Character and St. Bernard, A.D. 1091-1153. holy orators; and among these, Bernard,28 the monk, or the saint, may claim the most honourable place." About eight years before the first conquest of Jerusalem he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of three-and-twenty he mission of buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive fervour of the institution; at the end of two years he led forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux 29 in Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honours of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at least superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the race of superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint. In a secular life he would have shared the seventh part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world,30 by the refusal of all ecclesiastical diguities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second: and his successor, Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy Bernard. It was in 28 The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by Pere Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in folio. Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could add, is contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith volume: whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in the prefaces of the Benedictine editor. * Clairvaux, surnamed the Valley of Absynth, is situate among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard would blush at the pomp of the church and monastery; he would ask for the library, and I know not whether he would be much edified by a tun of 800 muids (914 1-7th hogsheads), which almost rivals that of Heidelberg (Mélanges tirés d'une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. xlvi. p. 15-20). 30 The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, 1. iii. c. 2, p. 1232; Vit. iid, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous example of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de eodem lacû socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille esset; et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his library the beauties of that incomparable landscape. a Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the least accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here failed in that lucid arrangement which in general gives perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives.-M. the proclamation of the second crusade that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of his holy sepulchre.31 At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad: a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success a in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes that only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows.32 The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favour, he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character.3 Yet, after the calamitous. event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning; his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow and unsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope; expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes of the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates that his mission had been approved by signs and wonders.34 Had the fact been certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the public assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were 31 Otho Frising. 1. i. c. 4 [34]; Bernard. Epist. 363, ad Francos Orientales; Opp. tom. i. p. 328; Vit. ima, 1. iii. c. 4, tom. vi. p. 1235. 32 Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et pene jam non inveniunt quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduæ vivis remanent viris. Bernard, Epist. 247 [p. 246, ed. Bened.]. We must be careful not to construe pene as a substantive. 33 Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies armatorum? aut quid tam remotum a professione meâ, [etiam] si vires, [suppeterent, etiam] si peritia [non deesset], &c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259 [p. 258, ed. Bened.]. He speaks with contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam. Epist. 363. 34 Sic [sed] dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quòd a Domino sermo egressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiæ meæ. Responde tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum quæ vidisti et audisti, et [aut certe] secundum quod te [tibi] inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. [De Considerat.] 1. ii. c. 1; Opp. tom. ii. p. 421-423 [p. 417, ed. Bened.]. Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into Germany-to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews, which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the frightful scenes which had preceded the first cru sade, in the flourishing cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christian intervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History of Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 62.-M. performed.35 At the present hour such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the precincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of imposture, and of fiction. Progress of the Mahometans. Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant votaries; since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia. After the loss of Jerusalem the Syrian fugitives diffused their consternation and sorrow: Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and the whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale.36 But the commanders of the faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of the Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and the adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followed the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valour, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay: their spirit and power were unequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia, the Christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, the last hero of his race.37 While the sultans were involved in the silken web of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the Atabeks,38 a Turkish name, which, like the The Atabeks Byzantine patricians, may be translated by Father of the of Syria. Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had been the favourite of Malek Shah, from whom he received the privilege of standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in the civil wars that ensued on the monarch's death, he lost his head and the government of Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered in their attachment to his son Zenghi, who proved his first arms against the Franks in the defeat of Antioch: thirty campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultan established his military fame; and he was Zenghi, A.D. 1127-1145. 35 See the testimonies in Vita ima, 1. iv. c. 5, 6; Opp. tom. vi. p. 1258-1261, l. vi. c. 1-17, p. 1286-1314. 36 Abulmahasen apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 99. 37 See his article in the Bibliothèque Orientale of D'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230-261. Such was his valour, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagant love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after his decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, as well as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years (A.D. 1103-1152), and was a munificent patron of Persian poetry. 38 See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in De Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in the same writer (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147-221), who uses the Arabic text of Benelathir, Ben Schounah, and Abulfeda; the Bibliothèque Orientale, under the articles Atabeks and Noureddin, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 250-267, vers. Pocock. Noureddin, A.D. 1145-1174. b invested with the command of Mosul, as the only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public hope was not disappointed after a siege of twenty-five days he stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their conquests beyond the Euphrates: 39 the martial tribes of Curdistan were subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldiers were taught to behold the camp as their only country; they trusted to his liberality for their rewards; and their absent families were protected by the vigilance of Zenghi. At the head of these veterans his son Noureddin gradually united the Mahometan powers, added the kingdom of Damascus to that of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful war against the Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the Tigris to the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant with all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the justice and piety, of this implacable adversary. 40 In his life and government the holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his palace, the use of wine from his dominions ; the public revenue was scrupulously applied to the public service; and the frugal household of Noureddin was maintained from his legitimate share of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a private estate. His favourite sultana sighed for some female object of expense. "Alas," replied the king, "I fear God, and am no more "than the treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot "alienate; but I still possess three shops in the city of Hems: these "you may take; and these alone can I bestow." His chamber of justice was the terror of the great and the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan's death an oppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, "O Noureddin, Noureddin, where art thou "now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!" A tumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the name of a departed monarch. 39 William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the loss of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name into Sanguin afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to his sanguinary character and end, fit sanguine sanguinolentus. 40 Noradinus (says William of Tyre, 1. xx. 33 [p. 995]) maximus nominis et fidei Christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer, providus, et secundum gentis suæ traditiones religiosus. To this Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites (Abulpharag. p. 267), quo non alter erat inter reges vitæ ratione magis laudabili, aut quæ pluribus justitiæ experimentis abundaret. The true praise of kings is after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies. a See note, vol. vii. p. 215.-S. bOn Noureddin's conquest of Damascus, see extracts from Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third volume of Wilken. -M. Conquest of the Turks, A.D. 1163-1169. By the arms of the Turks and Franks the Fatimites had been deprived of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still more essential. Yet they were still Egypt by revered as the descendants and successors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the palace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profane eyes of subjects. or strangers. The Latin ambassadors 1 have described their own introduction through a series of gloomy passages and glittering porticoes the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds and the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich furniture and rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was shown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizir, who conducted the ambassadors, laid aside his scimitar, and prostrated himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and they beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to the first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the vizirs or sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most worthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command. The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from the capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, the perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms and religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Frank, in an easy direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the intermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin to wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert. The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of the suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; and the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veteran commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, the jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soon provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh From the ambassador, William of Tyre (1. xix. c. 17, 18) describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian drachms, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal and porcelain of China (Renaudot, p. 556). |