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The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ar dor of his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles: from either side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the banner of St. Peter; and his successor reveals his intention of marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet. But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in person, this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second, the most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of the East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with Urban for the name and honors of the pontificate. He attempted to unite the powers of the West, at a time when the princes were separated from the church, and the people from their princes, by the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had thundered against the emperor and the king of France. Philip the First, of France, supported with patience the censures which he had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage. Henry the Fourth, of Germany, asserted the right of investi tures, the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the ring and crosier. But the emperor's party was crushed in Italy by the arms of the Normans and the Countess Mathilda; and the long quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son Conrad and the shame of his wife, who, in the synods of Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor and his own." So popular was the

• Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manû volunt in inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. 1. 31, in tom. xii. 322, concil.)

* See the original lives of Urban II. by Pandulphus Pisanus and Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom. iii. pars i. p. 352,

353.

She is known by the different names of Praxes, Eupræcia, Eurasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh. (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicæ, p. 340.)

Henricus odio eam cœpit habere: ideo incarceravit eam, et cor cessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium hortans ut eam suba gitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot. apud Baron. A. D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is described by Bertholdus rerum inspector: que se tantas et tam inauditas fornicationum spur

cause of Urban, so weighty was his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia' was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgundy, Swabia, and Bavaria, Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty thousand of the laity attended this important meeting; and, as the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent to the city, The ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, *ere introduced to plead the distress of their sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided only by a narrow sea from the victorious Turks, the common enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they flattered the pride of the Latin princes; and, appealing at once to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of

a speedy and powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem; but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in the autumn of the same year. The short delay would propagate the flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a nation of soldiersR still

citias, et a tantis passam fuisse conquesta est, &c.; and again at Pla centia: satis misericorditer suscepit, eo quòd ipsam tantas spurcitias non tam commisisse quam invitam pertulisse pro certo cognoverit papa cum sanctâ synodo. Apud Baron. A. D. 1093, No. 4, 1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous stories of herself and her husband.

See the narrative and acts of the synod of Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.

Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and valor of the French nation, the author and example of the crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida . . . . Quos enim Britonea Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus v'deamus, non illico Francos hornes appellemus? (p. 478.) He owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into petulance among foreigners. (p. 488) and vain loquaciousness, (p 502.)

proud of the preeminence of their name, and ambitious te emulate their hero Charlemagne," who, in the popular romance of Turpin," had achieved the conquest of the Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province; nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious scenes of our youth.

It may occasion some surprise that the Koman pontiff should erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from whence he hurled his anathemas against the king; but our surprise will vanish so soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the eleventh century." Philip the First was the greatgrandson of Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline of Charlemagne's posterity, added the regal title to his patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass, he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the rest of France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and hereditary power," who dis dained the control of laws and legal assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged by the disobedience of their inferior vassals. At Clermont, in the territories of

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• Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1. Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. 1. i. p. 33, &c.

10 John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of Rheims, A. D. 773 After the year 1000, this romance was composed in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes himself as a fighting and drinking priest' Yet the book of lies was pronounced authentic by Pope Calix. us II., (A. D. 1122,) and is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in he great Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric Bibliot. Latin Medii Evi, edit. Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)

11 See Etat de la France, by the Count de Boulainvilliers, tom, i. p. 180--182, and the second volume of the Observations sur l'Histoire de France, by the Abbé de Mably.

"In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the first Capetians vere scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Flanders, contracted the aame and limits of the proper France See Hadrian Vales, Notitia alliar um

the count of Auvergne," the pope might brave with impunity the resentment of Philip; and the council wnich he convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than the synod of Placentia." Besides his court and council of Rcman cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two hundred and twenty-five bishops: the number of mitred prelates was computed at four hundred; and the fathers of the church were blessed by the saints and enlightened by the doctors of the age. From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights of power and renown attended the council," in high expectation of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity, that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of November, erected their tents or huts in the open field. A session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced against th license of private war; the Truce of God" was confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the church; and a protection of three years was extended to husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone

"These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually became princes of the city. Melanges, tirés d'une grand Bibliothèque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.

&.c.

14 See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xii. p. 829,

16 Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiæ superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p. 31, 32. Will. Tyr i 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480. Fulcher. Carnot. p. 282.)

16 The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first invented in Aquitain, A. L. 1052; blamed by some bishops as an occasion of per fury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to then privileges Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi p. 682-685.)

forth among the nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese the merit and glory of the deliver ance of the Holy Land; and when the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was vehement, his suc sess inevitable. The orator was interrupted by the shout of thousands, who with one voice, and in their rustic idiom, exclaimed aloud, "God wills it, God wills it." " "It is indeed the will of God," replied the pope; "and let this memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred and irrevocable engagement." The proposal was joyfully accepted; great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their garments the sign of the cross, and solicited the pope to march at their head. This dangerous honor was declined by the more prudent successor of Gregory, who alleged the schism of the church, and the duties of his pas toral office, recommending to the faithful, who were disqualified by sex or profession, by age or infirmity, to aid, with their prayers and alms, the personal service of their robust orethren. The name and powers of his legate he devolved on Adhemar bishop of Puy, the first who had received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the council excused the absence, and pledged the honor, of their

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17 Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. 1. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron. Casinense, 1. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p 207, sur Joinville, and Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A. D. 1100, very near, both in time and place, to the council of Cler nut, (p. 15, 16.)

18 Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red, in the third the French alone preserved that color, while green crosses were adoptad by the Flemings, and white by the English, (Ducange, tom i P 651.) Yet in England, the red ever appears the favorite, and were, the national, color of our military ensigns and nikrms.

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