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 impeach them, but the terms were severe and perilous: in the same day he successively fought all the members of the tribunal, even those who had been absent: 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 Assize of Jerusalem, the legal subtlety 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. (140)

Among the causes which enfranchised 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 Assize of 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 discreet and worthy citizens, who were sworn to judge, according to the laws, of the actions and fortunes of their equals.(141) 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 of subjects, the Syrians,(142) or oriental Christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy, and protected by the toleration of the state. Godfrey 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 office of the president (in Arabic of the rais) was sometimes exercised by the viscount of the city. At an immeasurable distance below the nobles, the burgesses, and the strangers, the Assize of Jerusalem condescends to mention 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 diligently 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 falcon 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.(143)

(140) 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 philosophic history of law. By his studies, posterity might be enriched: the merit of the orator and the judge can be felt only by his contemporaries.

(141) 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 Godfrey of Bouillon (Assizes, 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).

(142) 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.

(143) See the Assizes 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 publication (of his Book of Account), that the price of a war-horse was not less exorbitant in England

CHAPTER 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 last two crusadesExpulsion of the Latins or Franks by the Mamalukes.

[A. D. 1097-1118.] In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the emperor Alexius (1) to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the neighbourhood 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 seacoast 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;(2) 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 faithful Tancred; of arming the West against the Byzantine empire, and of executing. the design which he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine; and if we may credit a tale of the princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea, closely secreted in a coffin.(3) But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause, and his marriage with the king's daughter; his return was glorious, since the bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he repassed the

(1) Anne Comnena relates her father's conquest in Asia Minor, Alexiad, 1. xi. p. 321–325, l. 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.

(2) 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).

(3) Anne Coninena 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 Latins.

Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe.(4) 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(5) 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 succeeded to the principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra 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,(6) was separated on all sides from the sea and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the Sultans was shaken by the victories, and even by the defeats, of the Franks; and after the loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and inland town about three hundred miles from Constantinople.(7) 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 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. (8) Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the emperor and the French king, Conrad the Third and Louis the Seventh, undertook the second crusade to support the falling fortunes of the Latins.(9) A grand division of the third crusade was led by the emperor Frederic Barbarossa,(10) who sympathized 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.

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 trea

(4) Aπo Ovλns, 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). (5) The copy of the treaty (Alexiad, 1. xiii. p. 396-416,) is an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.

(6) 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.

(7) Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by Strabo, with the ambiguous title of Kononodes (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121). Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (Anons) 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.)

(8) For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anné Comnena (Alexiad, 1. xi. p. 331, &c., and the eighth book of Albert Aquensis).

(9) For the second crusade of Conrad III. and Lewis VII., see William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 18-29), Otho of Frisingen (1. i. c. 34--45. 59, 60), Matthew Paris (Hist. Major. p. 68), Struvius (Corpus, Hist. Germanice, p. 372, 373), Scriptores Rerum Francicarum à Duchesne, tom. iv. Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41-48, Cinnamus, I. ii. p. 41-49.

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

sures 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.(11) 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;(12) and if the light-armed troops, the peasant infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorously excluded, the full account will searcely 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 endless and formidable computation. (13) In the third 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.(14) 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 might 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;(15) 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.

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 seacoast, 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

(11) 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.

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

(13) The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus (evvεvŋkovтa μvpiades), and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange ad Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must therefore 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 millenȧ millites agmen erat.

(14) This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade (apud Struvium, p. 414); my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubec, 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).

(15) I must observe, that in the second and third crusades, the subjects of Conrad and Frederic am styled by the Greeks and Orientals Alemanni. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus, are the Poles and Bohemians; and it is for the French, that he reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise names the Βριζτοι, οι Βριταννοι.

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 mischievious 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 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.(16) Instead of a 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 burned 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,(17) 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;(18) 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;(19) and firmly maintained the purity of their title and dignity. 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

(16) Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of Philippolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and pride.

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

Frederic.

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

(19) Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum (Anonym. Canis. p. 512). The public and historical style of the Greeks was Pnt....princeps. Yet Cinnamus owns, that Ipreparop is synonymous το Βασιλευς.

VOL. IV.-L