple which Titus had
taken from Jerusalem. Nor was the repose of the country seriously
disturbed during the long interval between the revolt of Barcochebas
and the invasion of the Persians under Chosroes. But after Heraclius
had restored their city to the Christians, a worse enemy even than
Chosroes was at hand, and when Caliph Omar became the master of
Jerusalem, the quiet old days were gone for ever.
The Mohammedans were better masters than the Persians; they
reverenced the name of Jesus, they spared the Church of the
Sepulchre, they even promised to protect the Christians. But
promises made by the caliph were not always observed by his fanatic
soldiers. The Christians were pillaged and robbed; they were
insulted and abused; they were forced to pay a heavy tribute;
forbidden to appear on horseback, or to wear arms; obliged to wear a
leathern girdle to denote their nation; nor were they even permitted
to elect their own bishops and clergy.
The pilgrims did not, in consequence of these persecutions, become
fewer. To the other excitements which called them to the Holy Land
was now added the chance of martyrdom, and the records of the next
two centuries are filled with stories of their sufferings, which
appear to have been grossly exaggerated, at the hands of the Muslim
masters of the city. If the pilgrim returned safely to his home,
there was some comfort for his relations, deprived of the glory of
having a martyr in the family, in being able to relate how he had
been buffeted and spat upon. To this period belong the pilgrimages
of Arnulphus and Antoninus. That of the former is valuable, inasmuch
as not only his own account has been preserved, but even the map
which he drew up from memory. Bede made use of his narrative, which
was taken down by the abbot Adamnanus, who gave Arnulphus
hospitality when he was shipwrecked in the Hebrides on his return.
So extensive was the desire to “pilgrimize,” so many people deserted
their towns and villages, leaving their work undone and their
families neglected, while disorders multiplied on the road, and
virtue was subjected to so many more temptations on the way to the
Holy Land than were encountered at home, that the Church, about the
ninth century, interfered, and assumed the power to grant or to
withhold the privilege of pilgrimage. The candidate had first to
satisfy the bishop of his diocese of his moral character, that he
went away with the full consent of his friends and relations, and
that he was actuated by no motives of curiosity, indolence, or a
desire to obtain in other lands a greater licence and freedom of
action. If these points were not answered satisfactorily, permission
was withheld; and if the applicant belonged to one of the monastic
orders he found it far more difficult to obtain the required
authority. For it had been only too well proved that in assuming the
pilgrim’s robe the monks were often only embracing an opportunity to
return to the world again. But when all was satisfactory, and the
bishop satisfied as to the personal piety of the applicant, the
Church dismissed him on his journey with a service and a
benediction. He was solemnly invested with the scrip and staff, he
put on the long woollen robe which formed the chief part of his
dress, the clergy and his own friends accompanied him to the
boundaries of his parish, and there, after giving him a letter or a
passport which ensured him hospitality so long as he was in
Christian countries, they sent him on his way.
“In the name of God,” ran the commendatory letter, “we would have
your highness or holiness to know that the bearer of the present
letters, our brother, has asked our permission to go peaceably on
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, either for his own sins, or to pray for our
preservation. Thereupon, we have given him these present letters, in
which we salute you, and pray you, for the love of God and Saint
Peter, to receive him as your guest, to be useful to him in going
and coming back, so that he may return in safety to his house; and
as is your good custom, make him pass happy days. May God the
Eternal King protect you, and keep you in his kingdom!”
Thus provided, the pilgrim found hostels open for him, and every
castle and monastery ready to receive him. Long and weary his
journey may have been, but it could not have been tedious to him
with eyes to see and observe, when every city was a sort of new
world, when a new country lay beyond every hill, and new manners and
customs were marked on every day. The perils and dangers of the way
were not until the Mohammedan conquest—nor indeed after it, until
the time of Hakem—very great. True, the woods harboured wild beasts,
but the pilgrims travelled in bands; and there were robbers, but
these did not rob those who had nothing. The principal dangers were
those of which they knew nothing, the diseases due to malaria,
exposure, sun-stroke, fatigue, and change of climate. These, and not
the Turks, were the chief enemies of pilgrims. And in spite of
these, known and unknown, dangers, there cannot be a doubt that the
pilgrimage to Syria was a long series of new and continually
changing wonders and surprises. The church which blessed the
pilgrim, also celebrated the act of pilgrimage, and a service has
been preserved which was performed on the Second Sunday after
Easter, in the cathedral of Rouen. Of this the following is an
abridgment:—In the nave of the church was erected a fort,
“castellum,” representing that house at Emmaus where the two
travellers entered and broke bread with Christ. At the appointed
time two priests, “of the second seats,” appointed for the day, came
forth from the vestry, singing the hymn which begins “Jesu, nostra
redemptio.” They were to be dressed in tunics, “et desuper cappis
transversum,” were to have long flowing hair and beards, and were
each to carry a staff and scrip. Singing this hymn, and slowly
marching down the right aisle, they came to the western porch, when
they put themselves at the head of the procession of choristers
waiting for them, and all began together to sing, “Nos tuo vultu
saties.” Then the priest for the day, robed in alb and surplice,
barefooted, carrying a cross on his right shoulder, advanced to meet
them, and “suddenly standing before them,” asked, “What manner of
communications are these that ye have one to another as ye walk, and
are sad?”[42] To which the two pilgrims replied, “Art thou only a
stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come
to pass there in these days?”
Footnote 42:
We take the words of the authorized version.
“What things?” asked the priest.
“Concerning Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied, with the words which
follow.
“Oh, fools!” said the priest, “and slow of heart, to believe all
that the prophets have spoken.”
And then, feigning to retire, the priest would there have left them,
but they held him back, and pointing to the “castellum,” entreated
him to enter, singing, “Abide with us, for it is towards evening,
and the day is far spent.” Then singing another hymn, they led him
to the “Fort of Emmaus,” when they entered and sat down at a table
already spread for supper. Here the priest brake bread sitting
between them, and being recognised by this act for the Lord,
“suddenly vanished out of their sight.” The pilgrims pretending to
be stupefied, arose and sung sorrowfully (_lamentabiliter_),
“Alleluia,” with the verse, “Did not our hearts burn within us,
while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
Scriptures?”
Singing this twice they walked to the pulpit, where they sang the
verse, “Dic nobis Maria.” After this, another priest, dressed in a
dalmatic and surplice, with head muffled up like a woman, came to
them and sang, “Sepulcrum Christi Angelicos testes.”
He then took up a cloth from one place, and a second from another
place, and threw them before the great door of the choir. “And then
let him sing, ‘Christ has risen,’ and let the choir chaunt the two
other verses which follow, and let the women and the pilgrims retire
within; and the memory of this act being thus recalled, let the
procession return to the choir, and the vespers be finished.”
These ceremonies were not, of course, designed to meet the case of
pilgrimages undertaken by way of penance. These were of two kinds,
_minores peregrationes_, which were pilgrimages on foot to local
shrines, such as, later on, that of St. Thomas-à-Becket, for
instance; or _majores_, to Rome or Jerusalem. The latter, of which
Frotmond’s pilgrimage—which will be described further on—is an
example, were for murder, sacrilege, or for any other great crime.
One of the rules as regards a murderer was as follows:—“Let a chain
be made of the very sword with which the crime was committed, and
let the neck, arms, and body of the criminal be bound round with
this chain; thus let him be driven from his native country, and
wander whither the Pope shall direct him, till by long prayer he
obtain the Divine mercy.”
The roads were crowded with these miserable wretches, limping along
to their shrines. Only the more distinguished, either in rank or
enormity of offence, were ordered to go to Palestine. The custom was
carried on to comparatively late times, and it was not till the
fourteenth century that a law was passed restraining the
practice—“better is it that these criminals should remain all
together in one place, and there work out the sentence imposed upon
them by the Church,”—so long was it before justice was taken out of
the hands of the Church.
It could not have added greatly to the delights of travelling in
these days occasionally to meet bands of these wretches, toiling
painfully along, half naked, and dragging the weight of their
chains, while they implored the prayers and alms of the passers-by.
But the triumph of the pilgrim (not the criminal) was in coming home
again. Bearing a palm branch in his hands, as a sign that he had
seen the sacred places, he narrated his adventures, and
gathered—those at least that were poor—alms in plenty. Arrived at
his native village, the palm branch was solemnly offered at the
altar, and the pilgrim returned to his home to spend the rest of his
life in telling of the miracles he had seen wrought.
Not all, however, came home. So long as the pilgrim passed the rough
lands where his passport was recognised, all was easy enough. He got
food to eat, and a bed to sleep in. But he sometimes came to places,
if he went by way of Constantinople, where there were no
monasteries, and where his passport proved useless. The ferocious
Bulgarians, or the treacherous Croats, in theory friendly, and by
profession Christian, sometimes proved cut-throats and robbers. The
Mohammedans, though they acknowledged the harmlessness of the crowds
that flocked about the gates, could not avoid showing the contempt
they naturally felt for those who refused to think as they thought
themselves; when the pilgrims arrived at the city, they could not
enter without payment, and often they had no money to pay. And if
they were able to pay for admission, they were not exempt from the
insults of the Saracens, who sometimes pleased themselves with
interrupting the sacred office, trampling on the vessels of the
Eucharist, and even scourging the priests.
But these persecutions belong to a somewhat later time than we have
yet arrived at.
About the same time as the pilgrimage of Arnulf took place that of
Willibald. Willibald, afterwards Bishop of Eichstädt, was an
Englishman by birth. He was dedicated at an early age by his father
to the monastic life, and received a pious and careful education.
Arrived at the period of manhood, he persuaded his father, his
sister Walpurga, and his brother Wunebald, accompanied by a large
party of servants and followers, to undertake a pilgrimage to
Palestine. In Italy his father died, and his brother and sister left
him and returned to England. Willibald, with a few companions, went
on eastward. At Emessa they were detained, but not harmed, by the
Emir, but, released through the intercession of a Spanish merchant,
they proceeded to Jerusalem. Willibald visited the city no less than
four times. He was once, we are told, miraculously cured of
blindness by praying at the church where the Cross had been found.
Probably he had contracted an ophthalmia, of which he recovered in
Jerusalem.
About the year 800, Charlemagne conceived the idea of sending a
special embassy to the Caliph Harûn er Raschíd. He sent three
ambassadors, two of whom died on the way. The third, Isaac the Jew,
returned after five years’ absence, bearing the presents of the
great Caliph, and accompanied by his envoys. The presents consisted
of an elephant, which caused huge surprise to the people, carved
ivory, incense, a clock, and the keys of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. Charlemagne sent, in return, white and green robes, and a
pack of his best hounds. He also astonished the caliph’s envoys by
the magnificence of his church ceremonials. Charlemagne established
a hostel at Jerusalem for the use of pilgrims, and continued to
cultivate friendly relations with Haroun. The latter, for his part,
inculcated a toleration far enough indeed from the spirit of his
creed, and ordered that the Christians should not be molested in the
exercise of their worship.
One of the most singular histories of the time is that, already
alluded to, of the pilgrimage of Frotmond. At the death of their
father, Frotmond and his brothers proceeded to divide the property
which he left behind. A great-uncle, an ecclesiastic, in some way
interfered with the partition of the estates, and roused them to so
great a fury that they killed him. But immediately afterwards,
struck with horror at the crime they had committed, they betook
themselves to the court of King Lothaire, and professed their
penitence and resolution to perform any penance. In the midst of an
assembly of prelates the guilty brothers were bound with chains,
clothed with hair shirts, and with their bodies and hair covered
with ashes, were enjoined thus to visit the sacred places. They went
first to Rome, where Benedict III. received them and gave them
letters of recommendation. Thence they went by sea to Palestine, and
spent four years in Jerusalem, practising every kind of austerity
and mortification. Thence, because their penance was not hard
enough, they went to the Thebaïd in Egypt, where they remained two
years more among hermits the most rigid, and self-tormentors the
most cruel. They then wandered along the shores of the Mediterranean
to Carthage, where was the tomb of Saint Cyprian. After seven years
of suffering they returned to Rome, and begged for the pardon of the
Church. It was in vain. They had murdered a churchman; they were of
noble birth; and the example must be striking. And once more they
set off for a renewal of their weary travels in lands already
familiar to them. This time, after revisiting Jerusalem, they went
north to Galilee, and thence south to Sinai, where they remained for
three years. Again they returned to Rome, and again implored the
pardon of the Pope, again to be refused. And then, tired, we may
suppose, of sufferings which seemed useless, and fatigues without an
object, they bent their steps homewards. At Rennes the eldest
brother died, unforgiven. Frotmond turned his steps once more
towards Rome. But on the way he was met by an aged man. “Return,”
said he, “to the sanctuary which thou hast quitted. I order thee, in
the name of the Lord! It is there that absolution waits thee by the
mercy of God.”
He turned back: the weight of his chains had bent him double, he
could not stand upright, the sores which the iron had caused were
putrefying, and the time of his deliverance from the earth seemed to
draw nigh. In the night the same old man appeared again, accompanied
by two fair youths. “Master,” said one, “it is time to restore
health to this pilgrim.” “Not yet,” replied the old man, “but when
the monks shall rise to chant the vigils.” At the hour of vigils
Frotmond crawled with the rest into the church. There he fell
asleep, and while he slept, the old man appeared again and tore off
the chains, which fell to the ground, and by the noise of their
falling awakened Frotmond. They placed him in a bed, and in three
days he was well and sound again, miraculously cured of his
festering sores; but he was not yet satisfied, and was preparing for
a third pilgrimage when he fell ill and died. The old man and the
dream, were they his disguise for a resolution to endure no more the
tyranny of the Church? or were they the invention of a later time,
and of some bolder spirit than the rest, who would not allow that to
Rome alone belonged the power of binding and of loosing?
With the passion for pilgrimages grew up the desire to find and to
possess relics. These, towards the end of the tenth century, when a
general feeling that the end of the world was approaching caused the
building of new churches everywhere and the reconstruction of old
ones, were found in great abundance. “Thanks to certain revelations
and some signs,” says Raoul the Bald, “we succeeded in finding holy
relics, long hidden from human eyes. The saints themselves, by word
of God, appeared to the faithful and reclaimed an earthly
resurrection.” The revelations began at Sens-sur-Yonne, in Burgundy,
where they still show a goodly collection of holy bones, including
the finger with which Luke wrote his Gospel, and the chair in which
he sat while he was writing it. Archbishop Leuteric was so fortunate
as to find a piece of Moses’ rod; with this many miracles were
wrought. Almost every returning pilgrim had something which he had
either picked up, or bought, or been instructed in a vision of the
night to bring home with him. This treasure he deposited in the
parish church: pious people set it with pearls and precious stones,
or enclosed it in a golden casket: stories grew up about it, sick
people resorted to the place to be cured, and one more legend was
added to the innumerable fables of relics. It is useful to remember,
as regards the pilgrimages, the finding of relics, and the strange
heresies of the time, that it was a period of great religious
excitement, as well as of profound ignorance: nothing was too
wonderful to be believed; no one so wise as not to be credulous. No
one had actually seen a miracle with his own eyes, but everybody
knew of countless miracles seen by his neighbour’s eyes. Meantime,
the toleration granted to the Christians through the wisdom of Harûn
er Rashíd continued pretty well undisturbed for many years, and life
at least was tolerably safe, though insult might be probable and
even certain.
Commerce, the great civiliser, had its own part, too, in keeping the
peace between Christian and infidel.
On the fifteenth of every September there was held a kind of fair in
Jerusalem. Thither flocked merchants from Pisa, Venice, Genoa, and
Marseilles, eager to satisfy at once their desire for gain, and
their desire to obtain a reputation for piety. And for a short time
Jerusalem seems to have served as the chief emporium, whither the
East sent her treasures, to sell them to the West.
The objects in demand at this fair were those which were luxuries to
the West; cloves, nutmegs, and mace from India; pepper, ginger, and
frankincense by way of Aden; silks from India and China; sugar from
Syria;[43] dates, cassia, and flax from Egypt; and from the same
country quicksilver, coral, and metals; glass from Tyre; almonds,
saffron, and mastic, with rich stuffs and weapons from Damascus; and
dyed stuffs from Jerusalem itself, when the Jews had a monopoly, for
which they paid a heavy tax, for dyeing.[44]
Footnote 43:
Albert of Aix speaks of the Crusaders first coming upon the
sugar-cane: “The people sucked sweet reeds which were found in
abundance in the meadows, called _zucra_.... This reed is grown
with the greatest care every year; at the time of harvest the
natives crush it in mortars, and collect the juice in vessels,
when they leave it till it hardens, and becomes white like snow or
salt.”
Footnote 44:
See Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions. M. de Guignes sur
l’état du commerce des François dans le Levant avant les
Croisades.
Gold in the West was scarce, and the trade was carried on either by
exchange, or by means of silver. The chief traders were the
Italians, but the French, especially through the port of Marseilles,
were great merchants, and we find Guy de Lusignan, King of
Jerusalem, according to French traders singular privileges and
immunities, solely in reward for their assistance at Saint Jean
d’Acre.
There can be no doubt that this trade had a great deal to do with
pilgrimages. The two motives which most of all persuade men
cheerfully to incur danger are religion and gain. When were the two
more closely allied than in those comparatively peaceful times when
Jerusalem was open both to worshippers and traders? With his money
bags tied to his girdle, the merchant could at once perform the
sacred rites which, as most believed, made him secure of heaven, and
could purchase those Eastern luxuries for which the princes of the
West were ready to pay so dearly. A state of things, however, so
favourable to the general welfare of the world could not be expected
to last very long. Luxury and sensuality destroyed the Abassides,
and their great kingdom fell to pieces. Then Nicephorus Phocas,
Emperor of Constantinople, saw in the weakness of the Mohammedans
the opportunity of the Christians. With wisdom worthy of Mohammed he
resolved on giving his invasion a religious character, and
endeavoured to persuade the clergy to proclaim a holy war. These,
however, refused to help him; religion and the slaughter of the
enemy were not to be confounded, and the great army of Nicephorus,
which might have been made irresistible, was disheartened for want
of that spirit which makes every soldier believe himself a possible
martyr. The Greek Emperor took Antioch, but was prevented by death
from following up his success, while the Patriarch of Jerusalem was
condemned to the flames on suspicion of having corresponded with the
Greeks. But before the taking of Antioch troubles had befallen the
Christians. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was greatly injured by
the fanatics, who took every opportunity of troubling their victims.
When it had been restored, the Patriarch was cast into prison on a
charge of having built his church higher than the Mosque of Omar. He
got off by a singular artifice. An old Mohammedan offered, for a
consideration, to show him a way of escape. His offer being
accepted, he simply told the Patriarch to deny the fact, and call on
them to prove it. The plan succeeded; the charge, though perfectly
true, could not be proved, and the Patriarch escaped.[45]
Footnote 45:
Williams’s ‘Holy City,’ vol. i. pp. 338, 339.
At this period the massacre of an immense number of Mohammedan
pilgrims on their way to Mecca led to the substitution for thirty
years of Jerusalem for Mecca.[46]
Footnote 46:
See Chap. V.
The city thus had two streams of pilgrims, one to the Holy Rock, the
Mosque of Omar, and the other to the Holy Cave, the Sepulchre of
Christ. Nicephorus being murdered, John Zimisces, his successor and
murderer, followed up his victories. He easily gained possession of
Damascus and Syria, and reduced to submission all the cities of
Palestine. He did not, however, enter Jerusalem, to which he sent a
garrison. Death[47] interrupted his victorious career, and Islam
once more began to recover its forces. The Fatemite Caliphs, who had
succeeded in establishing themselves in Egypt, made themselves
masters of Jerusalem, and though for a short time the Christians
were treated rather as allies and friends than as a conquered
people, the accession of Hakem was an event which renewed all former
troubles with more than their former weight.
Footnote 47:
After having murdered Nicephorus, he was himself poisoned by
Basil, his grand chamberlain, who succeeded him. In the Greek
empire murder seems to have formed the strongest title to the
crown.
He ordered that Jews should wear blue robes and Christians black,
and in order to mark them yet more distinctively, that both should
wear black turbans. Christians, moreover, were at first ordered to
wear wooden stirrups, with crosses round their necks, while the Jews
were compelled to carry round pieces of wood, to signify the head of
the golden calf which they had worshipped in the desert. The
destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by this madman has
been already alluded to.[48] For another account of the same
transaction and of the causes which led to it we are indebted to
Raoul the Bald (Glaber), who describes the excitement produced in
Europe by this act. “In the year 1009,” he says, though his date
appears to be wrong by one year, “the Church of the Sepulchre was
entirely destroyed by order of the prince of Babylon.... The devil
put it into the heads of the Jews to whisper calumnies about the
servants of the true religion. There were a considerable number of
Jews in Orleans, prouder, more envious, and more audacious than the
rest of their nation. They suborned a vagabond monk named Robert,
and sent him with secret letters, written in the Hebrew character,
and for better preservation enclosed in a stick, to the prince of
Babylon. Therein they told how, if the prince did not make haste to
destroy the shrine at which the Christians worshipped, they would
speedily take possession of his kingdom and deprive him of his
honours. On reading the letter, the prince fell into fury, and sent
to Jerusalem soldiers charged with the order to destroy the church
from roof to foundation. This order was but too well executed; and
his satellites even tried to break the interior of the Sacred
Sepulchre with their iron hammers, but all their efforts were
useless.... A short time after, it was known beyond a doubt that the
calamity must be imputed to the Jews, and when their secret was
divulged, all Christendom resolved with one accord to drive out the
Jews from their territory to the very last. They became thus the
object of universal execration. Some were driven out, some massacred
by the sword, some thrown into the sea, or given up to different
kinds of punishment. Others devoted themselves to voluntary deaths:
so that, after the just vengeance executed upon them, very few could
be seen in the Roman world.... These examples of justice were not
calculated to inspire a feeling of security in the mind of Robert
when he came back. He began by looking for his accomplices, of whom
there were still a small number in Orleans; with them he lived
familiarly. But he was denounced by a stranger, who had made the
journey with him, and knew perfectly well the object of his mission.
He is seized, scourged, and confesses his crime. The ministers of
the king take him without the city, and there, in the sight of all
the people, commit him to the flames. Nevertheless, the fugitive
Jews began to reappear in the cities, and there is no doubt that,
because some must always exist as a living testimony to their shame,
and the crime by which they shed the blood of Christ, God permitted
the animosity of the Christians to subside. However that may be by
the divine will, Maria, mother of the Emir, prince of Babylon, a
very Christian princess, ordered the church to be rebuilt with
square and polished stones the same year.... And there might have
been seen an innumerable crowd of Christians running in triumph to
Jerusalem from all parts of the world, and contending with one
another in their offerings for the restoration of the house of God.”
Footnote 48:
If there is any one fact in history which seems absolutely clear
and certain, it is this, that _the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
was destroyed by command of Hakem_. William of Tyre expressly
describes the reconstruction of the church. Raoul, as shown above,
tells how the news of the destruction was received. All the Arabic
historians record the event.
It was an unlucky day for the Jews when Robert went on his embassy,
whatever that was, to the East. But a renewal of the religious
spirit in the West was always attended by a persecution of the Jews.
No story was too incredible to be believed of them, no violence and
cruelty too much for them. When the Crusades began, almost the first
to suffer were the hapless Jews, and we know how miserable was their
situation so long as the Crusading spirit lasted. Even when this was
dying out, when the Christians and the Saracens were often firm
friends, the Jews alone shared none of the benefits of toleration.
To be a descendant of that race by whom Christ was crucified, was to
be subjected to the very wantonness of cruelty and persecution.
One of the principal sights in Jerusalem then, as now, though the
Latins have long since given it up, was the yearly appearance of the
holy fire. Odolric was witness, not only of this, but of another and
a more unusual miracle. For while the people were all waiting for
the fire to appear, a Saracen began to chant in mockery the _Kyrie
Eleison_, and snatching a taper from one of the pilgrims, he ran
away with it. “But immediately,” says Raoul, “he was seized by the
devil, and began to suffer unimaginable torments. The Christian who
had been robbed regained his taper, and the Saracen died immediately
after in the arms of his friends.” This example inspired a just
terror into the hearts of the infidels, and was for the Christians a
great subject of rejoicing. And at that very moment the holy fire
burst out from one of the same lamps, and ran from one to the other.
Bishop Odolric bought the lamp which was first lit for a pound of
gold, and hung it up in his church at Orleans, “where it cured an
infinite number of sick.”
One can easily understand the growth of stories, such as that of the
stricken Saracen. An age like the tenth was little disposed to
question the truth of a miracle which proved their faith. Nor was it
likely to set against the one Saracen who died in torture after
insulting the Cross the tens of thousands who insulted it with
impunity. The series of miracles related by Raoul and others are
told in perfect good faith, and believed by those to whom they were
related as simply as they were believed by those who told them. And
we can very well understand how they helped, in a time when hardly
any other thing would have so helped, to maintain the faith of a
people, coarse, rough, unlettered, and imaginative.
The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the stories
spread abroad about the miraculous preservation of the cave, and
its rebuilding in 1010, all served to increase the ardour of
pilgrims. And there had been another cause already mentioned.
Throughout western Christendom a whisper ran that the end of the
world was approaching. A thousand years had nearly elapsed since
the Church of Christ was founded. The second advent of the founder
was to happen when this period was accomplished: the advent was to
take place in Palestine; happy those who could be present to
welcome their Lord. Therefore, of all conditions and ranks in
life, from the lowest to the highest, an innumerable multitude of
pilgrims thronged to Jerusalem. And so deep was the feeling that
the end of all things was at hand, that legal documents were drawn
up beginning with the words, “Appropinquante etenim mundi termino
et ruinis crebrescentibus jam certa signa manifestantur,
pertimescens tremendi judicii diem.” Among the best known pilgrims
of the last century before the Crusades is Fulke the Black, Count
of Anjou. He was accused, and justly, of numerous acts of
violence. But he had also violated the sanctity of a church, and
for this pardon was difficult to obtain. Troubled with phantoms
which appeared to him by night, the offspring of his own
disordered conscience, Fulke resolved to expiate his sins by a
pilgrimage. After being nearly shipwrecked on his voyage to
Syria—the tempest appeared to him a special mark of God’s
displeasure—he arrived safely in Jerusalem, and caused himself to
be scourged through the streets, crying aloud, “Lord, have mercy
on a faithless and perjured Christian; on a sinner wandering far
from his own country.” By a pious fraud he obtained admission to
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: and we are told that, while
praying at the tomb, the stone miraculously became soft to his
teeth, and he bit off a portion of it and brought it triumphantly
away. Returned to his own country, Fulke built a church at Loches
in imitation of that at Jerusalem. Tormented still by his
conscience, he went a second time as a pilgrim to Palestine, and
returning safely again, he occupied himself for many years in
building monasteries and churches. But he could not rest in quiet,
and resolved for the good of his soul to make a third pilgrimage.
This he did, but died on his way home at Metz. A very different
pilgrim was Raymond of Plaisance. Born of poor parents, and
himself apprenticed to a shoemaker, Raymond’s mind was distracted
from the earliest age by the desire to see Palestine. He disguised
his anxiety for a time, but it became too strong for him, and he
fell ill and confessed his thoughts to his mother. She, a widow,
resolved to accompany him, and they set off together. They arrived
safely at Jerusalem, and wept before the sepulchre, conceiving, we
are told, a lively desire to end their days there and then. This
was not to be, however. They went on to Bethlehem, thence to
Jerusalem again, and thence homewards. On board the ship Raymond
was seized with an illness, and the sailors wanted to throw him
overboard, thinking, according to the usual sailors’ superstition,
that a sick man would bring disaster. His mother, however,
dissuaded them, and he quickly recovered. But the mother died
herself shortly after landing in Italy, and Raymond went on alone.
He was met at Plaisance by a procession of clergy and choristers,
and led to the cathedral, where he deposited his palm branch, sign
of successful pilgrimage, and then returned to his shoemaking,
married, and lived to a good old age—doubtless telling over and
over again the stories of his travels.
And now began those vast pilgrimages when thousands went together,
“the armies of the Lord,” the real precursors of the Crusades.
Robert of Normandy (A.D. 1034), like Fulke the Black, anxious to
wipe out his sins, went accompanied by a great number of barons and
knights, all barefooted, all clothed with the penitential sackcloth,
all bearing the staff and purse. They went by Constantinople and
through Asia Minor. There Robert was seized with an illness, and
being unable to walk, was borne in a litter by Saracens. “Tell my
people,” said the duke, “that you have seen me borne to Paradise by
devils;” a speech which shows how far toleration had spread in those
days. Robert found a large number of pilgrims outside the city
unable to pay the entrance money. He paid for all, and after
signalizing himself by numerous acts of charity he returned, dying
on the way in Bithynia, regretting only that he had not died sooner,
at the sacred shrine itself.
To die there, indeed, was, as we have seen in the case of Raymond, a
common prayer. The form of words is preserved: “Thou who hast died
for us, and art buried in this sacred place, take pity on our
misery, and withdraw us from this vale of tears.” And the Christians
preserved the story of one Lethbald, whose prayer was actually
answered, for he died suddenly in the sight of his companions, after
crying out three times aloud, “Glory to thee, O God!”
Sometimes, but seldom, a sort of missionary spirit would seize a
pilgrim, and he would try to convert the infidels. Thus Saint
Macarius of Armenia, bishop of Antioch, learned Arabic and Hebrew,
and going to Jerusalem began to preach to the Jews and Saracens. Of
course he was beaten and thrown into prison. And we need not record
the miracles that happened to him therein.
Richard, Abbot of Saint Vitou, left Normandy at the head of seven
hundred pilgrims, with whom was Saint Gervinus. There are accounts
preserved of this pilgrimage, which offers little of interest except
the miracles which were wrought for Richard.
Lietbert, in 1054, bishop of Cambray, headed a band of no fewer than
three thousand. They followed the road which the Crusaders were
afterwards to take, through Hungary and Bulgaria. Here many of his
men were disheartened and wished to return, but be persuaded them to
go on. They passed into Asia Minor, but only got as far as Laodicea,
where they heard that the Church of the Sepulchre was finally closed
to Christians. Most of the pilgrims set off on their way home.
Lietbert persevered, and embarked with a few for Jaffa. They were
shipwrecked on the isle of Cyprus. Again they took ship for Jaffa,
and again they failed, being landed again at Laodicea. After so many
disappointments, Lietbert lost courage, and went home again without
accomplishing his pilgrimage.
The most important of all the pilgrimages, however, was that of the
Archbishop of Mayence, accompanied by the bishops of Utrecht,
Ramberg, and Ratisbon, and by seven thousand pilgrims of every rank.
They were not dressed, as was the wont of pilgrims, in sackcloth,
but wore their more costly robes; the bishops in dress of state and
cloth of gold, the knights with burnished arms and costly trappings.
The army, for an army it was, too well equipped to escape without
attack, too small to ensure victory in case of attack, followed the
usual route across Asia Minor from Constantinople. It was not,
however, till they were near Ramleh, almost within sight of
Jerusalem, that the pilgrims were actually attacked, and then not by
the Saracens, but by a large troop of Arabs, whom they attempted at
first to repel by blows with their fists. Many were wounded,
including the Bishop of Utrecht. They drove off the enemy for the
moment with stones, and retired to a ruined fort, which was
fortunately near the spot, where they cowered behind the falling
walls. The Arabs came on with shrill cries; the Christians, nearly
unarmed, rushed out and tore their swords and bucklers from them.
But they were obliged to fall back, and the Arabs getting
reinforced, encamped round the fort to the number of twelve
thousand, and resolved to starve out the enemy.
The Christians held a hasty council. “Let us,” urged a priest,
“sacrifice our gold, which is all that the infidels want; having
that, they will let us go free.” This advice was adopted, and on a
parley being held, the chief of the Arabs, with a small body of
seventeen men, consented to enter the fort and come to terms. The
Bishop of Mayence, who was the stateliest and handsomest man among
the Christians, was chosen to speak with him. He proposed, in return
for freedom and safety, to hand over to the Arabs all the treasure
in the hands of the Christians. “It is not for you,” replied the
Arab, “to make terms with your conquerors!” And taking off his
turban, as we are told, as a modern Bedawí would do with his
head-dress under similar circumstances, he threw it, like a halter,
round the neck of the bishop. The Christian prelate was not prepared
for a reception so rude, and fairly knocked him down with a blow
from his fist, upon which the knights set upon the whole eighteen
Arabs, and bound them tightly. The news of the detention of their
chief quickly spreading outside, the Arab army commenced a furious
attack, which would have been fatal to the Christians but for a
stratagem which procured them some little delay. For the Christians,
holding swords to the throats of their prisoners, promised to fight
with their heads if the attack was continued; and the chieftain’s
son, in alarm for his father, hastened from rank to rank, imploring
the men to desist. And at this juncture arrived the Emir of Ramleh
with troops, at sight of whom the Arabs turned and fled. The Arab
chieftain remained a prisoner. “You have delivered us,” said the
emir, “from our greatest enemies.” And so, with congratulations and
in friendship, they marched to Jerusalem, which they entered in a
kind of triumph by torchlight, with the sound of cymbals and
trumpets. They were received by the Patriarch Sophronimus, and made
the round, next day, of the sacred places, still bearing the marks
of the destruction wrought by Hakem fifty years before.
And now approached the period of the first Crusade. All these
pilgrimages were like preparatory and tentative expeditions; the
final provocations were yet to come which should rouse the
Christians to unanimous action.
In the year 1077 the city had been taken, after holding out till the
defenders were in danger of starvation, by Atsiz the Kharesmian, and
transferred from the Fatemite Caliph of Egypt to the Abbaside
Khalif. After the defeat of Atsiz at Gaza, a rebellion was attempted
in Jerusalem, which resulted in the massacre of three thousand of
the people. Atsiz called in Tutush, brother of Melek Shah, to his
assistance. Tutush came, but instead of helping Atsiz, he arrested
and executed him, and proceeded to make himself master of Syria. A
Turk, named Ostok, was made Governor of Jerusalem, and fresh
persecutions began for the Christians. The Turks had now conquered
the whole of Asia Minor. Too few in numbers to occupy the whole
country, they held the towns by garrison, the effeminate Greeks
having fallen an easy prey to them. But before this event, the
Emperor Michael Ducas, foreseeing the conquest of his country unless
the Mohammedans were driven back, had written to Pope Gregory VIII.,
imploring the assistance of the Western Christians, and offering to
throw down the barriers which separated the two Churches. Gregory
quickly matured a complete plan of united action on the part of all
the Christians. The price of the assistance of Western Europe was to
be the submission of the Eastern Church. The conquest of Palestine
was to be the triumph of Rome. Gerbert had entertained a similar
dream; but Gregory did more than dream. He exhorted the Christians
to unite in the Holy War, and obtained fifty thousand promises: he
was himself to head the Crusade. But other schemes intervened, and
Gregory died without doing anything.
Victor III. did more than Gregory: he not only exhorted, but
persuaded. The Tuscans, Venetians, and Genoese fitted out a fleet,
fully manned and equipped, and sent it against the Mohammedans, who
were now impeding the navigation of the Mediterranean. A signal
triumph was obtained, and the conquerors returned laden with spoils
from the towns they had captured and burned. This was the first
united effort of the Christians against the Saracens, and perhaps
the most successful of any.
All, then, was ripe for the Crusade. The sword had been already
drawn; the idea was not a new one; letters, imploring help, had been
received from the Emperor of the Greeks; three popes had preached a
holy war; the sufferings of the Christians went on increasing.
Moreover, the wickedness of the Western Church was very great.
William of Tyre declares that virtue and piety were obliged to hide
themselves; there was no longer any charity, any reverence for rank,
any hesitation at plunging whole countries in war; there was no
longer any security for property; the monasteries themselves were
not safe against robbers; the very churches were pillaged and the
sacred vessels stolen; the right of sanctuary was violated; the
highways were covered with armed brigands; chastity, economy,
temperance, were regarded as things “stupid and worthless;” the
bishops were as dumb dogs who could not bark; and the priests were
no better than the people.
The description of William of Tyre is vague, though heavily charged;
but there can be no doubt that the times were exceptionally evil.
Crimes common enough in an age distinguished above all by absence of
self-restraint and abandonment to unbridled rage, would be naturally
magnified by a historian who saw in them a reason for the infidel’s
persecution of pilgrims, and an argument for the taking of the
Cross. Yet, making allowance for every kind of exaggeration, it is
clear enough that Gregory had great mischiefs to contend with, and
that the awakening of the world’s conscience by any means whatever
could not but produce a salutary effect. The immediate effect of the
Crusades was the substitution of higher for lower motives, the
sudden cessation of war, the shaming of the clergy into something
like purity of life, the absorption into the armies of the Cross of
the “men of violence,” and some temporary alleviation to the
sufferings of the poor.
The hour and the man were both at hand.