CHAP. oufly confidered by two philofophers; by the LVIII. Election and reign of God frey of Bouillon, A. D. 1099, A.D. 1100, July 18. - 113 one", as eafy and natural; by the other "3, as abfurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigoroufly applied to the fame perfons and the fame hour: the example of the virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds; nor fhall I believe that the moft ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the proceffion to the holy fepulchre. 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 conquefts in Palestine. July 23 Hugh the Great, and Stephen of Chartres, had retired with fome lofs of reputation, which they ftrove to regain by a fecond crufade and an honourable death. Baldwin was established at Edeffa, and Bohemond at Antioch, and two Roberts, the duke of Normandy 114 and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in the Weft, to a doubtful competition or a barren fceptre. The jealoufy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers, and the free, the juft, the unanimous voice of 112 Hume, in his Hiftory of England, vol. i. p. 311, 312, octavo edition. 113 Voltaire, in his Effai fur l'Hiftoire Generale, tom. ii. c. 54. P. 345, 346. 114 The English afcribe to Robert of Normandy, and the Provincials to Raymond of Tholoufe, the glory of refusing the crown; but the honeft voice of tradition has preferved the memory of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No 136.) of the count of St. Giles. He died at the fiege of Tripoli, which was poffeffed by his descendants. the LVIII the army, proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the CHAP. first and most worthy of the champions of Chriftendom. His magnanimity accepted a truft as full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and enfigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerufalem contented himself with the modeft title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a fingle year ", too fhort for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a fummons to the field by the approach of the vizir or fultan of Egypt, who had been too flow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the lofs of Jerufalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Afcalon fealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and fignalized the valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long farewel to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived from the pro- Battle of digious inequality of numbers, though I fhall Afcalon, not count the myriads of horfe and foot on 1099, the fide of the Fatimites; but, except three Auguft 12. thousand Ethiopians or blacks, who were armed with flails, or fcourges of iron, the Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded a pleafing comparifon between the active valour of the Turks and the floth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After fufpending before the holy fepulchre the fword and ftandard of the 115 See the election, the battle of Afcalon, &c. in William of Tyre, 1. ix. c. 1-12. and in the conclufion of the Latin hiftorians of the first crufade. A. D. LVIII. CHAP. fultan, the new king (he deferves the title) em- 116 Renaudot, Hift. 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 afferts with marvellous candour the independence of the conquerors and kings of Jerufalem. LVIII. their feudal poffeffions. Nor was this fufficient; CHAP. Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerufalem and Jaffa: instead of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the prieft; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop was fatisfied with an eventual reverfion of the reft, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquifition of a new feat at Cairo ar Damascus. Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have almost been ftripped of his infant kingdom, which confifted only of Jerufalem and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent country". Within this narrow verge, the Mahometans were still lodged in fome impregnable castles; and the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrims, were exposed to daily and domestic hoftility. By the arms of Godfrey himfelf, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and coufin, who fucceeded 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 fubjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Ifrael". After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, 118 Willerm. Tyr. 1. x. 19. The Hiftoria Hierofolimita of Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. i. c. 21-50.), and the Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinus Sanutus (1. iii. p. i.), defcribe the state and conquefts of the Latin kingdom of Jerufalem. 119 An actual mufter, not including the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000, or 1,574,000 fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and flaves, may imply a population of thirteen millious, in a country fixty leagues in length, and thirty broad. The honeft and rational Le Clerc (Comment, on 2d Samuel xxiv. and 1a Chronicles xxi. æftuat The kingrufalem, dom of Je A. D. 10991187. LVIII. 121 CHAP. Tyre, and Afcalon 120, which were powerfully affifted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pifa, and even of Flanders and Norway 2, the range of fea-coaft from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was poffeffed by the Chriftian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch difclaimed his fupremacy, the counts of Edeffa and Tripoli owned themfelves the vaffals of the king of Jerufalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics of the Mahometan conquefts in Syria 22. The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into thefe tranfmarine colonies. According to the feudal jurifprudence, the principal ftates and fubordinate baronies defcended in the line of male and female fucceffion 23; but the children of the first con querors, æftuat angufto in limite, and mutters his fufpicion of a falfe tranfcript; a dangerous fufpicion! 120 Thefe fieges 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 Thefaurarius (de Acquifitione Terræ Sanæ, c. 89–98. p. 732–740.). Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of Pifa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of Muratori. 121 Quidam populus de infulis occidentis egreffus, et maxime de eâ parte quæ Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (1.xi. c. 14. p. 804.) marks their courfe per Britannicum mare et Calpen to the fiege of Sidon. 122 Benelathir, apud de Guignes, Hift. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 150, 151. A. D. 1127. He muft fpeak of the inland coun try. 123 Sanut very fenfibly defcants on the mifchiefs of female fuc. ceffion, in a land hoftibus circumdata, ubi cuncta virilia et virtuofa effe deberent. Yet, at the fuminons, and with the approbation, of her feudal lord, a noble damfel was obliged to chuse a husband |