The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5
by
Edward Gibbon
Part 13 out of 14
of the provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; 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:
Melissenus, 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 Soliman; 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.
Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and
mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient
character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a
Christian empire.
[Footnote *: Wilken considers Cutulmish not a Turkish name.
Geschicht Kreuz-zuge, vol. i. p. 9. - M.]
[Footnote 51: On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. De Guignes has
derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who
produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are
unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints
from Scylitzes, (p. 860, 863,) Nicephorus Bryennius, (p. 88, 91,
92, &c., 103, 104,) and Anna Comnena (Alexias, p. 91, 92, &c.,
163, &c.)]
Since the first conquests 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 Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the name of
Gazi, a holy champion; and his new kingdoms, of the Romans, or of
Roum, 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. ^52 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 Scythian 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, Nice,
the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and
fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum 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 Mahomet, were preached in the
moschs; the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the
Cadhis judged according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish
manners and language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman 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;
^53 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.
^54 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 Mahometan 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
Nicene palace, and offered to deliver this valuable prize into
the hands of Soliman. 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 Laodicea and the confines of Aleppo, ^55 obeyed the example of
the metropolis. From Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm
of St. George, the conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty
days' journey in length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen,
between the rocks of Lycia and the Black Sea. ^56 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 plaintive
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. ^57
[Footnote 52: Such is the description of Roum by Haiton the
Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of
Ramusio and Bergeron, (see Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p.
301 - 305.)]
[Footnote 53: Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse
episcopum, (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. l. i. p. 468.) It is
odd enough, that we should find a parallel passage of the same
people in the present age. "Il n'est point d'horreur que ces
Turcs n'ayent commis, et semblables aux soldats effrenes, qui
dans le sac d'une ville, non contens de disposer de tout a leur
gre pretendent encore aux succes les moins desirables. Quelque
Sipahis ont porte leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi
de la synagogue, et celle de l'Archeveque Grec." (Memoires du
Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)]
[Footnote 54: The emperor, or abbot describe the scenes of a
Turkish camp as if they had been present. Matres correptae in
conspectu filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus
vexabantur; (is that the true reading?) cum filiae assistentes
carmina praecinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad
filias, &c.]
[Footnote 55: See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anna
Comnena, (Alexius, l. vi. p. 168, 169,) with the notes of
Ducange.]
[Footnote 56: William of Tyre (l. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635) gives the
most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish
conquests.]
[Footnote 57: In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexius
seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it
is approved by Ducange, (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 335, &c.,) and
paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The
Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might
say with Guibert, (p. 475,) verbis vestita meis, a privilege of
most indefinite latitude.]
But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was
that of Jerusalem, ^58 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. ^59 By the increase of
proselytes and population, the Mahometans might excuse the
usurpation of three fourths of the city: but a peculiar quarter
was resolved 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 Copts 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 sects was
imbittered 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 ^60 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. Harun Alrashid, the greatest
of the Abbassides, 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 Amalphi promoted the interest 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: ^61 an
annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary: 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 Mahomet, 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 Moslems smiled with indignation ^62 at the
miraculous flame which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the
holy sepulchre. ^63 This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth
century, ^64 was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and
is annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and
Coptic sects, ^65 who impose on the credulous spectators ^66 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.
[Footnote 58: Our best fund for the history of Jerusalem from
Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original
passages of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. 1 - 10, l.
xviii. c. 5, 6,) the principal author of the Gesta Dei per
Francos. M. De Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur
le Commerce des Francois dans le de Levant avant les Croisades,
&c. (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467 -
500.)]
[Footnote 59: Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida
plerum que nubila recepit intervalla, et aegrotantium more
temporum praesentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate, (l. i.
c. 3, p. 630.) The latinity of William of Tyre is by no means
contemptible: but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to
the recovery of Jerusalem, precedes the true account by 30
years.]
[Footnote 60: For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy
Land, see Eginhard, (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79 - 82,)
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administratione Imperii, l. ii.
c. 26, p. 80,) and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13,
14, 15.)]
[Footnote 61: The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis
viris amicis et utilium introductoribus, (Gesta Dei, p. 934.) The
trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a
title, unless we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman,
who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini)
for the Venetians and Parisians.]
[Footnote 62: An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 268, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the
unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene
presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of
this perpetual miracle.]
[Footnote 63: In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the
learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle,
(tom. ii. p. 214 - 306,) de lumine sancti sepulchri.]
[Footnote 64: William of Malmsbury (l. iv. c. 2, p. 209) quotes
the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited
Jerusalem A.D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim
some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the
Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 65: Our travellers, Sandys, (p. 134,) Thevenot, (p. 621
- 627,) Maundrell, (p. 94, 95,) &c., describes this extravagant
farce. The Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle
ended and the trick began.]
[Footnote 66: The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and
plead necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier
D'Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20;)
but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our
travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at
Naples.]
The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the
Abbassides 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
Hakem, ^67 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 Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs
and colleges: twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were
transcribed at his expense in letters of gold; and his edict
extirpated 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. At the
name of Hakem, 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 Druses of Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life
and divinity of a madman and tyrant. ^68 In his divine character,
Hakem 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 Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his
cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostles:
the common rights 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 defence of the Holy Land,
they contented themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews,
as the secret advisers of the impious Barbarian. ^69 Yet the
calamities of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the
inconstancy or repentance of Hakem 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. ^70 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; ^71
and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred
miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of
pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the
roads were covered with 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 a prelude to the armies which
marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About
thirty years before the first crusade, the arch bishop of Mentz,
with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, 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 siege in the village of Capernaum, till
they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir.
After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only
a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land.
Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion
of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sailed from Normandy,
thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed
the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand,
and the wallet at their back. ^72
[Footnote 67: See D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411,)
Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390, 397, 400, 401,)
Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321 - 323,) and Marei, (p. 384 -
386,) an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic
into German, and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.]
[Footnote 68: The religion of the Druses is concealed by their
ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to
the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar
Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally conform to the
worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighborhood.
The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the
industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354 - 357,) and the
second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de
Volney.
Note: The religion of the Druses has, within the present
year, been fully developed from their own writings, which have
long lain neglected in the libraries of Paris and Oxford, in the
"Expose de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy." Deux
tomes, Paris, 1838. The learned author has prefixed a life of
Hakem Biamr-Allah, which enables us to correct several errors in
the account of Gibbon. These errors chiefly arose from his want
of knowledge or of attention to the chronology of Hakem's life.
Hakem succeeded to the throne of Egypt in the year of the Hegira
386. He did not assume his divinity till 408. His life was
indeed "a wild mixture of vice and folly," to which may be added,
of the most sanguinary cruelty. During his reign, 18,000 persons
were victims of his ferocity. Yet such is the god, observes M.
de Sacy, whom the Druses have worshipped for 800 years! (See p.
ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant actions were
interpreted by his followers as having a mystic and allegoric
meaning, alluding to the destruction of other religions and the
propagation of his own. It does not seem to have been the
"vanity" of Hakem which induced him to introduce a new religion.
The curious point in the new faith is that Hamza, the son of Ali,
the real founder of the Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful
title,) was content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was
God, the one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It
was not in his "divine character" that Hakem "hated the Jews and
Christians," but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he displayed
in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous persecution,
and the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem,
belong entirely to that period; and his assumption of divinity
was followed by an edict of toleration to Jews and Christians.
The Mahometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and
contempt, being far the most numerous, were his most dangerous
enemies, and therefore the objects of his most inveterate hatred.
It is another singular fact, that the religion of Hakem was by no
means confined to Egypt and Syria. M. de Sacy quotes a letter
addressed to the chief of the sect in India; and there is
likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constantine, son of
Armanous, (Romanus,) and the clergy of the empire. (Constantine
VIII., M. de Sacy supposes, but this is irreconcilable with
chronology; it must mean Constantine XI., Monomachus.) The
assassination of Hakem is, of course, disbelieved by his
sectaries. M. de Sacy seems to consider the fact obscure and
doubtful. According to his followers he disappeared, but is
hereafter to return. At his return the resurrection is to take
place; the triumph of Unitarianism, and the final discomfiture of
all other religions. The temple of Mecca is especially devoted
to destruction. It is remarkable that one of the signs of this
final consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is that
Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance over
Mahometanism.
As for the religion of the Druses, I cannot agree with
Gibbon that it does not "deserve" to be better known; and am
grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and
occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full
examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration which
ever extensively affected the mind of man. The worship of a mad
tyrant is the basis of a subtle metaphysical creed, and of a
severe, and even ascetic, morality. - M.]
[Footnote 69: See Glaber, l. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of
Baronius and Pagi, A.D. 1009.]
[Footnote 70: Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis
multitudo coepit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis,
quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris
plebis .... mediocres .... reges et comites ..... praesules
..... mulieres multae nobilis cum pauperioribus .... Pluribus
enim erat mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria
reverterentur, (Glaber, l. iv. c. 6, Bouquet. Historians of
France, tom. x. p. 50.)
Note: Compare the first chap. of Wilken, Geschichte der
Kreuz-zuge. - M.]
[Footnote 71: Glaber, l. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum
Hungariae, tom. i. p. 304 - 311) examines whether St. Stephen
founded a monastery at Jerusalem.]
[Footnote 72: Baronius (A.D. 1064, No. 43 - 56) has transcribed
the greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus,
Marianus, and Lambertus.]
After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the
Fatimite caliphs was invaded by the Turks. ^73 One of the
lieutenants of Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, 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 Bagdad and the sultan of
Persia; and the victorious emir advanced without resistance to
the banks of the Nile: the Fatimite 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 Toucush, the brother of
Malek 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; ^74 but the
hereditary command of the holy city and territory was intrusted
or abandoned to the emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans,
whose children, after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two
dynasties on the borders of Armenia and Assyria. ^75 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. ^76 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
sepulchre. A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal,
prompted the Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect: the
patriarch was dragged by the hair 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 Hakem, 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 dominion; a nerve was touched of exquisite feeling; and the
sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe.
[Footnote 73: See Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350) and
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 237, vers. Pocock.) M. De Guignes
(Hist. des Huns, tom iii. part i. p. 215, 216) adds the
testimonies, or rather the names, of Abulfeda and Novairi.]
[Footnote 74: From the expedition of Isar Atsiz, (A. H. 469, A.D.
1076,) to the expulsion of the Ortokides, (A.D. 1096.) Yet
William of Tyre (l. i. c. 6, p. 633) asserts, that Jerusalem was
thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic
chronicle, quoted by Pagi, (tom. iv. p. 202) supposes that the
city was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the
caliph of Bagdad, A. H. 463, A.D. 1070. These early dates are
not very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am
sure, that as late as A.D. 1064, the regnum Babylonicum (of
Cairo) still prevailed in Palestine, (Baronius, A.D. 1064, No.
56.)]
[Footnote 75: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249 - 252. ]
[Footnote 76: Willierm. Tyr. l. i. c. 8, p. 634, who strives hard
to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus
from each pilgrim! The caphar of the Franks now is fourteen
dollars: and Europe does not complain of this voluntary tax.]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.
Part I.
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 Sepulchre. -
Godfrey Of Bouillon, First King Of Jerusalem. - Institutions Of
The French Or Latin Kingdom.
About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the
Turks, the holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of
Peter, a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy ^1 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 Bari, 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. ^2 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 Boulogne, 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 the less reluctance, from her bed
to a convent, and at length to a hermitage. ^* In this austere
solitude, his body was emaciated, his fancy was inflamed;
whatever he wished, he believed; whatever he believed, he saw in
dreams and revelations. From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an
accomplished fanatic; but as he excelled in the popular madness
of the times, Pope Urban the Second 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 meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore
and displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on 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 sighs, 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 orator 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 counsels and decrees of the supreme pontiff.
[Footnote 1: Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of
Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date later
than A.D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first
applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the
University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and
Flanders, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447, Longuerue.
Description de la France, p. 54.)]
[Footnote 2: William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11, p. 637, 638) thus
describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis
ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens
ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert,
p. 482. Anna Comnena in Alex isd, l. x. p. 284, &c., with
Ducarge's Notes, p. 349.]
[Footnote *: Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p. 47.(
- M.]
[Footnote !: He had seen the Savior in a vision: a letter had
fallen from heaven Wilken, vol. i. p. 49. - M.]
The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already
embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor of
his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles: from either
side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the
banner of St. Peter; ^3 and his successor reveals his intention
of marching at their head against the impious sectaries of
Mahomet. But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in
person, this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second,
^4 the most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest
of the East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and
fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with
Urban for the name and honors of the pontificate. He attempted
to unite the powers of the West, at a time when the princes were
separated from the church, and the people from their princes, by
the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had
thundered against the emperor and the king of France. Philip the
First, of France, supported with patience the censures which he
had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage.
Henry the Fourth, of Germany, asserted the right of investitures,
the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the
ring and crosier. But the emperor's party was crushed in Italy
by the arms of the Normans and the Countess Mathilda; and the
long quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son
Conrad and the shame of his wife, ^5 who, in the synods of
Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to
which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor
and his own. ^6 So popular was the cause of Urban, so weighty was
his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia ^7
was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgandy,
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, exhorted them to repel the
Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in
the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of
their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most
eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek
ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and
powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in
the larger and most distant project of the deliverance of
Jerusalem; but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to
a second synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of
France in the autumn of the same year. The short delay would
propagate the flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a
nation of soldiers ^8 still proud of the preeminence of their
name, and ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, ^9 who, in
the popular romance of Turpin, ^10 had achieved the conquest of
the Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might
influence the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France,
a monk of Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended
the throne of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and
province; nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification
than to revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and
laborious scenes of our youth.
[Footnote 3: Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in
expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in
inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente
pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31, in tom. xii. 322,
concil.)]
[Footnote 4: See the original lives of Urban II. by Pandulphus
Pisanus and Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom.
iii. pars i. p. 352, 353.]
[Footnote 5: She is known by the different names of Praxes,
Eupraecia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a
Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh.
(Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p. 340.)]
[Footnote 6: Henricus odio eam coepit habere: ideo incarceravit
eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium
hortans ut eam subagitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot.
apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is
described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: quae se tantas et tam
inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse
conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer
suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo
cognoverit papa cum sancta synodo. Apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4,
1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope
and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle
of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings
and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was
tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous
stories of herself and her husband.]
[Footnote 7: See the narrative and acts of the synod of
Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]
[Footnote 8: Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and
valor of the French nation, the author and example of the
crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida
.... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus
videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He
owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into
petulance among foreigners, (p. 488.) and vain loquaciousness,
(p. 502.)]
[Footnote 9: Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex
Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1.
Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. l. i. p. 33, &c.]
[Footnote 10: John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of
Rheims, A.D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed
in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and
such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes
himself as a fighting and drinking priest! Yet the book of lies
was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus II., (A.D. 1122,) and
is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great
Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric Bibliot. Latin Medii Aevi, edit.
Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)]
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 of the
eleventh century. ^11 Philip the First was the great-grandson of
Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline
of Charlemagne's posterity, added the regal title to his
patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow
compass, he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the
rest of France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than
the feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent
and hereditary power, ^12 who disdained 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, ^13 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. ^14 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,
^15 in high expectation of its resolves; and such was the ardor
of zeal and curiosity, that the city was filled, and many
thousands, in the month of November, erected their tents or huts
in the open field. A session of eight days produced some useful
or edifying canons for the reformation of manners; a severe
censure was pronounced against the license of private war; the
Truce of God ^16 was confirmed, a suspension of hostilities
during four days of the week; women and priests were placed under
the safeguard of the church; and a protection of three years was
extended to husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of
military rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction,
cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the
benevolent efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he
labored to appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread
the flames of war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the
synod of Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone 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
market-place 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." ^17 "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, ^18 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 Adhemar bishop
of Puy, the first who had received the cross at his hands. The
foremost of the temporal chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse,
whose ambassadors in the council excused the absence, and pledged
the honor, of their 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.
^19
[Footnote 11: See Etat de la France, by the Count de
Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180 - 182, and the second volume of
the Observations sur l'Histoire de France, by the Abbe de Mably.]
[Footnote 12: In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the
first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all
sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and
Flanders, contracted the same and limits of the proper France.
See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]
[Footnote 13: These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of
Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their
country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually
became princes of the city. Melanges, tires d'une grand
Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.]
[Footnote 14: See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil.
tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]
[Footnote 15: Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri
potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae
superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86 - 88. Robert. Monach.
p. 31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639 - 641. Guibert, p. 478
- 480. Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]
[Footnote 16: The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first
invented in Aquitain, A.D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an
occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to
their privileges (Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi. p. 682 - 685.)]
[Footnote 17: Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of
the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By
the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom,
it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron.
Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and
Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a
very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100,
very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont,
(p. 15, 16.)]
[Footnote 18: Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk,
or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were
red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while
green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the
English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever
appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our
military ensigns and uniforms.]
[Footnote 19: Bongarsius, who has published the original writers
of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title
of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose
to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in
folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this
collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.
I. Gesta Francorum.
II. Robertus Monachus.
III. Baldricus.
IV. Raimundus de Agiles.
V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.
VII. Guibertus.
VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,
IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,
(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285 - 333,)
X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,
(tom. vii. p. 664 - 848.)
The last of these was unknown to a late French historian,
who has given a large and critical list of the writers of the
crusades, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13 - 141,) and most
of whose judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It
was late before I could obtain a sight of the French historians
collected by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis
Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773 - 815,) has
been transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius.
II. The Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p.
890 - 912,) is of small value or account.
Note: Several new documents, particularly from the East,
have been collected by the industry of the modern historians of
the crusades, M. Michaud and Wilken. - M.]
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; nor 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 are
clouded by the perpetual abuse of Scripture and rhetoric; but
they seem to insist on the right of natural and religious
defence, their peculiar title to the Holy Land, and the impiety
of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. ^20
I. The right of a just defence 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 Mussulman 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 defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel,
an impending assault. But this 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. ^*
[Footnote 20: If the reader will turn to the first scene of the
First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of
Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes
of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind,
greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent
from his creed.]
[Footnote *: The manner in which the war was conducted surely has
little relation to the abstract question of the justice or
injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be
conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the
wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation
and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the
liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the
aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the
right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of
overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole
continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror
into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human
folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe,
waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer
reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human
wisdom? - M.]
II. 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 his sepulchre, 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 Bethlem
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.
III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every
climate of the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to
Hindostan, 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 fountain 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. ^21
[Footnote *: "God," says the abbot Guibert, "invented the
crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and
to merit salvation." This extraordinary and characteristic
passage must be given entire. "Deus nostro tempore praelia
sancta instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui
vetustae Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum
reperirent salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut
fieri assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet
professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta
licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus
gratiam consequerentur." Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol.
i. p. 63. - M.]
[Footnote 21: The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical
History (p. 223 - 261) contains an accurate and rational view of
the causes and effects of the crusades.]
As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their
discipline of penance ^22 was enforced; 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 ^23 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 innocence could not have suspected, and
others which reason cannot believe; and the more ordinary
offences of fornication and adultery, of perjury and sacrilege,
of rapine and murder, were expiated by a penance, 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; that 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-six solidi ^24 of silver, about four pounds sterling, for
the rich; at three solidi, 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 Pepin and
Charlemagne are expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It
is a maxim of the civil law, that whosoever 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; ^25 and such was the skill and patience of a
famous hermit, St. Dominic of the iron Cuirass, ^26 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. ^27 These compensations of the purse
and the 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 the Second. In the council of Clermont,
that pope 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. ^28 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 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; ^29 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 the rivers would open for their
passage; that the walls of their strongest cities would fall at
the sound of their trumpets; and that the sun would be arrested
in his mid career, to allow them time for the destruction of the
infidels?
[Footnote 22: The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages
are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709 - 768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres
sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p.
478 - 556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition
are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and
peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]
[Footnote 23: Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 211 -
220, 452 - 462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino
in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one
year, five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]
[Footnote 24: Till the xiith century, we may support the clear
account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling;
and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound
sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to
a fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]
[Footnote 25: Each century of lashes was sanctified with a
recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment
of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]
[Footnote 26: The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus
was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96 - 104. Baronius, A.D.
1056, No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even
among ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation
(purgatorii genus) was grown.]
[Footnote 27: At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho
Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman.
I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16 -
29) a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these
artists.]
[Footnote 28: Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel
pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem
profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur.
Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum
salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the
subject.
Note: See note, page 546. - M.]
[Footnote 29: Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and
such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des
Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of
their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits
of martyrdom.]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.
Part II.
Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre,
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 sole, 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 a penance, 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 her rudest state, must have yielded
to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and
their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the
tales 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 odoriferous 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. ^30 Their vassals and soldiers trusted
their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish
emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the
flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, ^31 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
feudal or ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the
peasants and burghers, 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 malefactors of every cast might
continue to brave the laws and elude the punishment of their
crimes. ^32
[Footnote 30: The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the
adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de
Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and
ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he
should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo,
(Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]
[Footnote 31: In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of
Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the
relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum
foeminarum voluptas, p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert,
the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]
[Footnote 32: See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom
from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their
perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]
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 proselytes 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 sepulchre
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, were 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 manna,
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 lands 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. ^33
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 sewed 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. ^34
[Footnote 33: Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this
general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had
genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing
before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes
emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]
[Footnote 34: Some instances of these stigmata are given in the
Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I
have not seen]
The fifteenth 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 despatch 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
pressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy
sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the
talents or authority, of a general, impelled 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 van guard 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
rapine, 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 the front, and to whom these worthy
Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine spirit. ^35 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. ^36 At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many
thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred: ^37
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, barricadoed 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.
[Footnote 35: Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac
congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis,
anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam
non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae
fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these
peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in
Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend
ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile
allegory.
Note: A singular "allegoric" explanation of this strange
fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the charge
of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently made
against the Templars. "We have no doubt that they were Manichee
or Gnostic standards." (The author says the animals themselves
were carried before the army. - M.) "The goose, in Egyptian
symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant 'divine Son,' or
'Son of God.' The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we have the
Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as standards, at
the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders. Can any one
doubt that a large portion of this host must have been infected
with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?" Account of the Temple
Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is, at all
events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in
connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician
opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so
inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any
explanation, however wild or subtile. - M.]
[Footnote 36: Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his
Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich,
generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the
Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243 - 245, par Baratier.) In seventy
years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these
massacres.]
[Footnote 37: These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which
were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true,
that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the
Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt
trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival
monk.
Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He
stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x. - M]
Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzan
tine monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as
interval of six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of
Hungary ^38 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 Agriculture must have been
unskilful 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 a loose to
indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of
war, and of discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek
praefect 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. ^39 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 allured 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, conscious of his shame, had
withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant,
Walter the Penniless, 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, Soliman ^* tempted the main body to descend into
the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows;
and a pyramid of bones ^40 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. ^41
[Footnote 38: See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho
of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]
[Footnote *: The narrative of the first march is very incorrect.
The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and Walter the
Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the kingdom of
Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed with
40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes of
sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of Semlin.
he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to Nissa,
where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an accidental
quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat. Wilken, vol.
i. p. 84 - 86 - M.]
[Footnote 39: The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius,
are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a
single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the
writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient
and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson;
Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith;
Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de
Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19 - 53.)]
[Footnote *: Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle against
Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and Antioch. It
was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David, surnamed Kilidje
Arslan, the "Sword of the Lion," who reigned in Nice. Almost all
the occidental authors have fallen into this mistake, which was
detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th edit. and Extraits
des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M. Reinaud Paris, 1829, p.
3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes to the Euphra tes, and
as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan must uniformly be
substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le Beau, tom. xv. p.
311. - M.]
[Footnote 40: Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this
as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the
Franks themselves as the materials of a wall.]
[Footnote 41: See table on following page.]
"To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the
particular references to the great events of the first crusade."
[See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]
None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their
persons in the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was
not disposed to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of
France was occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by
a recent conquest; the kin`gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic
war against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland,
Denmark, ^42 Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the
passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor 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. I. The
first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of
Bouillon; 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 Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of
Lorraine, ^43 was the inheritance of his mother; and by the
emperor's bounty he was himself invested with that ducal title,
which has been improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon
in the Ardennes. ^44 In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore
the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the
breast of Rodolph, 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 sepulchre, 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 practised 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 Bouillon ^45 was accompanied by his
two brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the
county of Boulogne, 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 fourscore thousand foot and about ten
thousand horse. II. 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 merit or possessions,
(though neither were contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the
brother of the king of France. ^46 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; ^47 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 a soldier he sometimes forgot the duties of a
general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troyes,
was one of the richest princes of the age; and the number of his
castles has been compared to the three hundred and sixty-five
days of the year. His mind was improved by literature; and, in
the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen ^48 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. ^49 III. In the south of France,
the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of Puy, the pope egate,
and by Raymond count of St. Giles and Thoulouse who added the
prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and marquis 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 sepulchre. 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. ^50 A mercantile, rather than a martial, spirit
prevailed among his provincials, ^51 a common name, which
included the natives of Auvergne and Languedoc, ^52 the vassals
of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. From the adjacent frontier
of Spain he drew a band of hardy 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. IV. 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 astonishment
and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, 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
Tancred ^53 was the partner, rather than the servant, of the war.
In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the
virtues of a perfect knight, ^54 the true spirit of chivalry,
which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man
far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of
the times.
[Footnote 42: The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted,
and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of
Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by
Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of
Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111 - 115.)]
[Footnote 43: The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or
Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of
the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter
has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p.
283 - 288.)]
[Footnote 44: See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de
Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part
ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold
or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]
[Footnote 45: See the family character of Godfrey, in William of
Tyre, l. ix. c. 5 - 8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;)
his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]
[Footnote 46: Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his
nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last
articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred
years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the
ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]
[Footnote 47: Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in
Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part
of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal
to five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields
fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]
[Footnote 48: His original letter to his wife is inserted in the
Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d'Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the
Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]
[Footnote 49: Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum
dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix
totidem Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and
interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]
[Footnote 50: It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a
second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should
shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna
Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p.
129.)]
[Footnote 51: Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et
Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero
Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci
dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]
[Footnote 52: The town of his birth, or first appanage, was
consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first
crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St.
Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and
the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation
of Raymond, (Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom.
xxxvii. p 51.)]
[Footnote 53: The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great
Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is
singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a
person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures
that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises
of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]
[Footnote 54: To gratify the childish vanity of the house of
Este. Tasso has inserted in his poem, and in the first crusade, a
fabulous hero, the brave and amorous Rinaldo, (x. 75, xvii. 66 -
94.) He might borrow his name from a Rinaldo, with the Aquila
bianca Estense, who vanquished, as the standard-bearer of the
Roman church, the emperor Frederic I., (Storia Imperiale di
Ricobaldo, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. ix. p. 360. Ariosto,
Orlando Furioso, iii. 30.) But, 1. The distance of sixty years
between the youth of the two Rinaldos destroys their identity.
2. The Storia Imperiale is a forgery of the Conte Boyardo, at the
end of the xvth century, (Muratori, p. 281 - 289.) 3. This
Rinaldo, and his exploits, are not less chimerical than the hero
of Tasso, (Muratori, Antichita Estense, tom. i. p. 350.)]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.
Part III.
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 ^55 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 fiefs 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 burgher 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 lustre of their
diadem. This ceremony, of which some traces may be found in
Tacitus and the woods of Germany, ^56 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 rights 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 champion of God and
the ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted
himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the
distressed; to practise 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 sole 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. ^57 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
lists 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 defence of a pass, or
castle, were rehearsed as in 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 knight: 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 palfrey 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
cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk 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 knight 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 an effect and a cause, of this memorable
institution. ^58
[Footnote 55: Of the words gentilis, gentilhomme, gentleman, two
etymologies are produced: 1. From the Barbarians of the fifth
century, the soldiers, and at length the conquerors of the Roman
empire, who were vain of their foreign nobility; and 2. From the
sense of the civilians, who consider gentilis as synonymous with
ingenuus. Selden inclines to the first but the latter is more
pure, as well as probable.]
[Footnote 56: Framea scutoque juvenem ornant. Tacitus, Germania.
c. 13.]
[Footnote 57: The athletic exercises, particularly the caestus
and pancratium, were condemned by Lycurgus, Philopoemen, and
Galen, a lawgiver, a general, and a physician. Against their
authority and reasons, the reader may weigh the apology of
Lucian, in the character of Solon. See West on the Olympic
Games, in his Pindar, vol. ii. p. 86 - 96 243 - 248]
[Footnote 58: On the curious subjects of knighthood,
knights-service, nobility, arms, cry of war, banners, and
tournaments, an ample fund of information may be sought in
Selden, (Opera, tom. iii. part i. Titles of Honor, part ii. c.
1, 3, 5, 8,) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 398 - 412, &c.,)
Dissertations sur Joinville, (i. vi. - xii. p. 127 - 142, p. 161
- 222,) and M. de St. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie.)]
Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the
cross for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. 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 Meuse and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bouillon 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 defence and retaliation; and they had reason 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 Save; 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 Aquileia, Raymond and his provincials
marched forty days through the savage country of Dalmatia ^59 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 night and day 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 Scodra. ^60
His march between Durazzo 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 Tancred; and
if the Norman prince affected to spare the Greeks, he gorged his
soldiers with the full plunder of an heretical castle. ^61 The
nobles of France pressed forwards with the vain and thoughtless
ardor of which their nation has been sometimes accused. From the
Alps to Apulia the march of Hugh the Great, of the two Roberts,
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 St. Peter was delivered to the brother of the French
monarch. ^62 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 Alexius. Yet the arrival of Hugh 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. ^63 ^*
[Footnote *: Carloman (or Calmany) demanded the brother of
Godfrey as hostage but Count Baldwin refused the humiliating
submission. Godfrey shamed him into this sacrifice for the
common good by offering to surrender himself Wilken, vol. i. p.
104. - M.]
[Footnote 59: The Familiae Dalmaticae of Ducange are meagre and
imperfect; the national historians are recent and fabulous, the
Greeks remote and careless. In the year 1104 Coloman reduced the
maritine country as far as Trau and Saloma, (Katona, Hist. Crit.
tom. iii. p. 195 - 207.)]
[Footnote 60: Scodras appears in Livy as the capital and fortress
of Gentius, king of the Illyrians, arx munitissima, afterwards a
Roman colony, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 393, 394.) It is now called
Iscodar, or Scutari, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
164.) The sanjiak (now a pacha) of Scutari, or Schendeire, was
the viiith under the Beglerbeg of Romania, and furnished 600
soldiers on a revenue of 78,787 rix dollars, (Marsigli, Stato
Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 128.)]
[Footnote 61: In Pelagonia castrum haereticum ..... spoliatum cum
suis habi tatoribus igne combussere. Nec id eis injuria
contigit: quia illorum detestabilis sermo et cancer serpebat,
jamque circumjacentes regiones suo pravo dogmate foedaverat,
(Robert. Mon. p. 36, 37.) After cooly relating the fact, the
Archbishop Baldric adds, as a praise, Omnes siquidem illi
viatores, Judeos, haereticos, Saracenos aequaliter habent exosos;
quos omnes appellant inimicos Dei, (p. 92.)]
[Footnote 62: (Alexiad. l. x. p. 288.)]
[Footnote 63: This Oriental pomp is extravagant in a count of
Vermandois; but the patriot Ducange repeats with much complacency
(Not. ad Alexiad. p. 352, 353. Dissert. xxvii. sur Joinville, p.
315) the passages of Matthew Paris (A.D. 1254) and Froissard,
(vol. iv. p. 201,) which style the king of France rex regum, and
chef de tous les rois Chretiens.]
[Footnote *: Hugh was taken at Durazzo, and sent by land to
Constantinople Wilken - M.]
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
Alexius Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this
history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his
daughter Anne, ^64 and by the Latin writers. ^65 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, alike
destitute of humanity and reason: nor was it possible for Alexius
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 Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their
reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of
retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of
Alexius: 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 Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault
the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the
waters. ^66 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 fierce 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.
[Footnote 64: Anna Comnena was born the 1st of December, A.D.
1083, indiction vii., (Alexiad. l. vi. p. 166, 167.) At thirteen,
the time of the first crusade, she was nubile, and perhaps
married to the younger Nicephorus Bryennius, whom she fondly
styles, (l. x. p. 295, 296.) Some moderns have imagined, that her
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