in defence of religion and the Holy Land. The second class consisted of the religious chaplains, who, attached to the service of the altar and of the sick, were obliged to follow the now perpetual crusade of the hospitallers as chaplains and almoners in the field.* The third class were neither of noble descent nor in holy orders, and were called the " Serving Brothers of Arms," but were equally with the knights of justice obliged during war, or in the hospital, to serve under the knights, or attend on the sick or the wounded. It was in this chapter that Raymond gave them their habit, which was a black mantle, with a white linen cross of eight points upon the breast, and appointed the form of admission, which we shall soon consider more particularly,—all of which were approved of by Calixtus II and his successors; while Innocent II, in 1130, appointed. that their banner in the field should be the white cross upon a red field.

The order being thus constituted, they offered their services to the king of Jerusalem, and soon after became, together with the Templars,† the chief support of that tottering though high-intended throne. Raymond and his knights signalized themselves at the siege of Jaffa in 1124, where they forced the enemy to raise the siege; they contributed to the capture of Tyre, and assisted in that of Ascalon, 1153; and in many ways so distinguished themselves by their valour and success, that in consideration of their signal service Anastasius IV granted to the order exemption from the jurisdiction of any of the prelates of the East, as they had before been taken by Innocent II under the immediate protection of St. Peter and of the Holy See. The wealth and means of the order rapidly increased with their usefulness and fame. They already had large possessions in the Holy Land. Independent of the king of Jerusalem-whose auxiliaries they ever regarded themselves as, not subjects-though the faith which induced their origin, working equally in the breasts of the new established throne, prevented any clashing of interests,

"To these in later times, when the order was extended and possessed sovereignty in Malta, were added 'priests of obedience,' who having taken the religious habit and vows, were never obliged to go to Malta, but were particularly attached to the service of some of the churches of the order, under the authority either of the grand prior or of a commander.”—Borsgelin, i. 211-12. † Vertot, i. 93, on which see Chronicon Joan. Brompton, Hist. Angl.—Id. vol. i. p. 96, note.

See Bull. Rom. and in Vertot, i. p. 100, its words of panegyric.

where the serving and the served looked ever to one object-the protection and deliverance of the land,

"Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,

That, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed
For our advantage to the bitter cross."

The order by this time had gained such reputation and accession of numbers, that it was found necessary to divide it still further; and as one faith animated and induced Christendom to rise in its defence, so the languages of the crusaders and the defenders of the Cross suggested the further division of the order into " Tongues," where all, though different in external matters, were united for one purpose, and for the defence of one faith. These "languages," or tongues," were seven in number, three of which were the dialects of France, the nation which had originally founded the hospital, and whose knights were still most numerous in the brotherhood. The first is that of Provence, which had the precedence of all the others, probably in honour of the deceased Gerard, the founder of the order, and a native of that province. The other two French tongues were those of Auvergne and France. The other four were the languages of Italy, Arragon, England, and Germany. In later times, that of Castile, embracing Leon and Portugal, was added to the original seven, and the Anglo-Bavarian took the place of the English tongue, which was abolished, and its revenues seized by Henry VIII, at the change of religion in England. It was farther divided into priories, bailliwicks, and commanderies, in order that the property, being drawn from men of all countries, might be properly collected and administered. But as it was some time before these arrangements assumed a distinct form, it is better to defer an account of the economy and internal arrangements of the order, to a more advanced period of its history and establishment.

Meanwhile, under the fostering gallantry and piety of Raymond, the order rapidly advanced in wealth and honour; and the numbers that flocked to it, and the brother order of the Temple, mark the European fame of its worth and achievements; and in the want of contemporary historians of its early progress, the fact of the Count of Barcelona joining the Temple, and Alfonso I of Navarre, and Arragon, bequeathing his dominions to the two military orders, in 1134,* shows,-though the wild nobles of Arragon resisted the

* Mariana, l. 10, c. 15, p. 511. Hist. Spain in Cab. Cyc. iii. 88. Vertot says that in 1141 Brompton and Roger de Hovendon call Raymond grand master.

bequest, at how early a period the noise of their chivalry had spread through Christendom..

The death of Fulk of Anjou, the fourth in the new line of kings,* who was killed hunting in the plains of Acre, in 1141, left the tottering throne of Jerusalem to his son Baldwin, a boy of thirteen years of age. The weakness of the succession gave a favourable opportunity, which they were not slow to avail themselves of, to the Turk and the Saracen to renew their invasions, but worse than the war of an enemy, civil dissentions arose, in which the Queen Mother Melisenda claimed and succeeded in obtaining the regency. It was between this period of weakness and struggles, and the coronation of Baldwin III, that the country of Edessa was lost to the Christians, which the young prince Courtenay, given up to his pleasures, could not uphold after the death of his iron-handed father. The effeminacy of the young Count was not lost on the Soldan of Aleppo, who attacked, and soon succeeded in retaking, the principality; but from this time, 1142, we must date the decline of the affairs of the Christians in the East,-what the heroic valour of Godfrey had built up,-what the two Baldwins, and Fulk of Anjou had sustained, had now passed through a factious and envious minority, into the hands of an unexperienced boy. The two orders of St. John and the Temple, were alone left to aid him against the hatred and hostility of the Soldan, awakened anew to action, by the hope and prospect of speedy success. The valour of the Order was indeed exerted, so that all Europe rang with their achievements; but it was soon but too apparent, that the efforts of a few were useless against the thousands of the Infidel.

The Saracen Caliph of Bagdad, having been deprived of his dominions by the conquering Turks, reserved only the spiritual supremacy of the priesthood. For the Salsuccion Turks had obtained the sovereignty of Persia, and soon after extended their conquests over Asia Minor. Melech and Durat, were the first Turkish soldiers of Aleppo. Their successor Sanguin, was no less

* Godfrey of Bouillon refused to wear a crown, or to take the title of a king, alleging that it became not him to wear a crown of gold at the spot where his Saviour was crowned with one of iron. See Butler, viii. pp. 264, 265, note.

celebrated as a general and a conqueror; and now the sceptre had devolved on his son, the warlike Noreadin, who inherited and enhanced the martial disposition of his father. Of the four principalities into which the fruits of the first crusade was divided, namely of Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch, and Jerusalem, Edessa had already fallen into his hands, and the other three were threatened by one who was not meanly endowed with all the qualities of a conqueror.

:

It was in vain for the throne of Jerusalem to look for victory, or even security, without the assistance of Europe, and for this purpose, the bishop of Zabulon was despatched to rouse Christendom to a second crusade. At the voice of St. Bernard, the tumult of civil dissension and international differences were laid aside. Louis VII of France, with eagerness, and Conrad III of Germany, after some delay, assumed the cross, and the barons and knights of their several dominions were not slow in following the example of the king and the emperor. But the fate and the misfortunes of the second crusade are well known. The treachery of the Greeks has been assigned as the cause of its failure. The saintly men of the times seem rather to insinuate that the finger of GOD was visible in chastising the sins of the Christians. It is but too true that many were led thither by the hopes of unrestrained and lawless lives, or others by the prospect of plunder;-and when the failure of the enterprise raised an outcry against St. Bernard, as if he had deceived them, with too free a promise of the blessing and conduct of GOD, truth constrained him to confess, that he had indeed trusted in the divine mercy for a blessing on the enterprise undertaken for the honour of His divine name; but that the sins of the army were the cause of its misfortunes.* The failure of the crusade was not in want of valour in the two knightly orders, who were ever in the post of honour, as their achievements at Damascus, and their forcing the Saracens to confine themselves within the walls of Ascalon,+ will attest; and when Baldwin lent assistance to the oppressed Count of Tripoli, Jerusalem would have fallen into the hands of the Turcomans, by a sudden and well-timed assault, had

*St. Bernard, 1. 2, de Consid. et c. 288. And on the retreat of the crusaders.

not the Hospitallers and Templars animated and armed the inhabitants to its defence, and by a successful night-sortie, burned the tents of the besiegers, released the city, and put the infidel to flight; and the reprisals of the Christians was finally rewarded by the taking of Ascalon in 1154, in the siege of which, the Templars' misconduct of the day, was amply washed away by their conduct on the next, which shame and the example of the Hospitallers had excited.

The consequences of that victory to the order, was a bull of confirmation of privileges, with some important new ones, issued by the Pope Anastasius IV. The exemption from tithes, and from the jurisdiction of the patriarchs, or eastern clergy; the privilege of worship in times of ecclesiastical interdict, though with closed doors; the rights of building churches and founding cemeteries in any land; were confirmed or granted. And it is painful to think, that the regular clergy, with the patriarchs at their head, should so far have forgot their own high character, and the disinterested gallantry of the knights, to have entertained for them other feelings than cooperation in their singleness of purpose,- to have allowed them to regard these privileges with envy and jealousy. William of Tyre,* whose predecessor formed one of the deputation who, with the aged patriarch and others, laid the claims of the eastern clergy at the foot of Adrian IV, who then sat in the chair of St. Peter, accuses the Pope and the cardinals of having been forestalled and bribed by the order, previous to the patriarch's arrival in Rome, and inveighing, in no measured terms, against the sacred college, insiuuates that there were but two cardinals worthy of their high and responsible situation, and that these gave judgment against the Hospitallers. It is enough, however, to say, in vindication of the Pope and the sacred college, that the English Pontiff died in such perfect poverty, that he had not anything to leave to his aged mother but a recommendation to the charity of the church of Canterbury; and that William of Tyre's two virtuous cardinals became afterwards the one, Antipope, under the title of Victor III, the other, the principal support of his ambition; and both abettors of a grievous schism in the Church.‡ * Guil. Tyrensis, lib. 17, c. 3, p. 932. + Id. lib. 18, c. 8, and lib. 18, c. 3. See a panegyric on the Templars in St. Bernard, "Exhortatio ad Militas Templi."