but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre; and the infection of the dead bodies produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives, whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some senti ments of compassion; yet we may praise the more selfish lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe-conduct to the garrison of the citadel." The holy sepulchre was now free; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the Savior of the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption. This union of the fiercest and most tender passions has been variously considered by two philosophers; by the one," as easy and natural; by the other, as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigorously applied to the same persons and the same hour; the example of the virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds; nor shall I believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre. Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the Great, and Stephen of Chartres, had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and an honorable death. Baldwin was estab 110 Besides the Latins, who are not ashamed of the massacre, se Eiracin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 363,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 243,) and M. De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 99, from Aboulmahasen. The old tower Psephina, in the middle ages Neblosa, was namec Castellum Pisanum, from the patriarch Daimbert. It is still the citadel, the residence of the Turkish aga, and commands a prospect of the Dead Sea, Judea, and Arabia, (D'Anville, p. 19–23.) It was like wise called the Tower of David, πυργὸς παμμεγεθέστατος. 112 ⚫dition. Hume, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 311, 312, octave 113 Voltaire, in his Essai sur l'Histoire Générale, tom ii. c. 54, p 845 114 lished at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two Rob erts, the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers, and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the cham pions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Savion had been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year, 115 too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a summons to the field, by the approach of the vizier or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and sig nalized the valor of the French princes who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived from the prodigious inequality of numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot* on the side of the Fatimites; but, except three thousand Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of iron, the Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valor of the Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. suspending before the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand footsoldiers for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was After 114 The English ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the Provincials to Raymond of Tholouse, the glory of refusing the crown; but the honest voice of tradition has preserved the memory of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136) of the count of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was possessed by his descendants. 115 See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c., in William of Tyre l ix. c. 1—12, and in the conclusion of the Latin historians of the firet ST isa de. 20,000 Franks, 300,000 Mussulmen, according to Wilker, (vol. ii p. 8) VOL. V.-20 soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who ext celled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious clamors had required that the choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin clergy: the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was justified by the reproach of heresy or schism; 116 and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the Oriental Christians regretted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome: he brought a fleet et his countrymen to the succor of the Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of the church.* The new patriarch" immediately grasped the sceptre which had beer acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa; instead of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus. Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have almost been stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jerusalem and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent country." Within this narrow verge, the Ma hometans were still lodged in some impregnable castles and 118 116 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479. 117 See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in William of Tyre (1. ix. c. 15-18, x. 4, 7, 9,) who asserts with marvellous candor the independence of the conquerors and kings of Jerusalem. 118 Willerm. Tyr. 1. x. 19. The Historia Hierosolimitana of Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. i. c. 21-50) and the Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinu Sanutus (1. iii. p. 1) describe the state and conquests of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. * Arnulf was firs. chosen, but illegitimately, and degraded. ever after the secret enemy of Daimbert or Dagobert. Wilken, vol. i. Į $06, vol. ii. p. 52.--M the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrim, were exposed to daily and domestic hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne, the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Israel.119 After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, and Ascaton,120 which were powerfully assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of Flanders and Norway,121 the range of sea-coast from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of Edessa and Tripoli owned themselves the vassals of the king of Jerusalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics of the Mahometan conquests in Syria.122 The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into these transmarine colo 119 An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi and Benja min, gave David an army of 1,300,000 or 1,574,000 fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and slaves, may imply a population of thirteen millions, in a country sixty leagues in length, and thirty broad. The honest and rational Le Clerc (Comment on 2d Samuel xxiv. and 1st Chronicles, xxi.) æstuat angusto in limite, and mutters his suspicion of a false transcript; a dangerous suspi cion! * 120 These sieges are related, each in its proper place, in the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to the xviiith book, and more briefly told by Bernardus Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, c. 89-98, p. 732-740.) Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of Muratori. 121 Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et maxime de eâ parte quæ Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (1. xi. c. 14, p. 804) marks their course per Britannicum Mare et Calpen to the siege of Sidon. 123 Berrelathir, apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 150. 151, A. D. 1127. He must speak of the inland country. * David determined to take a census of his vast dominions, which extended from Lebanon to the frontiers of Egypt, from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. The numbers (in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, and 1 Chron. xxi. 5) differ but the lowest gives 800,000 men fit to bear arms in Israel, 500,000 in Judah Hist. of Jews, vol. i. p. 248. Gibbon has taken the highest census in his estimate of the population and confined the dominions of David to cis Jordandic Palestine.-M. 124 nies. According to the feudal jurisprudence, the principa states and subordinate baronies descended in the line of inale and female succession:123 but the children of the first conquerors, a motley and degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the climate; the arrival of new crusaders from Europe was a doubtful hope and a casual event. The service of the feudal tenuresis was performed by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid of two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers on horseback.126 Five thousand and seventy sergeants, most probably foot-soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities; and the whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks.""" But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John,128 and of the temple of 123 Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of female succession, in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta virilia et virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons, and with the approbation, of her feudal lord, a noble damsel was obliged to choose a husband and champion, (Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242, &c.) See in M. De Guignes (tom. i. p. 441-471) the accurate and useful tables of these dynasties, which are chiefly drawn from the Lignages d'Outremer. 124 They were called by derision Poullains, Pallani, and their name is never pronounced without contempt, (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 535; and Observations sur Joinville, p. 84, 85; Jacob. à Vitriaco Hist. Hierosol. i. c. 67, 72; and Sanut, 1. iii. p. viii. c. 2, p. 182.) Illustrium virorum, qui ad Terræ Sanctæ. . . . liberationem in ipsa manserunt, degeneres filii . . . . in deliciis enutriti, molles et effe minati, &c. 125 This authentic detail is extracted from the Assises de Jerusalem (c. 324, 326-331.) Sanut (1. iii. p. viii. c. 1, p. 174) reckons only 518 knights, and 5775 followers. 126 The sum total, and the division, ascertain the service of the three great baronies at 100 knights each; and the text of the Assises, which extends the number to 500, can only be justified by this supposition. 127 Yet on great emergencies (says Sanut) the barons brought a voluntary aid; decentem comitivam militum juxta statum suum. 128 William of Tyre (l. xviii. c. 3, 4, 5) relates the ignoble origin and early insolence of the Hospitallers, who soon deserted their humble patron, St. John the Eleemosynary for the more august character of St. John the Baptist, (see the ineffectual struggles of Pagi, Critica, A. D 1099, No. 14-18.) They assumed the profession of arms about the year 1120; the Hospital was mater; the Temple filia; the Teutonic or ler was founded A. D. 1190, at the siege of Acre, (Mosheim. Institut p. 889, 390.) |