An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 19

Syria had been overrun by the Arabs in the seventh century, shortly after the death of Mohammed, and the Holy City of Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the infidels. The Arab, however, shared the veneration of the Christian for the places a.s.sociated with the life of Christ and, in general, permitted the Christian pilgrims who found their way thither to wors.h.i.+p unmolested. But with the coming of a new and ruder people, the Seljuk Turks, in the eleventh century, the pilgrims began to bring home news of great hards.h.i.+ps. Moreover, the eastern emperor was defeated by the Turks in 1071 and lost Asia Minor. The presence of the Turks in possession of the fortress of Nicaea, just across from Constantinople, was of course a standing menace to the Eastern Empire. When the energetic Emperor Alexius (1081-1118) ascended the throne he endeavored to expel the infidel. Finding himself unequal to the task, he appealed for a.s.sistance to the head of Christendom, Urban II. The first great impetus to the Crusades was the call issued by Urban at the celebrated council which met in 1095 at Clermont in France.

[Sidenote: Urban II issues the call to the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont, 1095.]

In an address, which produced more remarkable immediate results than any other which history records, the pope exhorted knights and foot soldiers of all ranks to give up their usual wicked business of destroying their Christian brethren in private warfare and turn instead to the succor of their fellow-Christians in the East. Otherwise the insolent Turks would, if unchecked, extend their sway still more widely over the faithful servants of the Lord. "Let the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord our Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially urge you on, and the holy places which they are now treating with ignominy and irreverently polluting." Urban urged besides that France was too poor to support all its people, while the Holy Land flowed with milk and honey. "Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest the land from the wicked race and subject it to yourselves." When the pope had finished, all who were present exclaimed, with one accord, "It is the will of G.o.d." This, the pope declared, should be the rallying cry of the crusaders, who were to wear a cross upon their bosoms as they went forth, and upon their backs as they returned, as a holy sign of their sacred mission.[127]

[Sidenote: The motives of the crusaders.]

The Crusades are ordinarily represented as the most striking examples of the simple faith and religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages. They appealed, however, to many different kinds of men. The devout, the romantic, and the adventurous were by no means the only cla.s.ses that were attracted. Syria held out inducements to the discontented n.o.ble who might hope to gain a princ.i.p.ality in the East, to the merchant who was looking for new enterprises, to the merely restless who wished to avoid his responsibilities at home, and even to the criminal who enlisted with a view of escaping the results of his past offenses. It is noteworthy that Urban appeals especially to those who had been "contending against their brethren and relatives," and urges those "who have hitherto been robbers now to become soldiers of Christ." The conduct of many of the crusaders indicates that the pope found a ready hearing among this cla.s.s. Yet higher motives than a love of adventure and the hope of conquest impelled many who took their way eastward. Great numbers, doubtless, went to Jerusalem "through devotion alone, and not for the sake of honor or gain," with the sole object of freeing the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the infidel.

[Sidenote: Privileges of the crusaders.]

To such as these the pope promised that the journey itself should take the place of all penance for sin. The faithful crusader, like the faithful Mohammedan, was a.s.sured of immediate entrance into heaven if he died repentant in the holy cause. Later the Church exhibited its extraordinary authority by what would seem to us an unjust interference with business contracts. It freed those who, with a pure heart, entered upon the journey from the payment of interest upon their debts, and permitted them to mortgage property against the wishes of their feudal lords. The crusaders' wives and children and property were taken under the immediate protection of the Church, and he who troubled them incurred excommunication.[128] These various considerations help to explain the great popularity of undertakings that, at first sight, would seem to have promised only hards.h.i.+ps and disappointment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROUTES OF THE CRUSADERS]

[Sidenote: Peter the Hermit and his army.]

74. The Council of Clermont met in November. Before spring (1096) those who set forth to preach the Crusade, above all the famous Peter the Hermit, who was formerly given credit for having begun the whole crusading movement, had collected, in France and along the Rhine, an extraordinary army of the common folk. Peasants, artisans, vagabonds, and even women and children, answered the summons, all fanatically intent upon rescuing the Holy Sepulcher, two thousand miles away. They were confident that the Lord would sustain them during the weary leagues of the journey, and grant them a prompt victory over the infidel. The host was got under way in several divisions under the leaders.h.i.+p of Peter the Hermit,[129] and of Walter the Penniless and other humble knights. Many of the crusaders were slaughtered by the Hungarians, who rose to protect themselves from the depredations of this motley horde.

Part of them got as far as Nicaea, only to be slaughtered by the Turks.

This is but an example, on a large scale, of what was going on continually for a century or so after this first great catastrophe.

Individual pilgrims and adventurers, and sometimes considerable bodies of crusaders, were constantly falling a prey to every form of disaster--starvation, slavery, disease, and death--in their endeavors to reach the Holy Land.

[Sidenote: The First Crusade, 1096.]

The conspicuous figures of the long period of the Crusades are not, however, to be found among the lowly followers of Peter the Hermit, but are the knights, in their long coats of mail. A year after the summons issued at Clermont great armies of fighting men had been collected in the West under n.o.ble leaders;--the pope speaks of three hundred thousand soldiers. Of the various divisions which were to meet in Constantinople, the following were the most important: the volunteers from Provence under the papal legate and Count Raymond of Toulouse; inhabitants of Germany, particularly of Lorraine, under G.o.dfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin, both destined to be rulers of Jerusalem; and lastly, an army of French and of the Normans of southern Italy under Bohemond and Tancred.[130]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Knight of the First Crusade.]

The distinguished knights who have been mentioned were not actually in command of real armies. Each crusader undertook the expedition on his own account and was only obedient to any one's orders so long as he pleased. The knights and men naturally grouped themselves around the more noted leaders, but considered themselves free to change chiefs when they pleased. The leaders themselves reserved the right to look out for their own special interests rather than sacrifice themselves to the good of the expedition.

[Sidenote: Hostilities between the Greeks and the crusaders.]

Upon the arrival of the crusaders at Constantinople it quickly became clear that they had little more in common with the Greeks than with the Turks. Emperor Alexius ordered his soldiers to attack G.o.dfrey's army, encamped in the suburbs of his capital, because their chief at first refused to take the oath of feudal homage to him. The emperor's daughter, in her remarkable history of the times, gives a sad picture of the outrageous conduct of the crusaders. They, on the other hand, denounced the "schismatic Greeks" as traitors, cowards, and liars.

The eastern emperor had hoped to use his western allies to reconquer Asia Minor and force back the Turks. The leading knights, on the contrary, dreamed of carving out princ.i.p.alities for themselves in the former dominions of the emperor and proposed to control them by right of conquest. Later we find both Greeks and western Christians shamelessly allying themselves with the Mohammedans against each other. The relations of the eastern and western enemies of the Turks were well ill.u.s.trated when the crusaders besieged their first town, Nicaea. When it was just ready to surrender, the Greeks arranged with the enemy to have their troops admitted first. They then closed the gates against their western confederates and invited them to move on.

[Sidenote: Dissension among the leaders of the crusaders.]

The first real allies that the crusaders met with were the Christian Armenians, who brought them aid after their terrible march through Asia Minor. With their help Baldwin got possession of Edessa, of which he made himself prince. The chiefs induced the great body of the crusaders to postpone the march on Jerusalem, and a year was spent in taking the rich and important city of Antioch. A bitter strife then broke out, especially between the Norman Bohemond and the count of Toulouse, as to who should have the conquered town. After the most unworthy conduct on both sides, Bohemond won, and Raymond set to work to conquer a princ.i.p.ality for himself on the coast about Tripoli.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of the Crusaders' States in Syria]

[Sidenote: Capture of Jerusalem.]

In the spring of 1099 about twenty thousand warriors finally moved upon Jerusalem. They found the city well walled and in the midst of a desolate region where neither food nor water, nor the materials to construct the apparatus necessary for the capture of the town, were to be found, The opportune arrival at Jaffa of galleys from Genoa furnished the besiegers with supplies, and, in spite of all the difficulties, the place was taken in a couple of months. The crusaders, with their customary barbarity, ma.s.sacred the inhabitants. G.o.dfrey of Bouillon was chosen ruler of Jerusalem and took the modest t.i.tle of "Defender of the Holy Sepulcher." He soon died and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who left Edessa in 1100 to take up the task of extending the bounds of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: Founding of Latin kingdoms in Syria.]

It will be observed that the "Franks," as the Mohammedans called all the western folk, had established the centers of four princ.i.p.alities. These were Edessa, Antioch, the region about Tripoli conquered by Raymond, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The last was speedily increased by Baldwin; with the help of the mariners from Venice and Genoa, he succeeded in getting possession of Acre, Sidon, and a number of coast towns.

The news of these Christian victories quickly reached the West, and in 1101 tens of thousands of new crusaders started eastward. Most of them were lost or dispersed in pa.s.sing through Asia Minor, and few reached their destination. The original conquerors were consequently left to hold the land against the Saracens and to organize their conquests as best they could.

The permanent hold of the Franks upon the eastern borders of the Mediterranean depended upon the strength of the colonies which their various princes were able to establish. It is impossible to learn how many pilgrims from the West made their permanent homes in the new Latin princ.i.p.alities. Certainly the greater part of those who visited Palestine returned home after fulfilling their vow to kneel at the Holy Sepulcher. Still the princes could rely upon a certain number of soldiers who would be willing to stay and fight the Mohammedans. The Turks, moreover, were so busy fighting one another that they showed less energy than might have been expected in attempting to drive the Franks from the narrow strip of territory--some five hundred miles long and fifty wide--which they had conquered.

[Sidenote: The Hospitalers.]

75. A noteworthy outcome of the crusading movement was the foundation of several curious orders--the Hospitalers, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights--which combined the dominant interests of the time, those of the monk and the soldier. They permitted a man to be both at once; the knight might wear a monkish cowl over his coat of mail. The Hospitalers grew out of a monastic a.s.sociation that was formed before the First Crusade for the succor of the poor and sick among the pilgrims. Later the society admitted n.o.ble knights to its members.h.i.+p and became a military order, while continuing its care for the sick. This charitable a.s.sociation, like the earlier monasteries, received generous gifts of land in western Europe and built and controlled many fortified monasteries in the Holy Land itself. After the evacuation of Syria in the thirteenth century, the Hospitalers moved their headquarters to the island of Rhodes, and later to Malta. The order still exists and it is considered a distinction to this day to have the privilege of wearing its emblem, the cross of Malta.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Costume of the Hospitalers, showing the Form of the Cross of Malta.]

[Sidenote: The Templars.]

Before the Hospitalers were transformed into a military order, a little group of French knights banded together in 1119 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem from the attacks of the infidel. They were a.s.signed quarters in the king's palace at Jerusalem on the site of the former Temple of Solomon; hence the name, Templars, which they were destined to render famous. The "poor soldiers of the Temple" were enthusiastically approved by the Church. They wore a white cloak adorned with a red cross, and were under a very strict monastic rule which bound them by the vows of obedience, poverty, and celibacy. The fame of the order spread throughout Europe, and the most exalted, even dukes and princes, were ready to renounce the world and serve Christ under its black and white banner, with the legend, _Non n.o.bis, Domine_.

The order was aristocratic from the first, and it soon became incredibly rich and independent. It had its collectors in all parts of Europe, who dispatched the "alms" they received to the Grand Master at Jerusalem.

Towns, churches, and estates were given to the order, as well as vast sums of money. The king of Aragon proposed to bestow upon it a third of his kingdom. The pope showered privileges upon the Templars. They were exempted from t.i.thes and taxes, and were brought under his immediate jurisdiction; they were released from feudal obligations, and bishops were forbidden to excommunicate them.

[Sidenote: Abolition of the order of Templars.]

No wonder they grew insolent and aroused the jealousy and hate of princes and prelates alike. Even Innocent III violently upbraided them for admitting to their order wicked men, who then enjoyed all the privileges of churchmen. Early in the fourteenth century, through the combined efforts of the pope and Philip the Fair of France, the order was brought to a terrible end. Its members were accused of the most abominable practices,--such as heresy, the wors.h.i.+p of idols, and the systematic insulting of Christ and his religion. Many distinguished Templars were burned for heresy, others perished miserably in dungeons.

The order was abolished and its property confiscated.

[Sidenote: The Teutonic Knights conquer the Prussians.]

As for the third great order, that of the Teutonic Knights, their greatest importance lies in their conquest, after the Crusades were over, of the heathen Prussians. Through their efforts a new Christian state was formed on the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic, in which the important cities of Konigsberg and Dantzig grew up.

[Sidenote: The Second Crusade.]

76. Fifty years after the preaching of the First Crusade, the fall of Edessa (1144), an important outpost of the Christians in the East, led to a second great expedition. This was forwarded by no less a person than St. Bernard, who went about using his unrivaled eloquence to induce volunteers to take the cross. In a fierce hymn of battle he cried to the Knights Templars: "The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy War is sure of his reward, the more sure if he himself be slain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is glorified." The king of France readily consented to take the cross, but the emperor, Conrad III, appears to have yielded only after St. Bernard had preached before him and given a vivid picture of the terrors of the Judgment Day.

In regard to the less distinguished recruits, the historian, Otto of Freising, tells us that so many thieves and robbers hastened to take the cross that every one recognized in their enthusiasm the hand of G.o.d. St.

Bernard himself, the chief promoter of the expedition, gives a most unflattering description of the "soldiers of Christ." "In that countless mult.i.tude you will find few except the utterly wicked and impious, the sacrilegious, homicides, and perjurers, whose departure is a double gain. Europe rejoices to lose them and Palestine to gain them; they are useful in both ways, in their absence from here and their presence there." It is quite unnecessary to describe the movements and fate of the crusaders; suffice it to say that, from a military standpoint, the so-called Second Crusade was a miserable failure.

[Sidenote: The Third Crusade.]

Forty years later, in 1187, Jerusalem was taken by Saladin, the most heroic and distinguished of all the Saracen rulers. The loss of the Holy City led to the most famous of all the military expeditions to the Holy Land, in which Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lion-Hearted of England, and his political rival, Philip Augustus of France, all took part. The accounts of the enterprise show that while the several Christian leaders hated one another heartily enough, the Christians and Saracens were coming to respect one another. We find examples of the most courtly relations between the representatives of the opposing religions. In 1192 Richard concluded a truce with Saladin, by the terms of which the Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy places with safety and comfort.[131]

[Sidenote: The Fourth and subsequent Crusades.]

In the thirteenth century the crusaders began to direct their expeditions toward Egypt as the center of the Saracen power. The first of these was diverted in an extraordinary manner by the Venetians, who induced the crusaders to conquer Constantinople for their benefit. The further expeditions of Frederick II and St. Louis need not be described.

Jerusalem was irrevocably lost in 1244, and although the possibility of recovering the city was long considered, the Crusades may be said to have come to a close before the end of the thirteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ruins of a Fortress of the Hospitalers in the Holy Land]

[Sidenote: Settlements of the Italian merchants.]