 Chapter 57. The Greatness and Unity of the Turkish Empire Expired in the Person of Malik Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by his brother and his four sons, and after a series of civil wars, the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and principal branch of the House of Seljuk. The three younger dynasties were those of Kermin, of Syria, and of Rome. The first of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, dominion on the shores of the Indian Ocean, the second expelled the Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus, and the third, our peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The generous policy of Malik contributed to their elevation. He allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their ambition, nor was he displeased that they should draw away the more ardent spirits who might have disturbed the tranquility of his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his royal brethren. The thrones of Kermin and Nice, of Aleppo and Damascus, the adobex and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia, erected their standards under the shadow of his scepter, and the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the western Asia. After the death of Malik, the bands of union and subordination were relaxed and finally dissolved. The indulgence of the House of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms, and in the Oriental style a crown of princes arose from the dust of their feet. A prince of the royal line, Katolmish, the son of Israel, the son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan and the humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons, strong in arms, ambitious of power and eager for revenge, unsheathed their scimitars against the son of Alp Arslan. The two armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his venerable mediation. Instead of shedding the blood of your brethren, your brethren both in dissent and faith, unite your forces in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and his apostle. They listened to his voice, the sultan embraced his rebellious kinsmen, and the eldest, the valiant Solimon, accepted the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman Empire, from Azarun to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the west. Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates, the Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaya in Firdia, and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as the Hell's Pond and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the Empire, the peninsula of Azaminer had been exposed to the transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and Saracens, but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for the Turkish Sultan, and his arms were introduced by the Greeks, who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudoshia had trembled under the weight of the imperial crown, till the provinces of the east and west were lost in the same month by a double rebellion, of either chief Nicophorus was the name, but the surnames of Bryanius and Botaniatis distinguished the European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their promises, were weighed in the divan, and after some hesitation Suleyman declared himself in favor of Botaniatis, opened a free passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and joined the banner of the Crescent to that of the Cross. After his ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the Sultan was hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Skutayari, and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to whose dexterity encouraged the new emperor was indebted for the defeat and captivity of his rival Bryanius. But the conquest of Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia. Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Helzpont, and the regular progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another candidate implored the aid of the Sultan, Melisthenus in his purple robes and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish camp, and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a Roman prince who immediately surrendered them into the hands of the barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of peace with the Emperor Alexius. His fear of Robert compelled him to seek the friendship of Suleiman, and it was not till after the sultan's death that he extended, as far as Nicomedia, about sixty miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman world. Trebizan alone defended on either side by the sea and mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxene, the ancient character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a Christian empire. Since the first conquest of the Caliphs, the establishment of the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable loss which the church and empire had sustained. By the propagation of the Muslim faith Suleiman deserved the name of Ghazi, a holy champion, and his new kingdoms, of the Romans or of Rome, was added to the tables of Oriental geography. It is described as extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black Sea to the confines of Syria, pregnant with mines of silver and iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and productive of cattle and excellent horses. The wealth of Lydia, the arts of the Greeks, the splendor of the Augustan age, existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in the eyes of the Sisyon conquerors. Yet in the present decay Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities, and under the Byzantine empire they were far more flourishing in numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the Sultan, Nis, the metropolis of Bithnia, was preferred for his palace and fortress. The seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Rome was planted one hundred miles from Constantinople, and the divinity of Christ was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity of God and the mission of Muhammad were preached in the mosques. The Arabian learning was taught in the schools. The Qadis judged according to the law of the Koran. The Turkish manners and language prevailed in the cities, and Turkmen camps were scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard conditions of tribute and servitude the Greek Christians might enjoy the exercise of their religion. But their most holy churches were profaned, their priests and bishops were insulted, they were compelled to suffer the triumph of the pagans, and the apostasy of their brethren, many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision, and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive allegiance to Christ and Caesar, but the solitary province was separated from all Roman aid and surrounded on all sides by the Muhammadan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nisine palace and offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Suleiman. The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights, for he reposed in the day, performed a march of six hundred miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his enterprise, and the dependent cities, as far as Laodotia and the confines of Aleppo, obeyed the example of the metropolis. From Laodotia to the Thracian Bosphorus, or Arm of St. George, the conquests and reign of Suleiman extended thirty days' journey in length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen between the rocks of Lycia and the Black Sea. The Turkish ignorance of navigation protected, for a while, the inglorious safety of the emperor, but no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by the hands of the captive Greeks than Alexius trembled behind the walls of his capital. His plaintiff epistles were dispersed over Europe to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the danger, the weakness, and the riches of the city of Constantine. But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that of Jerusalem, which soon became the theatre of nations. In their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the assurance of their religion and property, but the articles were interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute, and in the four hundred years of the reign of the Caliphs, the political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of storm and sunshine. By the increase of proselytes in population the Mohammedans might excuse the usurpation of three-fourths of the city, but a peculiar quarter was reserved for the patriarch with his clergy and people. A tribute of two pieces of gold was the price of protection, and the sepulchre of Christ, with the Church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands of his votaries. Of these votaries the most numerous and respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem. The pilgrimages to the Holy Land had been stimulated rather than suppressed by the conquest of the Arabs, and the enthusiasm which had always prompted these perilous journeys was nourished by the congenial passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the East and West continued to visit the Holy Sepulchre, and the adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the Festival of Easter, and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the Cops and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective communions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the worship of so many nations in the common temple of their religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and peace, but the zeal of the Christian sex was embittered by hatred and revenge, and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah, who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and persecute their spiritual brethren. The preeminence was asserted by the spirit and numbers of the Franks, and the greatness of Charlemagne protected both the Latin pilgrims and the Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and Jerusalem was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor, and many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his liberal devotion. Arun al-Rashid, the greatest of the Abbasids, esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius and power. Their friendship was cemented by a frequent intercourse of gifts and embassies, and the Caliph, without resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the Republic of Amalfi promoted the interests of trade and religion in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful imports, the favor and alliance of the Fatimite Caliphs. An annual fair was instituted on Mount Cavalry, and the Italian merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order which has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet, the disciples of Muhammad, instead of blaming, would have imitated their piety. But these rigid Unitarians were scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and resurrection of a God. The Catholic images were branded with the name of idols, and the Muslims smiled with indignation at the miraculous flame which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the holy sepulchre. This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth century, was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and Coptic sects, who impose on the credulous spectators for their own benefit and that of their tyrants. In every age a principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of interest, and the revenue of the prince and his emir was increased each year by the expense and tribute of so many thousand strangers. The revolution which transferred the scepter from the Abbasids to the Fatimites was a benefit rather than an injury to the holy land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the importance of Christian trade, and the emirs of Palestine were less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous hachem, a frantic youth who was delivered by his impiety and despotism from the fear either of God or man, and whose reign was a wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs of Egypt he imposed on the women an absolute confinement. The restraint excited the clamors of both sexes, their clamors provoked his fury, a part of old Cairo was delivered to the flames, and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous musselman, the founder or benefactor of mosques and colleges, twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Quran were transcribed at his expense in letters of gold, and his edict excerpted the vineyards of the upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered by the hope of introducing a new religion. He aspired above the fame of a prophet and styled himself the visible image of the Most High God, who after nine apparitions on earth was at length manifest in his royal person. With the name of Hakim, the Lord of the Living and the Dead, every knee was bent in religious adoration. His mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo, sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith, and at the present hour a free and warlike people, the druzes of Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman and a tyrant. In his divine character Hakim hated the Jews and Christians as the servants of his rivals, while some remains of prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of Muhammad. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostles. The common rites and special privileges of the sectaries were equally disregarded, and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the Church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations. The luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock, which properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this sacrilege the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted, but instead of arming in the defense of the holy land they contented themselves with burning or banishing the Jews, as the secret advisers of the impious barbarian. Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy or repentance of Hakim himself, and the royal mandate was sealed for the restitution of the churches when the tyrant was assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy. A free toleration was again granted with the pious aid of the emperor of Constantinople. The holy sepulchre arose from its ruins, and after a short abstinence the pilgrims returned with an increase of appetite to the spiritual feast. In the sea voyage of Palestine the dangers were frequent and the opportunities rare, but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren, and from Belgrade to Antioch they traversed fifteen hundred miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks the zeal of pilgrimage was prevailed beyond the example of former times, and the roads were covered with the multitudes of either sex and of every rank who professed their contempt of life so soon as they should have kissed the tomb of their redeemer. Princes and prelates abandoned the care of their dominions, and the numbers of these pious caravans were apprelude to the armies which marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About thirty years before the first crusade the archbishop of Mence, with the bishops of Utrecht, Bomberg and Radisban, undertook this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan, and the multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons. At Constantinople they were hospitably entertained by the emperor, but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault of the wild Arabs. They drew their swords with scrupulous reluctance and sustained the siege in the village of Capernaum till they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatemite Amir. After visiting the holy places they embarked for Italy, but only a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land. In Gulfis, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion of this pilgrimage. He observed that they sailed from Normandy thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen, but that they repass the Alps twenty miserable palmers with the staff in their hand and the wallet at their back. After the defeat of the Romans the tranquility of the Fatemite caliphs was invaded by the Turks. One of the lieutenants of Malik Shah, Atsiz the Charismian, marched into Syria at the head of a powerful army and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword. Hems and the other cities of the province acknowledged the caliph of Baghdad and the Sultan of Persia, and the victorious Amir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile. The Fatemite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa, but the negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a desperate sally and repulsed the Turk from the confines of Egypt. In his retreat he indulged the license of slaughter and rapine. The judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his camp, and their execution was followed by the massacre of three thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon punished by the Sultan Takush, the brother of Malik Shah, who, with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned about twenty years in Jerusalem, but the hereditary command of the holy city and territory was entrusted or abandoned to the Amir Ortaq, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children, after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the borders of Armenia and Assyria. The Oriental Christians and the Latin Pilgrims deplored a revolution, which instead of the regular government and old alliance of the caliphs imposed on their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the north. In his court and camp the great Sultan had adopted, in some degree, the arts and manners of Persia, but the body of the Turkish nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed the fierceness of the desert. From Nice to Jerusalem the western countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility, and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The Pilgrims, who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and disease before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulcher. A spirit of native barbarism or recent zeal prompted the Turk minds to insult the clergy of every sect. The patriarch was dragged by the hare along the pavement and cast into a dungeon to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock, and the divine worship in the Church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by the savage rudeness of its masters. The pathetic tale excited the millions of the West to march under the standard of the cross to the relief of the Holy Land, and yet how trifling is the sum of these accumulated evils if compared with the single act of the sacrilege of Ha'kem, which had been so patiently endured by the Latin Christians. A slighter provocation inflamed the more irascible temper of their descendants. A new spirit had arisen of religious chivalry and papal domination. A nerve was touched of exquisite feeling and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe. Codding by Claude Banta Origin and numbers of the first crusade, characters of the Latin princes, their march to Constantinople, policy of the Greek Emperor Alexius, conquest of Nice, Antioch, and Jerusalem by the Franks, deliverance of the Holy Sepulcher, god-free of bullion, first king of Jerusalem, institutions of the French or Latin Kingdom. About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks, the Holy Sepulcher was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter, a native of Amiens in the province of Picardy in France. His resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the oppression of the Christian name. He mingled his tears with those of the patriarch and earnestly inquired if no hopes of relief could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors of Constantine. I will rouse, exclaimed the hermit, the martial nations of Europe in your cause. And Europe was obedient to the call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with epistles of credit and complaint, and no sooner did he land at Baris than Peter hastened to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff. His stature was small, his appearance contemptible, but his eye was keen and lively, and he possessed that vehemence of speech which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul. He was born of a gentleman's family, for we must now adopt a modern idiom, and his military service was under the neighboring counts of Balone, the heroes of the First Crusade. But he soon relinquished the sword and the world, and if it be true that his wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw with less reluctance from her bed to a convent and at length to a hermitage. In this austere solitude his body was emaciated, his fancy wasn't flamed, whatever he wished he believed, whatever he believed he saw in dreams and revelations. From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned and accomplished fanatic, but as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban II received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious design, promised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous missionary traversed, with speed and success, the provinces of Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his prayers long and fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand he distributed with the other. His head was bare, his feet naked, his meager body was wrapped in a coarse garment. He bore and displayed a weighty crucifix, and the ass in which he rode was sanctified in the public eye by the service of the man of God. He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets, and the highways. The hermit entered with equal confidence the palace and the cottage, and the people, for all was people, was impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms. When he painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine, every heart was melted to compassion, every breast glowed with indignation when he challenged the warriors of the age to defend their brethren and rescue their savior. His ignorance of art and language was compensated by size and tears and ejaculations, and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent appeals to Christ and his mother to the saints and angels of paradise with whom he had personally conversed. The most perfect order of Athens might have envied the success of his eloquence, the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the councils and decrees of the supreme pontiff. The magnanimous spirit of Gregory VII had already embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia. The ardour 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 Saint 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 II, 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 Griberte of Ravenna, who contended with Urban for the name and honour 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 of the King of France. Philip I of France supported with patience the censures which he had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage. Henry IV of Germany asserted the right of investiture, the prerogative of confirming the bishops by the delivery of the ring and crozier. 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 inventummed 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 honour and his own. So popular was the 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, were 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 extorted 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 more distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem. But the prudent urban adjoined 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 soldiers still proud of the preeminence of their name and ambitious to 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 himself was a native of France, a monk of Clugney, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne of Saint 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 Roman 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 in the eleventh century. Philip I was the great-grandson of Eucépe, the founder of the present race, who in the decline of Charlemagne's posterity added the regal title to his patrimonial estates in Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction, but in the rest of France you and his first descendants were no more than feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and hereditary power who disdain to 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 the Count of Auvergne, the pope might brave with impunity the resentment of Philip, and the council which he convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than the Synod of Placentia. Besides his court and council of Roman 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 resolve, 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 open field. A session of eight days produced some useful or edifying cannons for the reformation of manners. A severe censor was pronounced against the 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. A protection of three years was extended to husbandmen and merchants, the defenseless victims of military repine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times, and the benevolent efforts of urban deserved 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 forth among the nations. The clergy on their return had preached in every diocese the merit and glory of the deliverance of the Holy Land, and when the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the marketplace of Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was vehement, his success 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 pastoral 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 brethren. The name and powers of his legate he devolved on Adamar, bishop of Poi, the first who had received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal chiefs was Raymond, count of the loose, whose ambassadors in the council excused the absence and pledged the honor of their master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous admonition to invite their countrymen and friends, and their departure for the holy land was fixed to the festival of the assumption the fifteenth of August of the ensuing year. So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right as a sufficient ground of national hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more rigorous scrutiny. Or can we hastily believe that the servants of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction, unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the necessity inevitable? The policy of an action may be determined from the tardy lessons of experience, but before we act our conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of our enterprise. In the age of the Crusades, the Christians both of the East and West were persuaded of their lawfulness and merit, their arguments were clouded by the perpetual abuse of scripture and rhetoric, but they seemed to insist on the right of natural and religious defense, their peculiar title to the holy land, and the impiety of their pagan and Mahometan foes. 1. The right of a just defense may fairly include our civil and spiritual allies. It depends on the existence of danger, and that danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the malice and the power of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Musclemen conquerors, and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian worship. But it cannot be denied that the Oriental churches are depressed under their iron yoke, that in peace and war they assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire, and that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued, in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as Jerusalem and the Hellespont, and the Greek Empire tottered on the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West, and the privilege of defense must reach to prevent as well as to repel an impending assault. But the salutary purpose might have been accomplished by a moderate succor, and our calmer reason must disclaim the innumerable hosts and remote operations which overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. Two, Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the Latins, and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior. It was their right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust possessors who profaned the sepulcher and oppressed the pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the preeminence of Jerusalem and the sanctity of Palestine have been abolished with the Mosaic Law, that the God of the Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlehem or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the violation of the moral precepts of the Gospel. Such arguments glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition, and the religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred ground of mystery and miracle. Three, but the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindustan, require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility, that obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of the cross, and that grace is the sole foundation of dominion as well as of mercy. Above four hundred years before the first Crusade, the Eastern and Western provinces of the Roman Empire had been acquired about the same time and in the same manner by the barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks, but in the eyes of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline of penance wasn't forced, and with the multiplication of sins, the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In the Middle Ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the criminal, compelled him to account for his thoughts, words and actions, and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God. But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed to inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of legislation was invented by the Greeks. Their penitentials were translated or imitated in the Latin church, and in the time of Charlemagne the clergy of every diocese were provided with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments, each case was supposed, each difference was remarked by the experience or penetration of the monks. Some sins are enumerated, which innocents could not have suspected, and others which reason cannot believe. And the more ordinary offenses of fornication and adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of repine and murder, were expiated by appennance, which, according to the various circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years. During this term of mortification the patient was healed, the criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and prayers. The disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and remorse, and he humbly abstained from all the business and pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city. The barbarians of the West believed and trembled, but nature often rebelled against principle, and the magistrate labored without effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable. The guilt of adultery was multiplied by daily repetition, and the act of homicide might involve the massacre of a whole people. Each act was separately numbered, and in those times of anarchy and vice, a modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years. His insolvency was relieved by a commutation or indulgence. A year of penance was appreciated at twenty-sixth Solody of Silver, about four pounds sterling for the rich, three Solody or nine shillings for the indigent, and these alms were soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived from the redemption of sins an inexhaustible source of opulence and dominion. A debt of three hundred years or twelve hundred pounds was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune. The scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of land, and the princely donations of pep and Charlemagne are expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of the civil law that whoever cannot pay with his purse must pay with his body, and the practice of flagellation was adopted by the monks a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic arithmetic a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes, and such was the skill and patience of the famous hermit, Saint Dominic of the Iron Carass, that in six days he could discharge an entire century by a whipping of three hundred thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of both sexes, and as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted a sturdy disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his benefactors. His compensations of the purse and person introduced in the eleventh century a more honorable mode of satisfaction, the merit of military service against the Saracens of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban II. In the Council of Clermont that proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of the Cross, the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt for all that might be due of canonical penance. The cold philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide arose by the thousands to redeem their souls by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren, and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure, none were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin, and those who were the least amenable to the justice of God and the Church were the best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of Martyrdom, and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their salvation. They took up the Cross and entered with confidence into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their safety. Perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the Promised Land. Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that rivers would open for their passage, that the walls of their strongest cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets, and that the Son would be arrested in his mid-career to allow them time for the destruction of the infidels? CHAPTER 58 RECORDING by Claude Banta Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulcher, I will dare to affirm that all were prompted by the spirit of enthusiasm, the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded that in many it was not the soul, that in some it was not the leading principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to stem. They are strong and irresistible to impel the stream of national manners. Against the private wars of the barbarians, their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels, the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins. They were enjoined as appennants to gratify those passions, to visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross, and the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe they shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were devoted to their arms. Their fancy already grasped the golden sceptres of Asia, and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private adventurer. Christendom in Heruda's state must have yielded to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries, and their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the tails of pilgrims and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every wonder of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of orderiferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this earthly paradise each warrior depended on his sword to carve a plenteous and honorable establishment which he measured only by the extent of his wishes. Their vassals and soldiers trusted their fortunes to God and their master. The spoils of a Turkish amir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp, and the flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, were temptations more adapted to the nature than to the profession of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by futile or ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign the peasants and burgers who were attached to the servitude of the Glebe might escape from a haughty lord and transplant themselves and their families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself from the discipline of his convent. The debtor might suspend the accumulation of usury and the pursuit of his creditors, and outlaws and malifactors of every caste might continue to brave the laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. These motives were potent and numerous. When we have singly computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add the infinite series, the multiplying powers of example and fashion. The first prosolites became the warmest and most effectual missionaries of the cross. Among their friends and countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense of their holy vow, and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of cowardice. The opportunity of visiting with an army, the sepulcher of Christ, was embraced by the old and infirm by women and children who consulted rather their zeal than their strength, and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their companions or the most eager the ensuing day to tread in their footsteps. The ignorance which magnified the hopes diminished the perils of the enterprise. Since the Turkish conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated, the chiefs themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and the state of their enemies, and such was the stupidity of the people that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors, yet the more prudent of the crusaders who were not sure that they should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or mana provided themselves with those precious metals which in every country are the representatives of every commodity. To defray, according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes alienated their provinces, nobles their land and castles, peasants their cattle, and the instruments of husbandry, the value of property was depreciated by the eager competition of multitudes, while the price of arms and horses was raised to an exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. Those who remained at home with sense and money were enriched by the epidemical disease, the sovereigns acquired at a cheap rate the domains of their vassals, and the ecclesiastical purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their prayers. The cross, which was commonly sued on the garment in cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin. A hot iron or indelible liquor was applied to perpetuate the mark, and a crafty monk who showed the miraculous impression on his breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest benefices of Palestine. The 15th of August had been fixed in the Council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims, but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly dispatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered before I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes flocked round the first missionary of the crusade and depressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy sepulcher. The hermit, assuming the character without the talents or authority of a general, impaled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the penniless, a valiant, though needy soldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of repine prostitution and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen at the head of three thousand horse attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil, but their genuine leaders, may we credit such folly, were a goose and a goat, who were carried in front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine spirit. Of these and of other bands of enthusiasts the first and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and the Rhine their colonies were numerous and rich, and they enjoyed under the protection of the emperor and the bishops the free exercise of their religion. At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred, nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion, but the more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricaded their houses and precipitating themselves, their families and their wealth into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the malice or at least the avarice of their implacable foes. Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy the crusaders were compelled to traverse an interval of six hundred miles, the wild and desolate countries of Hungary and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful and intersected with rivers, but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity. The Hungarians were ruled by their native princes, the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor, but on the slightest provocation their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims. Crusaders must have been unskillful and languid among a people whose cities were built of reeds and timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized and greedily consumed, and on the first quarrel the crusaders gave aloof to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war and of discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek prefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force. At the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback. Their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody. About a third of the naked fugitives, and the hermit Peter was of the number, escaped to the Thracian mountains, and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses, but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment than their venom was again inflamed. They stung their benefactor, and neither gardens nor palaces nor churches were safe from their depredations. For his own safety Alexius alerted them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscience of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople, and his lieutenant, Walter the Penelus, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Solomon tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nice. They were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows, and a pyramid of bones informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand had already perished before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise. None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the first crusade. The emperor Henry IV was not disposed to obey the summons of the pope. Philip I of France was occupied by his pleasures William Rufus of England by a recent conquest. The kings of Spain were engaged in a domestic war against the moors, and the northern monarchs of Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland were yet strangers to the passions and interests of the south. The religious order was more strongly felt by the princes of the Second Order, who held an important place in the feudal system. Their situation will naturally cast under four distinct heads, the review of their names and characters, but I may escape some needless repetition by observing at once that courage and the exercise of arms are the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. One, the first rank, both in war and council, is justly due to Godfrey of Bollion, and happy would it have been for the crusaders if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne from whom he was descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of the Counts of Bologne. Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine, was the inheritance of his mother, and by the emperor's bounty he was himself invested with that dukele title, which has been improperly transferred to his lordship of Bollion in the Ardoms. In the service of Henry IV he bore the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rodolf, the rebel king. Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome, and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the holy sepulcher, not as a pilgrim but a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation, his piety, though blind, was sincere, and in the tumult of a camp he practiced the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ, and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey of Bollion was accompanied by his two brothers, by Justus the Elder, who had succeeded to the county of Bologne, and by the younger Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue. The Duke of Lorraine was alike celebrated on either side of the Rhine. From his birth and education he was equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages. The barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine assembled their vassals, and the Confederate force that marched under his banner was composed of four-square-thousand-foot and about ten-thousand horse. Two. In the parliament that was held at Paris in the king's presence about two months after the Council of Clermont, Hugh, Count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who assumed the cross, but the appellation of the great was applied not so much to his maridor possessions, though neither were contemptible, as to the royal birth of the brother of the king of France. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of William the Conqueror, but on his father's death he was deprived of the kingdom of England by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness of temper. His cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure. His profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people. His indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders, and the amiable qualities of a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten-thousand marks he mortgaged Normandy during his absence to the English usurper, but his engagement and behavior in the Holy War announced in Robert a reformation of manners and restored him in some degree to the public esteem. Another Robert was Count of Flanders, a royal province which, in this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France, England, and Denmark. He was surnamed the sword and lance of the Christians, but in the exploits of the soldier he sometimes forgot the duties of a general. Stephen, Count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troye, was one of the richest princes of the age, and the number of his castles has been compared to the 365 days of the year. His mind was improved by literature, and in the council of the chiefs the eloquent Stephen was chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the pilgrims of the British Isles, but the list of the barons who were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan War. In the south of France the command was assumed by Atamar, Bishop of Poy, the Pope Legate, and by Raymond, Count of St. Giles and Thoulouse, who added the prouder titles of Duke of Narbonne and Marquise of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran warrior who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who consecrated his declining age not only to the deliverance, but to the perpetual service of the Holy Sepulcher. His experience and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp, whose distress he was often able and sometimes willing to relieve, but it was easier for him to extort the praise of the infidels than to preserve the love of his subjects and associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper haughty, envious, and obstinate, and though he resigned an ample patrimony for the cause of God, his piety in the public opinion was not exempt from avarice and ambition. A mercantile rather than a martial spirit prevailed among his provincials, a common name which included the natives of Auvern and Languedoc, the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arlais. From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hearty adventurers. As he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting farewell. 4. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor, but his father's will had reduced him to the principality of Tarentum and the remembrance of his eastern trophies till he was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the coolest policy and ambition with a small allay of religious fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly directed the design of the pope which he affected to second with the astonishment and zeal. At the siege of Amalfi, his example and discourse inflamed the passions of a Confederate army. He instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous candidates and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general, and his cousin, Tom Cray, was the partner rather than the servant of the war. In the accomplished character of Tom Cray we discover all the virtues of a perfect knight, the true spirit of chivalry, which inspire the generous sentiments and social offices of man far better than the base philosophy or the baser religion of the times. End of chapter fifty-eight, part two. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Volume five, chapter fifty-eight, part three. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Chapter fifty-eight, The First Crusade, part three, recording by Claude Banta. Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the Crusades a revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans and the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe. The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians. The cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honorable name of Miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen who served on horseback and were invested with the character of knighthood. The Dukes and Counts, who had usurped the rights of sovereignty, divided the provinces among their faithful barons. The barons distributed among their vassals the thiefs or benefices of their jurisdiction, and these military tenants, the peers of each other and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian order, which disdained to conceive the peasant or burger as of the same species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was preserved by pure and equal alliances. Their sons alone, who could produce four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or reproach, might legally pretend to the honor of knighthood, but a valiant plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the sword and became the father of a new race. A single knight could impart, according to his judgment, the character which he received, and the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this personal distinction than from the luster of their diadem. This ceremony, of which some traces may be found in Tacitus and the woods of Germany, was in its origin simple and profane. The candidate, after some previous trial, was invested with the sword and spurs, and his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight blow as an emblem of the last affront which it was lawful for him to endure. But superstition mingled in every public and private action of life. In the Holy Wars it sanctified the profession of arms, and the order of chivalry was assimilated in its rites and privileges to the sacred orders of priesthood. The bath and white garment of the novice were an indecent copy of the regeneration of baptism. His sword, which he offered on the altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion. His solemn reception was preceded by fasts and vigils, and he was created a knight in the name of God of St. George and of St. Michael, the archangel. He swore to accomplish the duties of his profession, and education, example, and the public opinion, were the inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champions of God and the ladies I blushed to unite such discordant names, he devoted himself to speak the truth, to maintain the right, to protect the distressed, to practice courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the ancients, to pursue the infidels, to despise the allurements of ease and safety, and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the honor of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked the illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace, to esteem himself the soul-judge and avenger of his own injuries, and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution to refine the temper of barbarians and to infuse some principles of faith, justice, and humanity were strongly felt and have been often observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened, and the community of religion and arms spread a similar color and generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad in enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the warriors of every country were perpetually associated, and impartial taste must prefer a gothic tournament to the Olympic games of classic antiquity. Instead of the naked spectacles which corrupted the manners of the Greeks and banished from the stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the lifts was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to the merit of a soldier, but the tournaments, as they were invented in France and eagerly adopted both in the East and West, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The single combats, the general skirmish, the defense of a pass or castle, were rehearsed as an actual service, and the contest, both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and peculiar weapon of the night. His horse was of a large and heavy breed, but this charger till he was roused by the approaching danger was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a pad or palfry of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his greaves and buckler it would be superfluous to describe, but I may remark that at the period of the crusades the armor was less ponderous than in later times, and that, instead of a massy caress, his breast was defended by a howburg or coat of mail when their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors furiously spurred their horses against the foe, and the light cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each night was attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal birth and similar hopes. He was followed by his archers and men at arms, and four or five or six soldiers were computed as the furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the neighboring kingdoms, or the holy land, the duties of the feudal tenure no longer subsisted. The voluntary service of the knights and their followers were either prompted by zeal or attachment, or purchased with rewards and promises, and the numbers of each squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame of each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war, and the most ancient families of Europe must seek in these achievements the origin and proof of their nobility. In this rapid portrait of chivalry I have been urged to anticipate on the story of the crusades at once in effect and a cause of this memorable institution. Such were the troops and such the leaders who assumed the cross for the deliverance of the holy sepulcher. As soon as they were relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they encouraged each other by interviews and messages to accomplish their vow and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the pilgrimage. Their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of silver and gold, and the princes and barons were attended by their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their forces. Their choice or situation determined the road, and it was agreed to meet in the neighborhood of Constantinople and from thence to begin their operations against the Turks. From the banks of the Moos and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bolyon followed the direct way of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and as long as he exercised the sole command every step afforded some proof of his prudence and virtue. On the confines of Hungary he was stopped three weeks by a Christian people to whom the name, or at least the abuse of the cross, was justly odious. The Hungarians still smarted with the wounds which they had received from the first pilgrims. In their turn they had abused the right of defense and retaliation, and they had reasoned to apprehend a severe revenge from a hero of the same nation and who was engaged in the same cause. But after weighing the motives and the events, the virtuous Duke was content to pity the crimes and misfortunes of his worthless brethren, and his twelve deputies, the messengers of peace, requested in his name a free passage and an equal market. To remove their suspicions, Godfrey trusted himself and afterwards his brother to the faith of Carloman, king of Hungary, who treated them with a simple but hospitable entertainment. The treaty was sanctified by their common gospel, and a proclamation under pain of death restrained the animosity and license of the Latin soldiers. From Austria to Belgrade they traversed the plains of Hungary without enduring or offering an injury, and the proximity of Carloman, who hovered on their flanks with his numerous cavalry, was a precaution not less useful for their safety than for his own. They reached the banks of the Sov, and no sooner had they passed the river than the king of Hungary restored the hostages and saluted their departure with the fairest wishes for the success of their enterprise. With the same conduct and discipline, Godfrey pervaded the woods of Bulgaria and the frontiers of Thrace, and might congratulate himself that he had almost reached the first term of his pilgrimage without drawing his sword against a Christian adversary. After an easy and pleasant journey through Lombardy, from Turin to Achiella, Raymond and his Provincials marched 40 days through the savage country of Dalmatia and Sclavonia. The weather was a perpetual fog, the land was mountainous and desolate, the natives were either fugitive or hostile, loose in their religion and government, they refused to furnish provisions or guides, murdered the stragglers, and exercised by day and night the vigilance of the Count who derived more security from the punishment of some captive robbers than from his interview and treaty with the Prince of Skodra. His march between Dorazo and Constantinople was harassed without being stopped by the peasants and soldiers of the Greek Emperor, and the same faint and ambiguous hostility was prepared for the remaining chiefs who passed the Adriatic from the coast of Italy. Bohemond had arms and vessels and foresight and discipline, and his name was not forgotten in the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly, whatever obstacles he encountered were surmounted by his military conduct and the valor of Tancre, and if the Norman Prince affected to spare the Greeks he gorged his soldiers with the full plunder of an eretical castle. The nobles of France pressed forwards with vain and thoughtless order of which their nation has been sometimes accused. From the Alps to Apulia, the march of you the great, of the two robbers, and of Stephen of Chartres, through a wealthy country and amidst the applauding Catholics, was a devout or triumphant progress. They kissed the feet of the Roman Pontiff, and the golden standard of Saint Peter was delivered to the brother of the French monarch. But in this visit of piety and pleasure they neglected to secure the season and the means of their embarkation. The winter was insensibly lost, their troops were scattered and corrupted in the towns of Italy. They separately accomplished their passage, regardless of safety or dignity, and within nine months from the feast of the Assumption, the day appointed by Urban, all the Latin princes had reached Constantinople. But the count of Vermandois was produced as a captive. His foremost vessels were scattered by a tempest, and his person against the law of nations was detained by the lieutenants of Alexias. Yet the arrival of you had been announced by four and twenty knights in golden armor, who commanded the emperor to revere the general of the Latin Christians, the brother of the king of kings. In some oriental tale I have read the fable of a shepherd who was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes. He had prayed for water, the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his flock and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was the fortune, or at least the apprehension, of the Greek emperor Alexias Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his daughter Anne, and by the Latin writers. In the council of Placentia his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succor, perhaps of ten thousand soldiers, but he was astonished by the approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The emperor fluctuated between hope and fear, between timidity and courage, but in the crooked policy which he mistook for wisdom I cannot believe, I cannot discern, that he maliciously conspired against the life or honor of the French heroes. The promiscuous multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, a like destitute of humanity and reason, nor was it possible for Alexias to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious to the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious, but he was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond, and his ignorance of the transalpine chiefs. The courage of the French was blind and headstrong. They might be tempted by the luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion of their invincible strength, and Jerusalem might be forgotten in the prospect of Constantinople. After a long march and painful abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of Thrace. They heard with indignation that their brother, the count of Vermondois, was imprisoned by the Greeks, and their reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of retaliation and repine. They were appeased by the submission of Alexias. He promised to supply their camp, and as they refused in the midst of winter to pass the Bosphorus, their quarters were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds of the two nations who despised each other as slaves and barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion was inflamed into daily provocations. Prejudice is blind, hunger is deaf, and Alexias is accused of a design to starve or assault the Latins in a dangerous post on all sides encompassed with the waters. Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net, overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs, but the gates of Constantinople were strongly fortified. The ramparts were lined with archers, and after a doubtful conflict both parties listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the sheer spirit of the western strangers. As a Christian warrior he rekindled their zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise which he engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return of spring Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and plentiful camp in Asia, and no sooner had he passed the Bosphorus than the Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the opposite shore. The same policy was repeated with the succeeding chiefs, who were swayed by the example and weakened by the departure of their foremost companions. By his skill and diligence Alexius prevented the union of any two of the Confederate armies at the same moment under the walls of Constantinople, and before the feast of the Pentecost not a Latin pilgrim was left on the coast of Europe. The same arms which threatened Europe might deliver Asia and repel the Turks from the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus and Hellespot. The fair provinces from Nice to Antioch were the recent patrimony of the Roman Emperor, and his ancient and perpetual claim still embraced the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. In his enthusiasm Alexius indulged or affected the ambitious hope of leading his new allies to subvert the thrones of the East, but the calmer dictates of reason and temper dissuaded him from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and lawless barbarians. His prudence or his pride was content with exhorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity and a solemn promise that they would either restore or hold their Asiatic conquests as the humble and loyal vassals of the Roman Empire. Their independent spirit was fired at the mention of this foreign and voluntary servitude. They successively yielded to the dexterous application of gifts and flattery, and the first proselytes became the most eloquent and effectual missionaries to multiply the companions of their shame. The pride of you of Vermandois was soothed by the honors of his captivity, and in the brother of the French king the example of submission was prevalent and weighty. In the mind of Godfrey of Bollion every human consideration was subordinate to the glory of God and the success of the crusade. He had firmly resisted the temptations of Bohemond and Raymond, who urged the attack and conquest of Constantinople. Alexius esteemed his virtues, deservedly named him the champion of the Empire, and dignified his homage with the filial name and rights of adoption. The hateful Bohemond was received as a true and ancient ally, and if the Emperor reminded him of former hostilities, it was only to praise the valor that he had displayed and the glory that he had acquired in the fields of Dorazo and Larissa. The son of Gwiskard was lodged and entertained and served with imperial pomp. One day as he passed through the gallery of the palace a door was carelessly left open to expose a pile of gold and silver, of silk and gems, of curious and costly furniture that was heaped in seeming disorder from the floor to the roof of the chamber. What conquests exclaimed the ambitious miser might not be achieved by the possession of such a treasure. It is your own, replied a Greek attendant who watched the motions of his soul, and Bohemond, after some hesitation, condescended to accept this magnificent present. The Norman was flattered by the assurance of an independent principality, and Alexius alluded, rather than denied, his daring demand for the office of great domestic or general of the East. The two Roberts, the son of the conqueror of England and the kinsmen of three queens, bowed in their turn before the Byzantine throne. A private letter of Stephen of Chartres attests his admiration to the emperor, the most excellent and liberal of men, who taught him to believe that he was a favorite, and promised to educate and establish his youngest son. In his southern province, the Count of St. Giles and Thoulouse faintly recognized the supremacy of the King of France, a prince of a foreign nation and language. At the head of a hundred thousand men, he declared that he was the soldier and servant of Christ alone, and that the Greek might be satisfied with an equal treaty of alliance and friendship. His obstinate resistance enhanced the value and the price of his submission, and he shone, says the Princess Anne, among the barbarians, as the sun amidst the stars of heaven. His disgust of the noise and insolence of the French, his suspicions of the designs of Bohemond, the emperor imparted to his faithful Raymond, and that aged statesman might clearly discern that however false in friendship he was sincere in his enmity. The spirit of chivalry was at last subdued in the person of Tom Cray, and none could deem themselves dishonored by the imitation of that gallant knight. He disdained the golden flattery of the Greek monarch, assaulted in his presence an insolent patrician, escaped to Asia in the habit of a private soldier, and yielded with a sigh to the authority of Bohemond and the interest of the Christian cause. The best and most ostensible reason was the impossibility of passing the sea and accomplishing their vow without the license and the vessels of Alexius, but they cherished a secret hope that as soon as they trod the continent of Asia their swords would obliterate their shame and dissolve the engagement which on his side might not be very faithfully performed. The ceremony of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne the emperor sat mute and immovable. His majesty was adored by the Latin princes, and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his knees an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to confess and unable to deny. Private or public interest suppressed the murmurs of the dukes and counts, but a French baron, he is supposed to be Robert of Paris, presumed to ascend the throne and to place himself by the side of Alexius. The sage reproof of Baldwin provoked him to exclaim in his barbarous idiom, who is this rustic that keeps his seat while so many valiant captains are standing round him. The emperor maintained his silence, dissembled his indignation, and questioned his interpreter concerning the meaning of the words which he partly suspected from the universal language of gesture and countenance. Before the departure of the pilgrims he endeavored to learn the name and condition of the audacious baron. I am a Frenchman, replied Robert, of the purest and most ancient nobility of my country. All that I know is that there is a church in my neighborhood, the resort of those who are desirous of approving their valor in single combat, till an enemy appears they address their prayers to God and his saints. That church I have frequently visited, but never have I found an antagonist who dared to accept my defiance. Alexius dismissed the challenger with some prudent advice for his conduct in the Turkish warfare, and history repeats with pleasure this lively example of the manners of his age and country. The conquest of Asia was undertaken and achieved by Alexander with thirty-five thousand Macedonians and Greeks, and his best hope was in the strength and discipline of his phalanx of infantry. The principal force of the crusaders consisted in their cavalry, and when that force was mustered in the plains of Bethania, the knights and their martial attendants on horseback amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed with the helmet and coat of mail. The value of these soldiers deserved a strict and authentic account, and the flour of European chivalry might furnish in a first effort this formidable body of heavy horse. A part of the infantry might be enrolled for the service of scouts, pioneers, and archers, but the promiscuous crowd were lost in their own disorder, and we depend not on the eyes and knowledge, but on the belief and fancy of a chaplain of Count Baldwin in the estimate of six hundred thousand pilgrims able to bear arms, besides the priests and monks, the women and children of the Latin camp. The reader starts, and before he is recovered from his surprise, I shall add, on the same testimony, that if all who took the cross had accomplished their vow, above six millions would have migrated from Europe to Asia. Under this oppression of faith, I derive some relief from a more sagacious and thinking writer, who, after the same review of the cavalry, accuses the credulity of the priest of Chartres, and even doubts whether the cis-alpine regions in the geography of a Frenchman were sufficient to produce and pour forth such incredible multitudes. The coolest skepticism will remember that of these religious volunteers great numbers never beheld Constantinople and Nice. Of enthusiasm the influence is irregular and transient. Many were detained at home by reason or cowardice, by poverty or weakness, and many were repulsed by the obstacles of the way, the more insupperable, as they were unforeseen, to these ignorant fanatics. The savage countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones, their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan, and the loss of the first adventure, by the sword or climate or fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men, yet the myriads that survived, marched, that pressed forwards on the holy pilgrimage, or a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne, the images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had seen and heard, and the daughter of Alexius exclaims that Europe was loosened from its foundations and hurled against Asia. The ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labor under the same doubt of a vague and indefinite magnitude, but I am inclined to believe that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of a single camp than at the Siege of Nice, the first operation of the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their arms have been already displayed of their troops the most numerous portion were the natives of France. The low countries, the banks of the Rhine and Apulia, sent a powerful reinforcement. Some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and England, and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or Scotland issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at home, but on warlike abroad, had not superstition condemned the sacrilegious prudence of depriving the poorest or weakest Christians of the merit of pilgrimage. The useless crowd, with mouths but without hands, might have been stationed in the Greek Empire till their companions had opened and secured the way of the Lord. A small remnant of the pilgrims who passed the Bosphorus was permitted to visit the Holy Sepulcher. Their northern constitution was scorched by the rays and infected by the vapors of Assyrian sun. They consumed, with heedless prodigality, their stores of water and provision, their numbers exhausted the inland country. The sea was remote, the Greeks were unfriendly, and the Christians of every sect fled before the voracious and cruel repine of their brethren. In the dire necessity of famine they sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among the Turks and Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by the name and reputation of cannibals. The spies who introduced themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond were shown several human bodies turning on the spit, and the artful Norman encouraged a report which increased at the same time the abhorrence and the terror of the infidels.