often invoked as supreme arbiter betwen sovereigns and between nations. Second, the revival of the study of the Roman law, and the adoption of this system of jurisprudence by nearly all the nations of Christendom, either as the basis of their municipal codes, or as subsidiary to the local legislation in each country."* The principles of this universal faith contain the elements of true liberty, independent of the various forms of government, all of which may practically assume the character of despotism. The relations of men to one another, when governed by Christianity, necessarily assume a mild and just form, and are insensibly divested of the asperity which they might otherwise involve. Domestic as well as social ties are hallowed and ennobled by this influence, and the strongest guarantee of right is found in the general conscience. Elements of International Law. Preface to third edition. CHAPTER VII. Crusades. THE influence and power of the Pope in temporal matters, connected with the interests of religion, appeared in the most extraordinary degree, in the great movements of the European powers for the recovery of the Holy Land. It has long been fashionable to condemn these wars as fanatical, if not wholly unchristian; but we should be slow to censure what met with the universal approbation of the most enlightened and holy men, during several centuries. It is more becoming to inquire into the principles on which they acted, and judge them according to their motives. My object, however, is to explain the part which the Popes took in these wars, and the influence which they exercised. Jerusalem and all the parts of Palestine consecrated by the footsteps of our Divine Redeemer, were viewed with special veneration by all Christians, from the earliest period. In the seventh century, they fell under the Mohammedan yoke, and were thenceforward, for three centuries, subject to the Caliphs of Bagdad and of Cairo, alternately, until the power of the Egyptian sultan prevailed. In 1076, Jerusalem was wrested from his dominion by Malek Shah, a prince of the Seljuk Turks from Tartary, who, some time previously, had invaded Syria, and other provinces. The struggle of the hostile clans continued for eighteen years, when the Egyptians again regained the ascendancy. In the mean time, the pilgrims, who flocked from Europe to the holy places, experienced the ferocity of the new lords of Palestine, and the Christian inhabitants of that country were most cruelly oppressed. The sufferings of the Eastern Christians had awakened the sympathy of their brethren in Europe, in the tenth century; at the close of which, "Pope Sylvester II., the ornament of his age, entreated the Church universal to succor the Church of Jerusalem, and to redeem a sepulchre which the Prophet Isaiah had said should be a glorious one, and which the sons of the destroyer, Satan, were making inglorious.' The subsequent success of the Turks filled with alarm the Emperor of Constantinople, Michael Ducas, who, in 1073, applied to Gregory VII. to obtain aid against an enemy formidable to all the Christian powers. The magnanimous Pontiff received the application favor 327 History of the Crusades, by Charles Mills, ch. i. p. 20. † Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. ch. i. ably, especially as hope was held out, that the reunion of the Greeks with the Church would result from the efforts of the Latins in their behalf. When enlisting an army for the defence of his possessions in Campania, against the Normans, he expressed the hope, that the enemy would be deterred from battle by the military preparations, so that the troops raised might be employed for the succor of the oriental Christians. In an encyclical letter he solicited the aid of the faithful generally, that he might send the desired relief. Fifty thousand soldiers were ready to march to the East, but the difficulties in which he himself was involved, prevented the prosecution of the generous design. Victor III., who succeeded him, encouraged the citizens of Pisa, Genoa, and other towns of Italy, to follow up the undertaking, especially as the Saracens infested the Mediterranean, and threatened the Italian coasts. The combined forces of these Christian powers made a successful descent on the coast of Africa, and reduced under their power Al Mahadia and Sibila, in the territory of Carthage, and obliged a king of Mauritania to pay tribute to the Holy See.* Alexius Comnenus, who occupied the imperial throne, in 1094, implored the succor of the West, through ambassadors, who, in a Council held at Piacenza, at which Urban II. presided, urged the demand. Four thousand clergymen and thirty thousand laymen, congregated in the open air, received the proposals with acclamation. The narrative of Peter the Hermit, a Frenchman, who had just returned from Palestine, contributed not a little to excite the sympathy and inflame the zeal of the Pontiff. He had been an eye-witness of the cruel oppression of the Eastern Christians, and had been charged by the Patriarch to represent their sad condition, and implore aid of their European brethren. From the court of Rome he hastened back to his native country, and everywhere repeated the tale of wo, so as to move to tears all who heard him. In 1995, a Council was called at Clermont; and, as the numbers who assembled could not be contained in any of the churches, an open square was chosen for the deliberations. Urban, who presided, spoke with an eloquence that seemed supernatural; and as he concluded his exhortation to hasten to the relief of their suffering brethren, the immense assemblage, as if by inspiration, cried out: IT IS THE will of God. The enthusiasm with which the address of Urban was received, and the promptitude wherewith the glorious badge of enrolment was assumed, should convince us that the motives for the expedition were plainly just and sacred. It is not to be thought that in any age, or under any circumstances, thousands and tens of thousands would abandon their country and home, and expose life, for an object not evidently just, at the bidding of an individual, however elevated in station. Nobles, with generous enthusiasm, left the court for the distant plains of Palestine, to fight for the liberation of their suffering brethren, and, at a great sacrifice, sold their * Histoire des Croisades, par Michaud, 1. i. p. 88. domains to procure money for the expedition: their vassals felt honored in being allowed to follow them to the field, where the conflict was not with a rival lord, but with the enemies of religion and of man. The monks went forth from their cloisters, to console and succor the crusaders; and the bishops, with large numbers of their flocks, were seen hastening to the sacred standard. The zeal of the Pontiff led him to visit various other cities of France, and to address fervent exhortations to the immense multitudes that everywhere assembled at his call. Although countless numbers perished on the journey by disease, and in conflict with the people of Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and other places, who resisted their progress, and refused them provisions, he nowise relented in his grand purpose; but meeting at Lucca a host of crusaders, who accompanied the Count of Vermandois, he placed in his hands the standard of the Church, that he might go forth to fight the battles of the cross.* The crusaders are sometimes represented as influenced by no other motive than the desire of rescuing the Holy Land from the infidel. This, however, is not the fact. For three centuries Jerusalem had been in the power of the Caliphs, without any effort having been made by the Christians to wrest it from their hands: it was the ferocity of the Turks which filled Europe with alarm and indignation.† The spirit of the crusades abated, when the Syrian Christians ceased to be so grievously oppressed. The ardor with which all Europe engaged in the struggle, was owing to the picture of suffering presented to them by the Hermit and the Pontiff. Doubtless their enthusiasm was increased by the consideration that the scene of those sufferings had been hallowed by the presence, miracles, and sufferings of Christ: but this does not detract from the lawfulness of the war, as undertaken for the relief of their fellow-Christians. "They were armed," as Michaud remarks, "in behalf of the wretched and the oppressed. They went forward to defend a religion which awakened their sympathies for distant sufferers, and caused them to discover brothers in the inhabitants of countries 'unknown to them."+ I know not whether it will be denied, that it was lawful for the nations of Europe to make war upon the Turks, in consequence of the outrages committed on European pilgrims, and the constant oppression of the Christians of Palestine. At this day nations resent the affronts and injuries of foreign powers to individual citizens sojourning in distant countries. Governments also connive at the raising of volunteers to aid the oppressed in asserting their rights, and sometimes openly join in the struggle. In many extreme cases, there seems to be no other means of rescuing the people from cruel despotism, than the intervention of a Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, 1. ii. p. 177. foreign power, demanding that the citizens be governed on principles of humanity and justice. If it be ever lawful for foreigners to interpose, it was surely so when fierce barbarians trampled under foot every natural right, delivered the daughters of Christians to dishonor, forced their sons to apostatize, and butchered the parents. The meek and suffering spirit which the Christian religion breathes, does not deprive men of the rights of humanity, or take away from nations the power to make just war. Individuals are taught to respect public authority, even when abused for purposes of persecution: but nations can appeal on the battle-field to the God of hosts, to vindicate justice and right. The actual government of Palestine had not prescription in its favor. The Turks were invaders, who, a short time before, had seized on the reins of power; and the Egyptians, when for a time successful, had not recovered pacific and secure possession. There was nothing in the title of the rulers of Syria, to form a bar against the interference of the European powers, who were anxious to rescue their Eastern brethren. The crusades were undertaken in the name of humanity, as well as of religion; and the destruction of the infidel was vowed, not as an act in itself acceptable, but as a necessary means for vindicating the oppressed. The shedding of human blood is to be abhorred: yet when it becomes necessary to maintain order, or put an end to outrage, God himself has given it His sanction. Hence we must consider the appeal of Urban II. to the Christian people, as an exhortation to a just war, and a wise effort on his part to give a proper direction to the warlike propensity of the age, by pointing to a legitimate object what for the most part manifested itself in acts of lawless violence. "Be ye armed," he cried, "dearly beloved, with the zeal of God; let each gird his sword upon his thigh most powerfully. Be ye ready, and be ye valiant: for it is better for us to die in war, than to see the evils of the people and of the holy places. Go forth, and the Lord will be with you, and turn against the enemies of the faith, and of the Christian name, the arms which you have criminally stained with the blood of one another.' This language may seem unbecoming the representative of the Prince of Peace: but if the relation of the Pope to society at that period be considered, he will be seen to have only spoken as the necessity of the case required. As the actual head of the confederacy of Christian nations, the only one who could effectually rouse them to a general effort, he raised his voice in behalf of justice and humanity. To exhort to just war was more humane than to suffer in silence the continuance of the outrages of which the Syrian Christians were the victims. Mills admits that, "if Europe had armed itself for the purpose of succoring the Grecian emperor, the rendering of such assistance would have been a moral action; for the Saracenian march of hostility would not have Apud Baron., an. 1095. |