French princes an oath of homage and fidelity, and a soiema promise, that they would either restore, or hold, their Asiatic conquests as the humble and loyal vassals of the Roman em pire. Their independent spirit was fired at the mention of this foreign and voluntary servitude: they successively yielded to the dexterous application of gifts and flattery; and the first proselytes became the most eloquent and effectual missionarieto multiply the companions of their shame. The pride of Hugh of Vermandois was soothed by the honors of his cap. tivity; and in the brother of the French king, the example of submission was prevalent and weighty. In the mind of Godfrey of Bouillon every human consideration was subordinate to the glory of God and the success of the crusade. He had firmly resisted the temptations of Bohemond and Raymond, who urged the attack and conquest of Constantinople. Alexius esteemed his virtues, deservedly named him the champion of the empire, and dignified his homage with the filial name and the rights of adoption.67 The hateful Bohemond was received as a true and ancient ally; and if the emperor reminded him of former hostilities, it was only to praise the valor that he nad displayed, and the glory that he had acquired, in the fields of Durazzo and Larissa. The son of Guiscard was lodged and entertained, and served with Imperial pomp: one day, as he passed through the gallery of the palace, a door was carelessly left open to expose a pile of gold and silver, of silk and gems, of curious and costly furniture, that was heaped, in seeming disorder, from the floor to the roof of the chamber. "What conquests," exclaimed the ambitious miser, might not be achieved by the possession of such a treasure!" "It is your own," replied a Greek attendant, who watched the motions of his soul; and Bohemond, after some hesitation, condescended to accept this magnificent present. The Nor man was flattered by the assurance of an independent principality; and Alexius eluded, rather than denied, his daring demand of the office of great domestic, or general of the East. The two Roberts, the son of the conqueror of England, and the kinsmen of three queens,68 bowed in their turn before the

66

There were two sorts of adoption, the one by arms, the other by introducing the son between the shirt and skin of his father. Ducange (sur Joinville, Diss. xxii. p. 270) supposes Godfrey's adoption to have been of the latter sort.

After his return, Robert of Flanders became the man of the king of England, for a pension of four hundred marks. See the first act in Rymar's Fadera.

Byzantine throne. A private letter of Stephen of Chartres attests his admiration of the emperor, the most excellent and liberal of men, who taught him to believe that he was a favor. ite, and promised to educate and establish his youngest son. In his southern province, the count of St. Giles and Tholouse faintly recognized the supremacy of the king of France, a prince of a foreign nation and language. At the head of a hundred thousand men, he declared that he was the soldier and servant of Christ alone, and that the Greek might be satisfied with an equal treaty of alliance and friendship. His ob stinate resistance enhanced the value and the price of his submission; and he shone, says the princess Anne, among the Barbarians, as the sun amidst the stars of heaven. His dis gust of the noise and insolence of the French, his suspicions of the designs of Bohemond, the emperor imparted to his faithful Raymond; and that aged statesman might clearly discern, that however false in friendship, he was sincere in his enmity.69 69 The spirit of chivalry was last subdued in the person of Tancred; and none could deem themselves dishonored by the imitation of that gallant knight. He disdained the gold and flattery of the Greek monarch; assaulted in his presence an insolent patrician; escaped to Asia in the habi: of a private soldier; and yielded with a sigh to the authority of Bohemond, and the interest of the Christian cause. The best and most ostensible reason was the impossibility of passing the sea and accomplishing their vow, without the license and the vessels of Alexius; but they cherished a secret hope, that as soon as they trod the continent of Asia, their swords would obliterate their shame, and dissolve the engagement, which on his side might not be very faithfully performed. The ceremony of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne, the emperor sat mute and immovable: his majesty was adored by the Latin princes; and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his knees, an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to confess, and unable to deny.70

Sensit vetus regnandi, falsos in amore, odia non fingere. Tacit. vi. 44.

70 The proud historians of the crusades slide and stumble over this humiliating step. Yet, since the heroes knelt to salute the emperor, as he sat motionless on his throne, it is clear that they must have kissed either his feet or knees. It is only singular, that Anns

Private or public interest suppressed the murmurs of the dukes and counts; but a French baron (he is supposed to be Robert of Paris 71) presumed to ascend the throne, and to place himself by the side of Alexius. The sage reproof of Baldwin provoked him to exclaim, in his barbarous idiom "Who is this rustic, that keeps his sea, while so many val 'ant captains are standing round him? The emperor maintained his silence, dissembled his indignation, and questioned his interpreter concerning the meaning of the words, which he partly suspected from the universal language of gesture and countenance. Before the departure of the pilgrims, he endeavored to learn the name and condition of the audacious baron. "I am a Frenchman,” replied Robert, " of the purest and most ancient nobility of my country. All that I know is, that there is a church in my neighborhood,72 the resort of those who are desirous of approving their valor in single combat. Till an enemy appears, they address their prayers to God and his saints. That church I have frequently visited. But never have I found an antagonist who dared to accept my defiance." Alexius dismissed the challenger with some prudent advice for his conduct in the Turkish warfare; and aistory repeats with pleasure this lively example of the manpers of his age and country.

The conquest of Asia was undertaken and achieved by Alexander, with thirty-five thousand Macedonians and Greeks; 73 and his best hope was in the strength and disci

should not have amply supplied the silence or ambiguity of the Latins. The abasement of their princes would have added a fine chapter to the Ceremoniale Aulæ Byzantinæ.

* He called himself Φραγγος κάθαρος τῶν εὐγένον, (Alexias, l. I. p. 301.) What a title of noblesse of the xith century, if any one could now prove his inheritance! Anna relates, with visible pleasure, that the swelling Barbarian, ativos netvæάuevos, was killed, or wounded, after fighting in the front in the battle of Dorylæum, (1. xi. p. 317.) This circumstance may justify the suspicion of Ducange, (Not. p. 362,) that he was no other than Robert of Paris, of the district most peculiarly styled the Duchy or Island of France, (L'Isle de France.)

79 With the same penetration, Ducange discovers his church to be that of St. Drausus, or Drosin, of Soissons, quem duello dimicaturi solent invocare: pugiles qui ad memoriam ejus (his tomb) pernoctant invictos reddit, ut et de Burgundiâ et Italiâ tali necessitate confugiatur ad eum. Joan. Sariberiensis, epist. 139.

"There is some diversity on the numbers of his army; but no authority can be compared with that of Ptolemy, who states it at five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, (see Usher's Annales, p. 162.1

pline of his phalanx of infantry. The principal force of the crusaders consisted in their cavalry; and when that force was mustered in the plains of Bithynia, the knights and their martial attendants on horseback amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed with the helmet and coat of mail. The value of these soldiers deserved a strict and authentic account; and the flower of European chivalry might furnish, in a first effort, this formidable body of heavy horse. A part of the infantry might be enrolled for the ser vice of scouts, pioneers, and archers; but the promiscuous crowd were lost in their own disorder; and we depend not on the eyes or knowledge, but on the belief and fancy, of a chaplain of Count Baldwin," in the estimate of six hundred thousand pilgrims able to bear arms, besides the priests and monks, the women and children of the Latin camp. The reader starts; and before he is recovered from his surprise, I shall add, on the same testimony, that if all who took the cross had accomplished their vow, above SIX MILLIONS would have migrated from Europe to Asia. Under this oppres sion of faith, I derive some relief from a more sagacious and thinking writer,75 who, after the same review of the cavalry, accuses the credulity of the priest of Chartres, and even doubts whether the Cisalpine regions (in the geography of a Frenchman) were sufficient to produce and pour forth such incredible multitudes. The coolest scepticism will remember, that of these religious volunteers great numbers never beheld Constantinople and Nice. Of enthusiasm the influence is irregular and transient: many were detained at home by reason or cowardice, by poverty or weakness; and many were repulsed by the obstacles of the way, the more insuperable as they were unforeseen, to these ignorant fanatics. The savage countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones: their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan ; and the loss of the first adventure, by the sword, or climate, or fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men. Yet the myriads that survived, that marched,

74 Fulcher. Carnotensis, p. 387. He enumerates nineteen nations of different names and languages, (p. 389;) but I do not clearly ap prehend his difference between the Franci and Galli, Itali and Apuli. Elsewhere (p. 385) he contemptuously brands the deserters.

"Guibert, p. 556. Yet even his gentle opposition implies an im mense multitude. By Urban II., in the fervor of his zeal, it is only rated at 300,000 pilgrims, (epist. xv. Concil. m. xii. p. 781.)

that pressed forwards on the holy pilgrimage, were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Greeks. The copi. ous energy of her language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne: 76 the images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had seen and heard; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims, that Europe was loosened from its founda tions, and hurled against Asia. The ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labor under the same doubt of a vague and indefinite magnitude; but I am inclined to believe, that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of a single camp, than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their arms, have been already displayed. Of their troops the most numerous portion were natives of France: the Low Countries, the banks of the Rhine, and Apulia, sent a powerful reën. forcement: some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and England; 77 and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or Scotland 78 issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at home but unwarlike abroad. Had not superstition condemned the sacrilegious prudence of depriving the poorest or weakest Christian of the merit of the pilgrimage, the useless crowd, with mouths but without hands, might have been stationed in the Greek empire, till their companions had opened and secured the way of the Lord. A small remnant of the pilgrims, who passed the Bosphorus,

76 Alexias, l. x. p. 283, 805. Her fastidious delicacy complains of their strange and inarticulate names; and indeed there is scarcely one that she has not contrived to disfigure with the proud ignorance so dear and familiar to a polished people. I shall select only one example, Sangeles, for the count of St. Giles.

"William of Malmsbury (who wrote about the year 1130) has inserted in his history (1. iv. p. 130-154) a narrative of the first cru sade: but I wish that, instead of listening to the tenue murmur which had passed the British ocean, (p. 143,) he had confined himself to the numbers, families, and adventures of his countrymen. I find in Dugdale, that an English Norman, Stephen earl of Albemarle and Holdernesse, led the rear-guard with Duke Robert, at the battle of Antioch, (Baronage, part i. p. 61.)

"Videres Scotorum apud se ferocium alias imbellium cuneos, (Guibert, p. 471;) the crus intectum and hispida chlamys, may suit the Highlanders; but the finibus ul ginosis may rather apply to the Irish bogs. William of Malmsbury expressly mentions the Welsh and Boots, &c., (L. iv. p. 133,) who quitted, the former venationem saltuus the latter familiaritatem pulicum.