the citizens of free states. The character of knighthood widened the separation between the classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high birth, by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust degradation.* THE CRUSADES.-We are now prepared to examine the "heroic event of Europe"-the Crusades-which constituted a thoroughly national event in each country, as well as a universal event throughout the continent. It is a very interesting question how the Crusades originated, and why they thus stirred up every people for so long a period. In the first place, we must remember that from the earliest Christian times the faithful had been in the habit of visiting the places in the Holy Land made sacred by the life of our Savior, as an act of penance, a satisfaction for sin, and a means of promoting personal devotion. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, had done this, and her pilgrimage was marked by churches which he caused to be erected. The numbers of pilgrims during the Middle Ages were so great as to make considerable commerce, and the merchants of Genoa and Venice, as well as the Arabs in Jerusalem, derived great gain from them. The Holy City was taken by the Turks in 1073, and the Christians were taxed, plundered, persecuted, or slaughtered. Stories of these troubles were brought back by returning pilgrims, some of whom had been unable so much as to enter the city whose streets they so longed to tread, but no exaggerations were sufficient to deter the deluded people of Europe from continuing their pilgrimages. † A CASTLE AND A PALMER.--It was a heroic infatuation, and, that we may the more perfectly appreciate the sentiments of the people, let us enter one of their stately and picturesque abodes, and live for a few moments with them. The castle frowns from some lofty rock upon the village beneath. A broad river flows placidly by, and, like a silver band, sends back to our eyes the rays of the rising, or the setting sun, and "The air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Riding up the ascent, our horses are led by an attendant through the spacious arched doorway, and we alight in the open quadrangle. We pass through the great banqueting hall, ornamented with antlers, casques, and bucklers of various previous ages, and crowded with memories of gay and generous revels, into an apartment of state. The walls are decorated with ancient arras, wrought by ancestral dames, which for generations had been carefully preserved. The floor is of polished oak. The ceiling is of the same wood, paneled and decorated with gold and gorgeous colors, and emblazoned with the arms of many a daring ancestor, and the great bay window at the side is filled above with gayly colored glass, while through the lower parts we gain a full view of the tilt yard, where many a tournament has been held under the eyes of the ladies who stand about us now. We are in the midst of the household. The knight and his lady greet us with good cheer, and make us as familiar as the customs allow, with the sons and daughters, and with the chaplain who stands near them in the greatest humility, almost apologizing for his existence. Behind us, as we look from the window, is the great fire-place, promising good cheer when winter's blasts shall roar without. Over the chimney is this motto, carved in oak: "There is only this; to fear God and keep His commandments," expressing the simple faith of the family. Suddenly a squire enters, and after a word with the knight, leads the way to the court. *Hallam's Middle Ages. +Gtman's General History. There, surrounded by a number of the people from the village, stands a palmer from the Holy Land. We are in the presence of one who has visited the holy shrines, who bears the cockle-shell on his hat, and the palm branch in his hand. His shoulder is marked with a red cross, and he is urging those about him to assume it likewise. With impassioned oratory he tells the story of his pilgrimage, how, passing over hundreds of miles on foot, and suffering every hardship, he at last saw the walls of the Holy City, and hoped to enter its gates and get the blessed sight of the places that had for months been the end of his earthly ambition; when lo! the gates swung on their huge hinges in his face, and he was barred out, because forsooth, he lacked the piece of gold that the greedy infidel Turk demanded of all comers. Suffering and weary, he had dragged himself homeward, determined to tell to all his wrongs, when he had met one Peter, the Hermit, a sufferer, too, who was wandering over Europe exciting all nations to rally and turn the Saracen from the rightful heritage of Christendom. Taking the red cross from Peter, our palmer had carried abroad the fervor of his enthusiastic indignation, and now, crying "Dieu le veult!" "God wills it!" he is urging the men before us to follow in the crusade that has been undertaken for the restoration of Jerusalem to Christian folk. Can we wonder that, stirred by his words, the men recollect the story of Calvary as their preachers have delivered it to them, and indignant at the "infidels," gladly take the cross upon their shoulders and join the ranks that are surging over Europe to the eastward ?* MILITARY SPIRIT OF THE AGE.--Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition; the ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human mind; the people, who, being little restrained by honor, and less by law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their spiritual pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an equivalent for all penances, and an atonement for every violation of justice and humanity. But, amidst the abject superstition which now prevailed, the military spirit also had universally diffused itself; and though not supported by art or discipline, was become the general passion of the nations governed by the feudal law. All the great lords possessed the right of peace and war; they were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each other; the open country was become a scene of outrage and disorder; the cities, still mean and poor, were neither guarded by walls nor protected by privileges, and were exposed to every insult; individuals were obliged to depend for safety on their own force, or their private alliances and valor was the only excellence which was held in esteem or gave one man the preeminence above another. When all the particular superstitions, therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardor for military enterprise took the same direction; and Europe, impelled by its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it were, from its foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon the East.+ THE SARACENS.-After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended revelations, united the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued forth from their deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with zeal for their new religion, and supported by the vigor of their new government, they made deep impression on the Eastern empire, which was far in the decline, with regard both to military discipline and to civil policy. Jerusalem, by its situation, became one of *Gilman's General History. + Hume's History of England, Crusade. The emperor, Henry the Fourth, was not disposed to obey the summons of the pope; Philip the First, of France, was occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus, of England, by a recent conquest; the kings of Spain were engaged in a domestic war against the Moors; and the Northern monarchs of Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was felt more strongly by the princes of the second order, who held an important place in the feudal system.* DUKE OF NORMANDY.-Robert, Duke of Normandy, im had early enlisted himself in the crusade, but being always unprovided with money, he found that it would be impracticable for him to appear in a manner suitable to his rank and station, at the head of his numerous vassals and sub mined to follow him into Asia. He resolved, therefore, to mortgage, or rather to sell, his dominions, which he had not talents to govern; and he offered them to his brother William, for the very unequal sum of ten thousand marks. He was put in possession of Normandy and Maine, and Robert, providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for the Holy Land in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of se their most early conquests; and the Christians had the mortification to see the holy sepulchre, and the other places, consecrated by the presence of their religious founder, fallen into the possession of infidels. But the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in military enterprises by which they spread their empire, in a few years, from the banks of the Ganges to the Straits of Gibralter, that they had no leisure for theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original monument of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the several articles of their religious system. They gave little dis-pelled by the bravery and mistaken generosity of his spirit, turbance to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem; and they allowed every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit the holy sepulchre, to perform his religious duties, and to return in peace. But the Turcomans, or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had embraced Moham-jects, who, transported with the general rage, were determedanism, having wrested Syria from the Saracens, and having, in the year 1065, made themselves masters of Jerusalem, rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous to the Christians. The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many insults, robberies, and extortions, and these zealots, returning from their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of their completion. Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens, in Picardy, had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He entertained the bold, and in all appearance, impracticable, project of leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of the West, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection. He proposed his views to Martin II, who filled the papal chair. He summoned a council at Placentia, which consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain. The harangues of the Pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal situation of their brethren in the East, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole multitude, suddenly and violently declared for war, and solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they believed it, to God and religion. But, though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the enterprise, Martin knew that, in order to insure success, it was necessary to enlist the greater and more warlike nations in the same engagement; and having previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief cities and sovereigns of Christendom, he summoned another council at Clermont, in Auvergne. When the Pope and the Hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole assembly, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by their preceding impressions, exclaimed with one voice, “It is the will of God!" "It is the will of God!" Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardor; and an exterior symbol, a circumstance of chief moment, was here chosen by the devoted combatants. The sign of the cross, which had been hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to the right shoulder by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare.* SOVEREIGNS IN THE FIRST CRUSADE.-None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the First *Hume's History of England. curing his eternal salvation.+ THE JOURNEY.-Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy, the crusaders were the wild and desolate countries of Hungary and Bulgaria. compelled to traverse an interval of six hundred miles, Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity: the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor; but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek prefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious naked fugitives, and the Hermit Peter was of the number, robbers was unrelenting and bloody. About a third of the escaped to the Thracian mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses; but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor, and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road of Jerusalem. The Hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Pennyless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted, without success, to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capitol, Soliman tempted the *Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. main body to descend into the plains of Nice; they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows, and a pyramid of bones informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, 300,000 had already perished before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise.* GODFREY DE BOUILLON.-So unpropitious a commencement might easily have crushed all inclinations for further attempts, had not these first adventurers, in great part, consisted of the lowest class of the people, and had not their leaders been deficient in prudence, experience, and noble zeal and energy. Accordingly, at the appointed time, in the middle of summer, a grand army, well appointed and disciplined, and burning with enthusiastic courage, was assembled, and on the 15th of August, 1096, set out for its destination. No king was present as leader of the assembled forces; but, among the princes and nobles, Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine, called from his ancestral seat, Godfrey of Bouillon, stood proudly forward, conspicuous in every heroic virtue; having often fought in the armies of Henry IV. He was appointed the leader of a body of 90,000 men, and directed his course through Hungary and the dominions of the Greek emperor, while other princes proceeded through Italy to Constantinople. He conducted his army with the most admirable order, through countries where so many of the crusaders had already perished, and having joined the other princes, entered the Turkish territories in the spring of 1097. The united forces of the crusaders consisted of 300,000 men, and with the women, children, and servants, made up a body of half a million. Unfortunately, however, they already found in the tribe of the Sedjoncidians, who first opposed their progress, an enemy equally cunning and active, while they met with still greater and more serious obstacles in the deserts, where the Turks had destroyed everything which might have procured them some sustenance, and through which they had to pass from Asia Minor to Palestine. Hunger and disease carried off every day numbers of men and horses; even the bravest began to waver, and had it not been for the active genius and heroic firmness displayed by the brave Godfrey, this expedition would perhaps have experienced the same unfortunate result as those that preceded it. At length, in May, 1999, the wearied feet of the remaining portion of the army which had escaped so many dangers, trod the cherished soil of that hallowed land, and on the sixth of July they beheld from the top of a mountain near Emmaus the object of their ardent hopes and desires-Jerusalem! One universal shout of joy filled the air, vibrating in undying echoes from hill to hill, while tears of rapture burst from every eye. Their noble leader could scarcely prevent them from rushing forward at once, in their wild enthusiasm, to storm the walls of the holy city. But Godfrey soon perceived that the conquest of the place was not easy, and could not be effected in a moment, especially as the garrison was much stronger in numbers than the crusaders, of whom, out of 300,000, only 40,000 men were now left. At length, every preparation being made, and warlike machines with storming-ladders provided, in spite of every existing difficulty—for the country around was deficient in wood-the first general assault was made, on the 14th day of July; but, as the beseiged defended themselves with the greatest bravery, this first attempt failed. On the following day, however, the Christians renewed the attack, and Godfrey was one of the first that mounted the enemy's ramparts. His sword opened a path for the rest; the walls were soon gained on all sides, the gates forced open, and the whole army rushed into the city. A dreadful scene of mas *Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. sacre now commenced; in their first fury the victors put all to the sword, and but few of the inhabitants escaped. When, however, reason at length resumed its sway, the warriors, wiping the blood from their swords, returned them to their scabbards, and then proceeded, bareheaded and barefooted, to prostrate themselves before the holy places; and the same city, which just before had resounded in every part with the wild shrieks of the slaughtered, was now filled with prayers and hymns to the honor and glory of God. The election of a sovereign for the new kingdom of Jerusalem became now an object of consideration, and Godfrey of Bouillon appeared to all as the most worthy to rule; but he refused to wear a crown of jewels on the spot where the Savior of the world had bled beneath one of thorns, and would only take the title of "Defender of the Holy Sepulchre." As he died, however, in the following year, his brother Baldwin assumed at once the title of king.* SECOND CRUSADE.-The kingdom of Jerusalem had severe encounters to sustain with the infidels. When reinforcements no longer arrived from the West, the situation of the Christians became exceedingly precarious, especially after the powerful sultan of Mosul had taken Edessa, and and threatened their borders from the east. At this junction, St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, in Burgundy, aroused afresh the slumbering zeal of religion, and was the originator of the Second Crusade. The authority of this pious man was so great, that Louis VII of France yielded obedience to his exhortations, and even Conrad III was unable to resist the fiery eloquence with which he addressed him in the cathedral of Spire. Conrad assumed the cross, and marched with a stately army through Constantinople into Asia Minor. But here he was decoyed by the artifice of the Greek generals into a waterless desert, where the crusaders were suddenly attacked by innumerable squadrons of Turkish cavalry, who gave them so signal an overthrow, that scarcely a tenth part escaped with Conrad into Constantinople. The French army that marched along the coast fared no better. The greater number of the pilgrims perished either by the sword of the enemy, or by hunger and fatigue. The shattered forces of the two kings at length reached Jerusalem, but were unable to perform any action of importance, so that the position of the Christian kingdom became from day to day more difficult, especially as, shortly after their retreat, the magnanimous and valiant Curd, Saladin, made himself master of Egypt, and united in a short time all the lands between Cairo and Aleppo, under his sceptre. The kingdom of Jerusalem was soon in distress. Saladin granted a truce; but when this was violated by a Christian knight, who had audaciously interrupted the passage of Saladin's mother, robbed her of her treasures, and slaughtered her attendants, the sultan took the field with his army. The battle of Tiberias was decided against the Christians. King Guy, of Lusignan, and many of his nobles, were taken prisoners; Joppa, Sidon, Acre, and many other towns fell into the hands of the conquerors, and at length Jerusalem was also taken. The crosses were torn down, and the furniture of the churches destroyed, but the inhabitants were treated with forbearance. Saladin, far superior in virtue to his Christian adversaries, did not stain his triumph with cruelty.t THIRD CRUSADE.-The Third Crusade is more interesting than the second, from the men who were prominent in it. They were, first, the celebrated Saladin, who defeated the Christians at Tiberias, July 4th, 1187, stormed Jerusalem on the 2d of October, and took almost every fortified place in *Kohlrausch's History of Germany, + Dr. George Weber. Palestine. The news of these disasters caused the death of Pope Urban III of grief, and so thoroughly affected his successor, Gregory VIII, that he immediately preached a new crusade. The first to take the cross was the aged Frederic Barbarossa, emperor of Germany, who conducted a magnificent army by the route through Hungary and Greece in 1189. His death resulted from an imprudent bath in a river, before he reached the Holy Land, and his army accomplished little afterwards. Philip II, 1165-1223, of France, took the cross, and the redoubtable Richard I, 1157-1199, called Cœur de Lion, did the same. They met at Vezelay, in France, in the summer of 1190, and marched together to Lyons, where they separated to meet again before Acre, in the summer of 1191. After a siege the Turks surrendered Acre, and the event was followed by cruel massacres, of which the records of the crusades furnish us so many. After the reduction of Acre, the French king, being outshone by Richard on the field, returned to his dominions, probably thinking that during the absence of his English rival he could obtain some advantage over him at home. Proceeding toward Jerusalem, Richard's army was attacked by Saladin near Jaffa, but without success, and, though the crusaders continued their march, its results were unimportant, and in 1104 Richard returned to England, having accomplished little more during the four years of his absence than to effect a truce with Saladin in 1192, by which the Christians were to be allowed access to the holy places at Jerusalem.* FULK OF NEUILLY.-About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of France were (A. D. 1198) again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the Hermit, but far below St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate priest of the neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, forsook his parochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular and itinerant missionary. The fame of his sancity and miracles was spread over the land; he declaimed with severity and vehemence against the vices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of Paris, converted even the doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the Third ascend the chair of St. Peter than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France the obligation of a new crusade.t THE FOURTH CRUSADE.-The knights of France and Italy assembled together at Venice, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, under Baldwin of Flanders, for the purpose of getting themselves conveyed to the Holy Land. Whilst here the Byzantine prince, Alexius, whose father, Isaac Angelus, had been deprived of the throne, rendered blind, and shut up in prison by his own brother, presented himself before them, and implored their assistance against the usurper. Alexius prevailed upon the crusaders by the promise of vast rewards. They sailed for Constantinople, under the command of the blind doge, Dandolo of Venice, who was then in his ninetieth year, took the city, and placed | Alexius and his father on the throne. But when they insolently demanded the fulfilment of the promises made to them, the populace excited an insurrection, during which Alexius was killed, and his father died of fright, whilst the leader of the tumult was raised to the government. Upon this the Franks stormed Constantinople, plundered the churches, palaces, and dwelling houses, destroyed the noblest works of art and antiquity, and filled the whole city with terror and outrage. They flung the emperor from a pillar, *Gilman's General History. +Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. B and then divided the Byzantine kingdom. The newly established Latin empire, with its chief city, Constantinople, fell to the share of the heroic Baldwin. But the new empire had no solid foundation, nor any long continuance. It preserved itself with difficulty for half a century, by aid from the West, against its numerous enemies; the greater part of it then returned to Michael Palæologus, a descendant of the ancient imperial family. This crusade, however, was without results as far as Jerusalem was concerned; and as the Latin kingdom also drew away the strength from the Holy Land, the latter soon fell into distress.* CHILDREN'S CRUSADE.-The most singular effect of the crusading spirit was witnessed in 1211, when a multitude, amounting, as some say, to 90,000, chiefly composed of children, and commanded by a child, set out for the purpose of recovering the Holy Land. They came for the most part from Germany, and reached Genoa without harm. But finding there an obstacle which their imperfect knowledge of geography had not anticipated, they soon dispersed in various directions. Thirty thousand arrived at Marseilles, where part were murdered, part probably starved, and the rest sold to the Saracens.t THE FIFTH CRUSADE.-The emperor, Frederick II, undertook the Fifth Crusade, at a time when the sultan of Egypt was engaged in a war with the governor of Damascus, respecting the possession of Syria and Palestine. But the pope was indignant with the emperor, and forbade all Christian warriors to support his undertaking; and when Frederick nevertheless succeeded, by dextrously availing himself of circumstances, in bringing the sultan to a treaty, by which Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, together with their territories and the whole of the sea-coast between Jappa and Sidon, were ceded to the Christians, the pope fulminated an excommunication against the city and the Holy Sepulchre, so that Frederick II was obliged to place the crown of Jerusalem on his own head, without either a mass or the consecration of the church. Hated and betrayed by the Christian knights and priests in Jerusalem, Frederick, with shattered health, retired from the Holy Land. Fourteen years afterwards, the Carismians, a savage eastern race, poured themselves into Palestine, carrying death and destruction in their train. They took Jerusalem, destroyed the Holy Sepulchre, and tore the bones of the kings from their graves. The flowers of Christian chivalry fell at Gaza beneath their blows. Acre and a few other towns on the coast were all that remained to the Christians.* CRUSADES OF SAINT LOUIS.-The last two crusades were undertaken by St. Louis, of France. In the first he was attended by 2,800 knights and 50,000 ordinary troops. He landed at Damietta, in Egypt, for that country was now deemed the key of the Holy Land, and easily made himself master of the city. But, advancing up the country, he found natural impediments as well as enemies in his way; the Turks assailed him with Greek fire, an instrument of warfare almost as surprising and terrible as gunpowder; he lost his brother, the Count of Artois, with many knights, at Massoura, near Cairo; and began too late a retreat toward Damietta. Such calamities now fell upon this devoted army as have scarce ever been surpassed; hunger and want of every kind, aggravated by an unsparing pestilence. At length the king was made prisoner, and very few of the army escaped the Turkish cimeter, in battle or in captivity. Four hundred thousand livres were paid as a ransom for *Dr. George Weber. +Hallam's Middle Ages. Louis. He returned to France and passed near twenty years in the exercise of those virtues which are his best title to canonization. But the fatal illusions of superstition were still always at his heart; nor did it fail to be painfully observed by his subjects, that he still kept the cross upon his garments. His last expedition was originally designed for Jerusalem. But he had received some intimation that the king of Tunis was desirous of embracing Christianity. That these intentions might be carried into effect, he sailed out of his way to the coast of Africa, and laid siege to that city. A fever here put an end to his life, sacrificed to that ruling passion which never would have forsaken him. But he had survived the spirit of the crusades; the disastrous expedition to Egypt had cured his subjects, though not himself, of their folly; his son, after making terms with Tunis, returned to France; the Christians were suffered to lose what they still retained in the Holy Land; and though many princes in subsequent ages talked loudly of renewing the war, the promise, if it were ever sincere, was never accomplished.* ment, and the peasantry sank into the condition of serfsAbout the time of the First Crusade, the Mohammedan prophet, Hassan, formed the fanatical sect of the Assassins, who dwelt in ancient Parthia, and the mountainous heights of Syria, and were remarkable for the entire renunciation of their own wills. They obeyed the commands of their chief, the "Old Man of the Mountain," with the blindest devotion, executed with subtlety and courage every murderous deed that was intrusted to them; made a jest of the torture when seized, and were the terror of both Turks and Christians. 3. The crusades gave rise to a free peasantry, inasmuch as, by means of them, many serfs attained their liberty, and raised and extended the power and importance of the burgher class and of the towns; whilst a nearer acquaintance with foreign lands and foreign productions gave an impulse to trade, developed commerce, and produced prosperity. 4. They increased the power and authority of the clergy, multiplied the riches of the church, (the clergy and the monasteries got possession of vast estates during the crusades, either by legacies and donations, or by purchase), and exalted the zeal for religion into a gloomy fanaticism. The latter quality was frightfully displayed in the persecution of the Waldenses and Albigenses, a religious sect who were desirous of restoring the apostolic simplicity of the church and clergy. Provence and Languedoc, in the south of France, where, under a beautiful and serene sky, a prosperous race of burghers had developed their free institutions, where the cheerful Provençal poetry of the troubadours had indulged its petulant and satirical humor at the expense of priests and bishops, was the residence of these Albigenses (so-called from the city, Alby). Against these men and their protector, Raimond VI, of Toulouse, Innocent III ordered the cross to be preached by the Cistercian monks. Hereupon, bands of savage warriors, with some fanatical monks bearing the cross before them, marched into the blooming land, destroyed the rich cities, towns and villages, slaughtered the innocent with the guilty, lighted up the flames of death, and filled the whole country with murder, plunder and desolation. Raimond for a long time resisted his enemies; CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRUSADES.-The consequences of the crusades were of vast importance to the progress of the European races. 1. Cultivation of mind was forwarded by them, inasmuch as an acquaintance with foreign lands and nations enlarged the hitherto contracted sphere of human knowledge, gave men an insight into the sciences and arts of other people, and enlightened their minds with regard to the world and human relations. 2. They ennobled the knightly class, by furnishing a more elevated aim to their efforts, and gave occasion for the establishment of fresh orders, who presented a model of chivalry, and were supposed to combine all the knightly virtues. Of these orders, those which most distinguished themselves, were the Knights of St. John (Hospitallers), the Templars, and the Teutonic knights. They combined the spirit of the knight and the monk; for in addition to the three conventual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, they joined a fourth-war to the infidels and protection to pilgrims. The order of St. John was divided into three classes: serving | but when Louis VIII, excited by an ignoble cupidity for exbrothers, who were devoted to the care of sick pilgrims; priests, who ministered to the affairs of religion; and knights, who fought with the infidels, and escorted pilgrims. After the loss of the Holy Land, they obtained the island of Rhodes, and when they were compelled, after a most desperate resistance, to relinquish this to the Ottomans, the island of Malta was presented to them by the emperor Charles V. The Templars acquired vast wealth by donations and legacies. After the loss of their possessions in Palestine, the greater number of their members returned to France, where they gave themselves up to infidelity and a life of voluptuousness, which finally occasioned the dissolution of their order. The order of Teutonic Knights is less renowned for its deeds in Palestine than for its services in the civilization of the countries on the shores of the Baltic. Summoned to defend the germs of Christianity against the heathen Prussians on the banks of the Vistula, the order, after many bloody encounters, succeeded in converting the people between the Vistula and the Nieman to Christianity, and introducing the German manners, language, and culti-prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study the vation. The cities of Culm, Thorn, Elbnig, Konigsberg, and others, arose under the influence of the active traders of Bremen and Lubeck, bishoprics and churches were founded; the woods were cleared and converted into arable land; German industry and German civilization produced a complete transformation; but the ancient freedom of the people was destroyed. The Knights of the Order, (who since 1309 had had their residence in Marienburg,) conducted the govern *Hallam's Middle Ages. tending his possessions, undertook the war against the heretics, the count submitted, and concluded a peace by which he surrendered the greater part of his territories to France. But a desolating war of twenty years had destroyed the beautiful culture of the south of France, turned the land into a wilderness, and silenced forever the cheerful song of the troubadour. A few years afterward the gallant peasant republic of the Stedingers was visited in a similar manner by a war of extermination, at the instance of the bishops of Bremen and Ratzburg.* THE MOHAMMEDANS AND GREEKS.-After this narrative of the expeditions to Palestine and Constantinople, I can not dismiss the subject without revolving the general conse quences on the countries that were the scene; and the nations that were the actors of these memorable 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 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 valor, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern literature of the West, they * Dr. George Weber. |