dination and vice raged in the camp; and, to crown their miseries, the Croises heard that the infidel world had recovered from its defeat at Sidon, and that the Sultans of Egypt and Syria were concentrating their levies. Daunted at the rumour of their march, the German Princes deserted their posts in the middle of the night, and fled to Tyre. In the morning their flight was discovered by the soldiers, and horror and despair filled every breast; the camp was deserted by those who had strength to move; the feeble left their property, the cowardly their arms, behind them. The road to Tyre was filled with soldiers and baggage, in indiscriminate confusion; but so exhausted was the state of the Mussulmans in Thoron, that the Christians were not molested in their retreat by any accidents, except those which their own imprudence and precipitation occasioned.

In reviewing the state of the Church during this century, and considering the multitude of causes which united their influence in obscuring the lustre of genuine Christianity, and corrupting it, by a profane mixture of the inventions of superstitious and designing men with its pure and sublime doctrines, it will appear surprising that the religion of Jesus was not totally extinguished. Relics, which were for the most part fictitious, or at least uncertain, attracted more powerfully the confidence of the people than the merits of Christ, and were supposed, by many, to be more effectual than prayers offered to Heaven, through the mediation of that Divine Redeemer. The opulent, whose circumstances enabled them to erect new temples, or to repair and embellish the old, were looked upon as the happiest of all mortals, and were considered as the most intimate friends of the Most High; while they whom poverty rendered incapable of such pompous acts of liberality, contributed to the multiplication of religious edifices by their bodily labours, cheerfully performed the services that beasts of burden are usually employed in, such as carrying stones, and drawing waggons, and expected to obtain eternal salvation by these voluntary and painful efforts of misguided zeal. This universal reign of ignorance and superstition was dexterously,

two Sicilies, to the Imperial throne, in the year 1212. 1212. If a Prince attempted to withdraw from his authority received from heaven, the Pontiff anathematized him, expelled him out of the communion of the faithful, and his deluded subjects avoided him like a pestilence. In general, he went and solicited the pardon of the irritated Vice-God, appeased him by the most abject submissions, and by the acknowledgment of all the rights which the arrogant Pontiff demanded; after which the repentant Sovereign was re-established in his charges and his honors; and at each similar attempt, the power of the Popes, sanctioned and increased, becamed still more strengthened.

CHAPTER XIII.

WE must now turn aside from the consideration of acts of despotism and tyranny, to the consideration of those of the deepest superstition and romantic enthusiasm. Indeed, the annals of human infatuation cannot present a more extraordinary fact, than that which is the subject of our present observations, cannot supply a more powerful illustration of the effects of fanaticism, or so strikingly develope the most prominent characteristics of "holy wars." In other expeditions of this nature, it is true, there might be the same passion for novelty, the same love of libertinism, considerably more of the restlessness of chivalry, and the hope of conquest and glory. But never did religious fanaticism operate so powerfully, as when it divested childhood of its fears, and urged it into the perilous pursuits of men. Never did delusion work so strongly upon the timid, or imagination so transform the nature of the weak, never, in short, did humanity betray derangement so pliable, or

results so diffusively calamitous, and yet, singular as it may appear, our English histories of this time pass it without a

comment.

The utter madness of Crusade, which in 1212, according to the majority of historians, assembled a vast concourse of children, chiefly ten and twelve years old, can only be duly estimated by taking into consideration the martial frenzy, and the artful policy, of the Clergy; men who too often made religion the stalking-horse of their ambition, and the pander of their lust for power. One remarkable source of this their incessant assiduity, will be found in the superior information of some, and in the bigoted zeal of others; and that of the majority.

The infant, imbibing with its mother-milk the germ of superstition and zealotry, taught by its other reckless parent to lisp only in the accents of an impure and bloody chivalry, must have breathed its earliest words in execration of the "land of Heathenesse," and devoted its earliest prayers to the overthrow of "Paynim bonds;" what wonder if cruelty and hate, and all the worst passions, well derived from such abhorrent sources, sank deep into the heart of the youthful aspirant, and filled his untutored brain with romance and madness.

There was, however, another cause more potent than that of Chivalry, or even than that of superstition, which induced the misguided parent to supply so wild a stimulus to infantile ardor. The countries of the East, in that age, were looked upon as the only origin of unlimited wealth: "The vulgar, both small and great," as Gibbon well observes, "were taught to believe every wonder; of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines, and treasures of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon, and frankincense." Here the poverty-stricken lost their indigence, and the wealthy started into more abundant wealth: here was Aladdin's lamp, and the diamond valleys of Sindbad: here, and here only, piety could be united with worldly interest, and the Cross of Christ decorated with gold and precious stones. Whether the worship of God at the Sepulchre of his blessed Son, originally drew the crowds who visited that country, is

VOL. I.

yet basely, improved by the rulers of the Church, to fill their coffers, and to drain the purses of the deluded multitude. And, indeed, all the various ranks and orders of the Clergy had each their peculiar method of fleecing the people. The Bishops, when they wanted money for their private pleasures, or for the exigencies of the Church, granted to their flock the power of purchasing the remission of the penalties imposed upon transgressors, by a sum of money which was to be applied to certain religious purposes; or, in other words, they published Indulgences, which became an inexhaustible source of opulence to the episcopal orders. When the Roman Pontiffs cast an eye upon the immense treasures that the inferior rulers of the Church were accumulating by the sale of Indulgences, they thought proper to limit the power of the Bishops in remitting the penalties imposed upon transgressors, and assumed, almost entirely, this profitable traffic to themselves. In consequence of this new measure, the Court of Rome became the general magazine of Indulgences; and the Pontiffs, when either the wants of the Church, the emptiness of their coffers, or the demon of avarice, prompted them to look out for new subsidies, published not only a universal, but also a complete, or what they called, a plenary remission of all the temporal pains and penalties, which the Church had annexed to certain transgressions. They went still farther, and not only remitted the penalties which the civil and ecclesiastical laws had enacted against transgressors, but audaciously usurped the authority which belongs to God alone, and impiously pretended to abolish even the punishments which are reserved in a future state for the workers of iniquity; a step this which the Bishops, with all their avarice and presumption, had never once ventured to take.

The most illustrious and resolute Pontiff, that filled the Papal chair, during the thirteenth century, and whose exploits made the greatest noise in Europe, was Lotharius, Count of Segni, Cardinal Deacon, otherwise known by the name of Innocent III. This Pontiff, who was placed at the head of the Church in the year 1198, followed the steps of Gregory VII., and not only usurped the despotic government of the Church, but

also claimed the empire of the world, and thought of nothing less than subjecting the kings and princes of the earth to his lordly sceptre. He was a man of learning and application ; but his cruelty, avarice, and arrogance, clouded the lustre of any good qualities which his panegyrists have thought proper to attribute to him. In Asia and Europe, he disposed of crowns and sceptres with the most wanton ambition. In Asia, he gave a king to the Armenians; in Europe, he usurped the same extravagant privilege in the year 1204, and conferred the regal dignity upon Primislaus, Duke of Bohemia. The same year he sent to Johannicius, Duke of Bulgaria and Walachia, an extraordinary Legate, who, in the name of the Pontiff, invested that Prince with the ensigns and honors of royalty, while, with his own hand, he crowned Peter II. of Arragon, who had rendered his dominions subject and tributary to the Church, and saluted him publicly at Rome, with the title of King. We omit many other examples of this frenetic pretension to universal Empire, which might be produced from the letters of this arrogant Pontiff, and many other acts of despotism, which Europe beheld with astonishment; but also, to its eternal reproach, with the ignominious silence of a passive obedience. The ambition of this Pope was not satisfied with the distribution and government of these petty kingdoms. He extended his views farther, and resolved to render the power and majesty of the Roman See formidable to the greatest European Monarchs, and even to the Emperors themselves. When the Empire of Germany was disputed, towards the commencement of the thirteenth century, between Philip, Duke of Suabia, and Otho IV., third son of Henry the Lion, he espoused at first the cause of Otho, thundered out his excommunications against Philip, and, upon the death of the latter, which happened in the year 1209, placed the Imperial diadem upon the head of his adversary. But as Otho was by no means disposed to submit to this Pontiff's nod, or to satisfy to the full his ambitious desires, he incurred, of consequence, his lordly indignation; and Innocent, declaring him, by a solemn excommunication, unworthy of the Empire, raised in his place Frederic II., his pupil, the son of Henry VI., and King of the