LVIII. instituted for their use, of limited and domestic jurisdiction: CHA P. the fworn members were Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the office of the prefident (in Arabic, of the rais) was fometimes exercised by the viscount of the city. At an immeafurable diftance below the nobles, the burgeffes, Villains and and the strangers, the Affife of Jerufalem condefcends to flaves. mention the villains and flaves, the peasants of the land and the captives of war, who were almoft equally confidered 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 ftrayed from the lawful owner, they might be loft and claimed: the flave and falcon were of the fame value; but three flaves, or twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price of the war-horse; and a fum of three hundred pieces of gold was fixed, in the age of chivalry, as the equivalent of the more noble animal (143).› (143) See the Affifes de Jerufalem (310, 311, 312). These laws were enacted as late as the year 1350, in the kingdom of Cyprus. In the fame 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 lefs exorbitant in England. CHAP. -1118. СНАР. LIX. Prefervation of the Greek Empire.-Numbers, Paffage, and Na ftile lefs grave than that of history, I fhould per who is faid to follow the fteps, and to devour the leavings, Success of of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and toils in the Alexius, A. D. 1097 paffage of the firft crusade, they were amply recompenfed by the fubfequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conqueft of Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the neighbourhood of Conftantinople. While the crufaders, with blind valour, advanced into the midland countries of Afia, the crafty Greek improved the favourable occafion when the emirs of the fea-coaft were recalled to the standard of the fultan. The Turks were driven from the ifles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephefus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the Hellefpont to the banks of the Mæander, and the rocky fhores of Pamphylia. The churches refumed their fplendour; the towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the defart country was peopled with colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more diftant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliver ance (1) Anna Comnena relates her father's conquefts in Afia Minor, Alexiad, 1. xi. p. 321-325. 1. xiv. p. 419. ; his Cilician war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328-342.; the war of Epirus, with tedious prolixity, l. xii, xiii. p. 345-406.; the death of Bohemond, I. xiv, p. 419. LIX. ance of the holy fepulchre ; but, by the Latins, he was CHA P. ftigmatized with the foul reproach of treafon and desertion. They had fworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but he had promised to affift their enterprise in perfon, or, at leaft, with his troops and treasures, his bafe retreat diffolved their obligations; and the fword, which had been the inftrument of their victory, was the pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that the emperor attempted to revive his obfolete claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem (2); but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his poffeffion, and more acceffible to his arms. The great army of the crufaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the furprise and captivity of Bohemond: his ransom had oppreffed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers were infufficient to repel the hoftilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous refolution, of leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinfman, the faithful Tancred; of arming the West against the Byzantine empire, and of executing the defign which he inherited from the lefons and example of his father Guifcard. His embarka tion was clandeftine: and if we may credit a tale of the princess Anne, he paffed the hoftile fea, closely fecreted 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, fince the braveft fpirits of the age enlifted under his veteran command ; and he repaffed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and forty thousand foot, affembled from the most remote climates of Europe (4). The ftrength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progrefs of famine, and approach of Winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal (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 respectfully placed before their own, the name of the reigning emperor (Ducange, Differtations fur Joinville, vii, p. 319.). (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) An Ovars, in the Byzantine Geography, muft mean England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not fuffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad, p. 41) CHA P. venal confederates were feduced from his ftandard. A LIX. treaty of peace (5) fufpended the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered by the death of an adverfary, whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor profperity 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 dynafty of Roum (6) was feparated 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 Constantinople (7). Instead of trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an offenfive war against the Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.. Expeditions hy land: the first crufade, In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land from the Weft to the relief of Palestine. The foldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy, France and Germany, A. D. 10. were excited by the example and fuccefs of the first cruthe fecond fade (8). Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy fepulchre, the emperor and the French king, Conrad Louis VII. the third, and Louis the feventh, undertook the fecond A.D.1147, crufade to fupport the falling fortunes of the Latins (9). the third, of Frederic I. A grand division of the third crufade was led by the em of Conrad III. and A. D. 1189. peror (5) The copy of the treaty (Alexiad, l. 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. Yet (7) Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by Strabo, with the ambiguous title of Kauaonis (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121.). St. Paul found in that place a multitude (πλntos) 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. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from Ibn Said. (8) For this fupplenient to the first crufade, fee Anna Comnena (Alexias, 1. xi. p. 331, &c. and the 8th book of Albert Aquenfis), (9) For the fecond crufade of Conrad III. and Lewis VII. fee William .LIX. peror Frederic Barbaroffa (15), who fympathifed with his CH A P brothers of France and England in the common lofs of Jerufalem. These three expeditions may be compared in their refemblance of the greatnefs of numbers, their paffage through the Greek empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may fave the repetition of a tedious narrative. However fplendid it may feem, a regular ftory 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, bers. I. Of the fwarms that fo closely trod in the footsteps of Their numthe 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 first a defcendant of Hugh Capet, the fecond a father of the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his church and palace; and the veteran crufaders, 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 (11). The armies of the second 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 rank and perfonal 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 em perora of Tyre ( xvi. c. 18-29.), Otho of Frifingen (1. i. c. 34-45. 59, 60.), Matthew Paris (Hift. Major. p 68.), Struvius (Corpus. Hift. Germanice, P. 372, 373.), Scriptores Kerum Francicarum à Duchefne, tom. iv. Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, 1. i. c. 4, 5, 6. p. 41-48. Cinnamus, l. ii. p. 41-49. (10) For the third crufade, of Frederic Barbaroffa, fee Nicetas in Ifaac. Angel. I. ii. c. 3-8. p. 257-266. Struv. Corpus, Hift. Germ. p. 414.), and two hiftorians, who probably were fpectators, Tagino (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406-416. edit. Struv.), and the Anonymous de Expeditione Afiatica, Fred. I. (in Canifii, Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 49S-526. edit. Bainage). |