motives. Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I will dare to affirm that all were prompted by the spirit of Temporal enthusiasm, the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the and carnal 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 Against the private wars of the barbarians, their bloody tournaments, licentious loves, 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 nations of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would immortalise 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 honourable 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 flavour of the wines, the The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia resederant. 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 an hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo (Guibert, p. 554, 555 [1. vii. c. 35]). 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 an 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 Influence 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 recompence 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 labours." 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 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 [1. i. c. 4]); as if, says the indignant Guibert, the Greek women were handsomer than those of France. 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). a Guibert (lib. i.) relates this trait only of the children: 66 ipsos infantulos, dum "obviam habent quælibet castella, vel " urbes, si hæc esset Jerusalem ad quam "tenderent rogitare." Michaud, vol. i. p. 131.-S. 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: an 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 of the first March, The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anti- Departure cipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians; crusaders, and I shall briefly despatch the calamities which they in- A.D. 1096, flicted and suffered before I enter on the more serious and May, &c. 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 vanguard of pilgrims, whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand Guibert (p. 481 [1. ii. c. 6]) paints in lively colours 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." 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. a Guibert, however, sometimes sacrificed truth to effect. Thus he acknowledges, in his account of Peter the Hermit, "Non ad veritatem sed vulgo referimus "amanti novitatem." 66 porary chroniclers only by the obscurity of his style and by his complaints of the excesses of the crusaders. M. Michaud taunts Gibbon with calling Guibert a philosopher," but the only foundation of this charge is the expression in note 28. Hist. des Croisades, vol. i. p. 132, note.-S. 66 Lib. ii. c. 8. M. Michaud does not coincide with Gibbon's estimate of Guibert's merits, and considers him to be distinguished from contem 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 an herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal licence 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, Trèves, 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. с 35 Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanæ levitatis . . . . anserem quendam divino spiritù asserebant afflatum, et copellam non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces [hujus] secundæ viæ fecerant, &c. (Albert. Aquensis, 1. 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 descendants would have glossed over with some specious and subtle allegory. 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 inassacres." 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 [p. 328, ed. Bened.]) admonishes the Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judæi, non sunt trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival monk.b "The Jews had established themselves in Germany towards the fourth century. An edict of Constantine, addressed to the decurions of Cologne, shows that they were then very numerous in that city, a fact which is confirmed by tombstones engraved with Hebrew characters. Lettre de M. Capefigue, in Michaud, vol. ii. p. 599.-S. b This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He stood above all rivalry of this kind. See c. lix. note 31.-M. The bishops of Worms, Trèves, Mentz, and Spires opened their palaces as asylums for the Jews of their dioceses. The term "their bishops," as applied to the Jews, might be misunderstood.-S. in Hungary A.D. 1096. Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy the crusaders were compelled to traverse an in- Their terval of six hundred miles, the wild and desolate countries destruction of Hungary 38 and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and inter- and Asia, sected 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 præfect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody.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 succour 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 bene 38 See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho of Frisingen, 1. i. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665, 666. 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; Flucius Maroe, Savus; Lintar, Leith; Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg (de Regibus Hungariæ, tom. iii. p. 19-53). a The narrative of the first march is very incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexejo and Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the kingdom of Calmany, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; VOL. VII. but, seeing the clothes of sixteen crusaders 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 quarrel taking place, he suffered a great defeat. Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86.-M. Ο |