a grimages, A. D. 1024, &e. measure alleviated by the inconstancy or repentance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy; a free toleration was again granted; with the pious aid of the emperor of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins; and, after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase of appetite to the spiritual feast.a In the sea-voyage of Palestine, the dangers were frequent, and the opportunities rare; but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren; and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred miles of a christian empire. Among the Increase of pilFranks, the zeal of pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times; and the roads were covered with multitudes of either sex, and of every rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About thirty years before the first crusade, the archbishop of Mentz, with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, undertook this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan; and the multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons. At Constantinople, they were hospitably entertained by the emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault of the wild Arabs; they drew their swords with scrupulous reluctance, and sustained a siege in the village of Capernaum, till they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir. After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land. Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sallied from Normandy, thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand, and the wallet at their back. an injury, to the Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt, was more sensible of the importance of christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem, a frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement: the restraint excited the clamours of both sexes; their clamours provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the flames; and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges: twelve hundred 1 and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at his expense in letters of gold; and his edict extirpated the vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered by the hope of introducing a new religion: he aspired above the fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the most high God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, 1 was at length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the lord of the living and the dead, every knee was bent in religious adoration : his mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo: sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and at the present hour, a free and warlike people, the Druses of mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman and tyrant. In his divine character, Hakem hated the Jews and christians, as the servants of his rivals: while some remains of prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favour of the law of Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostates: the common rights and special privileges of the sectaequally disregarded; and a general interdiet was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. Sacrilege of The temple of the christian world, the Hakem, church of the resurrection, was demoA. D. 1009. lished to its foundations; the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane labour was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted: but instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they contented themselves with burning or banishing the Jews, as the secret advisers of the impious barbarian. Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some * See D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411.) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390. 397. 400, 401.) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321323,) and Marei, (p. 384-386.) an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German, and verbally interpreted to me by a friend. The religion of the Druses is concealed by their ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar Druses, the most indifferent of men, Occasionally conform to the worship of the Mahometans and christians of their neighbourhood. The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354-357.) and the second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de Volney. See Glaber, L. iii. c. 7. and the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, A. D. a Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis multitudo ries were 1009. After the defeat of the Romans, the Conquest of Je Turks, A. D. 1076-1096. tranquillity of the Fatimite caliphs was rusalem by the ..... me. b Glaber, 1. iii. c. 1. Katona, (Hist. Crit. Reg. Hungariæ, tom. i. p. 304 -311.) examines whether St. Stephen founded a monastery at Jerusalem. e Baronius (A. D. 1064. No. 43-56.) has transcribed the greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus, and Lambertus. d See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350.) and Abulpharagius. (Dy. nast. p. 237. vers. Pocock.) M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. part i. p. 215, 216.) adds the testimonies, or rather the names, of Abul. feda and Novaira. Hakem, which had been so patiently endured by the Latin christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the more irascible temper of their descendants: a new spirit had arisen of religious chivalry and papal dominion: a nerve was touched of exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe. CHAP. LVIII. 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. 3 Peter the hermit. powerful army, and reduced Damascus by famine | compared with the single act of the sacrilege of and the sword. Hems, and the other cities of the province, acknowledged the caliph of Bagdad and the sultan of Persia; and the victorious emir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile: the Fatimite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa: but the negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of Egypt. In his retreat, he indulged the licence of slaughter and rapine; the judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his camp, and their execution was followed by the massacre of three thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon punished by the sultan Toucush, the brother of Malek Shah, who with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned about twenty years in Jerusalem ; but the hereditary command of the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children, after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the borders of Armenia and Assyria. The oriental christians and the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the north. In his court and camp the great sultan had adopted in some degree the arts and manners of Persia; but the body of the Turkish nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed the fierceness of the desert. From Nice to Jerusalem, the western countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility; and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims, who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and disease, before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulchre. A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal, prompted the Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect: the patriarch was dragged by the hair along the pavement, and cast into a dungeon, to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock; and the divine worship in the church of the resurrection was often disturbed by the savage rudeness of its masters. The pathetic tale excited the millions of the west to march under the standard of the cross to the relief of the Holy Land: and yet how trifling is the sum of these accumulated evils, if e From the expedition of Isar Atsiz (A. H. 469. A. D. 1076.) to the expulsion of the Ortokides, (A. D. 1096.) Yet William of Tyre (l. i. c. 6. p. 633.) asserts, that Jerusalem was thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic chronicle, quoted by Pagi, (tom. iv. p. 202.) supposes, that the city was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the caliph of Bagdad, A. H. 463. A. D. 1070. These early dates are not very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am sure, that as late as A. D. 1064. the regnum Babylo nicum (of Cairo) still prevailed in Palestine. (Baronius, A. D. 1064. No. 56.) f De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252. g Willerm. Tyr. 1. i. c. 8. p. 634. who strives hard to magnify the christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus from each pilgrim. ABOUT twenty years after the conquest The first crusade, a Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date earlier than A. D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first applied to the quarrelsome rumour 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.), b William of Tyre (1. i. c. 11. p. 637, 638.) thus describes the hermit Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis ingenii, et oculum habens perspicacem gratumque, et sponte flucns ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p. 482. Anna Comnena in Alexiad. 1. x. p. 284, &c. with Ducange's notes, p. 349. 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 wrapt 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 were people, were 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 Saviour: 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. 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. Urban II. in the name and honours 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, who, in the synods of Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honour and his own. So popular was the cause of Urban, so weighty was his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia & was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgundy, 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 were 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 succour. 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, still proud of the pre-eminence of their The magnanimous spirit of Gregory Council of Pla- the seventh had already embraced the A. D. 1095. design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardour of his zeal and ambition centia, March. still breathes in his epistles: from either side of the Alps, fifty thousand catholics had enlisted under the banner of St. Peter; 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, 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 Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armatà manù volunt in inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente pervenire. Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31. in tom. xii. p. 322. concil. 352, 353. Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom. iii. pars i. p. nice, p. 340. Henricus odio cam cæpit habere: ideo incarceravit eam, et concessit plerique vini 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 in spector: quæ se tantas et tam inauditas fornicationum spurcitias, et a See the narrative and acts of the synod of Placentia, Concil. tom. h Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and valour of the French nation, the author and example of the crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida .... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, name, and ambitious to emulate their hero Charle- | eight days produced some useful or edifying canons magne, who, in the popular Romance of Turpin, 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. Council of Cler It may occasion some surprise that mont, A. D.1095. the Roman pontiff should erect, in the November. 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. 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," 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," 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. 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, in high expectation of its resolves; and such was the ardour 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 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. 453.) and vain loquaciousness, (p. 502.) i Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex Franco. rum aptari fecit usque C. P. (Gesta Francorum, p. 1. Robert. Monarch. Hist. Hieros, L. i. p. 33, &c.) k 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 Ævi, edit. Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.) 1 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 Abbé de Mably. m In the provinces of 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 name and limits of the proper France. See Hadrian. Vales. Notitia Galliarum. n These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their country by Philip Augus. for the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced against the licence of private war; the truce of God 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 laboured 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 rumour 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." "It is indeed the will of God," replied the pope; "and let this memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be for ever 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 irrevoca ble engagement." The proposal was joyfully accepted; great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their garments the sign of the cross,* and solicited the pope to march at their head. This dangerous honour 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 tus. The bishops of Clermont gradually became princes of the city. Melanges, tirés d'une grande Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. 288, &c. p. o See the acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xii. p. 829, &c. p Confluxerunt ad Concilium e multis regionibus, viri potentes honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiæ superbi. (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Mon. p. 31, 32. Will, Tyr. i. 14, 15. p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480. Fulcher. Carnot, p. 382) The Truce of God (Treva or Treuga Dei) was first invented Aquitain, A. D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an occasion of pe jury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to their privileges. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.) Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy wh understood Latin. (Robert. Mon, 1. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity wha spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Des volt, or Diex el voit. See Chron. Cusinense, 1. iv. c. 11. p. 497. 11 Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iv, and Ducange, (Dissertat. XI. P 207. sur Joinville, and Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690.) who, in his prefac produces a very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergne, A. D. 110 very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont, (p. 15, 16 on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red; in the third, the s Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth, sewed French alone preserved that colour, while green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English. (Ducange, tom. 1. p. 651. Yet in England, the red ever appears the favourite, and, as it were, tie national, colour of our military ensigns and uniforms. a Justice of the crusades. 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 succour; and our calmer reason must disclaim the in 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 honour, 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 Assump-numerable hosts and remote operations, which overtion, the fifteenth of August, of the ensuing year.' 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 unsheath 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." I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of dan-ral and flexible tenet. It has been often supposed, ger: 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 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. (Hanoviæ, 1611, two vols. in folio.) I shall briefly enume. rate, 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.) and, X. Bernardus Thesaurius de Acquisitione Terra Sanctæ, (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 whelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. 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 Saviour: 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 pre-eminence 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 gene 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. 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 conquests of the christian Franks; but in the eyes of their subjects and neighbours, the Mahometan princes were still tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. As the manners of the christians were Spiritual mo tives and in relaxed, their discipline of penance French historians collected by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis u If the reader will turn to the first scene of the first part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of Shakspeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes of Dr. Johnson, the workings of a bigot. ed though vigorous mind, greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent from his creed. x The sixth Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical History, (p. 223— 261.) contains an accurate and rational view of the causes and effects of the crusades. y The penance, indulgences, &c. of the middle ages are amply dis. cussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. v. dissert. |