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Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights
and barons, the court of peers, in which he presided
himself, Godfrey of Bouillon established a second
tribunal, in which his person was represented by
his viscount. The jurisdiction of this inferior court
extended over the burgesses of the kingdom; and it
was composed of a select number of the most dis-
creet and worthy citizens, who were sworn to judge,
according to the laws, of the actions and fortunes of
their equals. In the conquest and settlement of
new cities, the example of Jerusalem was imitated
by the kings and their great vassals; and above
thirty similar corporations were founded before the
loss of the Holy Land. Another class
Syrians.
of subjects, the Syrians, or oriental
christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy,
and protected by the toleration of the state. God-
frey listened to their reasonable prayer, that they
might be judged by their own national laws. A
third court was instituted for their use, of limited
and domestic jurisdiction: the sworn members were
Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the

the charge, testimony could be obtained, it was ne-
cessary for him to produce witnesses of the fact. In
civil cases, the combat was not allowed as the means
of establishing the claim of the demandant; but he
was obliged to produce witnesses who had, or
assumed to have, knowledge of the fact. The com-
bat was then the privilege of the defendant; because
he charged the witness with an attempt by perjury
to take away his right. He came therefore to be
in the same situation as the appellant in criminal
cases. It was not then as a mode of proof that the
combat was received, nor as making negative evi-
dence; (according to the supposition of Montes-
quieu ;) but in every case the right to offer battle
was founded on the right to pursue by arms the
redress of an injury; and the judicial combat was
fought on the same principle, and with the same
spirit, as a private duel. Champions were only
allowed to women, and to men maimed or past the
age of sixty. The consequence of a defeat was
death to the person accused, or to the champion or
witness, as well as to the accuser himself: but in
civil cases, the demandant was punished with in-office of the president (in Arabic, of the rais) was
famy and the loss of his suit, while his witness and
champion suffered an ignominious death. In many
cases it was in the option of the judge to award or
to refuse the combat: but two are specified, in
which it was the inevitable result of the challenge;
if a faithful vassal gave the lie to his compeer, who
unjustly claimed any portion of their lord's demesnes;
or if an unsuccessful suitor presumed to impeach the
judgment and veracity of the court. He might im-
peach them, but the terms were severe and perilous:
in the same day he successively fought all the mem-
bers of the tribunal, even those who had been ab-
sent a single defeat was followed by death and
infamy; and where none could hope for victory, it
is highly probable that none would adventure the
trial. In the Assise of Jerusalem, the legal subtilty
of the count of Jaffa is more laudably employed to
elude, than to facilitate, the judicial combat, which
he derives from a principle of honour rather than of
superstition.b

Court of bur

Among the causes which enfrangesses. chised the plebeians from the yoke of feudal tyranny, the institution of cities and corporations is one of the most powerful; and if those of Palestine are coeval with the first crusade, they may be ranked with the most ancient of the Latin world. Many of the pilgrims had escaped from their lords under the banner of the cross; and it was the policy of the French princes to tempt their stay by the assurance of the rights and privileges of freemen. It is expressly declared in the Assise of

a See l'Esprit des Loix, I. xxviii. In the forty years since its pub. lication, no work has been more read and criticised; and the spirit of inquiry which it has excited, is not the least of our obligations to the author.

b For the intelligence of this obscure and obsolete jurisprudence, (c. 80-111.) I am deeply indebted to the friendship of a learned lord, who, with an accurate and discerning eye, has surveyed the philo. sophic history of law. By his studies, posterity might be enriched: the merit of the orator and the judge can be fell only by his contem

poraries.

e Louis le Gros, who is considered as the father of this institution in France, did not begin his reign till nine years (A. D. 1108.) after God

sometimes exercised by the viscount of the city.
At an immeasurable distance below Villains and
the nobles, the burgesses, and the stran- slaves.
gers, the Assise of Jerusalem condescends to men-
tion the villains and slaves, the peasants of the land
and the captives of war, who were almost equally
considered as the objects of property. The relief or
protection of these unhappy men was not esteemed
worthy of the care of the legislator; but he dili-
gently provides for the recovery, though not indeed
for the punishment, of the fugitives. Like hounds,
or hawks, who had strayed from the lawful owner,
they might be lost and claimed: the slave and fal-
con were of the same value; but three slaves, or
twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price
of the war-horse; and a sum of three hundred
pieces of gold was fixed, in the age of chivalry, as
the equivalent of the more noble animal.e

CHAP. LIX.

Preservation of the Greek empire.-Numbers, passage, and event, of the second and third crusades. -St. Bernard.-Reign of Saladin in Egypt and Syria. His conquest of Jerusalem.-Naval crusades. Richard the first of England.-Pope Innocent the third; and the fourth and fifth crusades. -The emperor Frederic the second.-Louis the ninth of France; and the two last crusades.—Expulsion of the Latins or Franks by the Mamalukes.

frey of Bouillon. (Assises, c. 2. 324.) For its origin and effects, see the judicious remarks of Dr. Robertson. (History of Charles V. vol. i. p. 30-36. 251-265. quarto edition.)

d Every reader conversant with the historians of the crusades, will understand by the peuple des Suriens, the oriental christians, Melchites, Jacobites, or Nestorians, who had all adopted the use of the Arabic language, (vol. iv. p. 593.)

e See the Assises de Jerusalem, (310, 311, 312.) These laws were enacted as late as the year 1350, in the kingdom of Cyprus. In the same century, in the reign of Edward I. I understand, from a late pub. lication, (of his Book of Account,) that the price of a war-horse was not less exorbitant in England.

Success of
Alexius,

A. D. 1097-1118.

In a style less grave than that of his- | faithful Tancred; of arming the west against the tory, I should perhaps compare the Byzantine empire, and of executing the design emperor Alexius' to the jackall, who which he inherited from the lessons and example of is said to follow the steps, and to devour the leav- his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clanings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears destine; and if we may credit a tale of the princess and toils in the passage of the first crusade, they Anne, he passed the hostile sea, closely secreted in were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits a coffin.c But his reception in France was dignified which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. by the public applause, and his marriage with the His dexterity and vigilance secured their first con- king's daughter: his return was glorious, since the quest of Nice; and from this threatening station bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran the Turks were compelled to evacuate the neigh-command; and he repassed the Adriatic at the head bourhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind valour, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty Greek improved the favourable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were driven from the isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the banks of the Mæander, and the rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendour; the towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled with colonies of christians, who were gently removed from the more distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but he had promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem; but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond: his ransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the

a Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia Minor, Alexiad, 1. xi. p. 321–325. 1. xiv. p. 419.; his Cilician war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328-342.; the war of Epirus, with tedious prolixity, 1. xii. xiii. p. 345-406.; the death of Bohemond, 1. xiv. p. 419.

b The kings of Jerusalem submitted however to a nominal dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor. (Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville, xxvii. p. 319.)

e Anna Comnena adds, that to complete the imitation, he was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is unknown to the Latius.

d Aro Quλns, in the Byzantine geography, must mean England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom. (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p. 41.)

e The copy of the treaty (Alexiad, 1. xiii. p. 406-416.) is an origi. nal aud curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.

of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, assem-
bled from the most remote climates of Europe. The
strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the
progress of famine, and approach of winter, eluded
his ambitious hopes; and the venal confederates
were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace
suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they were
finally delivered by the death of an adversary, whom
neither oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal,
nor prosperity could satiate. His children suc-
ceeded to the principality of Antioch; but the
boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was
clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Mal-
mistra were restored to the Byzantine emperors.
Of the coast of Anatolia, they possessed the entire
circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The
Seljukian dynasty of Roum was separated on all
sides from the sea and their mussulman brethren ;
the power of the sultans was shaken by the victories,
and even the defeats, of the Franks; and after the
loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or
Iconium, an obscure and inland town above three
hundred miles from Constantinople.s Instead of
trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes
waged an offensive war against the Turks, and the first
crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.
In the twelfth century, three great Expeditions by
emigrations marched by land from the
west to the relief of Palestine. The
soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy,
France, and Germany, were excited
by the example and success of the
first crusade. Forty-eight years after A. D. 1189.
the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the emperor,
and the French king, Conrad the third, and Louis
the seventh, undertook the second crusade to sup-
port the falling fortunes of the Latins. A grand

land: the first crusade,

A. D. 1101. the second, of

Conrad III. and

Louis VII.
A. D. 1147.

the third, of Fre

deric I.

f See in the learned work of M. de Guignes, (tom. ii. part ii.) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of Roum.

Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by Strabo, with the ambiguous title of Koporoλis, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (Antos) of Jews and Gentiles. Under the corrupt name of Kunijah, it is described as a great city, with a river and gardens, three leagues from the mountains, and decorated (I know not why) with Plato's tomb. (Abulfeda, tabul. xvii. p. 303. vers. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from Ibn Said.)

h For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna Comnena. (Alexias, 1. xi. p. 331, &c. and the eighth book of Albert Aquensis.) i For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis VII. see William of Tyre, (1. xvi. c. 18-29.) Otho of Frisingen, (l. i. c. 34–45. 59, 60.) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68.) Struvius, (Corpus Hist. Germanicæ, p. 372, 373.) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum à Duchesne, tom. iv. Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, 1. i. c. 4, 5, 6. p. 41-48. Cinnamus, l. ii, p. 41-49.

division of the third crusade was led by the emperor | endless and formidable computation. In the third

Frederic Barbarossa, who sympathised with his brothers of France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may save the repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it may seem, a regular story of the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return of the same causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or recovery of the Holy Land, would appear so many faint and unsuccessful copies of the original.

Their numbers.

I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the first pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. At their head were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain; the first a descendant of Hugh Capet, the second a father of the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great, and Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow. The huge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward in two columns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot. The armies of the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia: the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the presence of their sovereigns; and both the rank and personal characters of Conrad and Louis, gave a dignity to their cause, and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from the feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king, was each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate attendants in the field; and if the light-armed troops, the peasant infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorously excluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four hundred thousand souls. The west, from Rome to Britain, was called into action; the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that in the passage of a strait or river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted from the

m

k For the third crusade of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas in Isaac. Angel. 1. ii. c. 3-8. p. 257-266. Struv. (Corpus Hist. Germ. 414.) and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino, (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406-416. edit. Struv.) and the Anonymus de Expe. ditione Asiaticà Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498-526. edit. Basnage.)

1 Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse, and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of the names, families, and possessions of the Latin princes.

In William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati in each of the armies.

n The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus, (evvevnRovτa prades,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange and Ciunamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must there

crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of the Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous. Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of the German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. Such extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries; but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence of an enormous though indefinite multitude. The Greeks night applaud their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but they confessed the strength and courage of the French cavalry and the infantry of the Germans; and the strangers are described as an iron race, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spit blood like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of females rode in the attitude and armour of men; and the chief of these Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the Golden-footed Dame.

Passage through the Greek empire.

II. The numbers and character of the strangers was an object of terror to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by the apprehension of the Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins will not bias our more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled their insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardour the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But when the Turks had been driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer indignation the free and frequent passage of the western barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety, of the empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the former, the passions were always impetuous, and often malevolent; and the natural union of a cowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to destroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by fore the version and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of 90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom. vii. p. 462.) exclaim,

Numerum si poscere quæras,

Millia millena milites agmen erat,

o This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade; (apud Struvium, p. 414.) my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard Thesaur. (c. 169. p. 804.) The original writers are silent. The Mahometans gave him 200,000, or 260,000, men. (Bohadin, in Vit. Saladin. p. 110.)

Р I must observe, that in the second and third crusades, the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and orientals Alamanni. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Poles and Bohe mians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise names the BpITTоr, or BρITAVYOI.

every species of injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The western monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the country of their christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths and hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with three marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every engagement was violated by treachery and injustice; and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer truth to his country. Instead of an hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance of food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight might excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled the governors had private orders to fortify the passes and break down the bridges against them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered; the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience; and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia, rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any drops of christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on the first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne of Manuel; but no sooner had the French king transported his army beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference, unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and more difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves emperors of the Romans; and firmly maintained the purity of their title and dignity.

q Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of Philippopolis. Cin namus is infected with national prejudice and pride.

The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen, (culpâ nostra.) History would be pleasant, if we were embarrassed only by such contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.

• χθαμαλη έδρα, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the word Zeλcov. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317-320.) Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex æquo, not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of some MSS.

The first of these representatives of Charlemagne would only converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had been crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble appellation of rex, or prince of the Alemanni; and the vain and feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of the greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims, the Greek emperors maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained, that by his friendship for the great Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was founded at Constantinople for the public exercise of the religion of Mahomet."

Turkish warfare.

III. The swarms that followed the first crusade, were destroyed in Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows : and the princes only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentable pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and humanity; of their knowledge from the design of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; of their humanity, from the massacre of the christian people, a friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the common foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were retarded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met by the returning emperor, who had lost the greatest part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Mæander. The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary troops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or the nature of war, the king of France advanced through the same country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys, had doubled their march with rash and inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king

Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum. (Anonym. Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the Greeks was Pn princeps. Yet Cinnamus owns, that IurepaTop is synonymous to

...

Βασιλευς.

u In the epistles of Innocent III. (xiii. p. 184.) and the History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130.) see the views of a pope and a cadhi on this singular toleration."

x As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals and ad. vocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, and a red or flaming colour. The oriflamme appeared at the head of the French armies from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. (Ducange sur Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p. 244-253.)

commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness and disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the innumerable host of Turks, who in the art of war were superior to the christians of the twelfth century. Louis, who climbed a tree in the general discomfiture, was saved by his own valour and the ignorance of his adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch; but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could only afford room for his knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the christian powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with the personal fame of piety and courage: but the orientals had braved these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces they had been so often threatened. Perhaps they had still more to fear from the veteran genius of Frederic the first, who in his youth had served in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the princes of the empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon as he lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (says the historian) of horror and tribulation. During twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly march was besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, whose numbers and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and to suffer; and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he reached the gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to serve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated the guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, who humbly sued for pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in a career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a petty torrent of Cilicia.

y The original French histories of the second crusade are the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the fourth volume of Duchesne's collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c. the best documents of authentic history.

z Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam, sterilem, inamcnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of a sufferer.

a Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prædones sine ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their defeat. Anonym, Canis. p. 517, 518.

b See in the anonymous writer in the Collection of Canisius, Tagino, and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120.) the ambiguous conduct of Killidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared both Saladin and Frederic.

e The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many writers to drown Frederic in the river Cyduus, in which Alexander so impru dently bathed, (Q. Curt. I. iii. c. 4, 5.) But, from the march of the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream of less fame, but of a longer course.

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Obstinacy of the enthusiasm of

the crusades.

The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tomb-stone two thousand miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings: their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard,• the monk, or the saint, may claim the most honourable place. About eight years before Character and the first conquest of Jerusalem, he was mission of St. born of a noble family in Burgundy; A. D. 1091–1153. at the age of three-and-twenty he 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 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

Bernard,

d Marinus Sanatus, A. D. 1321. lays it down as a precept, Quod stulus ecclesiæ per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He resolves by the divine aid, the objection, or rather exception, of the first crusade. (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, 1. ii. pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)

e The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by Pére Mabillon, and reprinted at Veuice 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 sixth volume: whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in the prefaces of the Benedic tine editor.

f Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Abysynth, 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 ton of 800 muids, (914 1-7th hogsheads,) which almost rivals that of Heidelburg. (Melanges tirés d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom, xlvi. p. 15-20.)

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