CHAP. Afia, the crafty Greek improved the favourable LIX. occafion when the emirs of the fea-coast were

The

recalled to the ftandard of the fultan.
Turks were driven from the ifles of Rhodes and
Chios: the cities of Ephefus and Smyrna, of
Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were re-
ftored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged
from the Hellefpont to the banks of the Mæan-
der, and the rocky fhores of Pamphylia. The
churches refumed their fplendour; the towns
were rebuilt and fortified; and the defert coun-
try was peopled with colonies of Chriftians, who
were gently removed from the more diftant and
dangerous frontier. In thefe paternal cares, we
may forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance
of the holy fepulchre; but, by the Latins, he
was ftigmatized with the foul reproach of treafon
and defertion. They had fworn fidelity and
obedience to his throne; but he had promifed to
affift their enterprise in person, or, at least, with
his troops and treafures: his bafe retreat diffolved
their obligations; and the fword, which had been
the inftrument of their victory, was the pledge
and title of their juft independence. It does not
appear that the emperor attempted to revive his
obfolete claims over the kingdom of Jerufalem 2;
but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more
recent in his poffeffion, and more acceffible to his

2 The kings of Jerufalem fubmitted however to a nominal dependence, and in the dates of their infcriptions (one is still legible in the church of Bethlem), they refpectfully placed before their own, the name of the reigning emperor (Ducange, Differtations fur Joinville, xxvii. p 319.).

arms,

LIX.

arms. The great army of the crufaders was anni- CHA P. hilated or difperfed; the principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the furprife and captivity of Bohemond: his ranfom had oppreffed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers were infufficient to repel the hoftilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this diftrefs, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous refolution, of leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinfman, the faithful Tancred; of arming the Weft against the Byzantine empire, and of executing the defign which he inherited from the leffons and example of his father Guifcard. His embarkation was clandeftine: and if we may credit a tale of the princefs Anne, he paffed the hoftile fea, closely fecreted in a coffin. But his reception in France was dignified by the public applaufe, and his marriage with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, fince the braveft fpirits of the age enlifted under his veteran command; and he repaffed the Adriatic at the head of five thoufand horse and forty thousand foot, affembled from the most remote climates of Europe. The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progrefs of famine, and approach of Winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal con

3 Anna Comnena adds, that to complete the imitation, he was fhut up with a dead cock; and condefcends to wonder how the Barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This abfurd tale is unknown to the Latins.

4 A Quan, in the Byzantine Geography, muft mean England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I would not fufer him to levy any troops in his kingdom (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p 41.).

CHAP. federates were feduced from his ftandard.

LIX.

A

treaty of peace' fufpended 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 fatiate. His children fucceeded to the principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were ftrictly defined, the homage was clearly ftipulated, and the cities of Tarfus and Malmiftra were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coaft of Anatolia, they poffeffed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The Seljukian dynasty of Roum was separated on all fides from the fea and their Mufulman brethren; the power of the fultans was fhaken by the victories, and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the lofs of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obfcure and inland town above three hundred miles from Conftantinople'. Inftead of trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes

6

5 The copy of the treaty (Alexiad, 1. xiii. p. 406–416.) 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 hiftory of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damafcus, 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 ftation by Xenophon, and by Strabo, with the ambiguous title of Kong (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121.). Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (9) 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. verf. Reifke; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from Ibn Said.)

waged

LIX.

waged an offenfive war against the Turks, and CHAP. the first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.

the first crufade, A. D. ΙΙΟΙ.

thefecond,

of Conrad Louis VII.

III. and

A. D. 1147.

the third, ric I.

of Frede

In the twelfth century, three great emigrations Expedi tions by marched by land from the Weft to the relief of land: Palestine. The foldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany, were excited by the example and fuccefs of the first crufade 3. Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy fepulchre, the emperor, and the French king, Conrad the third, and Louis the feventh, undertook the second crufade to fupport the falling fortunes of the Latins. A grand divifion of the third crufade was led by the emperor Frederic Barbaroffa 10, who fympathifed with his brothers of France and England in the common lofs of Jerufalem. These three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness of numbers, their paffage through the Greek empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may fave the repe

8 For this fupplement to the firft crufade, fee Anna Comnena (Alexias, 1. xi. p. 331, &c. and the viiith book of Albert Aquenfis.

9 For the fecond crufade of Conrad III. and Lewis VII. fee William of Tyre (1 xvi. c. 18-29.), Otho of Frifingen (1. i. c. 34 —45. 59, 60.), Matthew Paris (Hift. Major. p. 68.), Struvius (Corpus, Hift. Germanicæ, p. 372, 373.), Scriptores Rerum Francicarum à Duchefne, tom. iv. Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6. p. 41-48. Cinnamus, 1. ii. p. 41-49.

10 For the third crufade, of Frederic Barbaroffa, fee Nicetas in Ifaac. Angel. 1. ii. c. 3-8. p. 257-266. Struv. (Corpus, Hift. Germ. p. 414.), and two historians, who probably were fpectators, Tagino (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406-416. edit. Struv.), and the Anonymus de Expeditione Afiaticâ, Fred. I. (in Canifii, Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498-526. edit. Bainage).

A. D. 1189.

LIX.

CHAP. tition of a tedious narrative. However fplendid it may feem, a regular, story of the crufades would exhibit the perpetual return of the fame caufes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or recovery of the Holy Land, would appear fo many faint and unfuccefsful copies of the original.

Their mumbers.

I. Of the fwarms that fo clofely trod in the footsteps of the firft 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 difplayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain: the firft a defcendant of Hugh Capet, the fecond a father of the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, tranfported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treafures and ornaments of his church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great, and Stephen of Chartres, returned to confummate their unfinished vow. The huge and diforderly bodies of their followers moved forwards in two columns; and if the first confifted of two hundred and fixty thoufand perfons, the fecond might poffibly amount to fixty thoufand horfe, and one hundred thousand foot ". The armies of the fecond crufade might have claimed the conqueft of Afia; the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the presence of their fovereigns; and both the

Anne, who ftates thefe later fwarms at 40,000 horse, and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were ftrangely ignorant of the names, families, and poffeffions of the Latin princes.

rank