The great external event of the Middle Ages was the Crusades,--indeed,
they were the only common enterprise in which Europe ever engaged. Such
an event ought to be very interesting, since it has reference to
conflicting passions and interests. Unfortunately, in a literary point
of view, there is no central figure in the great drama which the princes
of Europe played for two hundred years, and hence the Crusades have but
little dramatic interest. No one man represents that mighty movement. It
was a great wave of inundation, flooding Asia with the unemployed forces
of Europe, animated by passions which excite our admiration, our pity,
and our reprobation. They are chiefly interesting for their results, and
results which were unforeseen. A philosopher sees in them the hand of
Providence,--the overruling of mortal wrath to the praise of Him who
governs the universe. I know of no great movement of blind forces so
pregnant with mighty consequences.
The Crusades were a semi-religious and a semi-military movement. They
represent the passions and ideas of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries,--its chivalry, its hatred of Mohammedanism, and its desire to
possess the spots consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord. Their long
continuance shows the intensity of the sentiments which animated them.
They were aggressive wars, alike fierce and unfortunate, absorbing to
the nations that embarked in them, but of no interest to us apart from
the moral lessons to be drawn from them. Perhaps one reason why history
is so dull to most people is that the greater part of it is a record of
battles and sieges, of military heroes and conquerors. This is
pre-eminently true of Greece, of Rome, of the Middle Ages, and of our
modern times down to the nineteenth century. But such chronicles of
everlasting battles and sieges do not satisfy this generation. Hence our
more recent historians, wishing to avoid the monotony of ordinary
history, have attempted to explore the common life of the people, and to
bring out their manners and habits: they would succeed in making history
more interesting if the materials, at present, were not so scanty and
unsatisfactory.
The only way to make the history of wars interesting is to go back to
the ideas, passions, and interests which they represent. Then we
penetrate to the heart of history, and feel its life. For all the great
wars of the world, we shall see, are exponents of its great moving
spiritual forces. The wars of Cyrus and Alexander represent the passion
of military glory; those of Marius, Sylla, Pompey, and Caesar, the
desire of political aggrandizement; those of Constantine and Theodosius,
the desire for political unity and the necessity of self-defence. The
sweeping and desolating inundations of the barbarians, from the third to
the sixth century, represent the poverty of those rude nations, and
their desire to obtain settlements more favorable to getting a living.
The conquests of Mohammed and his successors were made to swell the
number of converts of a new religion. The perpetual strife of the
baronial lords was to increase their domains. The wars of Charlemagne
and Charles V. were to revive the imperialism of the Caesars,--to create
new universal monarchies. The wars which grew out of the Reformation
were to preserve or secure religious liberty; those which followed were
to maintain the balance of power. Those of Napoleon were at first, at
least nominally, to spread or defend the ideas of the French Revolution,
until he became infatuated with the love of military glory. Our first
great war was to secure national independence, and our second to
preserve national unity. The contest between Prussia and France was to
prevent the ascendency of either of those great States. The wars of the
English in India were to find markets for English goods, employment for
the sons of the higher classes, and a new field for colonization and
political power. So all the great passions and interests which have
moved mankind have found their vent in war,--rough barbaric spoliations,
love of glory and political aggrandizement, desire to spread religious
ideas, love of liberty, greediness for wealth, unity of nations,
jealousy of other powers, even the desire to secure general peace and
tranquillity. Most wars have had in view the attainment of great ends,
and it is in the ultimate results of them that we see the progress
of nations.
Thus wars, contemplated in a philosophical aspect, in spite of their
repulsiveness are invested with dignity, and really indicate great moral
and intellectual movements, as well as the personal ambition or vanity
of conquerors. They are the ultimate solutions of great questions, not
to be solved in any other way,--unfortunately, I grant,--on account of
human wickedness. And I know of no great wars, much as I loathe and
detest them, and severely and justly as they may be reprobated, which
have not been overruled for the ultimate welfare of society. The wars of
Alexander led to the introduction of Grecian civilization into Asia and
Egypt; those of the Romans, to the pacification of the world and the
reign of law and order; those of barbarians, to the colonization of the
worn-out provinces of the Roman Empire by hardier and more energetic
nations; those of Charlemagne, to the ultimate suppression of barbaric
invasions; those of the Saracens, to the acknowledgment of One God;
those of Charles V., to the recognized necessity of a balance of power;
those which grew out of the Reformation, to religious liberty. The
Huguenots' contest undermined the ascendency of Roman priests in France;
the Seven Years' War developed the naval power of England, and gave to
her a prominent place among the nations, and exposed the weakness of
Austria, so long the terror of Europe; the wars of Louis XIV. sowed the
seeds of the French Revolution; those of Napoleon vindicated its great
ideas; those of England in India introduced the civilization of a
Christian nation; those of the Americans secured liberty and the unity
of their vast nation. The majesty of the Governor of the universe is
seen in nothing more impressively than in the direction which the wrath
of man is made to take.
Now these remarks apply to the Crusades. They represent prevailing
ideas. Their origin was a universal hatred of Mohammedans. Like
all the institutions of the Middle Ages, they were a great
contradiction,--debasement in glory, and glory in debasement. With all
the fierceness and superstition and intolerance of feudal barons, we see
in the Crusades the exercise of gallantry, personal heroism, tenderness,
Christian courtesy,--the virtues of chivalry, unselfishness, and
magnanimity; but they ended in giving a new impulse to civilization,
which will be more minutely pointed out before I close my lecture.
Thus the Crusades are really worthy to be chronicled by historians above
anything else which took place in the Middle Ages, since they gave birth
to mighty agencies, which still are vital forces in society,--even as
everything in American history pales before that awful war which
arrayed, in our times, the North against the South in desperate and
deadly contest; the history of which remains to be written, but cannot
be written till the animosities which provoked it have passed away. What
a small matter to future historians is rapid colonization and
development of material resources, in comparison with the sentiments
which provoked that war! What will future philosophers care how many
bushels of wheat are raised in Minnesota, or car-loads of corn brought
from Illinois, or hogs slaughtered in Chicago, or yards of cloth woven
in Lowell, or cases of goods packed in New York, or bales of carpets
manufactured in Philadelphia, or pounds of cotton exported from New
Orleans, or meetings of railway presidents at Cincinnati to pool the
profits of their monopolies, or women's-rights conventions held in
Boston, or schemes of speculators ventilated in the lobbies of
Washington, or stock-jobbing and gambling operations take place in every
large city of the country,--compared with the mighty marshalling of
forces on the banks of the Potomac, at the call of patriotism, to
preserve the life of the republic? You cannot divest war of dignity and
interest when the grandest results, which affect the permanent welfare
of nations, are made to appear.
The Crusades, as they were historically developed, are mixed up with the
religious ideas of the Middle Ages, with the domination of popes, with
the feudal system, with chivalry, with monastic life, with the central
power of kings, with the birth of mercantile States, with the fears and
interests of England, France, Germany, and Italy, for two hundred
years,--yea, with the architecture, commerce, geographical science, and
all the arts then known. All these principalities and powers and
institutions and enterprises were affected by them, so that at their
termination a new era in civilization began. Grasp the Crusades, and you
comprehend one of the forces which undermined the institutions of the
Middle Ages.
It is not a little remarkable that the earliest cause of the Crusades,
so far as I am able to trace, was the adoption by the European nations
of some of the principles of Eastern theogonies which pertained to
self-expiation. An Asiatic theological idea prepared the way for the war
between Europe and Asia. The European pietist embraced the religious
tenets of the Asiatic monk, which centred in the propitiation of the
Deity by works of penance. One of the approved and popular forms of
penance was a pilgrimage to sacred places,--seen equally among
degenerate Christian sects in Asia Minor, and among the Mohammedans of
Arabia. What place so sacred as Jerusalem, the scene of the passion and
resurrection of our Lord? Ever since the Empress Helena had built a
church at Jerusalem, it had been thronged with pious pilgrims. A
pilgrimage to old Jerusalem would open the doors of the New Jerusalem,
whose streets were of gold, and whose palaces were of pearls.
At the close of the tenth century there was great suffering in Europe,
bordering on despair. The calamities of ordinary life were so great that
the end of the world seemed to be at hand. Universal fear of impending
divine wrath seized the minds of men. A great religious awakening took
place, especially in England, France, and Germany. In accordance with
the sentiments of the age, there was every form of penance to avert the
anger of God and escape the flames of hell. The most popular form of
penance was the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, long and painful as it was.
Could the pilgrim but reach that consecrated spot, he was willing to
die. The village pastor delivered the staff into his hands, girded him
with a scarf, and attached to it a leathern scrip. Friends and neighbors
accompanied him a little way on his toilsome journey, which lay across
the Alps, through the plains of Lombardy, over Illyria and Pannonia,
along the banks of the Danube, by Moesia and Dacia, to Belgrade and
Constantinople, and then across the Bosphorus, through Bithynia,
Cilicia, and Syria, until the towers and walls of Tyre, Ptolemais, and
Caesarea proclaimed that he was at length in the Holy Land. Barons and
common people swell the number of these pilgrims. The haughty knight,
who has committed unpunished murders, and the pensive saint, wrapt in
religious ecstasies, rival each other in humility and zeal. Those who
have no money sell their lands. Those who have no lands to sell throw
themselves on Providence, and beg their way for fifteen hundred miles
among strangers. The roads are filled with these travellers,--on foot,
in rags, fainting from hunger and fatigue. What sufferings, to purchase
the favor of God, or to realize the attainment of pious curiosity! The
heart almost bleeds to think that our ancestors could ever have been so
visionary and misguided; that such a gloomy view of divine forgiveness
should have permeated the Middle Ages.
But the sorrows of the pious pilgrims did not end when they reached the
Holy Land. Jerusalem was then in the hands of the Turks and Saracens (or
Orientals, a general name given to the Arabian Mohammedans), who exacted
two pieces of gold from every pilgrim as the price of entering
Jerusalem, and moreover reviled and maltreated him. The Holy Sepulchre
could be approached only on the condition of defiling it.
The reports of these atrocities and cruelties at last reached the
Europeans, filling them with sympathy for the sufferers and indignation
for the persecutors. An intense hatred of Mohammedans was generated and
became universal,--a desire for vengeance, unparalleled in history.
Popes and bishops weep; barons and princes swear. Every convent and
every castle in Europe is animated with deadly resentment. Rage,
indignation, and vengeance are the passions of the hour,--all
concentrated on "the infidels," which term was the bitterest reproach
that each party could inflict on the other. An infidel was accursed of
God, and was consigned to human wrath. And the Mohammedans had the same
hatred of Christians that Christians had of Mohammedans. In the eyes of
each their enemies were infidels; and they were enemies because they
were regarded as infidels.
Such a state of feeling in both Europe and Asia could not but produce an
outbreak,--a spark only was needed to kindle a conflagration. That spark
was kindled when Peter of Amiens, a returned hermit, aroused the martial
nations to a bloody war on these enemies of God and man. He was a
mean-looking man, with neglected beard and disordered dress. He had no
genius, nor learning, nor political position. He was a mere fanatic,
fierce, furious with ungovernable rage. But he impersonated the leading
idea of the age,--hatred of "the infidels," as the Mohammedans were
called. And therefore his voice was heard. The Pope used him as a tool.
Two centuries later he could not have made himself a passing wonder. But
he is the means of stirring up the indignation of Europe into a blazing
flame. He itinerates France and Italy, exposing the wrongs of the
Christians and the cruelties of the Saracens,--the obstruction placed in
the way of salvation. At length a council is assembled at Clermont, and
the Pope--Urban II.--presides, and urges on the sacred war. In the year
1095 the Pope, in his sacred robes, and in the presence of four hundred
bishops and abbots, ascends the pulpit erected in the market-place, and
tells the immense multitude how their faith is trodden in the dust; how
the sacred relics are desecrated; and appeals alike to chivalry and
religion. More than this, he does just what Mohammed did when he urged
his followers to take the sword: he announces, in fiery language, the
fullest indulgence to all who take part in the expedition,--that all
their sins shall be forgiven, and that heaven shall be opened to them.
"It is the voice of God," they cry; "we will hasten to the deliverance
of the sacred city!" Every man stimulates the passions of his neighbor.
All vie in their contributions. The knights especially are
enthusiastic, for they can continue their accustomed life without
penance, and yet obtain the forgiveness of their sins. Religious fears
are turned at first into the channel of penance; and penance is made
easy by the indulgence of the martial passions. Every recruit wore a red
cross, and was called croisé,--cross-bearer; whence the name of
the holy war.
Thus the Crusades began, at the close of the eleventh century, when
William Rufus was King of England, when Henry IV. was still Emperor of
Germany, when Anselm was reigning at Canterbury as spiritual head of the
English Church, ten years after the great Hildebrand had closed his
turbulent pontificate.
I need not detail the history of this first Crusade. Of the two hundred
thousand who set out with Peter the Hermit,--this fiery fanatic, with no
practical abilities,--only twenty thousand succeeded in reaching even
Constantinople. The rest miserably perished by the way,--a most
disorderly rabble. And nothing illustrates the darkness of the age more
impressively than that a mere monk should have been allowed to lead two
hundred thousand armed men on an enterprise of such difficulty. How
little the science of war was comprehended! And even of the five hundred
thousand men under Godfrey, Tancred, Bohemond, and other great feudal
princes,--men of rare personal valor and courage; men who led the flower
of the European chivalry,---only twenty-five thousand remained after
the conquest of Jerusalem. The glorious array of a hundred and fifty
thousand horsemen, in full armor, was a miserable failure. The lauded
warriors of feudal Europe effected almost nothing. Tasso attempted to
immortalize their deeds; but how insignificant they were, compared with
even Homer's heroes! A modern army of twenty-five thousand men could not
only have put the whole five hundred thousand to rout in an hour, but
could have delivered Palestine in a few months. Even one of the standing
armies of the sixteenth century, under such a general as Henry IV. or
the Duke of Guise, could have effected more than all the crusaders of
two hundred years. The crusaders numbered many heroes, but scarcely a
single general. There was no military discipline among them: they knew
nothing of tactics or strategy; they fought pell-mell in groups, as in
the contests of barons among themselves. Individually they were gallant
and brave, and performed prodigies of valor with their swords and
battle-axes; but there was no direction given to their strength
by leaders.
The Second Crusade, preached half a century afterwards by Saint Bernard,
and commanded by an Emperor of Germany and a King of France, proved
equally unfortunate. Not a single trophy consoled Europe for the
additional loss of two hundred thousand men. The army melted away in
foolish sieges, for which the crusaders had no genius or proper means.
The Third Crusade, and the most famous, which began in the year 1189, of
which Philip Augustus of France, Richard Coeur de Lion of England, and
Frederic Barbarossa of Germany were the leaders,--the three greatest
monarchs of their age,--was also signally unsuccessful. Feudal armies
seem to have learned nothing in one hundred years of foreign warfare; or
else they had greater difficulties to contend with, abler generals to
meet, than they dreamed of, who reaped the real advantages,--like
Saladin. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Ivanhoe," has not probably
exaggerated the military prowess of the heroes of this war, or the valor
of Templars and Hospitallers; yet the finest array of feudal forces in
the Middle Ages, from which so much was expected, wasted its strength
and committed innumerable mistakes. It proved how useless was a feudal
army for a distant and foreign war. Philip may have been wily, and
Richard lion-hearted, but neither had the generalship of Saladin. Though
they triumphed at Tiberias, at Jaffa, at Caesarea; though prodigies of
valor were performed; though Ptolemais (or Acre), the strongest city of
the East, was taken,--yet no great military results followed. More blood
was shed at this famous siege, which lasted three years, than ought to
have sufficed for the subjugation of Asia. There were no decisive
battles, and yet one hundred battles took place under its walls.
Slaughter effected nothing. Jerusalem, which had been retaken by the
Saracens, still remained in their hands, and never afterwards was
conquered by the Europeans. The leaders returned dejected to their
kingdoms, and the bones of their followers whitened the soil of
Palestine.
The Fourth Crusade, incited by Pope Innocent III., three years after,
terminated with divisions among the States of Christendom, without
weakening the power of the Saracens (1202-4).
Among other expeditions was one called the "Children's Crusade" (1212),
a wretched, fanatical misery, resulting in the enslavement of many and
the death of thousands by shipwreck and exposure.
The Fifth Crusade, commanded by the Emperor Frederic II. of Germany
(1228-9), was diverted altogether from the main object, and spent its
force on Constantinople. That city was taken, but the Holy Land was not
delivered. The Byzantine Empire was then in the last stages of
decrepitude, or its capital would not have fallen, as it did, from a
naval attack made by the Venetians, and in revenge for the treacheries
and injuries of the Greek emperors to former crusaders. This, instead of
weakening the Mussulmans, broke down the chief obstacle to their
entrance into Europe shortly afterward.
The Sixth Crusade (1248-50) only secured the capture of Damietta, on the
banks of the Nile.
The Seventh and last of these miserable wars was the most unfortunate
of all, A.D. 1270. The saintly monarch of France perished, with most of
his forces, on the coast of Africa, and the ruins of Carthage were the
only conquest which was made. Europe now fairly sickened over the losses
and misfortunes and defeats of nearly two centuries, during which five
millions are supposed to have lost their lives. Famine and pestilence
destroyed more than the sword. Before disheartened Europe could again
rally, the last strongholds of the Christians were wrested away by the
Mohammedans; and their gallant but unsuccessful defenders were treated
with every inhumanity, and barbarously murdered in spite of truces
and treaties.
Such were the famous Crusades, only the main facts of which I allude to;
for to describe them all, or even the more notable incidents, would fill
volumes,--all interesting to be read in detail by those who have
leisure; all marked by prodigious personal valor; all disgraceful for
the want of unity of action and the absence of real generalship. They
indicate the enormous waste of forces which characterizes nations in
their progress. This waste of energies is one of the great facts of all
history, surpassed only by the apparent waste of the forces of nature or
the fruits of the earth, in the transition period between the time when
men roamed in forests and the time when they cultivated the land. See
what a vast destruction there has been of animals by each other; what a
waste of plants and vegetables, when they could not be utilized. Why
should man escape the universal waste, when reason is ignored or
misdirected? Of what use or value could Palestine have been to Europeans
in the Middle Ages? Of what use can any country be to conquerors, when
it cannot be civilized or made to contribute to their wants? Europe then
had no need of Asia, and that perhaps is the reason why Europe then
could not conquer Asia. Providence interfered, and rebuked the mad
passions which animated the invaders, and swept them all away. Were
Palestine really needed by Europe, it could be wrested from the Turks
with less effort than was made by the feeblest of the crusaders.
Constantinople--the most magnificent site for a central power--was
indeed wrested from the Greek emperors, and kept one hundred years; but
the Europeans did not know what to do with the splendid prize, and it
was given to the Turks, who made it the capital of a vital empire. All
the good which resulted to Europe from the temporary possession of
Constantinople was the introduction into Europe of Grecian literature
and art. Its political and mercantile importance was not appreciated,
nor then even scarcely needed. It will one day become again the spoil of
that nation which can most be benefited by it. Such is the course
events are made to take.
In this brief notice of the most unsuccessful wars in which Europe ever
engaged we cannot help noticing their great mistakes. We see rashness,
self-confidence, depreciation of enemies, want of foresight, ignorance
of the difficulties to be surmounted. The crusaders were diverted from
their main object, and wasted their forces in attacking unimportant
cities, or fortresses out of their way. They invaded the islands of the
Mediterranean, Egypt, Africa, and Greek possessions. They quarrelled
with their friends, and they quarrelled with each other. The chieftains
sought their individual advantage rather than the general good. Nor did
they provide themselves with the necessities for such distant
operations. They had no commissariat,--without which even a modern army
fails. They were captivated by trifles and frivolities, rather than
directing their strength to the end in view. They allowed themselves to
be seduced by both Greek and infidel arts and vices. They were betrayed
into the most foolish courses. They had no proper knowledge of the
forces with which they were to contend. They wantonly massacred their
foes when they fell into their hands, increased the animosity of the
Mohammedans, and united them in a concert which they should themselves
have sought. They marched by land when they should have sailed by sea,
and they sailed by sea when they should have marched by land. They
intrusted the command to monks and inexperienced leaders. They obeyed
the mandates of apostolic vicars when they should have considered
military necessities. In fact there was no unity of action, and scarcely
unity of end. What would the great masters of Grecian and Roman warfare
have thought of these blunders and stupidities, to say nothing of modern
generals! The conduct of those wars excites our contempt, in spite of
the heroism of individual knights. We despise the incapacity of leaders
as much as we abhor the fanaticism which animated their labors. The
Crusades have no bright side, apart from the piety and valor of some who
embarked in them. Hence they are less and less interesting to modern
readers. The romance about them has ceased to affect us. We only see
mistakes and follies; and who cares to dwell on the infirmities of human
nature? It is only what is great in man that moves and exalts us. There
is nothing we dwell upon with pleasure in these aggressive, useless,
unjustifiable wars, except the chivalry associated with them. The reason
of modern times as sternly rebukes them as the heart of the Middle Ages
sickened at them.
In one aspect they are absolutely repulsive; and this in view of their
vices. The crusaders were cruel. They wantonly massacred their enemies,
even when defenceless. Sixty thousand people were butchered on the fall
of Jerusalem; ten thousand were slaughtered in the Mosque of Omar. The
Christians themselves felt safe when they sought the retreat of
churches, in dire calamities at home; but they had no respect for the
religious retreats of infidels. When any city fell into their hands
there was wholesale assassination. And they became licentious, as well
as rapacious and cruel. They learned all the vices of the East. Even
under the walls of Acre they sang to the sounds of Arabian instruments,
and danced amid indecent songs. When they took Constantinople they had
no respect for either churches or tombs, and desecrated even the pulpit
of the Patriarch. Their original religious zeal was finally lost sight
of entirely in their military license. They became more hateful to the
orthodox Greeks than to the infidel Saracens. And when the crusaders
returned to their homes,--what few of them lived to return,--they
morally poisoned the communities and villages in which they dwelt. They
became vagabonds and vagrants; they introduced demoralizing amusements,
and jugglers and strolling players appeared for the first time in
Europe. All war is necessarily demoralizing, even war in defence of
glorious principles, and especially in these times, but much more so is
unjust, fanatical, and unnecessary war.
But I turn from the record of the mistakes, follies, vices, miseries,
and crimes which marked the wickedest and most uncalled-for wars of
European history, to consider their ultimate results: not logical
results, for these were melancholy,--the depopulation of Europe; the
decimation of the nobility; the poverty which enormous drains of money
from their natural channels produced; the spread of vice; the decline of
even feudal virtues. These evils and others followed naturally and
inevitably from those distant wars. The immediate effects of all war are
evil and melancholy. Murder, pillage, profanity, drunkenness,
extravagance, public distress, bitter sorrows, wasted energies,
destruction of property, national debts, exaltation of military maxims,
general looseness of life, distaste for regular pursuits,--these are the
first-fruits of war, offensive and defensive, and as inevitable and
uniform as the laws of gravity. No wars were ever more disastrous than
the Crusades in their immediate effects, in any way they may be viewed.
It is all one dark view of disappointment, sorrow, wretchedness, and
sin. There were no bright spots; no gains, only calamities. Nothing
consoled Europe for the loss of five millions of her most able-bodied
men,--no increase of territory, no establishment of rights, no glory,
even; nothing but disgrace and ruin, as in that maddest of all modern
expeditions, the invasion of Russia by Napoleon.
But after the lapse of nearly seven hundred years we can see important
results on the civilization of Europe, indirectly effected,--not
intended, nor designed, nor dreamed of; which results we consider
beneficent, and so beneficent that the world is probably better for
those horrid wars. It was fortunate to humanity at large that they
occurred, although so unfortunate to Europe at the time. In the end,
Europe was a gainer by them. Wickedness was not the seed of virtue, but
wickedness was overruled. Woe to them by whom offences come, but it must
need be that offences come. Men in their depravity will commit crimes,
and those crimes are punished; but even these are made to praise a Power
superior to that of devils, as benevolent as it is omnipotent,--in which
fact I see the utter hopelessness of earth without a superintending and
controlling Deity.
One important result of the Crusades was the barrier they erected to the
conquests of the Mohammedans in Europe. It is true that the wave of
Saracenic invasion had been arrested by Charles Martel four or five
hundred years before; but in the mean time a new Mohammedan power sprang
up, of greater vigor, of equal ferocity, and of a more stubborn
fanaticism. This was that of the Turks, who had their eye on
Constantinople and all Eastern Europe. And Europe might have submitted
to their domination, had they instead of the Latins taken
Constantinople. The conquest of that city was averted several hundred
years; and when at last it fell into Turkish hands, Christendom was
strong enough to resist the Turkish armies. We must remember that the
Turks were a great power, even in the times of Peter the Great, and
would have taken Vienna but for John Sobieski. But when Urban II., at
the Council of Clermont, urged the nations of Europe to repel the
infidels on the confines of Asia, rather than wait for them in the heart
of Europe, the Asiatic provinces of the Greek Empire were overrun both
by Turks and Saracens. They held Syria, Armenia, Asia Minor, Africa,
Spain, and the Balearic Islands. Had not Godfrey come to the assistance
of a division of the Christian army, when it was surrounded by two
hundred thousand Turks at the battle of Dorylaeum, the Christians would
have been utterly overwhelmed, and the Turks would have pressed to the
Hellespont. But they were beaten back into Syria, and, for a time, as
far as the line of the Euphrates. But for that timely repulse, the
battles of Belgrade and Lepanto might not have been fought in subsequent
ages. It would have been an overwhelming calamity had the Turks invaded
Europe in the twelfth century. The loss of five millions on the plains
of Asia would have been nothing in comparison to an invasion of Europe
by the Mohammedans,--whether Saracens or Turks. It may be that the
chivalry of Europe would have successfully repelled an invasion, as the
Saracens repelled the Christians, on their soil. It may be that Asia
could not have conquered Europe any easier than Europe could
conquer Asia.
I do not know how far statesmanlike views entered into the minds of the
leaders of the Crusades. I believe the sentiment which animated Peter
and Urban and Bernard was pure hatred of the Mohammedans (because they
robbed, insulted, and oppressed the pilgrims), and not any controlling
fears of their invasion of Europe. If such a fear had influenced them,
they would not have permitted a mere rabble to invade Asia; there would
have been a sense of danger stronger than that of hatred,--which does
not seem to have existed in the self-confidence of the crusaders. They
thought it an easy thing to capture Jerusalem: it was a sort of holiday
march of the chivalry of Europe, under Richard and Philip Augustus.
Perhaps, however, the princes of Europe were governed by political
rather than religious reasons. Some few long-headed statesmen, if such
there were among the best informed of bishops and abbots, may have felt
the necessity of the conflict in a political sense; but I do not believe
this was a general conviction. There was, doubtless, a political
necessity--although men were too fanatical to see more than one side--to
crush the Saracens because they were infidels, and not because they were
warriors. But whether they saw it or not, or armed themselves to resist
a danger as well as to exterminate heresy, the ultimate effects were
all the same. The crusaders failed in their direct end. They did not
recover Palestine; but they so weakened or diverted the Mohammedan
armies that there was not strength enough left in them to conquer
Europe, or even to invade her, until she was better prepared to resist
it,--as she did at the battle of Lepanto (A.D. 1571), one of the
decisive battles of the world.
I have said that the Crusades were a disastrous failure. I mean in their
immediate ends, not in ultimate results. If it is probable that they
arrested the conquests of the Turks in Europe, then this blind and
fanatical movement effected the greatest blessing to Christendom. It
almost seems that the Christians were hurled into the Crusades by an
irresistible fate, to secure a great ultimate good; or, to use Christian
language, were sent as blind instruments by the Almighty to avert a
danger they could not see. And if this be true, the inference is logical
and irresistible that God uses even the wicked passions of men to effect
his purposes,--as when the envy of Haman led to the elevation of
Mordecai, and to the deliverance of the Jews from one of their
greatest dangers.
Another and still more noticeable result of the Crusades was the
weakening of the power of those very barons who embarked in the wars.
Their fanaticism recoiled upon themselves, and undermined their own
system. Nothing could have happened more effectually to loosen the
rigors of the feudal system. It was the baron and the knight that
marched to Palestine who suffered most in the curtailment of the
privileges which they had abused,--even as it was the Southern planter
of Carolina who lost the most heavily in the war which he provoked to
defend his slave property. In both cases the fetters of the serfs and
slaves were broken by their own masters,--not intentionally, of course,
but really and effectually. How blind men are in their injustices! They
are made to hang on the gallows which they have erected for others. To
gratify his passion of punishing the infidels, whom he so intensely
hated, the baron or prince was obliged to grant great concessions to the
towns and villages which he ruled with an iron hand, in order to raise
money for his equipment and his journey. He was not paid by Government
as are modern soldiers and officers. He had to pay his own expenses, and
they were heavier than he had expected or provided for. Sometimes he was
taken captive, and had his ransom to raise,--to pay for in hard cash,
and not in land: as in the case of Richard of England, when, on his
return from Palestine, he was imprisoned in Austria,--and it took to
ransom him, as some have estimated, one third of all the gold and silver
of the realm, chiefly furnished by the clergy. But where was the
imprisoned baron to get the money for his ransom? Not from the Jews,
for their compound interest of fifty per cent every six months would
have ruined him in less than two years. But the village guilds had money
laid by. Merchants and mechanics in the towns, whom he despised, had
money. Monasteries had money. He therefore gave new privileges to all;
he gave charters of freedom to towns; he made concessions to the
peasantry.
As the result of this, when the baron came back from the wars, he found
himself much poorer than when he went away,--he found his lands
encumbered, his castle dilapidated, and his cattle sold. In short, he
was, as we say of a proud merchant now and then, "embarrassed in his
circumstances." He was obliged to economize. But the feudal family would
not hear of retrenchment, and the baron himself had become more
extravagant in his habits. As travel and commerce had increased he had
new wants, which he could not gratify without parting with either lands
or prerogatives. As the result of all this he became not quite so
overbearing, though perhaps more sullen; for he saw men rising about him
who were as rich as he,--men whom his ancestors had despised. The
artisans, who belonged to the leading guilds, which had become enriched
by the necessities of barons, or by that strange activity of trade and
manufactures which war seems to stimulate as well as to destroy,--these
rude and ignorant people were not so servile as formerly, but began to
feel a sort of importance, especially in towns and cities, which
multiplied wonderfully during the Crusades. In other words, they were no
longer brutes, to be trodden down without murmur or resistance. They
began to form what we call a "middle class." Feudalism, in its proud
ages, did not recognize a middle class. The impoverishment of nobles by
the Crusades laid the foundation of this middle class, at least in
large towns.
The growth of cities and the decay of feudalism went on simultaneously;
and both were equally the result of the Crusades. If the noble became
impoverished, the merchant became enriched; and the merchant lived, not
in the country, but in some mercantile mart. The crusaders had need of
ships. These were furnished by those cities which had obtained from
feudal sovereigns charters of freedom. Florence, Pisa, Venice, Genoa,
Marseilles, became centres of wealth and political importance. The
growth of cities and the extension of commerce went hand in hand.
Whatever the Crusades did for cities they did equally for commerce; and
with the needs of commerce came improvement in naval architecture. As
commerce grew, the ships increased in size and convenience; and the
products which the ships brought from Asia to Europe were not only
introduced, but they were cultivated. New fruits and vegetables were
raised by European husbandmen. Plum-trees were brought from Damascus and
sugar-cane from Tripoli. Silk fabrics, formerly confined to
Constantinople and the East, were woven in Italian and French villages.
The Venetians obtained from Tyrians the art of making glass. The Greek
fire suggested gunpowder. Architecture received an immense impulse: the
churches became less sombre and heavy, and more graceful and beautiful.
Even the idea of the arch, some think, came from the East. The domes and
minarets of Venice were borrowed from Constantinople. The ornaments of
Byzantine churches and palaces were brought to Europe. The horses of
Lysippus, carried from Greece to Rome, and from Rome to Constantinople,
at last surmounted the palace of the Doges. Houses became more
comfortable, churches more beautiful, and palaces more splendid. Even
manners improved, and intercourse became more polished. Chivalry
borrowed many of its courtesies from the East. There were new
refinements in the arts of cookery as well as of society. Literature
itself received a new impulse, as well as science. It was from
Constantinople that Europe received the philosophy of Plato and
Aristotle, in the language in which it was written, instead of
translations through the Arabic. Greek scholars came to Italy to
introduce their unrivalled literature; and after Grecian literature came
Grecian art. The study of Greek philosophy gave a new stimulus to human
inquiry, and students flocked to the universities. They went to Bologna
to study Roman law, as well as to Paris to study the Scholastic
philosophy.
Thus the germs of a new civilization were scattered over Europe. It so
happened that at the close of the Crusades civilization had increased in
every country of Europe, in spite of the losses they had sustained.
Delusions were dispelled, and greater liberality of mind was manifest.
The world opened up towards the East, and was larger than was before
supposed. "Europe and Asia had been brought together and recognized each
other." Inventions and discoveries succeeded the new scope for energies
which the Crusades opened. The ships which had carried the crusaders to
Asia were now used to explore new coasts and harbors. Navigators learned
to be bolder. A navigator of Genoa--a city made by the commerce which
the Crusades necessitated--crosses the Atlantic Ocean. As the magnetic
needle, which a Venetian traveller brought from Asia, gave a new
direction to commerce, so the new stimulus to learning which the Grecian
philosophy effected led to the necessity of an easier form of writing;
and printing appeared. With the shock which feudalism received from the
Crusades, central power was once more wielded by kings, and standing
armies supplanted the feudal. The crusaders must have learned something
from their mistakes; and military science was revived. There is scarcely
an element of civilization which we value, that was not, directly or
indirectly, developed by the Crusades, yet which was not sought for, or
anticipated even,--the centralization of thrones, the weakening of the
power of feudal barons, the rise of free cities, the growth of commerce,
the impulse given to art, improvements in agriculture, the rise of a
middle class, the wonderful spread of literature, greater refinements in
manners and dress, increased toleration of opinions, a more cheerful
view of life, the simultaneous development of energies in every field of
human labor, new hopes and aspirations among the people, new glories
around courts, new attractions in the churches, new comforts in the
villages, new luxuries in the cities. Even spiritual power became less
grim and sepulchral, since there was less fear to work upon.
I do not say that the Crusades alone produced the marvellous change in
the condition of society which took place in the thirteenth century, but
they gave an impulse to this change. The strong sapling which the
barbarians brought from their German forests and planted in the heart of
Europe,--and which had silently grown in the darkest ages of barbarism,
guarded by the hand of Providence,--became a sturdy tree in the feudal
ages, and bore fruit when the barons had wasted their strength in Asia.
The Crusades improved this fruit, and found new uses for it, and
scattered it far and wide, and made it for the healing of the nations.
Enterprise of all sorts succeeded the apathy of convents and castles.
The village of mud huts became a town, in which manufactures began. As
new wants became apparent, new means of supplying them appeared. The
Crusades stimulated these wants, and commerce and manufactures supplied
them. The modern merchant was born in Lombard cities, which supplied the
necessities of the crusaders. Feudalism ignored trade, but the baron
found his rival in the merchant-prince. Feudalism disdained art, but
increased wealth turned peasants into carpenters and masons; carpenters
and masons combined and defied their old masters, and these masters left
their estates for the higher civilization of cities, and built palaces
instead of castles. Palaces had to be adorned, as well as churches; and
the painters and handicraftsmen found employment. So one force
stimulated another force, neither of which would have appeared if feudal
life had remained in statu quo.
The only question to settle is, how far the marked progress of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be traced to the natural
development of the Germanic races under the influence of religion, or
how far this development was hastened by those vast martial expeditions,
indirectly indeed, but really. Historians generally give most weight to
the latter. If so, then it is clear that the most disastrous wars
recorded in history were made the means--blindly, to all appearance,
without concert or calculation--of ultimately elevating the European
races, and of giving a check to the conquering fanaticism of the enemies
with whom they contended with such bitter tears and sullen
disappointments.
AUTHORITIES.
Michaud's Histoire des Croisades; Mailly's L'Esprit des Croisades;
Choiseul; Daillecourt's De l'Influence des Croisades; Sur l'État des
Peuples en Europe; Heeren's Ueber den Einfluss der Kreuzzüge;
Sporschill's Geschichte der Kreuzzüge; Hallam's Middle Ages; Mill's
History of the Crusades; James's History of the Crusades; Michelet's
History of France (translated); Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Milman's
Latin Christianity; Proctor's History of the Crusades; Mosheim.
