[Footnote 75: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252. ]

[Footnote 76: 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.

[Footnote 1: 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.)]

[Footnote 2: 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.]

[Footnote 211: Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p. 47.)—M.]

[Footnote 212: 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.

[Footnote 3: 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.)]

[Footnote 4: 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.]

[Footnote 5: 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.)]

[Footnote 6: 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.]

[Footnote 7: See the narrative and acts of the synod of Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]

[Footnote 8: 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.)]

[Footnote 9: 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.)]

[Footnote 10: 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]

[Footnote 11: 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.]

[Footnote 12: 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]

[Footnote 13: 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.]

[Footnote 14: See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]

[Footnote 15: Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p. 31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480. Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]

[Footnote 16: The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first invented in Aquitain, A.D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to their privileges (Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.)]

[Footnote 17: Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron. Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100, very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont, (p. 15, 16.)]

[Footnote 18: Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our military ensigns and uniforms.]

[Footnote 19: Bongarsius, who has published the original writers of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.

I. Gesta Francorum.

II. Robertus Monachus.

III. Baldricus.

IV. Raimundus de Agiles.

V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.

VII. Guibertus.

VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,

IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,

(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,)

X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,

(tom. vii. p. 664-848.)

The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141,) and most of whose judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p. 890-912,) is of small value or account. * Note: Several new documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and Wilken.—M.]

So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction, unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both of the East and West, were persuaded of their lawfulness and merit; their arguments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of natural and religious defence, their peculiar title to the Holy Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. [20]

I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Mussulman conquerors, and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian worship. But it cannot be denied, that the Oriental churches are depressed under their iron yoke; that, in peace and war, they assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued, in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as Jerusalem and the Hellespont; and the Greek empire tottered on the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West; and the privilege of defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel, an impending assault. But this salutary purpose might have been accomplished by a moderate succor; and our calmer reason must disclaim the innumerable hosts, and remote operations, which overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. [2011]

[Footnote 20: If the reader will turn to the first scene of the First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind, greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent from his creed.]

[Footnote 2011: The manner in which the war was conducted surely has little relation to the abstract question of the justice or injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe, waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human wisdom?—M.]

II. Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the Latins; and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior; it was their right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the preeminence of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Palestine, have been abolished with the Mosaic law; that the God of the Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the violation of the moral precepts of the gospel. Such arguments glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition; and the religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred ground of mystery and miracle.

III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindostan, require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility; that obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of the cross; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as well as of mercy. [2012] Above four hundred years before the first crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by the Barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks; but in the eyes of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. [21]

[Footnote 2012: "God," says the abbot Guibert, "invented the crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and to merit salvation." This extraordinary and characteristic passage must be given entire. "Deus nostro tempore praelia sancta instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui vetustae Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum reperirent salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut fieri assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus gratiam consequerentur." Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol. i. p. 63.—M.]

[Footnote 21: The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of the causes and effects of the crusades.]

As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline of penance [22] was enforced; and with the multiplication of sins, the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the criminal; compelled him to account for his thoughts, words, and actions; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God. But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of legislation was invented by the Greeks; their penitentials [23] were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church; and, in the time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments, each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the experience or penetration of the monks; some sins are enumerated which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason cannot believe; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were expiated by a penance, which, according to the various circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years. During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and prayers: the disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and remorse; and he humbly abstained from all the business and pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city; the Barbarians of the West believed and trembled; but nature often rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored without effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years. His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi [24] of silver, about four pounds sterling, for the rich; at three solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes; [25] and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St. Dominic of the iron Cuirass, [26] that in six days he could discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his benefactors. [27] These compensations of the purse and the person introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt for all that might be due of canonical penance. [28] The cold philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; [29] and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land. Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for the destruction of the infidels?

[Footnote 22: The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709-768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p. 478-556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]

[Footnote 23: Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 211-220, 452-462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year, five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]

[Footnote 24: Till the xiith century, we may support the clear account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling; and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]

[Footnote 25: Each century of lashes was sanctified with a recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]

[Footnote 26: The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96-104. Baronius, A.D. 1056, No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even among ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation (purgatorii genus) was grown.]

[Footnote 27: At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman. I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16-29) a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these artists.]

[Footnote 28: Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur. Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the subject. * Note: See note, page 546.—M.]

[Footnote 29: Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits of martyrdom.]



Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.

Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I will dare to affirm, that all were prompted by the spirit of enthusiasm; the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded, that in many it was not the sole, that in some it was not the leading, principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to stem, they are strong and irresistible to impel, the stream of national manners. Against the private wars of the Barbarians, their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels, the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins; they were enjoined, as a penance, to gratify those passions, to visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross; and the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe, they shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were devoted to their arms; their fancy already grasped the golden sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private adventurer. Christendom, in her rudest state, must have yielded to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by the extent of his wishes. [30] Their vassals and soldiers trusted their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, [31] were temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession, of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and outlaws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. [32]

[Footnote 30: The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo, (Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]

[Footnote 31: In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum foeminarum voluptas, (p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert, the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]

[Footnote 32: See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]

These motives were potent and numerous: when we have singly computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add the infinite series, the multiplying powers, of example and fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense, of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of cowardice; the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre of Christ was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength; and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in their footsteps. The ignorance, which magnified the hopes, diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors. Yet the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna, provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray, according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles, peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value of property was depreciated by the eager competition of multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. [33] Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched by the epidemical disease: the sovereigns acquired at a cheap rate the domains of their vassals; and the ecclesiastical purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark; and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest benefices of Palestine. [34]

[Footnote 33: Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]

[Footnote 34: Some instances of these stigmata are given in the Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I have not seen]

The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy soldier, conducted a van guard of pilgrims, whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine spirit. [35] Of these, and of other bands of enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich; and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion. [36] At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred: [37] nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

[Footnote 35: Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis, anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile allegory. * Note: A singular "allegoric" explanation of this strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently made against the Templars. "We have no doubt that they were Manichee or Gnostic standards." (The author says the animals themselves were carried before the army.—M.) "The goose, in Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant 'divine Son,' or 'Son of God.' The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders. Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?" Account of the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is, at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]

[Footnote 36: Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich, generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these massacres.]

[Footnote 37: These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true, that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]

Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzan tine monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary [38] and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers; but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor; but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; [381] at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody. [39] About a third of the naked fugitives (and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses; but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment, than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor, and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Soliman [391] tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones [40] informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise. [41]

[Footnote 38: See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]

[Footnote 381: The narrative of the first march is very incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the kingdom of Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat. Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86—M.]

[Footnote 39: The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius, are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson; Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith; Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19-53.)]

[Footnote 391: Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle against Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and Antioch. It was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David, surnamed Kilidje Arslan, the "Sword of the Lion," who reigned in Nice. Almost all the occidental authors have fallen into this mistake, which was detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th edit. and Extraits des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M. Reinaud Paris, 1829, p. 3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes to the Euphra tes, and as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan must uniformly be substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le Beau, tom. xv. p. 311.—M.]

[Footnote 40: Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks themselves as the materials of a wall.]

[Footnote 41: See table on following page.]

"To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the particular references to the great events of the first crusade."

[See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]

None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent conquest; the kin'gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic war against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland, Denmark, [42] Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was more strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an important place in the feudal system. Their situation will naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition, by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine, [43] was the inheritance of his mother; and by the emperor's bounty he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the Ardennes. [44] In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation; his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon [45] was accompanied by his two brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine, was alike celebrated on either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education, he was equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine, assembled their vassals; and the confederate force that marched under his banner was composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse. II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king's presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh, count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied, not so much to his merit or possessions, (though neither were contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king of France. [46] Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of William the Conqueror; but on his father's death he was deprived of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy during his absence to the English usurper; [47] but his engagement and behavior in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem. Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France, England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature; and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen [48] was chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war. [49] III. In the south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of Puy, the pope egate, and by Raymond count of St. Giles and Thoulouse who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp, whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion, was not exempt from avarice and ambition. [50] A mercantile, rather than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, [51] a common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and Languedoc, [52] the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hardy adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting farewell. IV. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor; but his father's will had reduced him to the principality of Tarentum, and the remembrance of his Eastern trophies, till he was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the coolest policy and ambition, with a small allay of religious fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with astonishment and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, his example and discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous candidates, and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and his cousin Tancred [53] was the partner, rather than the servant, of the war.

In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the virtues of a perfect knight, [54] the true spirit of chivalry, which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of the times.

[Footnote 42: The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted, and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111-115.)]

[Footnote 43: The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 283-288.)]

[Footnote 44: See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]

[Footnote 45: See the family character of Godfrey, in William of Tyre, l. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;) his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]

[Footnote 46: Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]

[Footnote 47: Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]

[Footnote 48: His original letter to his wife is inserted in the Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d'Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]

[Footnote 49: Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]

[Footnote 50: It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p. 129.)]

[Footnote 51: Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]

[Footnote 52: The town of his birth, or first appanage, was consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St. Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation of Raymond, (Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvii. p 51.)]

[Footnote 53: The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]

[Footnote 54: To gratify the childish vanity of the house of Este. Tasso has inserted in his poem, and in the first crusade, a fabulous hero, the brave and amorous Rinaldo, (x. 75, xvii. 66-94.) He might borrow his name from a Rinaldo, with the Aquila bianca Estense, who vanquished, as the standard-bearer of the Roman church, the emperor Frederic I., (Storia Imperiale di Ricobaldo, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. ix. p. 360. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, iii. 30.) But, 1. The distance of sixty years between the youth of the two Rinaldos destroys their identity. 2. The Storia Imperiale is a forgery of the Conte Boyardo, at the end of the xvth century, (Muratori, p. 281-289.) 3. This Rinaldo, and his exploits, are not less chimerical than the hero of Tasso, (Muratori, Antichita Estense, tom. i. p. 350.)]



Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.

Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the crusades, a revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe. The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians; the cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honorable name of miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen [55] who served on horseback, and were invested with the character of knighthood. The dukes and counts, who had usurped the rights of sovereignty, divided the provinces among their faithful barons: the barons distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices of their jurisdiction; and these military tenants, the peers of each other and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian order, which disdained to conceive the peasant or burgher as of the same species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was preserved by pure and equal alliances; their sons alone, who could produce four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or reproach, might legally pretend to the honor of knighthood; but a valiant plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the sword, and became the father of a new race. A single knight could impart, according to his judgment, the character which he received; and the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this personal distinction than from the lustre of their diadem. This ceremony, of which some traces may be found in Tacitus and the woods of Germany, [56] was in its origin simple and profane; the candidate, after some previous trial, was invested with the sword and spurs; and his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight blow, as an emblem of the last affront which it was lawful for him to endure. But superstition mingled in every public and private action of life: in the holy wars, it sanctified the profession of arms; and the order of chivalry was assimilated in its rights and privileges to the sacred orders of priesthood. The bath and white garment of the novice were an indecent copy of the regeneration of baptism: his sword, which he offered on the altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion: his solemn reception was preceded by fasts and vigils; and he was created a knight in the name of God, of St. George, and of St. Michael the archangel. He swore to accomplish the duties of his profession; and education, example, and the public opinion, were the inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champion of God and the ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of ease and safety; and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the honor of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked the illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace; to esteem himself the sole judge and avenger of his own injuries; and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution, to refine the temper of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith, justice, and humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened; and the community of religion and arms spread a similar color and generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad in enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic games of classic antiquity. [57] Instead of the naked spectacles which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the lists was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the East and West, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The single combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass, or castle, were rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest, both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and peculiar weapon of the knight: his horse was of a large and heavy breed; but this charger, till he was roused by the approaching danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his greaves and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I may remark, that, at the period of the crusades, the armor was less ponderous than in later times; and that, instead of a massy cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk or coat of mail. When their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors furiously spurred their horses against the foe; and the light cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal birth and similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men at arms, and four, or five, or six soldiers were computed as the furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the neighboring kingdoms or the Holy Land, the duties of the feudal tenure no longer subsisted; the voluntary service of the knights and their followers were either prompted by zeal or attachment, or purchased with rewards and promises; and the numbers of each squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame, of each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war; and the most ancient families of Europe must seek in these achievements the origin and proof of their nobility. In this rapid portrait of chivalry I have been urged to anticipate on the story of the crusades, at once an effect and a cause, of this memorable institution. [58]

[Footnote 55: Of the words gentilis, gentilhomme, gentleman, two etymologies are produced: 1. From the Barbarians of the fifth century, the soldiers, and at length the conquerors of the Roman empire, who were vain of their foreign nobility; and 2. From the sense of the civilians, who consider gentilis as synonymous with ingenuus. Selden inclines to the first but the latter is more pure, as well as probable.]

[Footnote 56: Framea scutoque juvenem ornant. Tacitus, Germania. c. 13.]

[Footnote 57: The athletic exercises, particularly the caestus and pancratium, were condemned by Lycurgus, Philopoemen, and Galen, a lawgiver, a general, and a physician. Against their authority and reasons, the reader may weigh the apology of Lucian, in the character of Solon. See West on the Olympic Games, in his Pindar, vol. ii. p. 86-96 243-248]

[Footnote 58: On the curious subjects of knighthood, knights-service, nobility, arms, cry of war, banners, and tournaments, an ample fund of information may be sought in Selden, (Opera, tom. iii. part i. Titles of Honor, part ii. c. 1, 3, 5, 8,) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 398-412, &c.,) Dissertations sur Joinville, (i. vi.—xii. p. 127-142, p. 161-222,) and M. de St. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie.)]

Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the cross for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. As soon as they were relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they encouraged each other, by interviews and messages, to accomplish their vow, and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the pilgrimage: their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of silver and gold; and the princes and barons were attended by their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their forces: their choice or situation determined the road; and it was agreed to meet in the neighborhood of Constantinople, and from thence to begin their operations against the Turks. From the banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bouillon followed the direct way of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; and, as long as he exercised the sole command every step afforded some proof of his prudence and virtue. On the confines of Hungary he was stopped three weeks by a Christian people, to whom the name, or at least the abuse, of the cross was justly odious. The Hungarians still smarted with the wounds which they had received from the first pilgrims: in their turn they had abused the right of defence and retaliation; and they had reason to apprehend a severe revenge from a hero of the same nation, and who was engaged in the same cause. But, after weighing the motives and the events, the virtuous duke was content to pity the crimes and misfortunes of his worthless brethren; and his twelve deputies, the messengers of peace, requested in his name a free passage and an equal market. To remove their suspicions, Godfrey trusted himself, and afterwards his brother, to the faith of Carloman, [581] king of Hungary, who treated them with a simple but hospitable entertainment: the treaty was sanctified by their common gospel; and a proclamation, under pain of death, restrained the animosity and license of the Latin soldiers. From Austria to Belgrade, they traversed the plains of Hungary, without enduring or offering an injury; and the proximity of Carloman, who hovered on their flanks with his numerous cavalry, was a precaution not less useful for their safety than for his own. They reached the banks of the Save; and no sooner had they passed the river, than the king of Hungary restored the hostages, and saluted their departure with the fairest wishes for the success of their enterprise. With the same conduct and discipline, Godfrey pervaded the woods of Bulgaria and the frontiers of Thrace; and might congratulate himself that he had almost reached the first term of his pilgrimage, without drawing his sword against a Christian adversary. After an easy and pleasant journey through Lombardy, from Turin to Aquileia, Raymond and his provincials marched forty days through the savage country of Dalmatia [59] and Sclavonia. The weather was a perpetual fog; the land was mountainous and desolate; the natives were either fugitive or hostile: loose in their religion and government, they refused to furnish provisions or guides; murdered the stragglers; and exercised by night and day the vigilance of the count, who derived more security from the punishment of some captive robbers than from his interview and treaty with the prince of Scodra. [60] His march between Durazzo and Constantinople was harassed, without being stopped, by the peasants and soldiers of the Greek emperor; and the same faint and ambiguous hostility was prepared for the remaining chiefs, who passed the Adriatic from the coast of Italy. Bohemond had arms and vessels, and foresight and discipline; and his name was not forgotten in the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly. Whatever obstacles he encountered were surmounted by his military conduct and the valor of Tancred; and if the Norman prince affected to spare the Greeks, he gorged his soldiers with the full plunder of an heretical castle. [61] The nobles of France pressed forwards with the vain and thoughtless ardor of which their nation has been sometimes accused. From the Alps to Apulia the march of Hugh the Great, of the two Roberts, and of Stephen of Chartres, through a wealthy country, and amidst the applauding Catholics, was a devout or triumphant progress: they kissed the feet of the Roman pontiff; and the golden standard of St. Peter was delivered to the brother of the French monarch. [62] But in this visit of piety and pleasure, they neglected to secure the season, and the means of their embarkation: the winter was insensibly lost: their troops were scattered and corrupted in the towns of Italy. They separately accomplished their passage, regardless of safety or dignity; and within nine months from the feast of the Assumption, the day appointed by Urban, all the Latin princes had reached Constantinople. But the count of Vermandois was produced as a captive; his foremost vessels were scattered by a tempest; and his person, against the law of nations, was detained by the lieutenants of Alexius. Yet the arrival of Hugh had been announced by four-and-twenty knights in golden armor, who commanded the emperor to revere the general of the Latin Christians, the brother of the king of kings. [63] [631]

[Footnote 581: Carloman (or Calmany) demanded the brother of Godfrey as hostage but Count Baldwin refused the humiliating submission. Godfrey shamed him into this sacrifice for the common good by offering to surrender himself Wilken, vol. i. p. 104.—M.]

[Footnote 59: The Familiae Dalmaticae of Ducange are meagre and imperfect; the national historians are recent and fabulous, the Greeks remote and careless. In the year 1104 Coloman reduced the maritine country as far as Trau and Saloma, (Katona, Hist. Crit. tom. iii. p. 195-207.)]

[Footnote 60: Scodras appears in Livy as the capital and fortress of Gentius, king of the Illyrians, arx munitissima, afterwards a Roman colony, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 393, 394.) It is now called Iscodar, or Scutari, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 164.) The sanjiak (now a pacha) of Scutari, or Schendeire, was the viiith under the Beglerbeg of Romania, and furnished 600 soldiers on a revenue of 78,787 rix dollars, (Marsigli, Stato Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 128.)]

[Footnote 61: In Pelagonia castrum haereticum..... spoliatum cum suis habi tatoribus igne combussere. Nec id eis injuria contigit: quia illorum detestabilis sermo et cancer serpebat, jamque circumjacentes regiones suo pravo dogmate foedaverat, (Robert. Mon. p. 36, 37.) After cooly relating the fact, the Archbishop Baldric adds, as a praise, Omnes siquidem illi viatores, Judeos, haereticos, Saracenos aequaliter habent exosos; quos omnes appellant inimicos Dei, (p. 92.)]

[Footnote 62: (Alexiad. l. x. p. 288.)]

[Footnote 63: This Oriental pomp is extravagant in a count of Vermandois; but the patriot Ducange repeats with much complacency (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 352, 353. Dissert. xxvii. sur Joinville, p. 315) the passages of Matthew Paris (A.D. 1254) and Froissard, (vol. iv. p. 201,) which style the king of France rex regum, and chef de tous les rois Chretiens.]

[Footnote 631: Hugh was taken at Durazzo, and sent by land to Constantinople Wilken—M.]

In some oriental tale I have read the fable of a shepherd, who was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes: he had prayed for water; the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his flock and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was the fortune, or at least the apprehension of the Greek emperor Alexius Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his daughter Anne, [64] and by the Latin writers. [65] In the council of Placentia, his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succor, perhaps of ten thousand soldiers, but he was astonished by the approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The emperor fluctuated between hope and fear, between timidity and courage; but in the crooked policy which he mistook for wisdom, I cannot believe, I cannot discern, that he maliciously conspired against the life or honor of the French heroes. The promiscuous multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike destitute of humanity and reason: nor was it possible for Alexius to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious, to the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious: but he was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond, [651] and his ignorance of the Transalpine chiefs: the courage of the French was blind and headstrong; they might be tempted by the luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion of their invincible strength: and Jerusalem might be forgotten in the prospect of Constantinople. After a long march and painful abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of Thrace; they heard with indignation, that their brother, the count of Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of Alexius: he promised to supply their camp; and as they refused, in the midst of winter, to pass the Bosphorus, their quarters were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds of the two nations, who despised each other as slaves and Barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion was inflamed into daily provocations: prejudice is blind, hunger is deaf; and Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the waters. [66] Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net, overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs; but the gates of Constantinople were strongly fortified; the ramparts were lined with archers; and, after a doubtful conflict, both parties listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the fierce spirit of the western strangers; as a Christian warrior, he rekindled their zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise, which he engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return of spring, Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and plentiful camp in Asia; and no sooner had he passed the Bosphorus, than the Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the opposite shore. The same policy was repeated with the succeeding chiefs, who were swayed by the example, and weakened by the departure, of their foremost companions. By his skill and diligence, Alexius prevented the union of any two of the confederate armies at the same moment under the walls of Constantinople; and before the feast of the Pentecost not a Latin pilgrim was left on the coast of Europe.

[Footnote 64: Anna Comnena was born the 1st of December, A.D. 1083, indiction vii., (Alexiad. l. vi. p. 166, 167.) At thirteen, the time of the first crusade, she was nubile, and perhaps married to the younger Nicephorus Bryennius, whom she fondly styles, (l. x. p. 295, 296.) Some moderns have imagined, that her enmity to Bohemond was the fruit of disappointed love. In the transactions of Constantinople and Nice, her partial accounts (Alex. l. x. xi. p. 283-317) may be opposed to the partiality of the Latins, but in their subsequent exploits she is brief and ignorant.]

[Footnote 65: In their views of the character and conduct of Alexius, Maimbourg has favored the Catholic Franks, and Voltaire has been partial to the schismatic Greeks. The prejudice of a philosopher is less excusable than that of a Jesuit.]

[Footnote 651: Wilken quotes a remarkable passage of William of Malmsbury as to the secret motives of Urban and of Bohemond in urging the crusade. Illud repositius propositum non ita vulgabatur, quod Boemundi consilio, pene totam Europam in Asiaticam expeditionem moveret, ut in tanto tumultu omnium provinciarum facile obaeratis auxiliaribus, et Urbanus Romam et Boemundus Illyricum et Macedoniam pervaderent. Nam eas terras et quidquid praeterea a Dyrrachio usque ad Thessalonicam protenditur, Guiscardus pater, super Alexium acquisierat; ideirco illas Boemundus suo juri competere clamitabat: inops haereditatis Apuliae, quam genitor Rogerio, minori filio delegaverat. Wilken, vol. ii. p. 313.—M]