Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I

Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters 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.

About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks,
the holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter,
a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy 1 in France. His
resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the
oppression of the Christian name; he mingled his tears with those
of the patriarch, and earnestly inquired, if no hopes of relief
could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The
patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors 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 complaint; 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. 2 He was
born of a gentleman’s family, (for we must now adopt a modern
idiom,) and his military service was under the neighboring 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, he might withdraw, with
the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to
a hermitage. 211 In this austere solitude, his body was
emaciated, his fancy was inflamed; whatever he wished, he
believed; whatever he believed, he saw in dreams and revelations.
From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but
as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban
the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious
design, promised to support it in a general council, and
encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.
Invigorated by the approbation 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
impetuously 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 Savior: his ignorance of art and
language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and ejaculations;
and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent
appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of
paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. 212 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.

1 (return) [ Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of
Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date later
than A.D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first
applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the
University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and
Flanders, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447, Longuerue.
Description de la France, p. 54.)]

2 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11, p. 637, 638) thus
describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis
ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens
ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p.
482. Anna Comnena in Alex isd, l. x. p. 284, &c., with Ducarge’s
Notes, p. 349.]

211 (return) [ Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p.
47.)—M.]

212 (return) [ He had seen the Savior in a vision: a letter had
fallen from heaven Wilken, (vol. i. p. 49.)—M.]

The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already
embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor 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; 3 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, 4 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 honors 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, 5 who, in the synods of
Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to
which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor
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, Burgandy,
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 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 succor. 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 8 still proud of the preeminence of their name, and
ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, 9 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.

3 (return) [ Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in
expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in
inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente
pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31, in tom. xii. 322,
concil.)]

4 (return) [ 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 (return) [ She is known by the different names of Praxes,
Eupraecia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a
Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh.
(Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p. 340.)]

6 (return) [ Henricus odio eam coepit habere: ideo incarceravit
eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium
hortans ut eam subagitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot.
apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is
described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: quae se tantas et tam
inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse
conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer
suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo
cognoverit papa cum sancta synodo. Apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4,
1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope
and council. 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.]

7 (return) [ See the narrative and acts of the synod of
Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]

8 (return) [ Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and
valor 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. 488.) and vain loquaciousness,
(p. 502.)]

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

10 (return) [ 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 borders 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 Aevi, edit.
Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)]

It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should
erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from 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 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 ardor 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 license 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 labored 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 rumor 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 inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be
forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion
and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol
of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external
mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred
and irrevocable engagement.” The proposal was joyfully accepted;
great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their
garments the sign of the cross, 18 and solicited the pope to
march at their head. This dangerous honor 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 honor, of their
master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the
champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous
admonition 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

11 (return) [ 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 Abbe de Mably.]

12 (return) [ 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 the same and limits of the proper France.
See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]

13 (return) [ 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. Melanges, tires d’une grand
Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.]

14 (return) [ See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil.
tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]

15 (return) [ Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri
potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae
superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p.
31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480.
Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]

16 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of
the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By
the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom,
it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron.
Casinense, l. 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 Rovergue, A.D. 1100,
very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont,
(p. 15, 16.)]

18 (return) [ Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk,
or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were
red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while
green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the
English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever
appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our
military ensigns and uniforms.]

19 (return) [ Bongarsius, who has published the original writers
of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title
of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose
to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in
folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this
collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.

I. Gesta Francorum.
II. Robertus Monachus.
III. Baldricus.
IV. Raimundus de Agiles.
V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.
VII. Guibertus.
VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,
IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,
(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,)
X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,
(tom. vii. p. 664-848.)

The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has
given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades,
(Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141,) and most of whose
judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late
before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected
by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de
Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been
transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The
Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p.
890-912,) is of small value or account. * Note: Several new
documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the
industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and
Wilken.—M.]

So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of
violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation,
the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national
hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more
rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants
of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction,
unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the
necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined
from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our
conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of
our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, 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 peculiar title to the Holy
Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. 20

I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and
spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that
danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the
malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has
been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other
religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is
refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Mussulman conquerors,
and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian
worship. But it cannot be denied, that the Oriental churches are
depressed under their iron yoke; that, in peace and war, they
assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and
that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are
continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In
the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented
a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued,
in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as
Jerusalem and the Hellespont; and the Greek empire tottered on
the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their
brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of
Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West; and the
privilege of defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel,
an impending assault. But this salutary purpose might have been
accomplished by a moderate succor; and our calmer reason must
disclaim the innumerable hosts, and remote operations, which
overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. 2011

20 (return) [ If the reader will turn to the first scene of the
First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of
Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes
of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind,
greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent
from his creed.]

2011 (return) [ The manner in which the war was conducted surely
has little relation to the abstract question of the justice or
injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be
conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the
wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation
and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the
liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the
aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the
right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of
overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole
continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror
into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human
folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe,
waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer
reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human
wisdom?—M.]

II. Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the
Latins; and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the
conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians
affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had
been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior; it was their
right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust
possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the
pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the
preeminence of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Palestine, have
been abolished with the Mosaic law; that the God of the
Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem
or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the
violation of the moral precepts of the gospel. Such arguments
glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition; and the
religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred
ground of mystery and miracle.

III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of
the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindostan,
require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It
has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a
difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility; that
obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of
the cross; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as
well as of mercy. 2012 Above four hundred years before the first
crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire
had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by
the Barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had
legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks; but in the eyes
of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still
tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might
be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. 21

2012 (return) [ “God,” says the abbot Guibert, “invented the
crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and
to merit salvation.” This extraordinary and characteristic
passage must be given entire. “Deus nostro tempore praelia sancta
instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui vetustae
Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum reperirent
salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut fieri
assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet
professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta
licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus
gratiam consequerentur.” Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol. i.
p. 63.—M.]

21 (return) [ The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical
History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of
the causes and effects of the crusades.]

As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline
of penance 22 was enforced; and with the multiplication of sins,
the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a
voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In
the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the
criminal; compelled him to account for his thoughts, words, and
actions; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God.
But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by
indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to
inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of
legislation was invented by the Greeks; their penitentials 23
were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church; and, in the
time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided
with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of
the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments,
each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the
experience or penetration of the monks; some sins are enumerated
which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason
cannot believe; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and
adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were
expiated by a penance, which, according to the various
circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years.
During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the
criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and
prayers: the disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and
remorse; and he humbly abstained from all the business and
pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws
would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city; the
Barbarians of the West believed and trembled; but nature often
rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored without
effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal
accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of
adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide
might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was
separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a
modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years.
His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a
year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi 24 of
silver, about four pounds sterling, for the rich; at three
solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were
soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from
the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and
dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred
pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the
scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of
land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are
expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of
the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay
with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by
the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic
arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes;
25 and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St.
Dominic of the iron Cuirass, 26 that in six days he could
discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred
thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of
both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy
disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his
benefactors. 27 These compensations of the purse and the person
introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of
satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens
of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban
the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a
plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of
the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt
for all that might be due of canonical penance. 28 The cold
philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression
that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of
their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by
thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the
same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian
brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by
offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none
were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were
the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the
best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their
pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did
not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; 29
and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the
delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their
blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their
salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence
into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their
safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the
difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of
Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land.
Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers
would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest
cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the
sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for
the destruction of the infidels?

22 (return) [ The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages
are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709-768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres
sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p.
478-556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition
are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and
peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]

23 (return) [ Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p.
211-220, 452-462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino
in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year,
five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]

24 (return) [ Till the xiith century, we may support the clear
account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling;
and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound
sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a
fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]

25 (return) [ Each century of lashes was sanctified with a
recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment
of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]

26 (return) [ The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus
was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96-104. Baronius, A.D. 1056,
No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even among
ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation (purgatorii
genus) was grown.]

27 (return) [ At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho
Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman.
I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16-29)
a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these artists.]

28 (return) [ Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel
pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem
profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur.
Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum
salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the
subject. * Note: See note, page 546.—M.]

29 (return) [ Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and
such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des
Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of
their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits
of martyrdom.]