135 (return) [ Vires non suppetunt, et c_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]

136 (return) [ The Normans and Sicilians appear to be

confounded.]

The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first

gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the

grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but

whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During

four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on

the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of

Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia

herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most

liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the

kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and

Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The

political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if

the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real

interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven

to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the

kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican

has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion

blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third

had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate

Henry, 137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to

cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who

enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened

to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure:

138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the

harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to

abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these

imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the

discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the

capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their

surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above

thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic

the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera

in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor

and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the

service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony

maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till

they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by

the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou. 139 All the

calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed

by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated

the royal sepulchres, 1391 and explored the secret treasures of

the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and

jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one

hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of

Sicily. 140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the

nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses

of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the

captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of

posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the

miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might

struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony

of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age

under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this

revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy

of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been

transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the

house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised

so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia,

Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude,

among the vanquished nations.

137 (return) [ The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de

Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of

German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.

p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome,

exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]

138 (return) [ Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo,

(Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum

Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]

139 (return) [ For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the

Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247,)

Giannone, (tom ii. p. 385,) and of the originals, in Muratori’s

Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo

Spinelli de Giovenazzo, (tom. vii. p. 1064,) Nicholas de

Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matreo Villani, (tom. xiv l. vii.

p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the

Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice

than violence.]

1391 (return) [ It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs

of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated

and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in

order to enable him to pay the “German” tribute exacted by the

menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of

the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit.—M.]

140 (return) [ Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec,

(l. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum

pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis,

gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions

the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil

of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these

occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid

in La Fontaine, “Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque.”]

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.

The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud

Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The

Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By

Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia

Minor And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To

The Holy Sepulchre.

From the Isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond

the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans,

against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their

Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved;

but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and

the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent

people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and

the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the

republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by

slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and

Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these

northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their

princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire

from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks

have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious

crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia.

One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud,

1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia,

one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father

Sebectagi was the slave of the slave of the slave of the

commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude, the

first degree was merely titular, since it was filled by the

sovereign of Transoxiana and Chorasan, who still paid a nominal

allegiance to the caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a

minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides, 2 who broke, by

his revolt, the bonds of political slavery. But the third step

was a state of real and domestic servitude in the family of that

rebel; from which Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity,

ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of

Gazna, 3 as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master.

The falling dynasty of the Samanides was at first protected, and

at last overthrown, by their servants; and, in the public

disorders, the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. From him

the title of Sultan 4 was first invented; and his kingdom was

enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Ispahan, from

the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the

principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he

waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. In this foreign narrative

I may not consume a page; and a volume would scarcely suffice to

recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions.

Never was the Mussulman hero dismayed by the inclemency of the

seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers,

the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the

formidable array of their elephants of war. 5 The sultan of Gazna

surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march

of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached

the famous city of Kinnoge, 6 on the Upper Ganges; and, in a

naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and

vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Lahor, and

Multan, were compelled to open their gates: the fertile kingdom

of Guzarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay; and his

avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden

and aromatic isles of the Southern Ocean. On the payment of a

tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions; the people, their

lives and fortunes; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous

Mussulman was cruel and inexorable: many hundred temples, or

pagodas, were levelled with the ground; many thousand idols were

demolished; and the servants of the prophet were stimulated and

rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed.

The pagoda of Sumnat was situate on the promontory of Guzarat, in

the neighborhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of

the Portuguese. 7 It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand

villages; two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service

of the Deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water

from the distant Ganges: the subordinate ministers consisted of

three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred

dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth or beauty. Three sides

of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus was

fortified by a natural or artificial precipice; and the city and

adjacent country were peopled by a nation of fanatics. They

confessed the sins and the punishment of Kinnoge and Delhi; but

if the impious stranger should presume to approach their holy

precincts, he would surely be overwhelmed by a blast of the

divine vengeance. By this challenge, the faith of Mahmud was

animated to a personal trial of the strength of this Indian

deity. Fifty thousand of his worshippers were pierced by the

spear of the Moslems; the walls were scaled; the sanctuary was

profaned; and the conqueror aimed a blow of his iron mace at the

head of the idol. The trembling Brahmins are said to have offered

ten millions 711 sterling for his ransom; and it was urged by the

wisest counsellors, that the destruction of a stone image would

not change the hearts of the Gentoos; and that such a sum might

be dedicated to the relief of the true believers. “Your reasons,”

replied the sultan, “are specious and strong; but never in the

eyes of posterity shall Mahmud appear as a merchant of idols.”

712 He repeated his blows, and a treasure of pearls and rubies,

concealed in the belly of the statue, explained in some degree

the devout prodigality of the Brahmins. The fragments of the idol

were distributed to Gazna, Mecca, and Medina. Bagdad listened to

the edifying tale; and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the

title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Mahomet.

1 (return) [ I am indebted for his character and history to

D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537,) M. De

Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173,) and our

countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23-83.) In the two

first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the

translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is

not easy to distinguish the version and the original. * Note: The

European reader now possesses a more accurate version of

Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow’s work, Col. Briggs

observes, “that the author’s name will be handed down to

posterity as one of the earliest and most indefatigable of our

Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere

translation, he has filled his work with his own observations,

which have been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it

impossible to distinguish the translator from the original

author.” Preface p. vii.—M.]

2 (return) [ The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years,

A.D. 847-999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin,

in the Tables of M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.

404-406.) They were followed by the Gaznevides, A.D. 999-1183,

(see tom. i. p. 239, 240.) His divisions of nations often

disturbs the series of time and place.]

3 (return) [ Gaznah hortos non habet: est emporium et domicilium

mercaturae Indicae. Abulfedae Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p.

349. D’Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern

traveller.]

4 (return) [ By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who

employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and

master, (D’Herbelot, p. 825.) It is interpreted by the Byzantine

writers of the eleventh century; and the name (Soldanus) is

familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it

had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs

of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p.

238-240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labors to find the title of

Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia: but his proofs are mere

shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine, (ii. 11,) an

anticipation of Zonaras, &c., and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as

he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of

Iconium of the xiiith century, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.

i. p. 246.)]

5 (return) [ Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p.

49) mentions the report of a gun in the Indian army. But as I am

slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I

must desire to scrutinize first the text, and then the authority

of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. *

Note: This passage is differently written in the various

manuscripts I have seen; and in some the word tope (gun) has been

written for nupth, (naphtha, and toofung) (musket) for khudung,

(arrow.) But no Persian or Arabic history speaks of gunpowder

before the time usually assigned for its invention, (A.D. 1317;)

long after which, it was first applied to the purposes of war.

Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47, note.—M.]

6 (return) [ Kinnouge, or Canouge, (the old Palimbothra) is

marked in latitude 27 Degrees 3 Minutes, longitude 80 Degrees 13

Minutes. See D’Anville, (Antiquite de l’Inde, p. 60-62,)

corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in his

excellent Memoir on his Map of Hindostan, p. 37-43: ) 300]

jewellers, 30,000 shops for the arreca nut, 60,000 bands of

musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274. Dow, vol. i.

p. 16,) will allow an ample deduction. * Note: Mr. Wilson (Hindu

Drama, vol. iii. p. 12) and Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek, vol.

ii. p. 394) concur in identifying Palimbothra with the Patalipara

of the Indians; the Patna of the moderns.—M.]

7 (return) [ The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta, (Dow, vol.

i. p. 66.) Consult Abulfeda, (p. 272,) and Rennel’s Map of

Hindostan.]

711 (return) [ Ferishta says, some “crores of gold.” Dow says, in

a note at the bottom of the page, “ten millions,” which is the

explanation of the word “crore.” Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the

sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to

Mill’s India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs’s translation is “a

quantity of gold.” The treasure found in the temple, “perhaps in

the image,” according to Major Price’s authorities, was twenty

millions of dinars of gold, above nine millions sterling; but

this was a hundred-fold the ransom offered by the Brahmins.

Price, vol. ii. p. 290.—M.]

712 (return) [ Rather than the idol broker, he chose to be called

Mahmud the idol breaker. Price, vol. ii. p. 289—M]

From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I

cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or

virtue. The name of Mahmud the Gaznevide is still venerable in

the East: his subjects enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and

peace; his vices were concealed by the veil of religion; and two

familiar examples will testify his justice and magnanimity.

I. As he sat in the Divan, an unhappy subject bowed before the

throne to accuse the insolence of a Turkish soldier who had

driven him from his house and bed. “Suspend your clamors,” said

Mahmud; “inform me of his next visit, and ourself in person will

judge and punish the offender.” The sultan followed his guide,

invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing the

torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had been

seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of

his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in

prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare,

which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man,

whose injury he had avenged, was unable to suppress his

astonishment and curiosity; and the courteous monarch

condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. “I

had reason to suspect that none, except one of my sons, could

dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the

lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer

was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so

painful was my anxiety, that I had passed three days without food

since the first moment of your complaint.”

II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of

the Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was

disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his

invasion till the manhood of her son. 8 “During the life of my

husband,” said the artful regent, “I was ever apprehensive of

your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms.

He is now no more; his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child,

and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How

inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and

yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty.” Avarice was

the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of

Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. 811

The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of

millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never

accumulated; in the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies,

such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. 9

Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with precious minerals:

her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and silver of the

world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the

Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life,

evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so

dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast

and various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears,

and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the

wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following

day he reviewed the state of his military force; one hundred

thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred

elephants of battle. 10 He again wept the instability of human

greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress

of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his

Persian kingdom.

8 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet

these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the

heart, or the motives of public action.]

811 (return) [ Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295.—M]

9 (return) [ For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty

miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the

largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals,

(Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in

the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that

Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de

notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les

rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]

10 (return) [ Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said

to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p.

274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in

my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these

stories.]

In the modern depopulation of Asia, the regular operation of

government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of

cities; and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral

tribes of Arabs, Curds, and Turkmans. 11 Of the last-mentioned

people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the

Caspian Sea: the western colony can muster forty thousand

soldiers; the eastern, less obvious to the traveller, but more

strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred

thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations, they

preserve the manners of the Scythian desert, remove their

encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among

the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are

their only riches; their tents, either black or white, according

to the color of the banner, are covered with felt, and of a

circular form; their winter apparel is a sheep-skin; a robe of

cloth or cotton their summer garment: the features of the men are

harsh and ferocious; the countenance of their women is soft and

pleasing. Their wandering life maintains the spirit and exercise

of arms; they fight on horseback; and their courage is displayed

in frequent contests with each other and with their neighbors.

For the license of pasture they pay a slight tribute to the

sovereign of the land; but the domestic jurisdiction is in the

hands of the chiefs and elders. The first emigration of the

Eastern Turkmans, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed

to the tenth century of the Christian aera. 12 In the decline of

the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier

of the Jaxartes was often violated; in each invasion, after the

victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe,

embracing the Mahometan faith, obtained a free encampment in the

spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme.

The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne encouraged these

emigrations which recruited their armies, awed their subjects and

rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of

Turkestan; and this policy was abused by Mahmud the Gaznevide

beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his

error by the chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the

territory of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men

he could furnish for military service. “If you send,” replied

Ismael, “one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of

your servants will mount on horseback.”—“And if that number,”

continued Mahmud, “should not be sufficient?”—“Send this second

arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand

more.”—“But,” said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, “if I

should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred

tribes?”—“Despatch my bow,” was the last reply of Ismael, “and as

it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two

hundred thousand horse.” The apprehension of such formidable

friendship induced Mahmud to transport the most obnoxious tribes

into the heart of Chorasan, where they would be separated from

their brethren of the River Oxus, and enclosed on all sides by

the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an

object of temptation rather than terror; and the vigor of

government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of

Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of

robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as far as

Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory

inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure

their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia.

Massoud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected

the advice of his wisest Omrahs. “Your enemies,” they repeatedly

urged, “were in their origin a swarm of ants; they are now little

snakes; and, unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire

the venom and magnitude of serpents.” After some alternatives of

truce and hostility, after the repulse or partial success of his

lieutenants, the sultan marched in person against the Turkmans,

who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular

onset. “Massoud,” says the Persian historian, 13 “plunged singly

to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of

gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed. A

few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that

innate honor which inspires the brave, seconded their lord so

well, that wheresoever he turned his fatal sword, the enemies

were mowed down, or retreated before him. But now, when victory

seemed to blow on his standard, misfortune was active behind it;

for when he looked round, be beheld almost his whole army,

excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths

of flight.” The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or

treachery of some generals of Turkish race; and this memorable

day of Zendecan 14 founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd

kings. 15

11 (return) [ See a just and natural picture of these pastoral

manners, in the history of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c.

vii. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 633, 634,) and a valuable

note by the editor of the Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, p.

535-538.]

12 (return) [ The first emigration of the Turkmans, and doubtful

origin of the Seljukians, may be traced in the laborious History

of the Huns, by M. De Guignes, (tom. i. Tables Chronologiques, l.

v. tom. iii. l. vii. ix. x.) and the Bibliotheque Orientale, of

D’Herbelot, (p. 799-802, 897-901,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p.

321-333,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 221, 222.)]

13 (return) [ Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 89, 95-98. I

have copied this passage as a specimen of the Persian manner; but

I suspect that, by some odd fatality, the style of Ferishta has

been improved by that of Ossian. * Note: Gibbon’s conjecture was

well founded. Compare the more sober and genuine version of Col.

Briggs, vol. i. p. 110.-M.]

14 (return) [ The Zendekan of D’Herbelot, (p. 1028,) the Dindaka

of Dow (vol. i. p. 97,) is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda,

(Geograph. p. 345, Reiske,) a small town of Chorasan, two days’

journey from Maru, and renowned through the East for the

production and manufacture of cotton.]

15 (return) [ The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, tom. ii. p.

766, 766, Zonaras tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21)

have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place,

of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and

errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may

inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it

is told by their most eloquent predecessor.]

The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of

a king; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian 16

deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their

new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with

the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate; they were drawn

from the bundle by the hand of a child; and the important prize

was obtained by Togrul Beg, the son of Michael the son of Seljuk,

whose surname was immortalized in the greatness of his posterity.

The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself on his skill in national

genealogy, professed his ignorance of the family of Seljuk; yet

the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and

renown. 17 For a daring intrusion into the harem of his prince,

Seljuk was banished from Turkestan: with a numerous tribe of his

friends and vassals, he passed the Jaxartes, encamped in the

neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, and

acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels.

His age, of a hundred and seven years, surpassed the life of his

son, and Seljuk adopted the care of his two grandsons, Togrul and

Jaafar; the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was

invested with the title of Sultan, in the royal city of Nishabur.

The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of

the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the

valor of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul 18 was equal to his

valor. By his arms, the Gasnevides were expelled from the eastern

kingdoms of Persia, and gradually driven to the banks of the

Indus, in search of a softer and more wealthy conquest. In the

West he annihilated the dynasty of the Bowides; and the sceptre

of Irak passed from the Persian to the Turkish nation. The

princes who had felt, or who feared, the Seljukian arrows, bowed

their heads in the dust; by the conquest of Aderbijan, or Media,

he approached the Roman confines; and the shepherd presumed to

despatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and

obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. 19 In his own

dominions, Togrul was the father of his soldiers and people; by a

firm and equal administration, Persia was relieved from the evils

of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood

became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more

rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans 20 continued

to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to

the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and

propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court

and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they

imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the

royal palaces of Nishabur and Rei displayed the order and

magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the

Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honors of the state;

and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced, with fervor

and sincerity, the religion of Mahomet. The northern swarms of

Barbarians, who overspread both Europe and Asia, have been

irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar

conduct. Among the Moslems, as among the Christians, their vague

and local traditions have yielded to the reason and authority of

the prevailing system, to the fame of antiquity, and the consent

of nations. But the triumph of the Koran is more pure and

meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of

worship which might allure the Pagans by some resemblance of

idolatry. The first of the Seljukian sultans was conspicuous by

his zeal and faith: each day he repeated the five prayers which

are enjoined to the true believers; of each week, the two first

days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast; and in every city

a mosch was completed, before Togrul presumed to lay the

foundations of a palace. 21

16 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. i. c. 7, p. 633. The divination by

arrows is ancient and famous in the East.]

17 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 801. Yet after the fortune of his

posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from

the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran, (p. 800.) The Tartar

pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a different cast to flattery

and fable; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from

Alankavah, the virgin mother, (p. 801, col. 2.) If they be the

same as the Zalzuts of Abulghazi Bahadur Kahn, (Hist.

Genealogique, p. 148,) we quote in their favor the most weighty

evidence of a Tartar prince himself, the descendant of Zingis,

Alankavah, or Alancu, and Oguz Khan.]

18 (return) [ By a slight corruption, Togrul Beg is the

Tangroli-pix of the Greeks. His reign and character are

faithfully exhibited by D’Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p.

1027, 1028) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p.

189-201.)]

19 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 774, 775. Zonaras, tom. ii.

p. 257. With their usual knowledge of Oriental affairs, they

describe the ambassador as a sherif, who, like the syncellus of

the patriarch, was the vicar and successor of the caliph.]

20 (return) [ From William of Tyre I have borrowed this

distinction of Turks and Turkmans, which at least is popular and

convenient. The names are the same, and the addition of man is of

the same import in the Persic and Teutonic idioms. Few critics

will adopt the etymology of James de Vitry, (Hist. Hierosol. l.

i. c. 11 p. 1061,) of Turcomani, quesi Turci et Comani, a mixed

people.]

21 (return) [ Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. iii. p. 165, 166,

167. M. DeGognes Abulmahasen, an historian of Egypt.]

With the belief of the Koran, the son of Seljuk imbibed a lively

reverence for the successor of the prophet. But that sublime

character was still disputed by the caliphs of Bagdad and Egypt,

and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the

judgment of the strong, though illiterate Barbarians. Mahmud the

Gaznevide had declared himself in favor of the line of Abbas; and

had treated with indignity the robe of honor which was presented

by the Fatimite ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had

changed with the change of fortune; he applauded the victory of

Zendecan, and named the Seljukian sultan his temporal vicegerent

over the Moslem world. As Togrul executed and enlarged this

important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph

Cayem, and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to

his arms. 22 In the palace of Bagdad, the commander of the

faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or

master, the prince of the Bowides, could no longer protect him

from the insolence of meaner tyrants; and the Euphrates and

Tigris were oppressed by the revolt of the Turkish and Arabian

emirs. The presence of a conqueror was implored as a blessing;

and the transient mischiefs of fire and sword were excused as the

sharp but salutary remedies which alone could restore the health

of the republic. At the head of an irresistible force, the sultan

of Persia marched from Hamadan: the proud were crushed, the

prostrate were spared; the prince of the Bowides disappeared; the

heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of

Togrul; and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of

Mosul and Bagdad. After the chastisement of the guilty, and the

restoration of peace, the royal shepherd accepted the reward of

his labors; and a solemn comedy represented the triumph of

religious prejudice over Barbarian power. 23 The Turkish sultan

embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Racca, and made his

public entry on horseback. At the palace-gate he respectfully

dismounted, and walked on foot, preceded by his emirs without

arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil: the black

garment of the Abbassides was cast over his shoulders, and he

held in his hand the staff of the apostle of God. The conqueror

of the East kissed the ground, stood some time in a modest

posture, and was led towards the throne by the vizier and

interpreter. After Togrul had seated himself on another throne,

his commission was publicly read, which declared him the temporal

lieutenant of the vicar of the prophet. He was successively

invested with seven robes of honor, and presented with seven

slaves, the natives of the seven climates of the Arabian empire.

His mystic veil was perfumed with musk; two crowns 231 were

placed on his head; two cimeters were girded to his side, as the

symbols of a double reign over the East and West. After this

inauguration, the sultan was prevented from prostrating himself a

second time; but he twice kissed the hand of the commander of the

faithful, and his titles were proclaimed by the voice of heralds

and the applause of the Moslems. In a second visit to Bagdad, the

Seljukian prince again rescued the caliph from his enemies and

devoutly, on foot, led the bridle of his mule from the prison to

the palace. Their alliance was cemented by the marriage of

Togrul’s sister with the successor of the prophet. Without

reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem; but

Cayem proudly refused his daughter to the sultan, disdained to

mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of a Scythian

shepherd; and protracted the negotiation many months, till the

gradual diminution of his revenue admonished him that he was

still in the hands of a master. The royal nuptials were followed

by the death of Togrul himself; 24 as he left no children, his

nephew Alp Arslan succeeded to the title and prerogatives of

sultan; and his name, after that of the caliph, was pronounced in

the public prayers of the Moslems. Yet in this revolution, the

Abbassides acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the

throne of Asia, the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the

domestic administration of Bagdad; and the commanders of the

faithful were relieved from the ignominious vexations to which

they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian

dynasty.

22 (return) [ Consult the Bibliotheque Orientale, in the articles

of the Abbassides, Caher, and Caiem, and the Annals of Elmacin

and Abulpharagius.]

23 (return) [ For this curious ceremony, I am indebted to M. De

Guignes (tom. iii. p. 197, 198,) and that learned author is

obliged to Bondari, who composed in Arabic the history of the

Seljukides, tom. v. p. 365) I am ignorant of his age, country,

and character.]

231 (return) [ According to Von Hammer, “crowns” are incorrect.

They are unknown as a symbol of royalty in the East. V. Hammer,

Osmanische Geschischte, vol. i. p. 567.—M.]

24 (return) [ Eodem anno (A. H. 455) obiit princeps Togrulbecus

.... rex fuit clemens, prudens, et peritus regnandi, cujus terror

corda mortalium invaserat, ita ut obedirent ei reges atque ad

ipsum scriberent. Elma cin, Hist. Saracen. p. 342, vers. Erpenii.

* Note: He died, being 75 years old. V. Hammer.—M.]

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.

Since the fall of the caliphs, the discord and degeneracy of the

Saracens respected the Asiatic provinces of Rome; which, by the

victories of Nicephorus, Zimisces, and Basil, had been extended

as far as Antioch and the eastern boundaries of Armenia.

Twenty-five years after the death of Basil, his successors were

suddenly assaulted by an unknown race of Barbarians, who united

the Scythian valor with the fanaticism of new proselytes, and the

art and riches of a powerful monarchy. 25 The myriads of Turkish

horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to

Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand

Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet

the arms of Togrul did not make any deep or lasting impression on

the Greek empire. The torrent rolled away from the open country;

the sultan retired without glory or success from the siege of an

Armenian city; the obscure hostilities were continued or

suspended with a vicissitude of events; and the bravery of the

Macedonian legions renewed the fame of the conqueror of Asia. 26

The name of Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, is expressive of the

popular idea of the perfection of man; and the successor of

Togrul displayed the fierceness and generosity of the royal

animal. He passed the Euphrates at the head of the Turkish

cavalry, and entered Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, to

which he had been attracted by the fame and wealth of the temple

of St. Basil. The solid structure resisted the destroyer: but he

carried away the doors of the shrine incrusted with gold and

pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar saint, whose

mortal frailties were now covered by the venerable rust of

antiquity. The final conquest of Armenia and Georgia was achieved

by Alp Arslan. In Armenia, the title of a kingdom, and the spirit

of a nation, were annihilated: the artificial fortifications were

yielded by the mercenaries of Constantinople; by strangers

without faith, veterans without pay or arms, and recruits without

experience or discipline. The loss of this important frontier was

the news of a day; and the Catholics were neither surprised nor

displeased, that a people so deeply infected with the Nestorian

and Eutychian errors had been delivered by Christ and his mother

into the hands of the infidels. 27 The woods and valleys of Mount

Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians

28 or Iberians; but the Turkish sultan and his son Malek were

indefatigable in this holy war: their captives were compelled to

promise a spiritual, as well as temporal, obedience; and, instead

of their collars and bracelets, an iron horseshoe, a badge of

ignominy, was imposed on the infidels who still adhered to the

worship of their fathers. The change, however, was not sincere or

universal; and, through ages of servitude, the Georgians have

maintained the succession of their princes and bishops. But a

race of men, whom nature has cast in her most perfect mould, is

degraded by poverty, ignorance, and vice; their profession, and

still more their practice, of Christianity is an empty name; and

if they have emerged from heresy, it is only because they are too

illiterate to remember a metaphysical creed. 29

25 (return) [ For these wars of the Turks and Romans, see in

general the Byzantine histories of Zonaras and Cedrenus,

Scylitzes the continuator of Cedrenus, and Nicephorus Bryennius

Caesar. The two first of these were monks, the two latter

statesmen; yet such were the Greeks, that the difference of style

and character is scarcely discernible. For the Orientals, I draw

as usuul on the wealth of D’Herbelot (see titles of the first

Seljukides) and the accuracy of De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.

iii. l. x.)]

26 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 791. The credulity of the

vulgar is always probable; and the Turks had learned from the

Arabs the history or legend of Escander Dulcarnein, (D’Herbelot,

p. 213 &c.)]

27 (return) [ (Scylitzes, ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 834,

whose ambiguous construction shall not tempt me to suspect that

he confounded the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies,) He

familiarly talks of the qualities, as I should apprehend, very

foreign to the perfect Being; but his bigotry is forced to

confess that they were soon afterwards discharged on the orthodox

Romans.]

28 (return) [ Had the name of Georgians been known to the Greeks,

(Stritter, Memoriae Byzant. tom. iv. Iberica,) I should derive it

from their agriculture, (l. iv. c. 18, p. 289, edit. Wesseling.)

But it appears only since the crusades, among the Latins (Jac. a

Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. c. 79, p. 1095) and Orientals,

(D’Herbelot, p. 407,) and was devoutly borrowed from St. George

of Cappadocia.]

29 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. See, in

Chardin’s Travels, (tom. i. p. 171-174,) the manners and religion

of this handsome but worthless nation. See the pedigree of their

princes from Adam to the present century, in the tables of M. De

Guignes, (tom. i. p. 433-438.)]

The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Gaznevide was not

imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked without scruple the Greek

empress Eudocia and her children. His alarming progress compelled

her to give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and

Romanus Diogenes was invested with the Imperial purple. His

patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople

within two months after his accession; and the next campaign he

most scandalously took the field during the holy festival of

Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of

Eudocia: in the camp, he was the emperor of the Romans, and he

sustained that character with feeble resources and invincible

courage. By his spirit and success the soldiers were taught to

act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had

penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had

resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their

numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of

conquest. Laden with spoil, and careless of discipline, they were

separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks: the activity of

the emperor seemed to multiply his presence: and while they heard

of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the

hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns, the Turks were

driven beyond the Euphrates; in the fourth and last, Romanus

undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land

obliged him to transport a supply of two months’ provisions; and

he marched forwards to the siege of Malazkerd, 30 an important

fortress in the midway between the modern cities of Arzeroum and

Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand

men. The troops of Constantinople were reenforced by the

disorderly multitudes of Phrygia and Cappadocia; but the real

strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the

legions of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a

Moldavian horde, who were themselves of the Turkish race; 31 and,

above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and

Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of

Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings, 32 and were

allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the

Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance.

30 (return) [ This city is mentioned by Constantine

Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, l. ii. c. 44, p. 119,)

and the Byzantines of the xith century, under the name of

Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but

Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the

situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p. 310) describes

Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with

water, without trees, &c.]

31 (return) [ The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant.

tom. iii. p. 923-948) are the Gozz of the Orientals, (Hist. des

Huns, tom. ii. p. 522, tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the

Danube and the Volga, and Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the

name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race.]

32 (return) [ Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is

distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 33) among the Norman

conquerors of Sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own

historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to

Durham, built Bernard’s castle on the Tees, married an heiress of

Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, l. ii. No. 4)

has labored the subject in honor of the president de Bailleul,

whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown.]

On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his

hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at

the head of forty thousand horse. 33 His rapid and skilful

evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the

Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, one of their principal

generals, he displayed the first example of his valor and

clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his forces

after the reduction of Malazkerd. It was in vain that he

attempted to recall the mercenary Franks: they refused to obey

his summons; he disdained to await their return: the desertion of

the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against

the most salutary advice he rushed forwards to speedy and

decisive action. Had he listened to the fair proposals of the

sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace;

but in these overtures he supposed the fear or weakness of the

enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and

defiance. “If the Barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate

the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans,

and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his

sincerity.” Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he

wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout

prayer, proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of

retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his

horse’s tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and

cimeter, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body

with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot

should be the place of his burial. 34 The sultan himself had

affected to cast away his missile weapons: but his hopes of

victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose

squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent.

Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian

tactics, Romulus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and

pressed with vigor and impatience the artful and yielding

resistance of the Barbarians. In this desultory and fruitless

combat he spent the greater part of a summer’s day, till prudence

and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is

always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no sooner had

the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken

by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a

rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the

Caesars. 35 The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on

this moment of confusion and lassitude; and the horns of their

formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the

destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be

needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The

Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they

forgot to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces

of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed.

33 (return) [ Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number,

which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000, (p. 227,) and by

D’Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives

300,000 met to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, Cum

centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magna pompa

instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers.]

34 (return) [ The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of

the presence of the sultan: he committed his forces to a eunuch,

had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or

truth?]

35 (return) [ He was the son of Caesar John Ducas, brother of the

emperor Constantine, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165.) Nicephorus

Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults, (l. i.

p. 30, 38. l. ii. p. 53.) Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus.

Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason.]

As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save

the relics of his army. When the centre, the Imperial station,

was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious

Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight

till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful

subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him; his

horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet he stood alone and

intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of

multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a

slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of

Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been

excused on the promise of some signal service.

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

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

disorderly crowd of the meaner Barbarians. In the morning the

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

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

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

Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy

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

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

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

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

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

in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the

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

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

civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the

ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the

unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the

hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some

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

the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what

treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

smiled at the insolence of his captive; observed that the

Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness of

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

example which he condemned. After mature deliberation, Alp Arslan

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

361 an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty thousand pieces

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

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

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

disgraceful to the majesty of the empire; he was immediately

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

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

courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich presents and a

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

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

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

thousand pieces was painfully collected; and the fallen monarch

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

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

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

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

Romanus Diogenes. 38

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

Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by

Nicephorus and Zonaras.]

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

Kreuz-zuge, vol. l. p. 10.—M.]

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

the Orientals. The other Greeks are modestly silent; but

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

that the emperor would have preferred death to a shameful

treaty.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

my old acquaintance Elmacin and Abulpharagius, the historian of

the Huns has consulted Abulfeda, and his epitomizer Benschounah,

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

of Africa.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan disdained

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

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

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

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

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

retarded by the governor of Berzem; and Joseph the Carizmian

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

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

instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mussulman; his voice and stature commanded the reverence of

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

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

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

the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: 40

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

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

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

more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.

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

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

Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit

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

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

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

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

reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the

inscription.]

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

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

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

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

and the triple victory of Malek Shah 41 established his own

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest

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

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

transporting some troops, complained, that their payment was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

civilization: the hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy:

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

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

the Chinese frontier, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or

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

Georgia, the neighborhood of Constantinople, the holy city of

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

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

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

perpetual motion of the royal camp, each province was

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

perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which

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

expeditions, the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of

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

his arms; the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hospitals with moschs and colleges; few departed from his Divan

without reward, and none without justice. The language and

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

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

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

The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the

reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general

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

the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar

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

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

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

been neglected; the fractions of minutes and hours were

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

usual measure of repetition emendation, and supplement. Without

those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the

Eastern world.]

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

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

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

Orientale. ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

his reign.]

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

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

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

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

original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians, (de Religione

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble

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

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

angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in

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

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

victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. 46

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

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

wives and concubines, he should forever confine himself to this

honorable alliance.

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

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

Assassinen, p. 95.—M.]

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

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

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

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

178.)]

Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.

The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the

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

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

the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a

lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and

principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger

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

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

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

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

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

generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he

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

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

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

more ardent spirits, who might have disturbed the tranquillity of

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

great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his

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

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

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

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

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

were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house

of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms;

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

dust of their feet. 50

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

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

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

Kashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of

Babelmandel.”—M.]

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

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

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

Bibliotheque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of

the xiith century.]

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

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

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

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

en Perse, p. 107, 110.)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the

majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his

venerable mediation. “Instead of shedding the blood of your

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

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

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

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

the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and

hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from

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

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

Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaieh in

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

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

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

transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and

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

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

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

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

trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the

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

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

but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the

European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their

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

Soliman declared himself in favor of Botoniates, opened a free

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

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

ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was

hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari;

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

whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the

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

Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia:

Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the

provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular

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

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

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

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

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

Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of

the Barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of

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

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

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

miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman

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

mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient

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

Christian empire.

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

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

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

derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who

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

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

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

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

163, &c.)]

Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of

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

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

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

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

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

extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black

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

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

productive of cattle and excellent horses. 52 The wealth of

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

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

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

Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and,

under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in

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

the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and

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

one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ

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

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

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

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

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

language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps were

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

conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might

enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy

churches were profaned; their priests and bishops were insulted;

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

the apostasy of their brethren; many thousand children were

marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives

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

After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive

allegiance to Christ and Caesar; but the solitary province was

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

Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared

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

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

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

The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights

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

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

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

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

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

conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days’ journey in

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

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

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

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

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

walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over

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

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

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

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

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

301-305.)]

53 (return) [ Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse

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

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

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

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

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

gre pretendent encore aux succes les moins desirables. Quelque

Sipahis ont porte leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi

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

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

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

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

conspectu filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus

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

carmina praecinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad

filias, &c.]

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

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

Ducange.]

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

most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish

conquests.]

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

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

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

paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The

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

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

most indefinite latitude.]

But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that

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

their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the

assurance of their religion and property; but the articles were

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

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

political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of

storm and sunshine. 59 By the increase of proselytes and

population, the Mahometans might excuse the usurpation of three

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

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

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

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

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

respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages

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

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

prompted these perilous journeys, was nourished by the congenial

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

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

adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the festival of Easter;

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

Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained

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

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

worship of so many nations in the common temple of their

religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and

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

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

who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and

persecute their spiritual brethren. The preeminence was asserted

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

Charlemagne 60 protected both the Latin pilgrims and the

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

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

many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his

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

esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius

and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent

intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without

resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with

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

Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the

republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion

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

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

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

annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary: and the Italian

merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of

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

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

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

the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have

imitated, their piety: but these rigid Unitarians were

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of

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

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

thousand strangers.

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

Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original

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

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

De Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur le Commerce

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

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

59 (return) [ Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida

plerum que nubila recepit intervalla, et aegrotantium more

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

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

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

the recovery of Jerusalem, precedes the true account by 30

years.]

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

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

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

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

14, 15.)]

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

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

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

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

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

for the Venetians and Parisians.]

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

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

unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene

presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of

this perpetual miracle.]

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

learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle,

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

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

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

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

some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the

Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.]

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

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

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

and the trick began.]

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

plead necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier

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

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

travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at

Naples.]

The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides

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

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

importance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were

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

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

frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism

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

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

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

restraint excited the clamors of both sexes; their clamors

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

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

bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous

Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges:

twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and

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

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

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

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

prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of

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

persecution made some martyrs and many apostles: the common

rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally

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

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

church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations;

the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane

labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which

properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this

sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted:

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

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

secret advisers of the impious Barbarian. 69 Yet the calamities

of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy

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

for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was

assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding

caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy: a free

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

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

after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase

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

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

but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between

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

his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren; 71

and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred

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

pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the

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

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

should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and

prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers

of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which

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

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

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

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

multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons.

At Constantinople, they were hospitably entertained by the

emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault

of the wild Arabs: they drew their swords with scrupulous

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and the wallet at their back. 72

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

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

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

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

and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.]

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

ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to

the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar

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

worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighborhood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant actions were

interpreted by his followers as having a mystic and allegoric

meaning, alluding to the destruction of other religions and the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem,

belong entirely to that period; and his assumption of divinity

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

The Mahometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and

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

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

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

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

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

likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constantine, son of

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

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

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

assassination of Hakem is, of course, disbelieved by his

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

doubtful. According to his followers he disappeared, but is

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

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

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

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

consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is that

Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance over

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

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

grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and

occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full

examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration which

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

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

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

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

Baronius and Pagi, A.D. 1009.]

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

multitudo coepit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis,

quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris

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

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

mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur,

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

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

Kreuz-zuge.—M.]

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

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

founded a monastery at Jerusalem.]

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

greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus,

and Lambertus.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a

desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of

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

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

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

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

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

with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the

dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned

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

the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the

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

after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the

borders of Armenia and Assyria. 75 The Oriental Christians and

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

regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on

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

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

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

nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed

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

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

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

doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the

slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims,

who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of

Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public

oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and

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

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

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

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

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

worship in the church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by

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

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

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

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

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

Latin Christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the more

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

religious chivalry and papal dominion; a nerve was touched of

exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of

Europe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus

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

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

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.

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

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

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

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

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

Kingdom.

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

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

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

resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the

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

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

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

patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors of

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

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

call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but

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

the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious

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

encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.

Invigorated by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous

missionary traversed. with speed and success, the provinces of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and the highways: the hermit entered with equal confidence the

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

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

painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine,

every heart was melted to compassion; every breast glowed with

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

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

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

and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent

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

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

perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his

eloquence; the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he

felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the counsels and

decrees of the supreme pontiff.

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

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

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

applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the

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

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

Description de la France, p. 54.)]

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

describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis

ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens

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

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

Notes, p. 349.]

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

47.)—M.]

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

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

The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already

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

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

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

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

marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet.

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

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

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

East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and

fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with

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

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

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

the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had

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

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

had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage.

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

the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the

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

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

quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son

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

Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to

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

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

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

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

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

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

the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the

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

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

Comnenus, were introduced to plead the distress of their

sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided

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

enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they

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

to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the

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

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

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

eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek

ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and

powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the

larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem;

but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to

revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious

scenes of our youth.

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

expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in

inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente

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

concil.)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse

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

suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo

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

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

and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle

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

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

tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous

stories of herself and her husband.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(p. 502.)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes

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

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

is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great

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

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

It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged

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

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

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

convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than

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

cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for

the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced

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

confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the

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

church; and a protection of three years was extended to

husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military

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

suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent

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

appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of

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

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

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

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

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

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

impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was

vehement, his success inevitable. The orator was interrupted by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and irrevocable engagement.” The proposal was joyfully accepted;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the

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

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

champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous

admonition to invite their countrymen and friends; and their

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

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

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

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

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

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

first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all

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

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

See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]

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

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

country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually

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

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

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135 (return) [ Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia