grimages, A. D. 1024, &c.

an injury, to the Holy Land. A sovereign resident measure alleviated by the inconstancy or repentance in Egypt, was more sensible of the importance of of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were sealed for the restitution of the churches, when the less remote from the justice and power of the throne. tyrant was assassinated by the emissaries of his But the third of these Fatimite caliphs was the fa- sister. The succeeding caliphs resumed the maxims mous Hakem, a frantic youth, who was delivered by of religion and policy; a free toleration was again his impiety and despotism from the fear either of granted; with the pious aid of the emperor of ConGod or man; and whose reign was a wild mixture | stantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins; of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient | and, after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned customs of Egypt, he imposed on the women an ab- with an increase of appetite to the spiritual feast. solute confinement: the restraint excited the cla- In the sea-voyage of Palestine, the dangers were mours of both sexes; their clamours provoked his frequent, and the opportunities rare; but the confury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the flames; version of Hungary opened a safe communication and the guards and citizens were engaged many between Germany and Greece. The charity of St. days in a bloody conflict. At first the caliph de- Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom, relieved and clared himself a zealous mussulman, the founder or conducted his itinerant brethren; and from Belbenefactor of moschs and colleges: twelve hundred grade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at miles of a christian empire. Among the Increase of pilhis expense in letters of gold; and his edict extir- Franks, the zeal of pilgrimage prepated the vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vailed beyond the example of former vanity was soon flattered by the hope of introducing times; and the roads were covered with multitudes a new religion: he aspired above the fame of a of either sex, and of every rank, who professed their prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the contempt of life, so soon as they should have kissed most high God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and prelates was at length manifest in his royal person. At the abandoned the care of their dominions; and the name of Hakem, the lord of the living and the dead, numbers of these pious caravans were a prelude to every knee was bent in religious adoration: his mysthe armies which marched in the ensuing age under teries were performed on a mountain near Cairo: the banner of the cross. About thirty years before sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession the first crusade, the archbishop of Mentz, with the of faith; and at the present hour, a free and war- bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, underlike people, the Druses of mount Libanus, are per- took this laborious journey from the Rhine to the suaded of the life and divinity of a madman and Jordan; and the multitude of their followers amounttyrant. In his divine character, Hakem hated the ed to seven thousand persons. At Constantinople, Jews and christians, as the servants of his rivals: they were hospitably entertained by the emperor; while some remains of prejudice or prudence still but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the pleaded in favour of the law of Mahomet. Both in assault of the wild Arabs; they drew their swords Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecu- with scrupulous reluctance, and sustained a siege tion made some martyrs and many apostates: the in the village of Capernaum, till they were rescued common rights and special privileges of the secta- by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir. After ries were equally disregarded; and a general inter- visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, dict was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. but only a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety The temple of the christian world, the in their native land. Ingulphus, a secretary of church of the resurrection, was demo- William the Conqueror, was a companion of this lished to its foundations; the lumi- pilgrimage: he observes that they sallied from nous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much Normandy, thirty stout and well-appointed horseprofane labour was exhausted to destroy the cave in men; but that they repassed the Alps, twenty misethe rock which properly constitutes the holy sepul- rable palmers, with the staff in their hand, and the ehre. At the report of this sacrilege, the nations of wallet at their back.c 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.

Sacrilege of
Hakem,
A. D. 1009.

Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some

x See D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411.) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390. 397. 400, 401.) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321— 323.) and Marei, (p. 384-386.) an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German, and verbally interpreted to me by a friend. y 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. z See Glaber, 1. iii. c. 7. and the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, A. D. 1009.

a Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis multitudo

Conquest of Jerusalem by the

Turks,

A. D. 1076-1096.

After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite caliphs was invaded by the Turks. One of the lieutenants of Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, marched into Syria at the head of a cæpit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis, quantum nulJus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris plebis... diocres..... reges et comites..... . præsules. . . . . mulieres multæ nobiles cum pauperioribus..... Pluribus enim erat mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur. (Glaber, 1. iv. c. 6. Bouquet, Historians of France, tom. x. p. 50.)

... me.

b Glaber, l. 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.

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 follow

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

centia,

council of PlaA. D. 1095.

March.

The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the seventh had already embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardour 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; 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,d 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

e Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manû volunt in inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente pervenire. Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31. in tom. xii. p. 322. concil.

d 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.

e She is known by the different names of Praxes, Eupræcia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a Russian prince and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh. Struv. Corpus Hist, Germanicæ, p. 340.

f Henricus odio eam cœpit habere: ideo incarceravit eam, et concessit nt 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 in

e

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

spector: quæ se tantas et tam inauditas fornicationum spurcitias, et a tantis passam fuisse conquesta est, &c. and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias non tam commisisse quam invitam pertulisse pro certe cognoverit papa cum sauctâ synodo. Apud Baron. A. D. 1093. No. 4. 1094. No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope and council. These abominatious 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.

g See the narrative and acts of the synod of Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.

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

| 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."r "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 irrevocable engagement." The proposal was joyfully accepted; great numbers, both of the clergy and laity,

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 pre-impressed on their garments the sign of the cross, lates 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 Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P. (Gesta Francorum, p. 1. Robert. Monarch. Hist. Hieros, I. 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

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. p. 288, &c.
o See the acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xii. p. 829, &c.
p Confluxerunt ad Concilium e multis regionibus, viri potentes et
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.)

q 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.)

r Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy who understood Latin. (Robert. Mon. 1. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Deus lo rolt, or Diex el voit. See Chron. Cusinense, 1. 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 Rovergne, A. D. 1100. very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont, (p. 15, 16.) 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 colour, 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 favourite, and, as it were, the national, colour of our military ensigns and uniforms.

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.