THE CRUSADERS IN THE EAST.* MR. STEVENSON is fully justified
in insisting that a history of the Crusades, to have an organic unity after the commence- ment, must be written as a history of the Crusading States in Syria. We are too apt to look upon the Crusades merely as a series of romantic episodes which lighten up the sordid side of the Middle Ages, and provide a background for masters of the art of fiction, both in prose and poetry. Yet for two centuries the stability of the Latin kingdoms of Syria was a matter of prime importance for Europe as a whole. They secured the "open door" between East and West, and they were a large factor in the commercial prosperity of the Italian maritime States. On the other hand, their existence was an open sore in the Moslem East, a perpetual drain upon the material resources of the Caliphate, and a check to the tide of Mohammedan conquest. Nor must it be forgotten that the possession of the Holy Places by Christian rulers was almost as great a humiliation to the followers of the Prophet as their desecration by the Mohammedans was to the religious senti- ment of Europe. The story of the Crusades has generally been told exclusively from the Western standpoint. Mr. Stevenson regards them as part of the history of the East, and draws largely from the Arabic chroniclers. Treated from whatever point of view, the narrative of those two centuries is a tangled skein, and the author, by a severe policy of repression, has succeeded in keeping the main threads well in hand. The moral and material effects of the Crusades upon Europe are outside his scope, and he has resisted the temptation to moralise over the picturesque and heroic figures that crowd the canvas. But he draws attention to the disastrous schism between the Byzantine Empire and the rest of Christendom which was one of the consequences of the Crusades, and he shows clearly, if only by implication, the eternal, though unrecognised, influence of sea power upon history. The crusading colonies in Syria were an exotic, dependent entirely upon the support they received from the West, and as the reinforcements dwindled their weakness became conspicuously evident. At the end, when the power of the Mameluke Sultans had become firmly established, they collapsed like a house of cards, though their fall was illumined by many a deed of heroism. The decay of the crusading spirit was an essential element in the consolidation of the nations of Europe; but Europe paid the penalty in the establishment of the Turkish Empire over some of its fairest provinces, and in the Eastern question, which is still with us. It was not till 1685 that John Sobieski finally turned the tide of Moham- medan invasion from the walls of Vienna. This book is an excellent piece of workmanship, and will be especially welcome to those who recognise that a knowledge of Asiatic history is essential to the true comprehension of that of Europe.
Previous page
