Chapter VII: Consequences of the Crusades

[Sidenote: [1096-1291 A.D.]]

No religious wars have ever been so long, so sanguinary, and so destructive as the Crusades. Countless hosts of holy warriors fell the victims of their own vindictive enthusiasm and military ardour. Fierceness and intolerance were the strongest features in the character of the dark ages, and it is, perhaps, not so much in the conduct, as in the object, of the Crusades, that anything distinct and peculiar can be marked. It was not for the conversion of people, nor the propagation of opinions, but for the redemption of the sepulchre of Christ, and the destruction of the enemies of God, that the crimson standard was unfurled. The western world did not cast itself into Asia from any view of expediency, or in consequence of any abstract theoretical principle of a right of hostility; men did not arm themselves from any conviction that the co-existence of Christendom and Islamism was compatible with the doctrines of the _Koran_, or that the countries of the West would be precipitated into the gulf of destruction, if Asia Minor were not torn from the Seljuk Turks, and restored to the emperor of Constantinople. But the flame of war spread from one end of Europe to the other, for the deliverance of the Holy Land from a state which was called pollution; and the floodgates of fanaticism were unlocked for the savage and iniquitous purpose of extermination. But popular madness would not listen to the calls of generous policy and lofty ambition. The wish for the redemption of the Holy Land was the feeling which influenced both Godfrey de Bouillon and St. Louis, the first and last great champions of the cross; it was that wild desire which moved Europe for two centuries, and without it the Crusades would never have been undertaken.

The question of the justice of the holy wars is one of easy solution. The crusaders were not called upon by heaven to carry on hostilities against the Mussulmans. Palestine did not, of right, belong to the Christians in consequence of any gift of God; and it was evident, from the fact of the destruction of the second temple, that there was no longer any peculiar sanctity in the ground of Jerusalem. There is no command in the Scriptures for Christians to build the walls of the Holy City, and no promise of an earthly Canaan as the reward of virtue. If the Christians had been animated by the conviction that war with all the world was the vital principle of the Mohammedan religion, then also a right of hostility would have been raised.

As Lord Bacon said in his _War with Spain_: “Forasmuch as it is a fundamental law in the Turkish empire, that they may, without any other provocation, make war upon Christendom for the propagation of their law; so that there lieth upon Christians a perpetual fear of war, hanging over their heads, from them; and therefore, they may at all times, as they think good, be upon the preventive.” But before they could have been justified on this last-mentioned argument, proof was necessary that the danger was imminent, and that time and circumstances had not reduced the principle to a mere dry, inoperative letter of the law. In the first hundred and fifty years of Mohammedan history, the Mussulmans made continued and successful attacks on the Christians; and the invasion of France by the Spanish and African Moors, seemed to endanger Christendom as a world independent of and not tributary to the Saracens. In all that long period the people of the West might have instituted crusades on principles of self-defence. But as they had acquiesced for ages in the existence of Islam, they could not afterwards draw the sword, except for the purpose of preventing or repelling new aggressions. No dangers hung over Christendom at the time when the Crusades commenced.

MORAL EFFECTS

On principles of morals and politics the holy wars cannot be justified. Yet war became a sacred duty, and obligatory on every class of mankind. The fair face of religion was besmeared with blood, and heavenly attraction was changed for demoniacal repulsiveness. The Crusades encouraged the most horrible violences of fanaticism. They were the precedent for the military contentions of the church with the Prussians and Albigenses; and as the execrable Inquisition arose out of the spirit of clerical dragooning, the wars in Palestine brought a frightful calamity on the world. Universal dominion was the ambition of the Roman pontiffs; and the iniquity of the means was in dreadful accordance with the audacity of the project. The pastors of the church used anathemas, excommunications, interdicts, and every weapon in the storehouse of spiritual artillery; and when the world was in arms for the purpose of destroying infidels, it was natural that the soldiers of God should turn aside and chastise other foes to the true religion. Crusades with idolaters and erring Christians were considered as virtuous and as necessary as crusades with Saracens; the south of France was saturated with heretical blood; and those booted apostles, the Teutonic knights, converted, sword in hand, the Prussians and Lithuanians from idolatry to Christianity.

The sword of religious persecution was not directed against Turks and heretics only. The reader remembers the sanguinary enormities that disgraced the opening of the First Crusade. Not only was this instance of persecution of the Jews the earliest one upon record in the annals of the West since the fall of the Roman Empire, but it is also true that that wretched people met with most of their dreadful calamities during the time of the holy wars. It is highly probable that the hatred which the Christians felt against them was embittered by that fierce and mistaken zeal for religion which gave birth to the Crusades; and as the chief object of those Crusades was the recovery of the sepulchre at Jerusalem, it was natural that the Christian belligerents should behold with equal detestation the nation which had crucified the Saviour and the nation which continued to profane his tomb. This conjecture is much confirmed by the circumstance, that the prevailing prejudice in the Middle Ages against the Jews was that they often crucified Christian children in mockery of the great sacrifice. If it be objected to this reasoning that the crusading Cœur de Lion befriended the Jews, we reply that the crusading king Edward I expelled them from England.

The penalties which the church inflicted on its members, as the temporal punishments of sin, might have been unwarranted by Scripture, and were doubtless often awarded by cruelty and caprice. But the practice of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, was in itself salubrious to the individual, and beneficial to society. It softened pride; it subdued the sensual passions; it diffused charity. Instead of these blessings, the slaughter of human beings was made the propitiation of offence; and the Christian virtues of self-denial and benevolence were considered an absurd and antiquated fashion. As the discipline of the church had been broken in upon for one purpose, it could be violated for another. The repentant sinner who could not take the cross himself, might contribute to the charge of the holy expedition. When offences were once commuted for money, the religious application of the price of pardon soon ceased to be necessary. Absolutions from penance became a matter of traffic, and holy virtues were discountenanced. For this reason, and for many others, the Crusades conferred no benefits on morals. The evils of a life free from domestic restraints, formed a strong argument against pilgrimages in very early ages of the church, and it does not appear that when the wanderers became soldiers their morals improved. The vices of the military colonists in Palestine are the burden of many a page of the crusading annalists. Something must be detracted from those representations in consequence of their authors’ prejudice that the vices of the Christians in the Holy Land effected the ruin of the kingdom. Yet enough remains to show that the tone of morals was not at a higher pitch in Palestine than in Europe. The decrees of the council at Nablus (Shechem or Neapolis) prove that a difference of religion, although a barrier against the dearest charities of life, was no impediment to a vicious sensual intercourse between the Franks and the Moslems. The Latins lived in a constant course of plunder on their Mussulman neighbours, and therefore on their return to Europe could not spread around them any rays of virtue.[82]

POLITICAL EFFECTS

As the Crusades were carried on for holy objects, not for civil or national ends, their connection with politics could only have been collateral and indirect. The spirit of crusading, composed as it was of superstition and military ardour, was hostile to the advancement of knowledge and liberty; and consequently no improvement in the civil condition of the kingdoms of the West could have been the legitimate issue of the principles of the holy wars. The pope was the only monarch who mixed politics with his piety. The other princes seem to have been influenced by the spirit of religion or of chivalry; and it was only in the attempts again to disorder the intellect of Europe, that we find one monarch, Henry IV of England, acting the part of a crafty politician.

Great changes in the political aspect of Europe were coeval with but were not occasioned by the holy wars. The power of the French crown was much higher at the end of the thirteenth, than it had been at the same period of the eleventh century; but the influence of the imperial throne was materially depressed. These opposite effects could never have been the simple results of the same cause; namely, the loss of the flower of the western aristocracy in Palestine.

The causes of the depression of imperial authority were the aggrandisement of the nobles (a natural effect of the feudal system); the improvident grants of lands which the Swabian family made to the clergy; the contests between the popes and emperors respecting their different jurisdictions, and, above all the rest, the destructive wars which the emperors waged in the north of Italy for the reannexation of that country to the throne of the descendants of the imperial house of Charlemagne.

The political changes in England cannot with justice be attributed to the Crusades. Until the days of Richard I holy wars had not become a general or a national concern. The monarchy stood the same at the close of his reign as at its commencement; and the only favourable issue of Cœur de Lion’s armament was an increase of military reputation. His renunciation of feudal sovereignty over Scotland had no influence on politics. Edward I pressed his claim, although Richard had deprived him of his strongest support. The pusillanimous John assumed the cross; but that circumstance did not occur until after he had surrendered his crown to the papal see, and until the barons had formed a confederacy against him. His assumption of the cross neither retarded nor accelerated the progress of English liberty. The pope was not linked to him by stronger ties than those which had formerly bound them; and the barons were not deceived by the religious hypocrisy of the king. The transmarine expeditions of the earls of Cornwall and Salisbury, and of Prince Edward in the reign of Henry III, were the ebullitions of religious and military ardour, but did not affect the general course of events.

The great political circumstance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was important above all others to civil liberty, was the appearance of free and corporate towns. But the Crusades neither produced their establishment nor affected their history. After various vicissitudes of fortune, the battle of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance, established the independence of the towns in the north of Italy. The Crusades did not contribute to these events; for the two sacred expeditions which had taken place were as disastrous to peasants as to princes, and drained Europe of all ranks of society. Consequently it was not from the holy wars that the people gained their liberties. We find that so ill regulated was the liberty of the towns alluded to, that anarchy soon succeeded. Men of personal importance and wealth aspired to sovereign honours; an overwhelming aristocracy extinguished freedom, and at the end of the thirteenth century there were as many princes in Tuscany and Lombardy as there had been free towns at the end of the twelfth.

It is only in the maritime cities of Italy that any indisputable influence of the Crusades can be marked. Trade with the Christian states in Palestine, and the furnishing of transports to the pilgrims, increased the wealth of the commercial cities. The capture of Constantinople by the French and Venetians was important in its issues. Venice regained maritime ascendency; but it was soon taken from her by the Genoese, who aided the Greeks to recover their capital. Genoa then became a leading power in the Mediterranean, and she subdued Pisa. The rapid increase of the wealth and power of Venice and Genoa, and the eventual destruction of Pisa seem, then, to form the principal circumstances in commercial history which the Crusades were instrumental in producing. But how insignificant were these events, both locally and generally, both in their relation to Italy and to the general history of Europe, when compared with the discovery of a maritime passage to India!

A view of the heroic ages of Christianity, in regard to their grand and general results, is a useful and important, though a melancholy employment. The Crusades retarded the march of civilisation, thickened the clouds of ignorance and superstition; and encouraged intolerance, cruelty, and fierceness. Religion lost its mildness and charity; and war its mitigating qualities of honour and courtesy. Such were the bitter fruits of the holy wars![c]

INFLUENCE UPON COMMERCE

Trade with the East, at that time, embraced many more articles of commerce than at the present day. Sugar and several other commodities sought for as luxuries or used as medicine, which now come entirely from the new world, were brought from Egypt or the Indies. Europeans looked to Asia for precious gems, especially emeralds, whose worth equalled that of diamonds, until the discovery of the rich mines in the mountains of America. Pearls were then to be found only on the shores of oriental seas. The Crusades gave the peoples of Europe a taste for delicacies and Asiatic ornaments, which several of them had never before known. Vanity and enervation made precious stones, silks, perfumes, and all the products less useful than pleasant which nature has sown in profusion throughout the Orient, necessary to them.

Accustomed by their intercourse with the Orientals to the burning savour of spices, soon they were not able to get along without them. They could not prepare famous dishes without plentiful use of spice; wines even were perfumed with them. Romancers of the era of the Crusades sang the praises, on nearly every page, of cinnamon, musk, clove, and ginger. Did these writers praise some exquisite odour, it was with spices they compared it. Did their fertile imagination build some superb palace, the magic home of the most powerful genii, they surrounded it with an odoriferous forest, planted with spice-bearing trees. Several Italian towns, especially the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, got from this, almost entirely, not only the benefits of a commerce which embraced so many sought-for commodities, but the other advantages of a sea-trade abandoned to the Franks, by the Greeks and Arabs.

ENRICHMENT OF CITIES

Venice, who nourished amid her waters an enormous population, seems through her natural environment to have been peopled only with merchants and followers of the sea. The Crusades helped the proud city to the accomplishment of her brilliant destiny, to make the Orient tremble at her fleets, to enrich the Occident by her industry, and to command respect through many ages for her military power. Genoa, less happily situated, and less rich than Venice, was, however, powerful enough to have aroused the Sea-Republic’s jealousy. Pisa had pushed herself too late into rivalry with Genoa, and the destruction of her harbour was the work of implacable Genoese hatred. Florence, never free from the throes of civil discord, obtained nevertheless great wealth from her commerce, which she generously consecrated to the culture of the fine arts.

The Crusades, therefore, enriched the great cities in giving the opportunity to extend their trade, and also to raise to exorbitant prices charges for their ships. The hardships and dangers which were inseparable from the overland route made it less and less frequented after the first expeditions. Crowds of pilgrims made their way to the ports, and several Italian republics amassed, in the transportation of human freight, a degree of wealth comparable for that time to that which the merchandise of the new world had since brought to the most flourishing cities of modern days.

COLONISATION

The establishment of colonies in the East gave more substantial foundation to Italy’s prosperity. Several cities, whose own interest was a constant stimulus, and whose industry grew with success, founded trading colonies in Egypt, Africa, throughout the kingdom of Jerusalem; at Tyre, where the Pisans had formed a celebrated commercial group; at Antioch, at Acre, stronghold of the Christians; at several other places which the Crusades had opened to them; and as a result the principal cause of the decline of Venice and other powerful Italian cities was not alone the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, but to some extent the conquests which made Selim I master of Egypt.

Before the days of the holy wars, some of the Italian towns already possessed trading stations in the Greek Empire, but Constantinople having fallen into the hands of the Latins, the active spirit of the Italians was no longer disturbed by the defiant policy of the Eastern emperors. The Genoese founded the colony of Kaffa, which became very prosperous; the Venetians and Pisans multiplied their warehouses in many places. The subjects of the doge, always mindful of their commerce, demanded the islands of the archipelago, in dividing with the French the territory wrested from the Eastern Empire; but at the moment of taking possession of their share they feared to weaken themselves by occupying territory so remote and widely separated. In the end, however, they could not bring themselves to let go a maritime country so well adapted to trade, and the senate invited by proclamation the rich citizens to take possession of these isles, promising to give in fief those they succeeded in making subject to themselves. Thus it happened that the descendants of the Greeks once so jealous of their political independence saw, so to speak, their freedom at the auction block in the public squares of Venice.

And thus it was that the Crusades ruined the Greeks and the Arabs, and that traffic between the East and the West had to pass almost exclusively through the hands of the Italians, then called Lombards, active, sharp merchants and pitiless usurers, who have left their names as a monument to their thrift, upon the commercial streets of many a great town; those localities where the money lender, furnishing more often a passing aid to extravagance than real assistance to misery, exhibits his insatiable greed. They tried, in the twelfth century, to create merchant tribunals in several towns, to decide commercial disputes and make treaties with strangers--the first separation of commercial jurisprudence from common law. We shall be forgiven doubtless for not entering into any minute description of the Italian commercial establishments in Greece and Asia; it has been sufficient to note the turn given by the Crusades to trade in general.

The flourishing condition to which Venice, Genoa, and Pisa in the south of Europe were raised by trade with the East was almost equalled in the north by that of the Hanseatic towns. Necessary commodities for use at sea, all the products of colder climes, offered to the Teutonic Hansa large and assured profits. As the Lombards brought into parts of Germany where money was scarce the products of the south and east, there sprang up an exchange of merchandise for merchandise. The Hanseatic League apparently came into existence about the beginning of the thirteenth century, and it is not hard to believe that the commercial activity stimulated by the Crusades favoured the formation of the powerful federation which breathed nothing but the love of gain, and which bartered for all the wealth of the south with all the product of the north.

In infusing into trade a new activity, the Crusades necessarily perfected the art of navigation. We may well admit that the sea held less of terror for one who confronted it to perform a religious duty, and insensibly this fear-inspiring element became less regarded as the inevitable tomb of all who confided to it their life or fortune. Moreover vessels ceased to be guided by blind instinct or the insufficient experience of pilots. The compass, whose origin it is so difficult to establish (and indeed the instrument may not have been invented before the time of the First Crusade), was in general use on the ships that plied the Mediterranean. We must admire the fortunate but rash industry of the Italians who overcame the caprices and fury of the waves. These navigators gained experience more and more in constantly transporting pilgrims, and proved that it was not impossible to sail the seas in winter. Venice surpassed the whole world in the brilliance of her maritime glory. She well deserved that a pope of this period, zealous to show his gratitude to his defenders, presented the doge, with solemn ceremony, the wedding ring which was for long ages the unique emblem of the republic’s naval power.

Other fleets than those of Italy found their way to the Holy Land. One might see on the Southern Sea vessels carrying those pirates and adventurers which set out every year in great numbers from the countries in the north, the Flemings, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes often rendered considerable assistance to the Christians in the East. Norwegians fought under King Baldwin at the taking of Sidon; the Flemings rescued Lisbon from the Saracens. These northern people came in high-decked massive ships, while the vessels in use on the Mediterranean were very light and shallow affairs; a difference in structure which could not be noticed without a comparison of advantages and disadvantages.

From the Crusades may be dated the establishment of the French navy. Philip Augustus, on his return from the Holy Land, organised a national fleet; before this the French fleets were composed of foreign vessels hired for a certain time. The title of “admiral,” of which the name and idea was borrowed from the Greeks or the Arabs, came into constant use about the time of the Second Crusade, whereas the rank was never bestowed in former days except at the commencement of a war, and went out of use at its close.

Very soon the ocean and the Mediterranean were covered with vessels manned by prudent and intrepid sailors. The great overland route from Antwerp to Genoa, which was expensive, slow, and difficult, was thenceforth given up.

Naval architecture learned a lesson from several abuses which the Crusades momentarily had introduced into the art. Ships of excessive capacity, too weak, and of faulty proportions had been hastily built in order to accommodate the crowd of pilgrims. Seamen who wished their voyages to be more lucrative and passengers desirous of travelling in companies began to adopt these ungainly vessels. However, this departure from the principles of shipbuilding caused the loss of many fleets and brought about a fortunate innovation in naval architecture. Experience taught that a single mast was not sufficient in a vessel of great size, and we may trace to this period the custom of furnishing several masts to a single ship--a custom whose antiquity is well proven, but whose origin is somewhat shadowed in doubt.

An increase in the number of sails must of necessity follow the adoption of more than one mast; ships were no longer stopped in their course for lack of a directly favourable wind,--by trimming the sails with skill the seaman progressed nearly always towards his destination. The art of sailing for a certain point with the wind nearly dead ahead must certainly be counted as one of the most ingenious and important discoveries ever made.

INFLUENCE ON INDUSTRY

The same causes which gave a new activity to commerce served to develop powerfully every resource of industry. At the time of the first Crusades there were no manufactories of silken stuffs but those of the Greeks, a species of industry they had taken from the Persians, but which they themselves were soon forced to give over to Sicily. Then artisans leaving the island taught the Italians the art of making silk. The industry occupied principally the members of the religious order of the Humilies, who invented, it is said, cloth of gold and of silver.

In the cities of the Orient the Saracens, also, had manufactures of goods, and from them the crusaders bought textile fabrics of camels’ hair. These industries and those of the Greeks, whether the latter was transported to Palermo or remained in the Eastern Empire, were able to serve as models or as incentive, in Europe, to many establishments where wool was worked. There were some famous glass manufactories at Tyre. The sand which covers the environs of that town has the property of giving a high degree of transparence to the vitrified matter from which beautiful shapes were fashioned. These productions excited probably the emulation of Venice who drew great profit from her glassware, particularly in the fifteenth century when the use of metal vessels was abandoned for that of glass. Here are some particulars about inventions, the only ones we have been able to gather. Mills, whose motive power is wind, were invented in Asia Minor where running water is very scarce. It has been supposed that the crusaders introduced them into Europe in the twelfth century--a conjecture which would seem to be confirmed by the application of parts of windmills on a great number of old armorial bearings, but which certain other evidence does not permit us to adopt. Several writers have also presumed that the crusaders spread a knowledge of the invention of paper, which they had derived from the Greeks, throughout Europe.

The Arabs excelled at metal working and they knew how to chase and encrust it. They invented the art of “damascening,” which gave to steel the brilliance and splendour of gold and silver. Antiquaries have observed that since the Crusades the stamping of coins and the imprint of seals seem less incorrect and some attribute this improvement to lessons learned from the Arabs. The crusaders, however indignant at the profanation of the Temple of Jerusalem, could not but admire the ornamentation of precious metals by which the columns and walls had been artistically treated in honour of Mohammed. They brought away with them more than five hundred silver vessels consecrated to the service of the false prophet. The process of enamelling metals and the use in painting of solid, bright colours may have been brought to perfection by the sight of these Arabian works of art. They also brought back from the Orient a quantity of rubies, hyacinths, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, and they found out how to set them in gold and silver, so as to give an undying charm through the taste of their mounting and their setting.

THE MASONS ORGANISE

The Crusades contributed indirectly to the progress of art in that they caused religious orders and devout establishments to be multiplied. The number of sacred edifices which rose up at that time throughout Europe is truly prodigious. Nobles and even those who had little piety were ambitious for the title of “founder of a church.” While they may have wrecked temples in one place, it was often their pleasure to build them in others.

One extraordinary circumstance greatly favoured this eagerness to erect edifices devoted to the religious cult. In France, in Italy especially, it had been common rumour that the world was nearing its end and it was thought unnecessary, in this event, to repair churches, and even more useless to build new ones. But when the predicted period arrived and there were no signs of the final catastrophe, alarm diminished, and ashamed to have been misled by pusillanimous fear, people were anxious to make amends for the neglect of altars and sacred places of which they had been guilty. They were not satisfied to pay their debt to religion by rebuilding unsafe churches, but those of whose stability there was no question were torn down on the specious pretext that they were not sufficiently magnificent. To accomplish their aims a society was formed composed of men of every degree, noble and humble, who made themselves in their devotion into carpenters and masons; they offered their services in every direction, hauling carts like beasts of burden or binding themselves to certain religious devotions. The cathedral of Chartres is a monument of the labour of these pious workmen. These strange ideas having been developed towards the end of the eleventh century, the Crusades found in men’s minds a passion for this sort of construction, and they added to the general enthusiasm.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

Several monuments of architecture which still excite our admiration are the fruit of the artistic impulse received from contact with people more devoted to its culture and from the growing fervour of devotion. The sight of Greek and Arab monuments introduced into the West a new taste by which that Syrian, Arab, or Saracen type of architecture, improperly called Gothic, was brought to its highest degree of perfection. Delicately pointed ogive arches replaced the low and ugly openings which timid builders were afraid to raise higher and which presented but narrow outlooks to view. Architects were judged skilful as they were able to astonish by the boldness and daring of their own work. As in the mosques, they loaded upon light and graceful columns enormous masses which seemed upheld by the support of an invisible arm. They cut stones into a thousand different and often most fanciful forms, and set into them painted glass whose brilliant colours were admirably brought out by the rays of the sun. And as if they foresaw the indifference of posterity to their work, they gave it a solidity which has enabled it to go for great lengths of time without care and restoration.

At that time appeared the most magnificent offsprings of Gothic architecture. Then was built the leaning tower of Pisa, which has become a marvel through the injury of time. A Greek architect built at Venice the church of St. Mark, strongly impressed with the degenerate taste of the Greeks. A German conceived the plan of the tower of Strasburg, whose delicate structure seems unable to hold it so high in the air. Suger did not disdain to study architecture; he restored his own abbey church and left an account of his labours. The foundations of Amiens, masterpiece of bold and delicate construction, were laid. La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, less vast but equally delicate in style, was the finest work of the favourite architect whom St. Louis took with him to Asia. We should go on at too great a length were we to enumerate all the superb edifices built in the glorious age of Gothic architecture. Barbaric, perhaps, in ornamentation, these artists have never been equalled in principle, in general design, stone-cutting, in knowledge of arching, and in the majesty of their edifices as a whole.

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

Sculpture made these temples alive with a host of statues. It has preserved for us the images of many famous men, whose portraits, drawn from nature, we often regret not to know.

Painting was cultivated with greater zeal. Cimabue developed his happy faculties at Florence according to the teaching of some artists from Constantinople. He was the first to show what wonders one could expect from an almost forgotten art, and it is right that he should be placed at the head of all the painters that have appeared since his time.

From what has been said it is certain that the Crusades helped to infuse into the West a taste for painting, sculpture, and architecture. The spirit of conquest has always awakened that of the fine arts. Though artists may flee from the clash of arms, their souls, inspired by the commotion of great warlike movements and the general emulation of courage and valour, exhibit at such time a noble ambition for glory. The aspect of the theatre of desolation and carnage, swept by the conqueror’s tread, kindles often the sacred fire, which is extinguished in times of peace and tranquillity, and marvellous productions, conceived and matured in deep thought, quickly follow the imperfect and hastily finished sketch. Nations also wish to celebrate, by public monuments, triumphs watered with their blood and tears. For this reason painters display on heroes’ heads the wings of victory, are lavish with palm and crown, and place on every side the emblems of fame. Cities become filled with superb buildings, and public squares peopled with folk of bronze and marble who seem to live and breathe.[e]

HERDER’S OPINION OF THE CRUSADES

It has been customary to ascribe so many beneficial effects to the Crusades, that, conformably to this opinion, our quarter of the globe must require a similar fever, to agitate and excite its forces, once in every five or six centuries; but a closer inspection will show that most of these effects proceeded not from the Crusades, at least not from them alone; and that among the various impulses Europe then received, they were at most accelerating shocks, acting upon the whole in collateral or oblique directions, with which the minds of Europeans might well have dispensed. Indeed it is a mere phantom of the brain to frame one prime source of events out of seven distinct expeditions, undertaken in a period of two centuries, by different nations, and from various motives, solely because they bore one common name.

Trade the Europeans had already opened with the Arabian states, before the Crusades: and they were at liberty to have profited by it, and extended it, in a far more honourable way than by predatory campaigns. By these, indeed, carriers, bankers, and purveyors were gainers: but all their gain accrued from the Christians, against whose property they were in fact the crusaders. What was torn from the Greek Empire was a disgraceful traders’ booty, serving, by extremely enfeebling this empire, to render Constantinople an easier prey at a future period to the Turkish hordes, who were continually pressing more closely upon it. The Venetian Lion of St. Mark prepared the way, by the Fourth Crusade, for the Turks to enter Europe and spread themselves so widely in it. The Genoese, it is true, assisted one branch of the Greek emperors to re-ascend the throne: but it was the throne of a weakened, broken empire, which fell an easy prey to the Turks; then both the Venetians and Genoese lost their best possessions, and finally almost all their trade, in the Mediterranean and Euxine seas.

Chivalry arose not from the Crusades, but the Crusades from chivalry: the flower of French and Norman knighthood appeared in Palestine in the first campaign. The Crusades, indeed, contributed rather to rob chivalry of its proper honours, and to convert real armed knights into mere armorial ones. For in Palestine many assumed the crested helmet, which in Europe they durst not have borne: they brought home with them armorial devices and nobility, which they transmitted to their families, and thus introduced a new class, the nobility of the herald’s office, and in time also nobility by letters patent. As the number of the ancient dynasties, the true equestrian nobility, lessened, these new men sought to obtain possessions and hereditary prerogatives, like them: they carefully enumerated their ancestors, acquired dignities and privileges, and in a few generations assumed the title of ancient nobility; though they had not the slightest pretensions to rank with those dynasties which were princes to them. Every man that bore arms in Palestine might become a knight: the first Crusades were years of general jubilee for Europe. These new nobles in right of military service were soon of great use to growing monarchy, which cunningly knew how to avail itself of them against such of the superior vassals as still remained. Thus passion balances passion, and one appearance counteracts another: and at length the nobility of the camp and the court totally obliterated the ancient chivalry.

The arts and sciences, too, were nowise promoted by the proper crusaders. The disorderly troops that first flocked to Palestine had not the least notion of them; and were not likely to acquire them in the suburbs of Constantinople, or from the Turks and mamelukes in Asia. In the succeeding campaigns we need not reflect on the short time the armies passed there, and the wretched circumstances under which this time was often spent merely on the confines of the country, to dissipate the splendid dream of great discoveries imported thence. The pendulum clock, which the emperor Frederick II received as a present from Kamil, did not introduce gnomonics into Europe; the Grecian palaces, which the crusaders admired in Constantinople, did not improve the style of European architecture. Some crusaders, particularly Frederick I and II, laboured to promote the progress of knowledge: but Frederick I did this ere he beheld Asia; and the short visit paid that country by Frederick II served only as a fresh stimulus to urge him forward in that course of government which he had long before chosen. Not one of the spiritual orders of knighthood introduced any new knowledge into Europe, or contributed to its cultivation.

All that can be said in favour of the Crusades, therefore, is confined to a few occasions, on which they co-operated with causes already existing, and involuntarily promoted them.

(1) As multitudes of wealthy vassals and knights repaired to the Holy Land in the first campaigns, and many of them never returned, their estates were of course sold or swallowed up by others. By this they profited who could, the liege lord, the church, the cities already established, each after his own manner: this promoted and accelerated the course of things, tending to confirm the regal power by the erection of a middle class, but was by no means its commencement.

(2) Men became acquainted with countries, people, religions, and constitutions of which they were before ignorant; their narrow sphere of vision was enlarged; they acquired new ideas, new impulses. Attention was drawn to things which would otherwise have been neglected; what had long existed in Europe was employed to better purpose; and as the world was found to be wider than had been supposed, curiosity was excited after a knowledge of its remotest parts. The mighty conquests made by Jenghiz Khan in the north and east of Asia attracted men’s eyes chiefly towards Tatary; whither Marco Polo the Venetian, Rubruquis (Guillaume de Rubrouck), the Frenchman, and John de Plano Carpino (Giovanni Piano Carpini), an Italian, travelled with very different views: the first, for the purpose of trade; the second, to satisfy royal curiosity; the third, sent by the pope, to make converts of the people. These travels, of course, have no connection with the Crusades, before and after which they were undertaken. The Levant itself is less known to us from these expeditions, than might have been expected: the accounts the Orientals give of it, even in the period when Syria swarmed with Christians, are still indispensable to us.

(3) Finally, in this holy theatre Europeans became better acquainted with one another, though not in a manner much to be prized. With this more intimate acquaintance kings and princes for the most part brought home an implacable enmity: in particular the wars between England and France derived from them fresh fuel. The unfortunate experiment, that a Christian republic could and might contend in unison against infidels, formed a precedent for similar wars in Europe, which have since extended to other quarters of the globe. At the same time it cannot be denied that, while the neighbouring powers of Europe obtained a closer inspection of their mutual weaknesses and strength, some obscure hints were given for a more comprehensive policy, and a new system of relationship in peace and war. Everyone was desirous of wealth, trade, conveniences, and luxuries; as an uncultivated mind is prone to admire these in strangers, and envy them in the hands of another. Few, who returned from the East, could be satisfied with European manners; even their heroism left much behind, awkwardly imitated Asia in the West, or longed for fresh travels and adventures. For the actual and permanent good produced by any event is always proportionate to its consonancy with reason.

Unfortunate would it have been for Europe if, at the time its military swarms were contending for the Holy Sepulchre in a corner of Syria, the arms of Jenghiz Khan had been sooner and more powerfully turned toward the West. Then probably our quarter of the globe would have been the prey of the Mongols, like Poland and Russia; and its nations might have dislodged, with the pilgrim’s staff in their hands, to tell their beads round the object of their contention.[b]

GIBBON ON THE RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES

As soon as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in the Mohammedan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the valour, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics were at length honoured with a Greek version. But the national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution; and the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.

If we compare, at the era of the Crusades, the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East. Yet in a reign of sixty years the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia.

The principle of the Crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the Inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.

The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country; the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with the climates of the East.

In one respect we can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the Crusades, not so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. Among the cause that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous place must be allowed to the Crusades. The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagration, which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest, gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of the soil.[d]

FOOTNOTES

[82] In the entertaining romance of _Le Renard_, written in the thirteenth century, it is said, that foreign pilgrimages had done no good to anybody, and that many good people had been made bad by them. In tracing the history of morals, it is curious to observe, that Piers Ploughman speaks of pilgrims and palmers, who on their return have leave to tell lies all the rest of their lives.