G. P. R. James

“ Europe was as an enthusiastic boy, and whatever it followed, love, religion, song, it followed with the uncontrolled passion, the fiery desire which burns but in the days of boyhood among nations as among men. Poetry had now become both the great delight, and the great mover of the day; and all the eloquence of verse found a fit subject in the sorrows of Palestine. The Troubadours [655] and the Trouveres vied with each other, which should do most to stimulate the monarchs and the Chivalry of Europe to lay aside their private quarrels, and to fly to the deliverance of the Holy Land. ”

“ Enraged at this wanton outrage, the armed people of the city rushed out upon the aggressors, and, not contented with sacrificing them to their fury, fell upon the rear of the Hermit’s army, glutted their wrath with the blood of all that opposed them, and carried off the baggage, the women, the children, and all that part of the multitude whose weakness at once caused them to linger behind, and left them without defence. ”

“ What preceded the regular recognition of Chivalry as an institution is entirely traditional; yet in all the old romances, fabliaux, sirventes, ballads, &c. not one instance is to be found in which a squire becomes a knight, without some reference to his religious faith. If he be dubbed in the battle-field, he swears to defend the right, and maintain all the statutes of the noble order of Chivalry, upon the cross of his sword; he calls heaven to witness his vow, and the saints to help him in its execution. ”

“ Alexius was one of those men whose minds are not of sufficient scope to view life as a whole, and who therefore have not one great object in their deeds; who act for the petty interests of the moment, and whose cunning, compared with the talents of a really great mind, is like the skill of a fencing-master compared with the genius of a great general. He saw not, and felt not, the vast ultimate benefit which he might receive from maintaining a dignified friendship with the princes commanding the crusade. ”

“ Such soldiers as the machines could not contain were ranged opposite the walls, urging the battering-rams, plying the mangonels, and, by flights of arrows, covering the attack from the towers. The enthusiasm was great and general; the old, the sick, and the feeble lent what weak aid they could, in bringing forward the missiles and other implements of war, while the women encouraged the warriors to daring, both by words and their example; and hurried through the ranks, bearing water to assuage the thirst of toil and excitement. Still the Saracens resisted with desperate valour. ”

“ I do not mean by that word dregs the poor, but I mean the base—I do not mean those who were low in station, or even ignorant in mind; but I mean those who were infamous in crime, and brutal in desire. Doubtless, in these expeditions, some fell who were animated by noble motives or excellent zeal; but such were few compared with those whose objects were plunder, licentiousness, and vice. The swords of the Hungarians and the Turks lopped these away; and I cannot find in my heart to look upon the purification which Europe thus underwent with any thing like sorrow. ”

“ Some strove to force their passage to Antioch by land, and fell beneath the Moslem scimitar. Some cast themselves upon the compassion of the treacherous Greeks, and were more brutally treated than even by their infidel enemies. So miserable at length became their condition, that the Turks themselves ceased to attack them, brought them provisions and pieces of money, and showed them that compassion which their fellow-christians refused. ”

“ Of the reign of Charlemagne we have not so many authentic accounts as we have romances, founded upon the fame of that illustrious monarch. Towards the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when Chivalry was in its imaginative youth, a thousand tales of wild adventure were produced, in which Charlemagne and his warriors were represented with all the qualities and attributes of those knights, whose virtues and courage had by that time wrought deeply on the heart and fancy of the people. ”

“ The barons had placed a king upon the throne. They had rendered their own dominion independent of his, and though they still acknowledged some ties between themselves and the monarch—some vague and general power of restraint in the king and his court of peers—yet those ties [Pg 200] were so loose, that power was so undefined in its nature, and so difficult in its exercise, that the nobles were free and at liberty to act in whatever direction enthusiasm, ambition, or cupidity might call them, without fear of the sovereign, who was, in fact, but one of their own body loaded with a crown. ”

“ The authority of the sovereign extended but a few leagues round the city of Paris; the Normans ravaged the coast; the powerful and the wicked had no restraint imposed upon their actions, and the weak were every where oppressed and wronged. Bands of plunderers raged through the whole of France and Germany, property was held by the sword, cruelty and injustice reigned alone, and the whole history of that age offers a complete medley of massacre, bloodshed, torture, crime, and misery. ”

“ Great and extraordinary men are often long before opportunity gives scope for the display of the particular spirit whose efforts are destined to distinguish them. I mean not to class Peter the Hermit among great men; but certainly he deserves the character of one of the most extraordinary men that Europe ever produced, if it were but for the circumstance of having convulsed a world—led one continent to combat to extermination against another, and yet left historians in doubt whether he was madman or prophet, fool or politician. ”

“ The glittering arms of the knights, their painted shields, and fluttering pennons—the embroidered banners of the barons, their splendid coats-of-arms and magnificent mantles—the gorgeous robes of the Latin priests, who were present in immense numbers, and the animated multitude of bowmen and foot-soldiers, mingled with thousands of that most beautiful of beasts, the horse, all spread out in the unclouded brightness of an Asiatic sky, formed as shining and extraordinary a scene as the eye could look upon. ”

“ Even in those days when chivalrous love was no longer pure, and chivalrous religion no longer the spring of the noblest morality, the spirit of the days of old lingered amid the ruins of the falling institution. An Edward, a Du Guesclin, a Bayard, a Sidney, would rise up in the midst of corrupted times, and shame the vices of the day by still showing one more true knight ”

“ The object was, the protection and relief of a cruelly oppressed and injured people—the object was, to repel a strong, an active, and an encroaching enemy—the object was, to wrest from the hands of a bloodthirsty and savage people territories which they themselves claimed by no right but the sword, and in which the population they had enslaved was loudly crying for deliverance from their yoke—the object was, to defend a weak and exposed frontier from the further aggression of a nation whose boast was conquest. ”

“ Who shall count the old men and the young maids who hurried forward to the fight?—not with the hope of aiding, but for the crown of martyrdom to be won amid the swords of the infidels. ‘You, warriors,’ they cried, ‘you shall vanquish by the spear and brand; but let us, at least, conquer Christ by our sufferings.’ At the same time, one might see a thousand things springing from the same spirit, which were both astonishing and laughable: the poor shoeing their oxen, as we shoe horses, and harnessing them to two-wheeled carts, in which they placed their scanty provisions and their young children ”

“ The chiefs I have named, however, never ceased their exertions. They bound themselves by the most solemn vows not to abandon each other or the cause they had undertaken; and Tancred, always the first where chivalrous enthusiasm was concerned, pledged himself by oath not to turn back from the road to Jerusalem so long as forty knights would follow his banner. At length superstition came to animate the courage of the soldiery. Visions were seen promising victory to those who endured to the last. ”

“ Such is the picture presented, by an eyewitness, of the state of France after the first promulgation of the crusade; and a most extraordinary picture it is. The zeal, the enthusiasm, the fervour of the spirit, the brutal ignorance and dark barbarity of the people, are the objects that catch the eye from the mere surface ”

“ In Germany also Chivalry advanced but little. There was much dignified firmness in the character of the people; and—under the walls of Damascus—in the wars with the pope, and with the Norman possessors of Calabria—the German knights evinced that in the battle-field none were more daring, more powerful, or more resolute; but we find few instances where enthusiasm was mingled with valour, and where the ardour of chivalric devotion was joined to the bold courage of the Teutonic warrior. ”

“ The consequences [315] of their first improvidence were soon bitterly visited on the heads of the [Pg 139] crusaders. Famine began to spread in the camp; and pestilential diseases, engendered by unwholesome food and the neighbourhood of a large tract of marshy land, in the autumn and winter seasons, raged through the hosts of the Cross, and slew more fearfully even than the arrows of the enemy. Death in every shape grew familiar to their eyes, and the thought of passing to another world lost all the salutary horror which is so great a check on vice. ”

“ The bulwark of all Christendom was being swept away, while Christian kings stood looking on, and once more saw the knights of St. John falling man by man before the infidels, without stretching forth a hand to save them.
A large army had, in the mean while, been assembled in Sicily, under the pretence of assisting Malta; and at last the soldiers clamoured so loudly to be led to the glorious service for which they had been enrolled, that the vacillating viceroy after innumerable delays was forced to yield to their wishes, and set sail for the scene of conflict. ”

“ Saladin was as superior to any of the princes of Palestine in mind as he was in territory; and with clear and general views of policy, keenness and strength of perception in difficulties, consummate skill in war, innumerable forces, and the hearts of his soldiers, it was impossible that he should not conquer. There can be no doubt that the Latins were a more powerful and vigorous race of men than the Turks. ”

“ A number of women and children were either slain by the sword or borne down in the flight, and an immense booty in gold, arms, horses, cattle, and rich vestments made the host of the crusade richer than even when it took its departure from Europe. The pavilion of Kerboga himself, though not the most valuable, was perhaps the most curious part of the spoil, being formed like a town, with walls, towers, and battlements, [403] and comprising streets, squares, and avenues within itself. ”

“ So noble a defence well merited an honourable fate; and even after their surrender, the knights were the objects of admiration and praise to all Europe, though Europe had suffered them to fall without aid. The sultaun, before he allowed the Order to transfer itself to Candia, which had been stipulated by the treaty, requested to see the Grand Master: and to console him for his loss, he said, “The conquest and the fall of empires are but the sports of fortune.” ”