BOOKS.
THE CRUSADES.*
THERE is but one defect in this little book, and that is its name. It is not a history at all, either of the Crusades or of their litera- ture; but an essay on both, crowded with the results of years spent in research, and alive with that glowing, almost creative thought which is the highest force of the historian; but only an essay still. Such as it is, however, in presenting this translation to the public, Lady Duff Gordon has added one more to her many claims on both English and German students. She could not have selected, even from German literature, a volume of deeper interest, or more direct and unquestionable value. Von Sybel, a pupil of Ranke, has devoted his leisure for .years to the patient criticism of the history of the Crusades. Following his master's system, he has submitted the whole mass of documentary evidence upon the subject to a searching analysis, and described the result of his investigations in the preface to his "History of the First Crusade"—a mine of critical erudition. That result may be briefly stated as a conviction that all existing histories of the Crusades are founded upon legend, but that the materials for accurate history do, nevertheless, survive. The outline of a more truthful narrative has been sketched by him in four lectures, delivered at Munich in 1855, and the present work is a translation of these lectures, and of their justification, the critical analysis of the literature of the Crusades. Regarded as a history, the work, of course, wants body ; but as an historic outline, a survey of the road yet to be levelled, it is admirable alike for insight and comprehensiveness, and excites in the reader a strong hope that Von Sybel, who is still, after many vicissitudes, in possession of literary leisure, will yet complete the task he has so ably defined.
It is not, perhaps, strange that the world should for years have been content with the legendary history of the Crusades. Men love the dramatic, and such productions are dramatic by their very nature ; but it is somewhat remarkable that historians in an inquisi- tive age should have been content with such second-hand information. The two narratives most in favour with the British public, for example—Mr. Mill's and M. Capefigue's—are founded almost ex- clusively on William of Tyre, a skilful and, in some points, well- informed writer, who deformed his work by deliberate inventions of letters and speeches, and based it undoubtedly upon that of Albert of Aix. This latter, who may be said to be the source of all the popular histories of the Crusades hitherto current in Europe, was, in fact, nothing but a compiler of legends, and retailer of all the personal narratives which he could collect from the crowds of returning pilgrims, who, with heated imaginations, partial knowledge, and excited vanity, passed through Aix on their road to the West. He writes easily, and arranges his stories dramatically, and he has the power of creating personal interest, so frequent with men who are novelists by instinct. Bat his narrative has neither substance nor sequence, its personages are constantly placed in impossible positions, their characters, offices, and deeds vary from chapter to chapter, while their greater achievements are contradicted by all unquestionable testimony. For example, Godfrey of Bouillon, who in the first half of the work is but one of many princes engaged in the Cru sade, is suddenly made in the latter the centre and chief of the whole movement, is elected commander-in-chief by miracle, and is thenceforward surrounded by a halo of poetic rhetoric, which, how ever, still leaves him almost a lay figure. All this while there exist documents of undeniable authenticity, by which these legends might be tested, and from which a narrative, somewhat balder, perhaps, than those current, but still absolutely true, might be constructed. Among these are nine authentic letters from princes and chiefs en- gaged in the Crusades; the work of B.aymund of Agues, which we may call the special correspondent's account of the first Crusade ;
• The History and bitaratsre of the Crusade& From the German of Von Byte. By Lady Duff Gordon. Chapman and natl.
Anna Comnena's life of her father, valuable as the Court view of these transactions ; the " Gesta Francorum," which Von Sybel believes to have been the work of an eye-witness ; the history of' the Abbot of Nogent, important for sonic details supplied by the French leaders ; that of Baldric of Dol, who adds to the " Geste" a few facts derived from eye-wituesses—that of Fuleher of Chartres, whose statement of occurrences up to the attack on Edessa is perhaps the best iu existence; of Ordericus Vitalis, who mixes with wild romances whole chapters obviously gathered from men who had acted in the scenes they re- lated ; of Rudolph of Caen, and of Ekkehard of U rack, both patient and careful compilers of contemporary evidence. By the patient analysis of these authorities, not forgetting legend so far as legend is con- firmed by testimony, a narrative may be constructed of which Von Sybel has given us in the four lectures a bald outline. It differs widely from the popular one, and as all men who read at all know the latter, we shall best explain the additions he has made to our knowledge by a rapid but tolerably complete analysis.
The Crusades originated in the demoralization of Europe. The centuries of war and social disintegration which followed the death of Charlemagne had been a cycle of terrible suffering for humanity. Throughout Europe there was no peace any more. Everywhere men relied exclusively on force, every man did his utmost to oppress, and as the pressure increased as it descended, the mass of the people knew no respite from misery. The Church was utterly corrupted, the kings almost powerless, the barons brigands, the people living on roots, while in all classes there remained, from the few traces of Christian teaching which still survived, a wretched self-consciousness which made all sin bear its fruit in misery. So horror-struck did the human race become at itself, that towards the close of the tenth cen- tury men looked universally for the coming of the Avenger, for some immediate and visible outpouring of Almighty wrath and indifnation. Injustice, triumphant everywhere, caused an actual hate of this world to spring up in men's minds, whole classes abandoned their property, or thronged into the monasteries, or sought in long and painful pil- grimages to appease the hunger of their souls for something better than the wretched scene around them. Pleasure was evil, science dangerous, religious life or asceticism the one path which offered any hope of permanent refuge from the contamination of mankind.
overEurope the value of property fell one-half, and the remainderlost its importance in its owner's eyes. The Southern races were boiling over with a mystical excitement, such as in our own day a great preacher or a camp meeting will sometimes produce upon rough and evil natures, and every day strange new forms of penance appeared. Christianity was degenerating into Hindooism, when suddenly a commanding voice rising high above the uproar pointed out to the people of Europe a path which offered the certainty of escape from the present, and a sure hope of salvation in the future. Urban the Second, in a Council held at Clermont, in September, 1095, called on Christendom to set free the Holy Sepulchre. Here at last was an enterprise which, leading to Heaven, could still be prosecuted by violence, and the prospect flew like the tale of anew Millennium throughout the Western world. In Lorraine, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon levied anarmy ; Count Htwo and Robert of Paris raised another in France ; our own Duke Robert sold Normandy to pay a force adequate to the invasion of Palestine; Raymond of Toulouse called together all Gaseous and ProveneaLs not yet infected or disabused by the spirit of luxurious scepticism which was afterwards their characteristic • Stephen of Blois collected retainers whose number made him almost a king.; and the wise chief of the most potent clan then existing in Europe, Bohemond of Tarentum, summoned the Normans, who had just con- quered Sicily, to found a new empire in the East. Their ranks were swelled by huge masses of soldiery and peasants, who ranged them- selves under any leader they chose, and asked only wages enough to keep them alive. Money became all important, and while the feudal principle received its first shock all over Europe, there commenced the first grand transfer of property. The peasants of France, in a wild crowd, followed a monk of Amiens, afterwards celebrated in legend as Peter the Hermit, enlisted in the Crusade as camp f&. lowers, and, as we shall see, became the disgrace of Christendom.
By the spring of 1097 the army had reached Constantinople, and after a vain attempt of Bohemond to induce them to conduct the war in a statesmanlike way, and conquer Constantinople and Asia Minor as a base of operations, they poured through Asia Minor into Syria. One division, under Tancred the Norman, conquered Cilicia. Count Baldwin, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, was elected sove- reign in Edessa, and the main army invested Antioch, then held by a satrap of the Seljuks. The city was well defended, the weather was inclement, and the mob which called itself a Christian army perished, as such mobs under such circumstances always do. The Crusade might have ended here, but Bohemond desired Antioch as his capital, and to the calm Norman intellect many expedients were possible, foreign to his superstitious comrades. Re promised to conquer Antioch if it were delivered to him in sovereignty. Count Raymond of course resisted, and the Norman suffered the Emir of Mosul to brina° up his horsemen within sight of the camp rather than forego his purpose. At last Count. Raymond gave way, and in twelve hours Bohemond had fulfilled his promise. With sixty Normans he scaled the walls at a point held by a Seljuk whom he had bribed; the gate was thrown open, and the garrison put to the sword. The Christians, however, by ;his victory only became the besieged, for the Emir of Mosul brought his horsemen up to the city, and established a strict blockade. The army began to perish of hunger, dogs and rats were consumed, and at last the Crusaders loin even the spirit for a sortie. They shut themselves up in thousands, and preferred to die. The leaders, as usual, driven out of their pre-
judices by despair, turned to Bohemond, and invested him with un- limited power. The astute chief saved them in an hour, by an act which must be held in no slight degree to redeem him from the charge of self-seeking, with which envious rivals avenged themselves on his wisdom. He fired his own city, and the armed mob, driven from shelter, charged upon enemy, who scattered in all directions. Of course, with the r the appearance of unanimity vanished. Raymond
of Toulouse broke his oath, and at last the army, weary with quarrels, rushed forward, dragging their leaders, Bohemond excepted, to Jeru- salem. The town was taken by storm on 15th July, 1099, Godfrey was elected king after Raymond of Toulouse and Robert of Nor- mandy had refused, and the Crusaders disappeared. The army vanished in a week. The pilgrims had earned heaven, and returned to their homes on earth, and the King of Jerusalem was left in Palestine with two thousand effective men-at-arms, most of them, fortunately for Christendom, Normans, and a magnificent renown. The real hero of the expedition was Bohemond, but Europe fixed its eyes on the Christian King of the Sepulchre. He became the object of the poetic spirit, which all great movements develop, songs without end raised him to the pinnacle of popular fame, they were collected and rewritten after his death by a su-bject, Albert of Aix, and Europe still believes that the feeble duke, who did nothing during the fray, and was only elected after it because the great leaders were absent or declined so empty an honour, was the soul of the first Crusade.
As for Peter the Hermit, he was simply and literally chaplain to the camp-followers, who, calling themselves from a Turkish word Tafurs, hued outside the camp, elected a king and priest of their own, pillaged friend and foe, and were subsequently, there seems no room to doubt, guilty of establishing a practice, when provisions fell short, of eating the roasted bodies of the slain.
The first Crusade, then, left Syria in this condition: Bohemond retained Antioch, and transmitted it as an independent feudal state to his son. Baldwin held Edessa, and on the death of Godfrey after a weak reign of one year, during which he announced himself as vassal of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Baldwin appointed a younger brother count of his province, and himself mounted the throne of Jerusalem. He reigned for eighteen years, conquered all the coast of Palestine, and fortified his frontier towards Egypt. His brother, who in 1118 succeeded him, desired to pursue the same policy, but his followers refused their support. They expected miracles, and while waiting for them, scattered themselves through the castles of Syria amidst Oriental harems. The successor of Baldwinthe Second was an imbecile, and his leading followers were in- triguing for his wife and his throne, when suddenly another blast of anti-Mahomedan feeling passed through Europe. King Louis of France had destroyed some churches in Champagne, and in the fervour of his repentance determined to visit the Holy Sepulchre. Roger of Sicily joined, in the hope of seizing Constantinople, and the Abbot of Clairvaux induced the " King" of Germany to offer his aid. The combined armies crossed Europe, descended the valley of the Danube, reached Jerusalem, and besieged Damascus. The Christian barons, however, did not want a powerful potentate among them; their intrigues compelled him to raise the siege, and he returned, leaving the Christians to encounter Noureddin, the new ruler of Asia Minor, and his successor, Saladin. No external menace could teach the Christians the first principles of political strength. In the pre- sence of Saladin's armies the barons intrigued, and caballed, and separated, until, united for a day by an overwhelming danger, they fought on July 5, 1187, the battle of Tiberias, and expiated their follies in one common fate. Jerusalem held out till October, and then passed finally into Mussulman hands. Gleams of hope now and again lighted up the gloom which, for a century, the loss of the Holy Places spread through the Christian world, but Jerusalem was never recovered. Frederic Barbarossa, indeed, collected a splendid army in March, 1188, and commenced the third Crusade on a reasonable plan. He utterly prohibited followers and encumbrances of all sorts, and he reached Cilicia with an army of seventy thousand fight- ing men splendidly equipped, and really disciplined. Opposition disap- peared, Saladin announced his intention of flying, and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean might to this day have been Christian, when Frederic was accidentally drowned. The army melted away, its sole relic being the order of Teutonic Knights, which was founded out of the remnants, by the Emperor's son Frederic of Swabia, and which was destined to a grand but European career. The failure, however, stirred Europe once more; the extraordinary bravo, whom we call Richard the First, took up the cross, and after a journey on which he wasted two years, in January, 1192, he stood in sight of Jerusalem. Saladin, this time, ceded the city, which, however, Richard never entered, but the new king, Conrad of Montferrat, was murdered within three days of his election, and again Richard advanced upon the Sepulchre. It was all in vain. The Christians dared not conquer the city, lest their armies should disappear, and at last, on 30th August, 1192, a treaty was signed which left Jerusalem to the M.ussulmans, and announced the final failure of the Crusades.
They had lasted for an entire century. From 1095 to 1192, the cardinal object of Europe had been the permanent recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and the final subjugation of the Mussulman world. Four times had the chivalry of Europe, led by their mightiest princes, blessed by the Church, and followed by the heartiest applause of the population, precipitated itself upon Asia. Every year some chief, followed by a long train of knights, had landed in Syria to seek adventure and the remission of his sins. All that a warlike race could feel of devotion, or enthusiasm, or ambition, had been lavished in the cause. A million of brave men had spent their lives, and the fee-simple of half the lands in Europe had been lavished, and all without effect. The motive cause of the movement was also its ruin : " We see in the first Crusade the strength, in the second the weakness, of mediaeval religions feeling. It was only fitted for rapid, violent, and instant action ; lasting combination, fruitful action, or enduring results, it was unable to produce. It evaporated in heated enthusiasm and narrow contempt of the world : it rushed madly on, with eyes turned to heaven, in expectation of some wondrous miracle, and fell crashing to the ground, its feet entangled in some miserable creeping weed." The Crusades had failed, but Europe had won the game. For a space of a hundred years the Continent had placed before it an object higher than personal advantage, and the hearts and brains of men re- sponded eagerly to the great demand. Heroism became a habit. Poetry awoke from its long trance. Commerce obtained an impetus never afterwards lost, and learning arose once more. The Greeks poured their glorious literature over the world, and the first Crusaders brought with them back to Italy a treasure worth more than all they seemed to have spent in vain. The Code of Justinian, that universal political solvent, which eats away feudalism as acids eat iron, was brought to Bologna, and the minds of men, jarred out of their narrow grooves, began to expand under the influence of broader and loftier thoughts than the conquerors of Rome had imported. With the Crusades the age of pure force passed away; and if Europe has now advanced till she looks down on the East in pitying and somewhat indiscriminate contempt, she owes her progress to that great contest in which, for a hundred years, the East was so steadily victorious.
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