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CHA P. without revolving the general confequences on the countries that were the fcene, and on the nations that were the actors, of these memorable crufades (63). . As foon as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impreffion, though not the memory, was erazed in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful difciples of the prophet were never tempted by a prophane defire to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the fimplicity of their primitive manners receive the flightest alteration from their intercourfe in peace and war with the unknown ftrangers of the Weft. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, fhewed a difpofition fomewhat lefs inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the yalour, difcipline, and tactics, of their antagonists. The modern literature of the Weft they might juftly defpife; but its free spirit would inftruct them in the rights of man; and fome inftitutions of public and private life were adopted from the French. The correfpondence of Conftantinople and Italy diffufed the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and claffics were at length honoured with a Greek verfion (64). But the national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by perfecution; and the reign of the Latins confirmed the feparation of the two churches.

If we compare, at the era of the crufades, the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, induftry, and art, our rude anceftors must be content with the third rank in the fcale of nations. Their fucceffive improvement and prefent fuperiority may be afcribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde

(63) Abulfeda, who faw the conclufion of the crufades, fpeaks of the kingdoms of the Franks, and thofe of the Negroes, as equally unknown (Prolegom. ad Geograph.). Had he not difdained the Latin language, how eafily might the Syrian prince have found books and interpreters?

(64) A fhort and fuperficial account of thefe verfions from Latin into Greek, is given by Huet (de Interpretatione et de claris Interpretibus, p. 131-135.). Maximus Planudes, a monk of Conftantinople (A. D. 13271353.), has tranflated Cæfar's Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphofes and Heroides of Ovid, &c. (Fabric. Bib. Græc. tom. x. P. 533.).

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trograde ftate. With fuch a difpofition, the Latins fhould CHAP. have derived the most early and effential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are ftrongly prompted by the thirft of wealth, the calls of neceffity, and the gratification of the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might fometimes obferve the superior refinements of Cairo and Conftantinople: the first importer of wind-mills (65) was the benefactor of nations; and if fuch bleffings are enjoyed without any grateful remembrace, hiftory has condefcended to notice the more apparent luxuries of filk and fugar, which were tranfported into Italy from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were more flowly felt and supplied; the ardour of ftudious curiofity was awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and, in the age of the crufades, they viewed with carelefs indifference the literature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures; neceffity might produce fome interpreters for the groffer bufinefs of merchants and foldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not diffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the fchools of Europe (66). If a fimilar principle of religion repulfed the idiom of the Koran, it fhould have excited their patience and curiofity to understand the original text of the Gospel; and the fame grammar would have unfolded the fense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign of fixty years the Latins of Conftantinople difdained the fpeech and learning of their fubjects; and the manufcripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Ariftotle was indeed the oracle of the Western univerfities; but it was a barbaVOL. VI.

rous

(65) Windmills, firft invented in the dry country of Afia Minor, were ufed in Normandy as early as the year 1105 (Vie privée des François, tom. i. P. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloff. Latin. tom. iv. p. 474.).

(66) See the complaints of Roger Bacon (Biographia Britannica, vol. i. P. 418. Kippis's edition.). If Bacon himself, or Gerbert, understood fome Greek, they were prodigies, and owed nothing to the commerce of the Eaft、

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CHA P. rous Ariftotle; and, instead of afcending to the fountainhead, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote verfion from the Jews and Moors of Andalufia. The principle of the crufades was a favage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his facred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine (67); and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and vifions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new fuperftitions; and the establishment of the inquifition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the laft abuse of indulgences, and the final progrefs of idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reafon and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of abfurdity and fable.

In the profeffion of Christianity, in the cultivation of a fertile land, the northern conquerors of the Roman empire infenfibly mingled with the provincials, and rekindled . the embers of the arts of antiquity. Their settlements about the age of Charlemagne had acquired fome degree of order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new fwarms of invaders, the Normans, Saracens (68), and Hungarians, who replunged the western countries of Europe into their former ftate of anarchy and barbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempeft had subfided by the expulfion or converfion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide of civilization, which had fo long ebbed, began to flow with a steady and accelerated course; and a fairer profpect was opened to the hopes and efforts of the rifing generations. Great was the increase, and rapid the progrefs, during the two hundred years of the crufades; and fome philofophers have applauded the propitious influence of thefe holy wars, which appear to me

to

(67) Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz (Oeuvres de Fontenelle, zom. v. p. 458.), a master of the history of the middle ages. I fhall only inftance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which were both derived from Palestine.

(68) If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is only relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France, where their fole purpose was to plunder and destroy.

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to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity of C HA P. Europe (69). The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correfpondence with the climates of the Eaft. In one refpect I can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the crufades, not fo much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the foil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of ecclefiaftics and nobles, whofe numbers were comparatively small, alone deferved the name of citizens and men. This oppreffive fyftem was fupported by the arts of the clergy and the fwords of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages as a falutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, fheltered the poor and defenceless, and preferved or revived the peace and order of civil fociety. But the independence, rapine, and difcord, of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good; and eve、 ry hope of industry and improvement was crushed by the iron weight of the martial ariftocracy. Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice, a confpicuous place must be allowed to the crufades. The eftates of the barons were diffipated, and their race was often extinguished, in thefe coftly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride thofe charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the flave, fecured the farm of the peafant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually reftored a fubftance and a foul to the most numerous and ufeful part of the community. The conflagration which deftroyed the tall and barren trees of the foreft, gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of the foil.

O 2

Digreffion

(69) On this interefting fubject, the progrefs of fociety in Europe, a ftrong ray of philofophic light has broke from Scotland in our own times; and it is with private, as well as public regard, that I repeat the names of Hume, Robertfon, and Adam Smith.

Digreffion on the Family of Courtenay.

THE purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Conftantinople, will authorife or excufe a digreffion on the origin and fingular fortunes of the house of COURTENAY (70), in the three principal branches, I. Of Edeffa; II. Of France; and, III. Of England, of which the last only has furvived the revolutions of eight hundred years. I. Before the introduction of trade, which fcatters riches, and of knowledge, which difpels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is most strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age, the laws and manners of the Germans have difcriminated the ranks of fociety: the dukes and counts, who fhared the empire of Charlemagne, converted their office to an inheritance; and to his children, each feudal lord bequeathed his honour and his fword. The proudest families are content to lose in the darkness of the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and lofty, must ultimately rife from a plebeian root; and their hiftorians must descend ten centuries below the Chriftian æra, before they can ascertain any lineal fucceffion by the evidence of furnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the first rays of light (71), we difcern the nobility and opulence of Atho, a French knight: his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless father; his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of Courtenay in the diftrict of Gatinois, about fifty-fix miles to the fouth of Paris. From the reign of Robert, the fon of Hugh Capet, the barons of Courtenay are confpicuous among the immediate

(70) I have applied, but not confined, myself to 4 genealogical Hiftory of the noble and illuftrious Family of Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector of Honiton, Exen. 1735. in folto. The first part is extracted from William of Tyre, the fecond from Bouchet's French history; and the third from various memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of Devonshire. The rector of Honiton has inore gratitude than induftry, and more industry than criticism.

(71) The primitive record of the family, is a paffage of the continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the 12th century. See his Chronicle, in the Hiftorians of France (tom. xi. p. 276.).