:

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 storms and sunshine. 59 By the increase of proselytes and population, the Mahometans might excuse their usurpation of three fourths of the city but a peculiar quarter was reserved for the patriarch with his clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ, with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by the conquest of the Arabs; and the enthusiasm which had always prompted these perilous journies, 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 embittered by hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah, who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and persecute their spiritual brethren. pre-eminence 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 al Rashid, 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

The

59 Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida plerumque nubila recepit intervalla, et ægrotantium more temporum praesentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate (1. 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, he exceeds the true account by thirty years.

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, 1. ii. c. 26. p. 80.), and Pagi Critica, tom. iii. A. D. 800, No. 13, 14, 15.).

61 The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis viris amicis et utiliam introductoribus (Gestá 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.

62 An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 628. 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. 63 In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the learned Mo.

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 favour and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs: 61 an annual fair was insti tuted on Mount Calvary; and the Italian merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the cradle of the mo nastic 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 Unitarian were scandalised 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,6 ,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.

Under the F

timite calahs

A. D. 99-1

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 im portance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Ftimite 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 clamours of both sexes; their clamours 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 de clared himself a zealous Musulman, 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 sheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle (tom. ii. p. 214

-306.), de lumine sancti sepulchri.

64 William of Malmsbury (1. iv. c. ii. p. 209.) quotes the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited Jerusalem A. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim some years eider and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the Franks, soon after the de cease of Charlemagne.

drell (p. 94, 95.), &c. describe this extravagant farce. The Cath 65 Our travellers, Sandys (p. 134.), Thevenot (p. 621–627.), M are puzzled to decide, when the miracle ended, and the trick be 66 The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and plead erity and edification (Mémoires du Chevalier d'Arvieux, tom. p. 1 Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20.); but I will not attenps, the Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at Naples.

67 See D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411.), Renaudot (Hist. Pa triarch. Alex. p. 390. 397. 400, 401.), Elmacin (Hist. Saracen 523.), and Marei (p. 384-386.), an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German, and verbally interpreted to me

friend.

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 favour of the law of Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostates: 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.

Sacrilege of Hakem. A. D. 1009.

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 labour 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. pilgrimages. Among the Franks, the zeal of A.D. 1024, &c. pilgrimage prevailed beyond the

Increase of

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 neighbourhood. 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.

69 See Glaber, 1. ili. c. 7. and the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, A. D. 1009.

70 Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis multitudo cœpit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis, quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris plebis. mediocres... reges et comites præsules... mulieres multe nobiles cum pauperioribus Pluribus enim erat mentis desiderium mori priu quam ad propria reverterentur (Glaber, 1. iv. c. 6. Bouquet, Historians of France, tom. x. p. 50.). 71 Glaber, 1. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum Hungariæ,

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 archbishop 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 a 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 sallied 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 After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite caliphs was invaded by the Turks. 73 A.D. 1076-1096. 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 licence 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; 7+ but the hereditary command of the holy city and territory was intrusted or aban

Conquest of

Jerusalem by the Turks.

tom. i. p. 304-312.) examines whether St. Stephen founded a monastery at Jerusalem. 72 Baronius (A. D. 1064, No. 43-56.) has transcribed the greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus, and Lam. bertus.

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 Abul. feda and Novairi.

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 (1. 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 Bagded, 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.).

doned to the emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children, after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the bor-ders 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.

CHAP. LVIII.

- Cha

Origin and Numbers of the First Crusade. racters 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. The first cru- А во BOUT twenty years after the conA. D. 1095- quest of Jerusalem by the Turks, Peter the Her. the holy sepulchre was visited by an mit. hermit of the name of Peter, a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy in France. His resentment and sympathy were

sade.

1099.

75 De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252.

1

76 Willerm. Tyr. 1. i. c. 8. p. 634. who strives hard to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aurens from each pil grim! The caphar of the Franks is now fourteen dollars: and Europe does not complain of this voluntary tax.

1 Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date earlier than A. D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first applied to the quarrelsome

excited by his own injuries and the oppression of the Christian name; he mingled his tears with those of the patriarch, and earnestly enquired, if no hopes of relief could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the succes sors 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 com plaint; 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. He was born of a gentleman's fa mily (for we must now adopt a modern idiom), and his military service was under the neigh bouring 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, be might withdraw, with the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to an her mitage. In this austere solitude, his body was emaciated, his fancy was inflamed; whatever he wished, he believed; whatever he believed, be saw in dreams and revelations. From Jerusa lem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fant tic; but as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, pope Urban the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious de sign, promised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated by the appro bation 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 impetu ously 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 Saviour: his ignorance of art and language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and ejacu lations; and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent appeals to Christ and his Mother, to the saints and angels of pa radise, with whom he had personally conversed. humour of those students, in the University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and Flanders (Valesi Notitia Galliarum, p. 44. Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 54.).

2 William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11. p. 637, 658.) thus describes the her mit: pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis ingenii, et oculum has perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens ei non deerat eloquium. Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p. 482. Anna Comnena, in Alcia

1. x. p. 284, &c. with Ducange's notes, p. 349.

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.

Urban II. in

Placentia.

The magnanimous spirit of Grethe council of gory the Seventh had already emA. D. 1095, braced the design of arming Europe March. against Asia; the ardour of his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles; from either side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the banner of St. Peter; and his successor reveals his intention of marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet. But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in person, this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second, the most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of the East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with Urban for the name and honours 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, who, in the synods of Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to which she had been exposed by an husband regardless of her honour 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, Burgundy, Swabia, and Bavaria. Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty thousand of the laity, attended this important meeting; and, as the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent to the city. The ambassadors of the Greek

3 Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armată manů volunt in inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente pervenire (Gregor. VII. Epist. ii. 31. in tom. xii p. 322. Concil.).

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.

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

6 Henricus odio eam cœpit habere: ideo incarceravit eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium hortans ut eam subagitaret (Duodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot. apud Baron. A. D. 1093, No. 4.). In the synod of Constance, she is described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: que se tantas et tam inauditas fornicationum spurcitias, et a tantis passam fuisse conquesta est, &c. and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer suscepit, eo quòd ipsam tantas spurcitias non tam commississe quam invitam pertulisse pro certo cognoverit papa cum sanctâ synodo. Apud Baron. A. D. 1095, No. 4. 1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope and coune. 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.

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 succour. 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, still proud of the pre-eminence of their name, and ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, 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.

A. D. 1095,

It may occasion some surprise that Council of the Roman pontiff should erect, in Clermont. the heart of France, the tribunal from November. 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

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

8 Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and valour 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. 483.) and vain loquaciousness (p. 502.).

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

10 John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of Rheims, A. D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed in his name, by a monk of the borners 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 Evi, edit. Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.).

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

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

·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 ardour 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 licence 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 laboured 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 rumour 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 in

the name and limits of the proper France. See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum.

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. Mélanges, tirés d'une grande Bibliothèque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.

14 See the acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xil. p. 829, &c. 15 Confluxerunt ad concilium multis regionibus, viri potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militie superbi (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Mon. p. 31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15. p 639–641. Guibert, p. 478–480. Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.).

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.).

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

18 Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth,

❝spiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be for

ever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate "the devotion and courage of the champions of "Christ. His cross is the symbol of your sal "vation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an "external mark, on your breasts or shoulders, "as a pledge of your sacred and irrevocable en "gagement." The proposal was joyfully ac cepted; great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their garments the sign of the cross, 18 and solicited the pope to march a their head. This dangerous honour 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 honour, of their master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous admo nition 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

So familiar, and as it were so natu- Justice of ral to man, is the practice of violence, the crusade that our indulgence allows the slightest prove cation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility. But the name and nature of an holy war demands a more rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants of the Prince of Peace would unsheath the sword of destruction, unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be de termined from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of our e terprise. In the age of the crusades, the Chris tians, 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 pë

sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red; in the third, the French alone preserved that colour, while green c were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English ( tom. ii. p. 651.). Yet in England, the red ever appears the favouri and, as it were, the national, colour of our military ensigns and

uniforms.

19 Bongarsius, who has published the original writers of the sades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title of Gas, Gesta DEI per Francos; though some critics propose to read Diaboli per Francos (Hanovic, 1611, two vols. in faha! I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this collection, the authors I have used for the first crusade. 1. Gesta Francorum. II. Robertss Monachus. III. Baldricus. IV. Raimundus de Agiles. V. Alberts Aquensis. VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis. VII. Guibertus. VIIL 87 lielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us, IX. Radopts mensis de Gestis Tancredi (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 985), and, X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terre Sanctir ( p. 664-848.). The last of these was unknown to a late French torian, who has given a large and critical list of the writers of the cr sades (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141.), and most of whe judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected b Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de H erosolymitano Itinere (tom. iv. p. 773-815.) has been transfused the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. 11. The Metrical Ha of the first Crusade, in vii books (p. 890-912.), is of small value

account.