cause of Urban, so weighty was his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia 7 was composed of two hunared bishops of Italy, France, Burgundy, Swabia, and Bavaria. Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty thousand of the laity, attended this important meeting; and, as the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent to the city. The ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus, were introduced to plead the distress of their sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided only by a narrow sea from the victorious Turks, the common enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they flattered the pride of the Latin princes; and, appealing at once to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and powerful succo. The relief of Constantinople was included in the larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem; but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in the autumn of the same ear. The short delay would propagate the flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a nation of soldiers still

citias, et a tantis passam fuisse conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer suscepit, eo quòd ipsam tantas spurcitias non tam commisisse quam invitam pertulisse pro certo cognoverit papa cum sanctâ synodo. Apud Baron. A. D. 1093, No. 4, 1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous stories of herself and her husband.

7 See the narrative and acts of the synod of Placentia, Concil. tom, xii. p. 821, &c.

Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and valor of the French nation, the author and example of the crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus videamus, non illis Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into petulang among foreigners, (p. 488,) and vain loquaciousness, (p. 502.)

proud of the preeminence of their name, and ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne,9 who, in the popular romance of Turpin,10 had achieved the conquest of the Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province; nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and labo rious scenes of our youth.

It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from whence he hurled his anathemas against the king; but our surprise will vanish so soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the eleventh century." 11 Philip the First was the greatgrandson of Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline of Charlemagne's posterity, added the regal title to his patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass, he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the rest of France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and hereditary power,12 who disdained the control of laws and legal assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged by the disobedience of their inferior vassals. At Clermont, in the territories of

• Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1. Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. 1. i. p. 33, &c.

10 John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of Rheims, A. D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes himself as a fighting and drinking priest! Yet the book of lies was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus II., (A. D. 1122,) and is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin Medii Evi, edit. Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)

11 See Etat de la France, by the Count de Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180-182, and the second volume of the Observations sur l'Histoire de France, by the Abbé de Mably.

19 In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Flanders, contracted the name and limits of the proper France See Hadrian Vales. Notitia

Galliarum.

the count of Auvergne,13 the pope might brave with impunity the resentment of Philip; and the council which he convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than the synod of Placentia.14 Besides his court and council of Ro man cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two hundred and twenty-five bishops: the number of mitred prelates was computed at four hundred; and the fathers of the church were blessed by the saints and enlightened by the doctors of the age. From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights of power and renown attended the council, 15 in high expectation of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity, that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of November, erected their tents or huis in the open field. A session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced against the license of private war; the Truce of God 16 was confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the church; and a protection of three years was extended to husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military rapine But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot sudden ly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone

"These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually became princes of the city. Melanges, tirés d'une grand Bibliothèque, tom. xxxvi. p 288, &c.

&c.

14 See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil. tom. xii. p. 829,

16 Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiæ superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p. 31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480. Fulcher. Carnot. p. 882.)

16 The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first invented in Aquitain, A. D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to their privileges, Dusange, Gloss. Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.)

forth among the nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese the merit and glory of the deliver ance of the Holy Land; and when the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was vehement, his suc cess inevitable. The orator was interrupted by the shout of thousands, who with one voice, and in their rustic idiom, ex claimed aloud, "God wills it, God wills it." 17 It is indeed the will of God," replied the pope; "and let this memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol

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of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred and irrevocable engagement." The proposal was joy. fully accepted; great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their garments the sign of the cross,18 and solicited the pope to march at their head. This dangerous honor was declined by the more prudent successor of Gregory, who alleged the schism of the church, and the duties of his pastoral office, recommending to the faithful, who were disqualified by sex or profession, by age or infirmity, to aid, with their prayers and alms, the personal service of their robust brethren. The name and powers of his legate he devolved on Adhemar bishop of Puy, the first who had received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the council excused the absence, and pledged the honor, of their

17 Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. 1. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron. Casinense, 1. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat. xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A. D. 1100, very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont, (p. 15, 16.)

18 Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth, sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red; in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever appears the favorite, and, as ware, the national, color of our military ensigns and uniforms.

master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous ad monition to invite their countrymen and friends; and their departure for the Holy Land was fixed to the festival of the Assumption, the fifteenth of August, of the ensuing year.19

So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the prac tice of violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest prov ocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily beieve, that the servants of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction, unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both of the East and Wes were persuaded of their lawfulness and merit; their argu ments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of natural and religious defence, their pecular title to the Holy Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes.20 I. The

19 Bongarsius, who has published the original writers of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title of Guibertus, Gesta DEI per Francos; though some critics propose to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviæ, 1611, two vols. in folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade. I. Gesta Francorum. II. Robertus Monachus. III. Baldricus. IV. Raimundus de Agiles. V. Albertus Aquensis. VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis. VII. Guibertus. VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us, IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi, (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,) and, X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, (tom. vii. p. 664 -848.)* The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13–141,) and most of whose judg ments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p. 890-912,) is of small value or account.

so if the reader wil turn to the first scene of the First Part of

Several new documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and Wilken.M.