Volume 3 / Book 18 — BOOK XVIII. (continued 2)

The crusades have been reproached with having given birth to the idea of imposts; this idea is too simple not to have arisen without the help of the crusades.[106] It is probable that the manner in which the tenths were collected for the holy war, might serve as a model for those who afterwards established regular contributions. As to regular armies, the expeditions to the East might furnish the first idea of them. It is certain that these distant expeditions changed the conditions of the feudal service, and accustomed people to see permanent armies maintained and commanded by princes.

Among the institutions which contended with the barbarism of the middle ages, we will, in the first place, consider chivalry, the exploits of which are much better known than its origin. At a time when everything was decided by force, and everything was determined by the sword;—in which, as Montesquieu says, to judge was to fight—women, children, and orphans were not able to defend their rights, and were abandoned a prey to iniquity. Generous warriors came forward to defend them; their devotion was applauded,—their example was followed. Shortly the order of Paladins was formed, who perambulated the world, seeking for wrongs to redress, and felons to combat with. Such was, doubtless, the origin of chivalry, which is so uselessly sought for in the forests of Germany. This institution sprang from the extreme disorder of society, and arose like a bulwark, which human generosity opposed to the irruptions of license, and the passions of a barbarous age.

Chivalry was known in the West before the crusades. These wars, which appeared to have the same aim as chivalry,—that of defending the oppressed, serving the cause of God, and combating with infidels,—gave this institution more splendour and consistency,—a direction more extended and salutary.

Religion, which mingled itself with all the institutions and all the passions of the middle ages, purified the sentiments of the knights, and elevated them to the enthusiasm of virtue. Christianity lent chivalry its ceremonies and its emblems, and tempered, by the mildness of its maxims, the asperities of warlike manners.

Piety, bravery, and modesty were the distinctive qualities of chivalry: “Serve God, and he will help you; be mild and courteous to every gentleman, by divesting yourself of all pride; be neither a flatterer nor a slanderer, for such people seldom come to great excellence. Be loyal in words and deeds; keep your word; be helpful to the poor and to orphans, and God will reward you.”[107] Thus said the mother of Bayard to her son; and these instructions of a virtuous mother comprised the whole code of chivalry.

The most admirable part of this institution was the entire abnegation of self,—that loyalty which made it the duty of every knight to forget his own glory, and only publish the lofty deeds of his companions in arms. The deeds of valour of a knight were his fortune, his means of living; and he who was silent upon them was a robber of the property of others. Nothing appeared more reprehensible than for a knight to praise himself. “If the squire,” says le Code des Preux, “be vain-glorious of what he has done, he is not worthy to become a knight.” An historian of the crusades offers us a singular example of this virtue, which is not entirely humility, and might be called the false modesty of glory, when he describes Tancred checking his career in the field of battle, to make his squire swear to be for ever silent upon his exploits.

The most cruel insult that could be offered to a knight, was to accuse him of falsehood. Want of truth, and perjury, were considered the most shameful of all crimes. If oppressed innocence implored the succour of a knight, woe to him who did not respond to the appeal! Shame followed every offence towards the weak, and every aggression towards an unarmed man.

The spirit of chivalry kept up and strengthened among warriors the generous sentiments which the military spirit of feudalism had given birth to: devotion to his sovereign was the first virtue, or rather the first duty, of a knight. Thus in every state of Europe grew up a young military power, always ready for fight, and always ready to sacrifice itself for prince or for country, as for the cause of justice and innocence.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of chivalry, and that which at the present day most strongly excites our surprise and curiosity, was the alliance of religious sentiments with gallantry. Devotion and love,—such was the principle of action of a knight: God and the ladies,—such was his device.

To form an idea of the manners of chivalry, we have but to glance at the tournaments, which owed their origin to it, and which were as schools of courtesy and festivals of bravery. At this period, the nobility were dispersed, and lived isolated in their castles. Tournaments furnished them with opportunities for assembling; and it was at these brilliant meetings that the memory of ancient gallant knights was revived,—that youth took them for models, and imbibed chivalric virtues by receiving rewards from the hands of beauty.

As the ladies were the judges of the actions and the bravery of the knights, they exercised an absolute empire over the minds of the warriors; and I have no occasion to say that this ascendancy of the softer sex threw a charm over the heroism of the preux and the paladins. Europe began to escape from barbarism from the moment the most weak commanded the most strong,—from the moment when the love of glory, when the noblest feelings of the heart, the tenderest affections of the soul, everything that constitutes the moral force of society, was able to triumph over every other force.

Louis IX., a prisoner in Egypt, replies to the Saracens, that he will do nothing without Queen Marguerite, “who is his lady.” The orientals could not comprehend such deference; and it is because they did not comprehend this deference, that they have remained so far in the rear of the nations of Europe, in nobleness of sentiment, purity of morals, and elegance of manners.

Heroes of antiquity wandered over the world to deliver it from scourges and monsters; but these heroes were not actuated by religion, which elevates the soul, nor by that courtesy which softens the manners. They were acquainted with friendship, as in the cases of Theseus and Pirithous, and Hercules and Lycas; but they knew nothing of the delicacy of love. The ancient poets take delight in representing the misfortunes of certain heroines abandoned by their lovers; but, in their touching pictures, there never escapes from their plaintive muse the least expression of blame against the hero, who thus caused the tears of beauty to flow. In the middle ages, or according to the manners of chivalry, a warrior who should have imitated the conduct of Theseus to Ariadne, or that of the son of Anchises towards Dido, would not have failed to incur the reproach of treachery.

Another difference between the spirit of antiquity and the sentiments of the moderns is, that among the ancients love was supposed to enervate the courage of heroes; and that in the days of chivalry, the women, who were the judges of valour, constantly kept alive the love of glory and an enthusiasm for virtue, in the hearts of the warriors. We find in Alain Chartier, a conversation of several ladies, who express their opinions upon the conduct of their knights, who had been present at the battle of Agincourt. One of these knights had sought safety in flight, and the lady of his thoughts exclaims: “According to the law of love, I should have loved him better dead than alive.” In the first crusade, Adela, countess of Blois, wrote to her husband, who was gone to the East with Godfrey of Bouillon: “Beware of meriting the reproaches of the brave.” As the count of Blois returned to Europe before the taking of Jerusalem, his wife made him blush at his desertion, and forced him to return to Palestine, where he fought bravely, and found a glorious death. Thus the spirit and the sentiments of chivalry gave birth to prodigies equally with the most ardent patriotism of ancient Lacedæmon; and these prodigies appeared so simple, so natural, that the chroniclers only repeat them in passing, and without testifying the least surprise at them.

This institution, so ingeniously called “Fountain of courtesy, which comes from God,” is still much more admirable when considered under the all-powerful influence of religious ideas. Christian charity claimed all the affections of the knight, and demanded of him a perpetual devotion for the defence of pilgrims and the care of the sick. It was thus that were established the orders of St. John, of the Temple, of the Teutonic Knights, and several others, all instituted to combat the Saracens and solace human miseries. The infidels admired their virtues, as much as they dreaded their bravery. Nothing is more touching than the spectacle of these noble warriors, who were seen by turns in the field of battle and in the asylum of pain; sometimes the terror of the enemy, and as frequently the consolers of all who suffered. That which the paladins of the West did for beauty, the knights of Palestine did for poverty and misfortune. The former devoted their lives to the ladies of their thoughts; the latter devoted theirs to the poor and the infirm. The grand-master of the military order of St. John took the title of “Guardian of the poor of Jesus Christ,” and the knights called the sick and the poor “Our lords.” It appears almost an incredible thing, but the grand-master of the order of St. Lazarus, instituted for the cure and the relief of leprosy, was obliged to be chosen from among the lepers.[108] Thus the charity of the knights, in order to be the better acquainted with human miseries, in a manner ennobled that which is most disgusting in the diseases of man. Did not this grand-master of St. Lazarus, who was obliged himself to be afflicted with the infirmities he was called upon to alleviate in others, imitate, as much as is possible on earth, the example of the Son of God, who assumed a human form in order to deliver humanity?

It may be thought that there was ostentation in so great a charity; but Christianity, as we have said, had subdued the pride of the warriors, and that was, without doubt, one of the noblest miracles of the religion of the middle ages. All who then visited the Holy Land could but admire in the knights of St. John, the Temple, and St. Lazarus, their resignation in suffering all the pains of life, their submission to all the rigours of discipline, and their docility to the least wish of their leader. During the sojourn of St. Louis in Palestine, the Hospitallers having had a quarrel with some Crusaders who were hunting on Mount Carmel, the latter brought their complaint before the grand-master. The head of the Hospital ordered before him the brothers who had outraged the Crusaders, and to punish them, condemned there to eat their food on the ground upon their mantles. “It happened,” says the sieur de Joinville, “that I was present with the knights who had complained, and we requested the master to allow the brothers to arise from their mantles, which he refused.” Thus the rigour of the cloisters and the austere humility of cenobites had nothing repulsive for these warriors. Such were the heroes that religion and the spirit of the crusades had formed. I know that this submission and humility in men accustomed to arms may be turned into ridicule; but an enlightened philosophy takes pleasure in recognising the happy influence of religious ideas upon the manners of a society given up to barbarous passions. In an age when all power was derived from the sword, in which passion and anger might have carried warriors to all kinds of excesses, what more agreeable spectacle for humanity could there be than that of valour humbling itself, and strength forgetting itself?

We are aware that the spirit of chivalry was sometimes abused, and that its noble maxims did not govern the conduct of all knights. We have described in the history of the crusades, the lengthened discords which jealousy created between the two orders of St. John and the Temple. We have spoken of the vices with which the Templars were reproached towards the end of the holy wars. We could speak still more of the absurdities of knight-errantry; but our task is here to write the history of institutions, and not that of human passions. Whatever may be thought of the corruption of men, it will always be true that chivalry, allied with the spirit of courtesy and the spirit of Christianity, awakened in human hearts virtues and sentiments of which the ancients were ignorant.

That which proves that everything was not barbarous in the middle ages is, that the institution of chivalry obtained, from its birth, the esteem and admiration of all Christendom. There was no gentleman who was not desirous of being a knight. Princes and kings took honour to themselves for belonging to chivalry. In it warriors came to take lessons of politeness, bravery, and humanity. Admirable school, in which victory laid aside its pride, and grandeur its haughty disdain; to which those who had riches and power came to learn only to make use of them with moderation and generosity.

As the education of the people was formed upon the example of the higher classes of society, the generous sentiments of chivalry spread themselves by degrees through all ranks, and mingled with the character of the European nations; gradually, there arose against those who were wanting in their duties of knighthood, a general opinion, more severe than the laws themselves, which was as the code of honour, as the cry of the public conscience. What might not be hoped from a state of society, in which all the discourses held in camps, in tournaments, in meetings of warriors, was reduced to these words: “Evil be to him who forgets the promises he has made to religion, to patriotism, to virtuous love; evil be to him who betrays his God, his king, or his lady?”

When the institution of chivalry fell by the abuse that was made of it, or rather in consequence of the changes in the military system of Europe; there remained still in European society some of the sentiments it had inspired, in the same manner as there remains with those who have forgotten the religion in which they were born, something of its precepts, and particularly of the profound impressions which they received from it in their infancy. In the times of chivalry, the reward of good actions was glory and honour. This coin, which is so useful to nations, and which costs them nothing, did not fail to have some currency in following ages. Such is the effect of a glorious remembrance, that the marks and distinctions of chivalry serve still in our days to recompense merit and bravery.

Since it can with truth be said that the crusades added some lustre and gave some ascendancy to chivalry, it must be agreed that they rendered essential service to humanity.

If the institution of chivalry was a barrier against license and barbarism, the institution of the clergy, founded upon more fixed and durable principles, ought to have rendered still greater services to civilization.

The ascendancy and wealth of the clergy placed them on an equality with the nobility, in the feudal system; but it must be allowed that the rank assigned them in this order of things was repugnant to their character and to the state of society. We do not hesitate to say that the feudal system had a tendency to corrupt the institution of the clergy, as the clergy corrupted the feudal system. The clergy, instructed in principles of peace, were not fit to carry out the conditions of the military régime; on the other side, the military régime was sure to change the pacific manners of the clergy. It was not at all uncommon to see prelates clad in cuirass and helmet. Sometimes country priests led to battle the flock which a religion of peace had confided to them. This military spirit in ecclesiastics was much increased by the crusades, in which their arms were sanctified by the object of the war. The clergy, however, never became sufficiently warlike to fulfil all the feudal engagements; and we may add likewise, that they were not always sufficiently pacific to fulfil all their religious duties.

It may be concluded, from what we have just said, that the ecclesiastical order and the feudal government would, in the long run, repel each other. If we consult the history of the middle ages, we shall see that the barons and nobles often showed themselves jealous of the power of the clergy, and that the clergy, in the end, contributed to the ruin of the foundations of feudalism.

The existence of the clergy underwent many modifications, according to times, places, and circumstances. In Italy, they enjoyed but very little credit, and took part in most popular factions. In Germany, the high clergy shared with the nobility the wrecks of imperial power. In Spain, they contributed greatly to the expulsion of the Moors, and the spoils of the vanquished added to their wealth. In England, the clergy associated themselves with the barons, and contended with the crown. In France, they attached themselves to royalty, and favoured the constantly increasing power of the monarchs.

If we may judge by the councils which were held during the crusades, most of which were occupied with reforming ecclesiastical discipline, we have reason to believe that the morals of the clergy had then a strong tendency to corruption. Old chronicles are particularly severe against the Crusaders and the clergy of the East, whom they unceasingly accuse of outraging morality and religion by their excesses. Some of the chroniclers even, like James of Vitry, draw such hideous pictures, that they are suspected of injustice, or at least of exaggeration. It is not useless, for the sake of historical truth, to remark here, that most of the historians of whom we now speak, belonged to the class of preachers charged with the task of censuring their age, and who were often obliged to darken their colours in order to move the multitude. In all times, sacred orators have been seen exaggerating the vices it was their object to combat; and if we were not aware of the charity which animates them, we might sometimes mistake their discourses for violent satires. This is an observation of which we ought not to lose sight whilst reading the chronicles of the middle ages, which are almost all drawn up by ecclesiastics, accustomed by their profession to judge their contemporaries with severity. Another observation proved by history is, that corruption is spoken of with more bitterness in times in which it is scarcely known, than in times in which it has become general. In ages in which some ideas of virtue still prevail, people accuse themselves; and in ages quite corrupted, they praise themselves.

A chronicle of the time of the first crusades tells us, that the iniquities of men had then reached their height; and, what at once characterizes the spirit of the chronicler and that of his age, he adds that these iniquities would have shortened the duration of the world, “if it had not been that some new monastic congregations were formed.” In fact, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more monasteries were founded than in all the other centuries of the middle ages. The enthusiasm for the holy wars, by exalting the imaginations of nations, had produced a mental revolution; prodigies were everywhere seen that had never been observed till that time; devotion itself believed that it could no longer attain salvation by ordinary ways: whilst a crowd of warriors precipitated themselves upon the East, many pious souls, to perform penance, sought for private mortifications, and devoted themselves to the rigours of a voluntary exile, or buried themselves in deserts.

At the head of the monastic congregations which were formed at this period, we must place that of the Brothers of Mercy, which had its birth in the third crusade, and was instituted for the purpose of delivering captives. These venerable cenobites, after the example of the heroes of chivalry, sought for victims to console, and for the miserable to succour. Like knights, they exposed themselves to a thousand dangers, and braved death in the exercise of beneficence and charity. It was during the sixth crusade that the two orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis arose, orders which, according to the expression of the abbot of Usberg, renewed the youth of the Church. From the thirteenth century these two orders sent missions into the East, and into the north of Asia. Whilst the Tartar hordes were overturning empires, ravaging Europe, and threatening all Christendom, poor priests traversed the solitudes of Tartary, penetrated even into China; and, peaceful conquerors, armed with the Gospel, extended the empire of Christianity, and planted the standard of the cross at the extremities of the known world. The religious colonies which they then founded in Asia lasted much longer than the colonies founded by the Crusaders.

We will not attempt to enumerate all the services which religious communities rendered society. They had regulations which might serve for models in the infancy of political legislation. They were in all respects like the corporations of cities. Whilst anarchy disturbed cities, the woods had their legislation; and the germs of civilization developed themselves in silence and in solitude.

It was in monasteries that were found the only schools in which letters were taught, and that the Latin language, and the wonders it produced, were preserved. It was in them that studious men kept a faithful register of events, and employed themselves in transmitting to us those historical documents without which the glory and the manners of our ancestors would be unknown to us.

Besides that the clergy contributed greatly to the fertilizing of uncultivated lands, they protected the labourers with the whole power of the Church. The Truce of God, which was the work of the clergy, placed under the safeguard of Heaven, the inhabitants of the fields, the oxen, the companions of their labours, and even the instruments of their tillage. The Church went still further; it multiplied the festivals of the calendar, for the sake of the people. By augmenting the number of religious solemnities, the Church had two motives: the first, to bring more frequently to the foot of the altar an ignorant and gross multitude, who there found the instruction necessary for the amelioration of their morals and the consolation of their evils; the second, to procure some days of repose for that crowd of serfs, condemned by the avarice of their masters to labours which had no end, and of which they did not gather the fruit.[109]

Amidst wars which revived without ceasing, the peasantry often found an asylum near a monastery inhabited by peaceful men, and protected by the opinions of the times. Nothing can prove better the ascendancy of the Church, than seeing, on one side, the nobility shut up in their strong castles, and on the other, cenobites dwelling in cloisters scarcely closed, and defended only by faith and confidence. As might be expected, the peace which reigned in the neighbourhood of monasteries attracted a numerous population around them. Many towns, and even cities, owed their origin to the vicinity of a monastery, whose name they still preserve.

The maxims of the clergy, more perhaps than their example, contributed to the enfranchisement of serfs. Gregory the Great, when giving liberty to some slaves, said that the Redeemer came upon earth to release men from slavery, and to substitute the rights of the people for the code of servitude. In the middle ages, many charters of liberty were granted for “the love of God,—for the salvation of the soul,—for the remission of sins.” It was at the hour of death, and by testamentary dispositions, that most enfranchisements were granted; from which we may conclude that it was the work of the priests who assisted the dying. The clergy represented the enfranchisement of slaves as a thing agreeable to God; the ceremony of manumission was performed in the church as a solemn religious act. It was at the foot of the altars that the holy words were pronounced which broke the bonds of slavery. Thus everything announced that the spirit of the Gospel was everywhere mingled with the progress of civilization, and that the liberty of modern nations was to be one of the blessings of Christianity.

There was another mode of gaining liberty, which was by entering into holy orders, or to take vows in a monastery. So great a number of slaves escaped by that means from the yoke of their masters, that this custom was obliged to be restrained, and at last entirely abolished, in almost all the states of Europe. The crusades often bestowed upon the serfs the same privileges that the clergy did. Beneath the banners of the cross, serfs found the enfranchisement they had before found in monasteries. This facility which peasants possessed, of breaking their chains by going to the Holy Land, would have depopulated the plains, if new regulations had not placed restrictions and limits to it.

It has been said that the clergy became enriched by the crusades. This assertion, which has been so often repeated by the writers of the last century, requires to be examined by the impartiality of history. The clergy were rich at the period of the first crusade. Their enemies accused them for a long time of having usurped immense properties. In France, under the two first races, their wealth had given umbrage to the barons, who had several times despoiled them, under the pretext that they did not defend the state, and that the property they held belonged to them whose bravery watched over the safety of the kingdom.

If the crusades enriched the clergy, it might be supposed that the clergy would be most rich in countries which took the greatest part in the crusades. Now, the clergy of Germany, and several other states of Europe, surpassed in wealth the clergy of the kingdom of France, where the crusades excited so much enthusiasm, and caused so many warriors to take arms. The clergy, it is true, found new possessions in the East; but, after the crusades, nothing of them was left but vain titles.

The first crusade must have been, as we have said, very profitable to the clergy; they were not obliged to pay the expenses of it; the zeal of the faithful furnished them. Nevertheless they did take part in this crusade; and the priests who set out, with the other Crusaders, certainly did not enrich themselves in their pilgrimage. Many, no doubt, shared the fate of Robert, abbot of St. Remi, the historian of the first crusade, who, on his return from Jerusalem, was expelled by his monks for having ruined his convent.

At the second crusade, contributions were levied upon the churches, without any regard to the warm remonstrances of the ecclesiastics. From that time an opinion, which became very injurious to the clergy, was established throughout the Christian world, which was, that wars undertaken for the glory of Jesus Christ and the deliverance of the holy places, ought to be paid for by the Church. Tributes were at once levied upon the clergy, without consulting any other authority, or following any other regulations than those of necessity and circumstances. To reckon from the third crusade, after the publication of the Saladin tenth, more regular imposts were established, which were fixed by the popes or councils, and which were collected with such rigour, that churches were despoiled of their ornaments, and sometimes the sacred vases were put up to sale. It is true that the clergy sometimes received offerings and bequests from those who went to the Holy Land, or had made a vow to go; but what did such tributes of piety amount to when compared to the tributes they themselves were compelled to pay? We do not hesitate to affirm that, in the space of two hundred years, the clergy paid towards the holy wars more money than would have been required to purchase all their property; and thus the zeal of ecclesiastics for the deliverance of the holy places was observed perceptibly to cool; and it may be said that the indifference which followed among Christian nations the ardour for the crusades, began by the clergy. In Germany, and many other countries, their discontent was carried so far, that at last the popes did not dare to trust the preaching of crusades to the bishops, and only gave this mission to the mendicant orders, who possessed nothing, and had nothing to pay for the expeditions against the infidels.[110]

It has been said that the clergy took advantage of the crusades to buy at low prices the property of the nobility, as, in our days, we have seen many people take advantage of a revolution, to purchase at a moderate price the property of the clergy themselves. We find, in fact, examples of such acquisitions in the first crusades; but these examples must have been more rare in the holy wars, of which the clergy were obliged to pay the expenses.[111] The great advantage that the clergy had over the nobility was, that the nobles were able to pawn or alienate their possessions, and that ecclesiastics were never allowed to pledge or alienate their property. Another advantage the clergy possessed was, that they formed a body always animated by the same spirit, and always governed by the same laws. Whilst everything changed around them, they never changed. It was thus they resisted the revolution which was effected in property.

We have seen, that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a great number of monasteries were established. By that means wild, uncultivated places became fertile lands; and these conquests made over the desert added to the domains of the clergy. We must likewise add, that the jurisdiction of the clergy, which every day made fresh progress, was for them a source of wealth. It was in the nature of things, as we have already remarked, that the most enlightened class should become the richest. The clergy had therefore no need of profiting by the ruin of the Crusaders in order to become rich; their knowledge, their spirit of order and economy, with the ascendancy they possessed over the people, offered them ample means for increasing or preserving their possessions.

Everybody, besides, had reason to rejoice at seeing the clergy acquire wealth; for this wealth belonged to everybody. In fact, every man could enter into the clergy, and the clergy belonged to all families. This order, so powerful in the middle ages, was as a natural link, as an intermediate point, which drew together and united all the classes of society. In the quarrels which jealousy sometimes raised between the clergy and the nobility, the great vassals reproached the ecclesiastics with being the children of serfs. It was not uncommon to see men who had issued from the lowest class of the people, in the highest functions of the Church; a certain proof that the clergy offered every one a way by which he might elevate himself, and that they thus assisted in reëstablishing the harmony destroyed by feudal inequality.

The clergy—such as our fathers saw it—only now exists in the memory of men.[112] In proportion as this institution, with all the advantages we have spoken of, shall be further removed from us, we shall perhaps become the more aware of its value. There are things of which we judge more favourably when memory recalls them to us, than when they are present.

After a revolution which has ruined so many families, in which so many hopes have been deceived,—at a time in which a numerous youth is crowded in the confined circle of public employments,—in which the divers professions, among the enlightened class, by no means suffice for the vast number of the candidates,—let me ask whether the Church, with its riches and its consolatory morality, would not be as a port in the storm,—as a refuge always open for those to whom the world has nothing to give? At a time in which everything is uncertain, moving, and transitory,—in which no man is sure of his destiny, who but must envy those men whose fate never changed,—who lived always in the same manner,—who saw the present without complaining,—to whom the future gave no uneasiness, and who might justly be compared to the young ones of the birds, of which Scripture speaks? If I durst utter all my thought—and I speak less in the name of religion than in the names of philosophy and humanity—I should even regret those austere retreats, open to piety, and consecrated by peace and prayer. There, at least, a shelter was found from the passions which disturb society, as they trouble the heart of man. Why, in fact, should there not be hospitals for the miseries of the soul, as there are for other human infirmities? Why are not they who have suffered from the storms of life, and whose heart is torn by deep wounds, to find a refuge against their ills, as well as those whom indigence overtakes, or as well as the war-mutilated soldier? Who does not know that great revolutions, like great griefs, inspire a desire for concealing existence, and seeking repose in solitude? “When the storm growls,” says Pythagoras, “worship echo.” Let us look back to the times which preceded the middle ages,—to those times in which the world was ready to fall to pieces with the Roman empire: it was at this deplorable epoch that the deserts of the Thebais were peopled with pious cenobites, who were no longer able to support the spectacle of human passions. It was not only simple and vulgar men who flocked to the solitudes of Cetteus and Memphis, but learned men, warriors,—men who had been seen in the courts of emperors. Whilst society was shaken to its foundations,—whilst disorder and corruption spread their baneful influence everywhere, elevated minds, whom this state of things drove to despair, went to bury themselves in retirement, embracing the altars of that Christian religion which was the only support left to unfortunate virtue, and was the last hope of civilization.

The swords of knights and the maxims of the clergy, as we have seen, contended with advantage against the excesses of barbarism; but no institution had yet attained sufficient consistence to guarantee the security of European societies. In spite of all efforts for the reëstablishment of order, anarchy still subsisted. In order to know what, either in an age or a people, is the spirit of civilization, it is sufficient to be acquainted with the progress that has been made in that same age, or among that same people, in the administration of justice. Of all the monuments the human mind can raise, a civil and criminal code is that which requires the most extensive knowledge, and the profoundest acquaintance with the passions of man.

In the middle ages, society, immersed in darkness, had lost the lessons and examples of antiquity in all which concerned judicial order; and found itself, in a manner, reduced to the experience of the barbarians.

When the barons usurped from the crown the right of administering justice, there were as many jurisdictions in France as there were lordships. Judicial administration then lost that spirit of wholeness, that uniformity, which gives weight and rectitude to its decisions. Judgment was no longer given but according to local customs, or uncertain traditions.[113] When, in the seventeenth century, the judicial customs and traditions which had been found in preceding ages were collected, there were found two hundred and eighty-five of them; a certain proof that in the times of which we speak, there could be no fixed rule, and that anarchy had invaded the sanctuary of justice.

Royalty could not watch over seignorial jurisdictions, and the ordinances of the kings were powerless out of the domains of the crown. The great vassals had no mutual understanding that might modify or regulate legislation. It is a remarkable thing that France, after the decline of the empire of Charlemagne, remained more than two centuries without recognising any authority to which it could carry its griefs and its complaints,—without having, either in the person of the monarch or the assemblies of the great, a power which could establish regulations, repair injustices, correct abuses, and consecrate the maxims of experience. If the kingdom was able to subsist for so long a time in this state, have we not reason to believe that there is in every society an unknown force, which defends that society against its own excesses, and saves the people in spite of their passions,—in spite of all which seems calculated to bring on their ruin?

To decide in civil and criminal causes, there was no other guide, no other intelligence, but the instincts and the conscience of the judges. These feeble means were not competent, in complicated cases, to assign to actions their true intention, or to appreciate the language of innocence or the denegations of crime. All matters were then treated according to verbal conventions, and judged according to unwritten testimonies. Words, often ill-interpreted, sometimes partially effaced from the memory, frequently contradicted or falsified, could not enlighten justice. Good faith was implored; the consciences of witnesses and parties were appealed to; but it was too frequently perjury that answered, and which commanded the decisions of the judges. At length, it was believed that an infallible means was discovered for detecting falsehood and fraud; an appeal was made from the consciences of men to the justice of Heaven. He who was accused, he whose evidence was contradicted, submitted to the ordeals of fire, boiling water, or red-hot iron. It was believed that Heaven would not permit injustice, and that it would rather suspend the laws of nature than the laws of society.

These proofs, however, were abandoned to the vulgar; judicial combat was the ordeal of nobles or of freemen. This species of justice, in which every warrior had only his own valour as the arbiter of his destiny, conformed exceedingly well with the military spirit of the age.

So barbarous a custom was generally adopted: not satisfied with having recourse to judicial combat in criminal cases, civil questions were subject to its decisions. A gentleman had not only a right to defy his adversary, he might also challenge the witnesses themselves, and force sometimes even the judges to descend with him into the arena. Justice was then only seen in victory, or rather victory became the sole justice. Thus the Franks, in the crusades, often expressed their astonishment that God should sometimes allow the Mussulmans to conquer the Christians.

The sword decided everything; the places where justice pronounced her decrees resounded with the cries of fury and hatred. They were stained, by turns, with the blood of the innocent or with the blood of the guilty, as skill, strength, or fortune favoured the arms of the combatants. In the face of such combats, how was it possible to preserve the idea of justice or injustice? Must not ferocity of manners have increased, and education become unnatural?

We ought, however, to remember the circumstances which brought about this custom, and which may render it excusable in the eyes of enlightened philosophy. In the impossibility in which the judges often found themselves of ascertaining the truth or pronouncing with certainty, fraud, perjury, and falsehood triumphed over the laws, and threatened to invade the whole of society. No better means could be discovered to prevent this misfortune than to terrify imposture and perfidy, by the preparations, “pomp, and circumstance,” of a judicial combat. Justice, being unable to reveal herself amidst the darkness of barbarism, surrounded herself with terrible images, and would only allow her sanctuary to be approached with mistrust and fear. The terror which the idea even of a judicial combat inspired, the uncertainty of such a judgment, must have prevented many contests, and that was a great advantage. No other more certain means, besides, were to be found to appease quarrels, which could not be prolonged without perilling the whole of society. In an age in which the passions were mixed with everything, it was doubtless important for society that justice should terminate debates in an equitable manner; but it was likewise important that these debates should terminate promptly.

At the first aspect, we only see in this custom a privilege and a monstrous employment of physical force. But without this employment of physical force, the world was perhaps likely to become the prey of perjured, faithless men. We ought then to sigh less over this revolting abuse than over the state of society in which it appeared necessary, in order to prevent abuses still more revolting. It required much trouble afterwards to reform the judicial combat. The prejudices most difficult to be destroyed are those in which bravery and the point of honour believe themselves interested. Neither the power of kings, nor religion, nor philosophy, have been able to abolish duels among modern nations; and duels, in some respects, are nothing but the justice which was rendered by the sword in the middle ages.

We have not yet made known all the obstacles which the triumph of justice met with in the manners and customs of these remote times. The absence of laws caused great disorders; but the yoke of the laws was more insupportable to the barons than anarchy itself. The confidence which the barons felt in their arms, rendered them at least indifferent to all kinds of legislation. In any society whatever, the men who have power or force in their hands are seldom the first to appeal to laws; because nobody can be unjust towards them with impunity, and they have always the means of doing themselves justice.[114]

Judicial order, as we understand it now-a-days, could be nothing, in the twelfth century, but an abstraction which did not enter into men’s minds. The warlike nobility of Europe would have had nothing to do with any kind of justice which did not present an image of war. The barons could not form an idea that legislation might be a safeguard for themselves as well as society. They only felt an injustice as they felt a wound in the field of battle; and personal resentment was the only motive which animated them to the pursuit of the guilty. Equity then scarcely passed for a virtue, but revenge was a duty. There were no laws against those who were unjust, but there were laws against those who did not avenge themselves.

With these manners and this character, the barons were not able to renounce the practice of private wars, which the Franks and other barbarians had brought with them into Europe. Every noble who fancied himself attacked in either his honour or his property, took arms to defend his rights or avenge his quarrel. All the relations and vassals of the belligerent parties were obliged to take part in the quarrel. Fields were ravaged, towns and villages were burnt, and it was thus they demanded or rendered justice. During many centuries Europe was desolated by these intestine wars. Sanguinary discords, which were transmitted from generation to generation, became an habitual state, for which customs and regulations were invoked; and whilst society was without laws, civil war had its jurisprudence.

It was not easy to remedy such vast disorders. How could force be disarmed, and despoiled of a prerogative it seemed to prefer to all other privileges? Society, such as it then was, had but one single power capable of counterbalancing that of the warlike passions which desolated Europe; this was the force of religious ideas and the ascendancy of Christianity. The authority of councils was invoked against private wars; the saints were made to speak; superstition itself was called in; visions, revelations, and prodigies were had recourse to. The Church put forth all its threats and launched all its thunders. These means sometimes suspended the progress of the evil, but the principle of discord always subsisted. It was not possible to put an end to private wars, but they were at length suppressed during certain days of the week; and all the good that such a powerful religion could do was to bring about the adoption of the Truce of God. It was here the crusades wonderfully seconded the zeal of the clergy. Whenever war was declared against the Saracens, discords were all at once appeased, as if by miracle, and Europe remained in profound silence before the standard of the cross.

The efforts of the clergy, however, in conjunction with some other favourable circumstances, were destined in the end to bring about the triumph of justice and humanity. Before civil justice was established, the Church possessed a holy jurisdiction which judged the faithful. This justice stood in no need of pursuing the guilty; the guilty came to give themselves up to its judgments: it was not blind, like human justice; the most secret folds of the conscience developed themselves before it: it met with no resistance, it excited no murmurs; those whom it condemned, condemned themselves. To cause its laws to be executed, and to sanction its decisions, it had the power of remorse, the fear of an avenging God, the promises of heaven, the menaces of hell. Such was the tribunal of penitence, which, in the absence of civil laws, held the place sometimes of other tribunals, and watched over public order, as a triumph of religion. A tribunal so formidable necessarily increased the influence of the clergy, and contributed, no doubt, to extend their jurisdiction even to affairs in which evangelical morality was not at all interested. People, persuaded that all justice comes from God, were likely to be led to believe that God pronounced his least judgments by the organs of his ministers upon earth. When the popes were reproached with interfering in the policy of princes, they answered that the acts of that policy might be sins, and thence these acts came under the pontifical jurisdiction. The clergy usurped judicial authority in civil affairs, as the sovereign pontiffs had usurped temporal authority.[115] In the middle ages the clergy declared themselves arbiters of the just and the unjust; and as their jurisdiction was much more favourable to humanity, more conformable to reason than that of the barons, it made rapid progress. Among the privileges which the popes granted to the Crusaders, that of being judged by the ecclesiastical laws was placed in the first rank. The clergy took advantage of the absence, the death, or the ruin of the nobles who were gone to the crusades, to extend their jurisdiction, as the commons availed themselves of this circumstance to obtain their liberty, and kings to increase their power. At last this jurisdiction became so powerful that it awakened the jealousy of the feudal nobility. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the nobles formed a league against the clergy, and in a manifesto, which we still possess, they demanded that “they should render to Cæsar that which belonged to Cæsar.” They forbade their vassals to appeal to the ecclesiastical tribunals, except in cases of heresy, marriage, and usury, and threatened delinquents with the loss of their property and the mutilation of a member. “The clerks,” added they, “enriched at our expense, shall be brought back to the state of the primitive church and to a contemplative life, leaving to us the action which becomes us, and presenting to us the miracles which we have not seen for a long time.”

As the influence of the clergy arose from Christianity, the nobles, in their manifesto, wished to claim the advantage of having alone converted the Gauls by their arms. All that they said in support of this assertion gave reason to predict that they would not triumph in a contest in which Victory would range herself on the side of knowledge and intelligence.

This was not an ordinary war, but a veritable war of opinions; and as the lords had, to sustain it, nothing but their swords, they were at last obliged to renounce their pretensions.

The society of Europe, however, arrived at that period so fatal to nations, at that crisis, almost always a sanguinary one, in which new opinions and old opinions declare an obstinate war against each other; in which all that is new ferments, and is agitated violently; in which all that is ancient resists, and falls to pieces with a crash. For a length of time old laws were powerless; and the laws which were endeavoured to be established, had, in their execution, neither the force that is acquired by habit, nor that which is conferred by experience. A universal crisis was experienced throughout Europe; and the West, troubled by revolutions and civil wars, was, for a moment, upon the point of falling back into the darkness and chaos of the tenth century.

It was at this period that was established in Germany the imperial chamber, instituted for the purpose of appeasing discords and repressing brigandage. In Arragon the tutelary authority of the justiza was created, who was armed against license with all the power of a dictator. In all countries brotherhoods and associations were formed against the excesses of anarchy. It was in France, above all, that the necessity was felt to call in justice to the support of shaken social order, and to place it under the safeguard of royalty. Royal power was born, in some sort, amongst the perils and fears of society. There is an instinct which, in moments of crisis, guides people towards the authority which is to protect them; and this authority becomes all-powerful, from the reason that its assistance is implored, and that it is the object of all hopes.

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction had already dealt a mortal blow to feudal justice. The study of the Roman law caused something of the experience of the ancients to revive among nations scarcely escaped from barbarism. A new judicial order sprang up in Europe, particularly in France.[116] This judicial order was at first very complicated, in consequence of that natural disposition of men of the pen and of the robe to multiply forms in all affairs. To follow the clue through the labyrinth of the new laws, the barons were deficient in knowledge, and more particularly in patience. If it be true that lawyers complicated legislation in order to remain the sole interpreters of it, their hopes were not deceived; for they in the end took the places of the feudal nobles in judicial functions.

It is true that seignorial justices were not abolished; but an appeal was permitted from their decisions to the judgment of the crown. There were, besides, cases in which the justice of the barons was found incompetent, and as this incompetence was almost always judged of by the jurisdiction of the king, the latter finished by attracting to itself most of the causes of any weight or importance. As it is otherwise important that justice should be protected by a force that can make it respected, as the power of the barons declined, and as that of the king increased daily, the royal jurisdiction prevailed, and custom sanctioned the maxim that all justice emanates from the king. When once this maxim was recognised and proclaimed in all the provinces, Beaumanier was right in saying, “that the king was sovereign over everything, and that he had by right the general guardianship of the kingdom.”

It was at this period arose that French magistracy which afterwards became so eminent. The parliaments exhibited the frankness and loyalty of old times, united with the intelligence of modern times. They sometimes defended the rights of the people against the crown, and were often a buckler for the crown against factions. Perhaps their roots did not strike deeply enough into the society whose rights they defended. The fundamental laws of the kingdom had neither regulated their rights, nor fixed with precision the limits of their power. Their authority was due less to written constitutions than to that want of justice which is felt among civilized people, than to that supreme ascendancy which they almost always obtain whose function it is to be exponents of the law. We have seen parliaments perish amidst public disorders, for which they themselves gave the imprudent signal. They saw the faults of administration, but they were deficient in positive knowledge to point out the proper remedy: they appealed to the people, and factions answered; they invoked liberty, and the revolution burst forth. Now, when this magistracy no longer exists among us, and that it can have no place in the order of things which events have given birth to, it appears to us the moment is come for everybody to be just towards it, and to praise that noble disinterestedness, that enlightened firmness, that inflexible probity, which formed its principal character. “It is for the observer of the present period,” says an English writer, “and not for the historian of past times, to decide if those virtues which distinguished the ancient French magistracy are sufficiently common now-a-days, not to be remembered with great praise, and exhibited to our contemporaries as useful examples.”

In the revolution which was effected, we are astonished that the barons showed so little foresight; they opposed the privileges of an order of things which no longer existed, when, without their intervention and without their concurrence, a new order of things was established; the greater that was their need of union to defend themselves, the more obstinacy they showed for maintaining the too fatal privilege of making war upon each other. The habit of warlike and feudal manners made them prefer to all other functions the occupation of arms, which they considered, with reason, as the most glorious career; but which ruined them, kept them in their ignorance, and drove them from affairs, whilst others enriched themselves in peaceful employments, exercised their faculties usefully, and employed themselves exclusively with power. In the end, the nobility, after the most generous sacrifices, became nothing but an aristocracy without action in the government, whilst those who lent a hand to the administration became really the masters.

The revolutions we have just described have made us for a moment forget the crusades; the holy wars, however, may be reckoned among the causes which ameliorated legislation. The departure of the Crusaders gave occasion for a number of actions; precautions against fraud were multiplied; public notaries were called in; the use of charters,—called chartres chirographaires, or chartres parties,—was adopted, or rather revived. We have already said that many regulations were made to limit the numbers of the Crusaders, and these regulations were so many laws added to those which existed. The Crusaders, whilst passing through distant countries, might remark many wise customs, which they brought back into their own country. Villehardouin informs us with what astonishment the French nobles, on their arrival at Venice, beheld the senate, the doge, and the people deliberating in their presence. This spectacle could not fail to enlighten them. When the Latins were masters of Constantinople, they there became acquainted with the legislation of Greece; in Palestine, the Assizes of Jerusalem gave them an idea of a legislation less imperfect than their own; the code which for a long time governed the Christian colonies led Louis IX. to think of making a collection of laws, which he did not, it is true, put in practice, but which no doubt spread much useful information. The example of St. Louis, and the encouragement that jurisconsults received on his return from Egypt, contributed to create among the people the love of justice; and this love of justice, which began to be felt among all classes, was the best guarantee of a nascent civilization.

Skilful writers have gone over before us this epoch, so abundant in great events and in lessons of policy. They have shown how royalty rose from the bosom of disorder; how legislation progressively prevailed over anarchy; and how several states of Europe—particularly France—attained that degree of strength and splendour in which we have seen them during the eighteenth century. There would remain but very little for us to say, after the great publicists who have preceded us, if recent revolutions had not broken forth to enlighten us. The experience of the present times has thrown a new light over past ages; and we are better acquainted with the nature and origin of old institutions, since we have seen them sink into ruins. The tree of our ancient monarchy has not been able to resist the concussions which have shaken society; its branches have strewed the earth, and its roots have been laid bare. It then became easy for us to see by what secret conduits strength and life had been circulated; how had grown, and how had fallen,—

“That tree whose head approached to heaven, And whose feet touched the empire of the dead.”[117]

After having gone through the different classes of society, and shown the origins of our institutions during the crusades, we are about to see what was, at the same period, the progress of navigation, commerce, industry, the sciences, letters, the arts, and general knowledge.

Before the twelfth century, the seas of Europe and Asia, with the exception of the Mediterranean, were scarcely frequented even by the nations who dwelt upon their shores. At the period of the first crusades, that which formed the kingdom of France had but two or three ports upon the coast of Normandy, and had not a single one upon the ocean, or the Mediterranean, when, in the seventh crusade, Louis IX. caused that of Aigues-Mortes to be dug.[118] England was scarcely more advanced; that kingdom abandoned the navigation of the seas which surrounded it to pirates. It appeared that the world was not yet large enough for the ambition and genius of the English nation, which at the present day dominates over all the known seas. Some cities on the shores of the Baltic, of Holland, Flanders, and Spain, made maritime expeditions, but which scarcely deserve to be described in the history of the crusades. When the crusades began, the spirit of devotion, united with that of commerce, gave a new and more extended direction to the voyages and labours of navigators. The inhabitants of Denmark appeared in the seas of Syria; and Norwegians, who came by sea, assisted at the taking of Sidon. Citizens of Lubeck and Bremen were present at the siege of Ptolemaïs. From all the coasts of the West, vessels and fleets transported pilgrims, provisions, and arms into the kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Christian principalities established in Asia by the victories of the Crusaders.

Thus navigators from all countries met in the seas of the East. It was, in some sort, under the auspices of the cross, that advantageous relations began to be established among the maritime nations of Europe. At the commencement of the twelfth century, a fleet of Pisans, joined with some other Italians, came to assist the Arragonese in conquering the Balearic Isles. The navigators of Italy were so little acquainted with the seas of Spain, that they took the coasts of Arragon for the country of the Moors. This first alliance between distant nations was the work of a crusade preached by Pope Pascal III., and seconded by a great number of knights of Provence and Languedoc.

The navigators of Lubeck, Bremen, and Denmark, after having tried their strength in long voyages, took advantage of the experience they had gained, to visit the unknown seas of the Baltic. These new enterprises presented to their pious zeal and their ambition a nearer sea, and savage peoples which they might bring under their faith, and make subservient to their commercial views. Maritime expeditions were mixed with the crusades preached against nations still living in a state of paganism. At the aspect of the cross and the flag of navigators, rich cities sprang up, and barbarous regions began to be acquainted with the blessings of civilization.

It was at this period that navigation opened for itself a new career, and saw the theatre of its useful labours expand. Nothing could have favoured its progress like the communication that was then established between the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Spanish Ocean, and the seas of the north. By uniting nations in pursuit of the same advantages, it multiplied their relations, their ties, and their interests, and redoubled their emulation. In this career thus opened to all the nations of Europe, practical knowledge became rectified, was much increased, and spread everywhere; the configuration of coasts, the position of capes, ports, bays, isles, &c. &c., were all ascertained; the depth of the ocean was fathomed; the direction of winds, currents, and tides was observed; much information was gained upon all the points of hydrography, and very soon that ignorance of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was dispersed, which had occasioned so many shipwrecks, that the chroniclers of the times of the first crusades, as they tremblingly recount them, can only ascribe them to the anger of Heaven.

We would here speak of the mariner’s compass, if the period of its invention could be ascertained clearly. A passage of James of Vitry, which we have elsewhere given, does not permit us to doubt that the properties of the loadstone were known in the time of the crusades, and that navigators derived great assistance from it in their long voyages; but, on the other hand, there is nothing to prove that the use of the mariner’s compass was then general. We may believe that so valuable a discovery was still a secret for the vulgar, and that those who were in possession of this secret, only sought to profit by it for their own interest, without thinking of the advantages that might be drawn from it for the progress of navigation. We will add that that which has happened to the mariner’s compass, has happened also to most of the inventions of industry, of which history can rarely assign the epochs, because their authors, from a spirit of cupidity or jealousy, have not only not promulgated them, but have concealed them carefully from the knowledge of their contemporaries.

Naval architecture was much improved during the crusades. The vessels were greatly enlarged, to enable them to contain the multitudes of pilgrims to be transported. The dangers incidental to long voyages, caused the ships destined for the East to be constructed in a more solid manner. The art of setting up several masts in the same vessel, the art of multiplying the sails, and of disposing them so as to enable the ship to sail against the wind, were the happy fruit of the emulation which then animated navigators.

Thus the activity and the genius of man triumphed over all obstacles, commanded the elements, and took possession of the empire of the sea. But this empire, like that of the land, was, in the middle ages, a prey to brigandage and violence; tempests, contrary winds, shipwrecks, were not the only evils to be apprehended in long voyages. On every sea no right was known but the right of the strongest, and the absence of a maritime code added greatly to the perils of distant navigation.

The necessity for a legislation that might assure the interests and the freedom of navigators was strongly felt. It was Spain that furnished the first model of one. At the commencement of the twelfth century a code of maritime rights was drawn up by the ancient prudhommes[119] of the Sea of Barcelona. The Venetians adopted it in an assembly held at St. Sophia, in 1255. This code was afterwards adopted by the Pisans and Genoese, and, under the name of the Consulat of the Sea, became the common law or right of the eastern seas. Another code, published at first by Eleanor of Guienne, and afterwards by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, under the title of “Rolls of Oleron,” obtained the assent of several maritime nations, and was at last accepted in all the seas of the West.

Protected by this code, navigators were enabled to gather the fruit of their long labours, and soon disputed advantageously the empire of the Mediterranean with the infidels. If Italy and several other countries of the West escaped the yoke of the Saracens, they owed their safety more to the superiority of their fleets than to that of their armies.

I have spoken in the preceding book of the discovery of America, and of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. It is probable that, without the crusades, the genius of navigators would, although later, have surmounted the immense space and numberless dangers that separated the Baltic and the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean, and the Old World from the New. We may at least say that the distant expeditions and the perilous enterprises undertaken beneath the banners of the cross, prepared the way for the last prodigies of navigation, by opening everywhere new routes for industry, and, above all, by favouring the progress of commerce, the natural and necessary link between the divers nations and the different countries of the globe.

Each climate has its productions; and this diversity of riches creates for men an obligation for exchanges. This obligation for exchanges produces communication among all nations, so that in time the most widely-separated regions cannot remain unknown to each other. It may truly be said, that Providence has thus placed various productions in different climates, that it has denied to some countries what it has granted to others, to create for men dispersed over the face of the earth, the necessity for reciprocally seeking each other, for trading to supply their mutual wants, for communicating their knowledge, and for marching together towards civilization.

In the middle ages, the indolent and effeminate Greeks neglected to bring into the West the merchandises of Asia. The Saracens only anchored on the coasts of Europe, to bring thither the scourges of war. The commerce of the West went to seek that which was not brought to it; and frequent voyages to the East were all for the profit of the West.

A long time before the crusades, the merchandises of India and Asia had arrived in Europe, sometimes by land, crossing the Greek empire, Hungary, and the country of the Bulgarians; but more frequently by the Mediterranean, in which were all the ports of Italy. These routes were both made more familiar by the holy wars, and from that time nothing could stop the rapid progress of commerce, protected in its march by the standard of the cross.

Most of the maritime cities of the West not only got rich by furnishing Europe with the productions of the East, but they found further a considerable advantage in the transport of pilgrims and Christian armies. Fleets followed along the coasts of the countries in which the Crusaders were fighting, and sold them the munitions of war and the provisions of which they always stood in need. Thus commerce brought back into Europe a part of the treasures which the princes and barons, who ruined themselves to go and fight the infidels, carried into Asia.

All the wealth of the maritime cities of Syria, and even of Greece, belonged to merchants of the West. They were the masters of a great part of the Christian cities of Asia; we know what was the share of the Venetians after the taking of Constantinople. They possessed all the isles of the Archipelago, and half of Byzantium. The Greek empire was as another Venice, with its laws, its fleets, and its armies.

The Latins soon lost Constantinople, Jerusalem, and most of the countries which submitted to their arms. Commerce, more fortunate, preserved its conquests after the crusades. The city of Tana, built at the mouth of the Tanais, became for Venice a colony, which opened for her useful relations with Persia and Tartary, and which dominated in the markets of Tauris, Trebizond, Bagdad, and Bassora. Some Genoese, assembled in a little city of the Crimea,—Caffa, at the time even when the Turks were threatening Europe, employed themselves in working the mines of the Caucasus, and receiving the treasures of India by way of Astracan. European commerce established stores even among nations that made cruel war against the Christians. The terror which the Mamelukes inspired did not prevent colonies of merchants establishing themselves in Egypt. Africa, particularly the coast of the Mediterranean, was all subservient to their mercantile ambition, and the places which St. Louis had not been able to conquer, became tributaries to their industry.

Whilst the commerce of all parts of the world was thus placed in the hands of a few maritime cities, many of the great kingdoms of Europe were still strangers to it. England, which had no other wealth but its wools, gladly received in its capital the merchandises of Asia, brought thither by Italian and Spanish merchants. The cities of France took but little part in the commerce of the East. The crusades were the work of the French; others gathered the fruits of them. Marseilles was, in the middle ages, the only French city which kept up any relation with distant nations. This city founded by the Phocians, for the sake of the commerce with the Gauls, had never ceased to turn its eyes towards the places of its origin, and have commercial relations with Syria and Greece. Spain, whose industry developed itself early, took more advantage from the crusades, and, towards the end of the holy wars, the Spaniards had warehouses upon all the coasts of Asia.

No country, however, derived more advantage from the trade of the East than Italy. This country, which dominated over the Mediterranean, and which lay open to all parts of the known world, was placed in the most favourable position. This position, which had formerly facilitated the conquests of the Romans, assisted the nations of Italy in their new enterprises, and subdued the world to their speculations, as it had subdued it to their arms. Whilst their fleets set out for the East, they sent into Europe, not legions and proconsuls, as Rome had done, but caravans of merchants, who subdued the provinces they passed through to the calculations and the wants of commerce. These merchants disposed of, by their industrious traffic, all the money which then circulated in the West. In all countries they had numerous colonies and considerable establishments. Europe has no great cities in which the name of the Lombards, given to a street, to a quarter, does not, even at the present day, attest the long sojourn of the Italian merchants.

We cannot help admiring this power of commerce; but it had likewise its principle of destruction. What rivalries, what jealous passions, did it not give birth to daily! Pacific conquests were contended for without ceasing, swords in hand. In this struggle many cities succumbed; Pisa was destroyed by Genoa; Genoa, in her turn, could not maintain its rivalry against Venice. Another rock for these commercial powers, was the mobility of the commerce which had elevated them, and which carried unceasingly its favours and its gifts from one place to another. If commerce changed its route or its direction, that was quite enough to make a city prosper, or to precipitate its fall. In the middle ages, a crowd of cities disappeared, without discord or war having at all contributed to their ruin. It appeared as if fortune took a pleasure in destroying her own work, and as if she disdained on that account to associate herself with human passions.

It is not possible to separate the progress of industry and even of agriculture from that of commerce. To ascertain what industry and agriculture could gain by relations with the East, it would perhaps be sufficient to ascertain in what state these two sources of prosperity then were among the Orientals. Among so many travellers, there were, doubtless, some who had an interest in observing the usages and practices of the distant countries they visited. We know that in the expeditions of the Crusaders, such as were masters of a trade, or were skilful in a mechanical art, were enrolled in preference to others. These industrious pilgrims did not always make a voyage barren of advantages for their country; and in those holy wars, in which the knights of the cross only sought victory and renown, industry, if I may venture to say so, had also its crusade, whose peaceful trophies consisted in precious discoveries, stolen from the Greeks or the Saracens, and in the happy imitation of that which they had admired in the arts of the East.

The Saracens had manufactures of stuffs before the crusades. At Damascus, and in the cities of Egypt, metals were worked with greater perfection than in the West. Old chronicles inform us that the Christians of Palestine went sometimes to Damascus to purchase arms. Joinville relates that, being on a pilgrimage to our lady of Tortosa, he bought at Tripoli some camlets, fabricated in that city. He sent some pieces of them to Queen Marguerite, who, he tells us, at first took them for relics, and fell on her knees to receive them; but upon discovering her mistake arose, saying, “Mischief upon the seneschal! who has made me kneel to his camlets.”[120] Joinville was directed by Louis IX. to purchase a quantity of this stuff, which proves that the manufactory in which it was fabricated had some reputation.

There were at this period, in the same city of Tripoli, and in several cities of Greece, a great number of silk-looms, the produce of which must have excited great attention in the merchants and pilgrims who visited the East. About the middle of the twelfth century, Roger II., king of Sicily, caused several of these looms to be transported to Palermo; this was the fruit of an expedition to the coasts of Greece. The mulberry-tree flourished and multiplied under the beautiful sky of Italy, as well as under that of the Morea, and this useful conquest gave the Sicilians the means of soon surpassing the industry of the Greeks. The principal workshop was placed in the palace of the kings, as if to display the richness and magnificence of this new art.

Many useful inventions came to us at this period from the countries of the East. Some writers affirm that windmills were known in Europe before the crusades; but we should remember that they might have been due to the early pilgrimages into Asia, which it is so difficult to separate, upon such matters, from the holy wars.[121]

Tyre was at this time famous for its glass. The sand found in its vicinity gave to the fabrication of glass a perfection unknown in other countries. The use of glass was much more common in Palestine than in the West. The Venetians obtained from Tyre the idea of their beautiful works in glass, so celebrated in the middle ages.

The Crusaders, as has been seen in this history, always evinced great surprise at witnessing the explosion of the Greek fire. But what appears very strange, they never seemed to envy the Saracens this great advantage. The Frank warriors, in the field of battle, preferred the sword and lance to a means of fighting which, in their minds, took away something from personal bravery. It is not at all improbable, however, that the Greek fire, in the end, furnished the idea of gunpowder; an invention fatal to humanity, but which placed a formidable weapon in the hands of European society, when threatened by the Turks and Tartars.

We have already spoken of the maize, or Turkish wheat, sent into Italy by Boniface of Montferrat, in the fourth crusade. The Damascus plum was brought at the same time into Europe by a duke of Anjou, who visited Jerusalem. Our gardens owe to the holy wars the ranunculus, so prized by Orientals, and shalots, which take their name from Ascalon; the knowledge, or rather the use of saffron, alum, and indigo, in Europe, may be traced to the times of the crusades.

We may remember with what delight the Crusaders saw for the first time the sugar-canes of the territory of Tripoli. The plant was transported to Sicily, about the middle of the twelfth century. It is not correct, however, to say that it passed from thence into the new world. If the Spaniards afterwards transported the sugar-cane to the island of Madeira, we may believe they found it in the kingdom of Granada, whither the Moors had brought it from Africa. But it is also probable that notice was only taken of this plant because the taste for sugar was widely spread, and that the substance, which was brought from Egypt, became an important branch of commerce. It is thus we may render honour to the crusades.

Natural history, which is connected with the progress of industry and agriculture, was enriched likewise by some useful notions. Distant climates not only exchanged their vegetable productions, but the crusades procured for Europe an acquaintance with several animals of Africa and Asia. We have mentioned that the Mamelukes of Egypt sent Louis IX. an elephant, of which the French monarch made a present to the king of England. A short time after the first expedition of Louis IX., Bibars sent to Mainfrey, son of Frederick II., several Mogul prisoners, with their horses, which were of Tartar breed. Among the Oriental productions which the Egyptian ambassadors were directed to present to the king of Sicily, was a giraffe, an animal that had never till that time been seen in the West.

The curious circumstances which we could further produce, would add nothing to the opinion that must be already entertained of the happy influence of the crusades upon the progress of agriculture and industry. The riches of Asia, when brought into Europe, soon gave birth to a desire for the cultivation of the arts which embellish life, and of the sciences which double the faculties of man.

In the tenth century, architecture consisted in the construction of towers, ramparts, and fortresses. In the habitations of the great, everything was sacrificed to the necessity of providing defences against an enemy; nothing could be afforded to comfort or magnificence. The dwellings of the people, even in cities, scarcely protected them from the injuries of weather or the intemperance of seasons. The only architectural monuments were those which devotion raised to ancestors. Before magnificent palaces for princes, or convenient houses for the rich were thought of, edifices consecrated to religion were constructed. It is scarcely possible to enumerate the churches and monasteries built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. According to the opinion of the time, the most certain mode of expiating sins, was to build a church or a monastery. Thus architectural monuments arose at the voice of repentance, and religious inspirations revived, in some sort, the prodigies which fabulous antiquity attributed to the lyre of Amphion.

In every city, in every town, the inhabitants made it their pride to ornament their cathedral, and the altars at which they invoked the saint whom the parish had chosen for its patron. It may be said that there was something like patriotism in this pious zeal; for the basilic, or paternal church, was then the most noble and the most sensible image of the country.

At the commencement of the crusades, there existed a religious confraternity composed of men practised in the labours of building; they travelled about the world, offering their services to the faithful to build or repair churches. Another confraternity was formed with the useful design of constructing bridges for pilgrims and travellers. A chapel or an oratory reminded passengers that the bridge they were crossing was the work of charity.

The clergy, who were rich, and could only display their opulence in buildings, made it their glory to erect churches. To complete their work, they called in the aid of painting and sculpture, which, like architecture, owed their first encouragement to piety, and whose earliest masterpieces were consecrated to the ornamenting of the altars of the Christian religion.

Nothing was more common than to see noble Crusaders, on their departure for Palestine, or on their return to the West, found a monastery or a church. Several pilgrims are named, who, on coming back from Jerusalem, employed their treasures in constructing churches, the form of which might offer them an image of the holy sepulchre they had visited. The treasures conquered from the infidels were often appropriated to such buildings. Before the first crusade, some cities of Italy undertook an expedition into Africa, and the spoils were reserved for the ornamenting of churches. We read in an Italian chronicle, that the Pisans ceded to the Greek emperor Calo-John several cities which belonged to them in Asia Minor, upon the condition that this emperor would defray the expenses necessary for the building of the archbishop’s palace at Pisa, and ornamenting the cathedral of Palermo.

During the crusades, the sight of the monuments of architecture which were admired in the East, must have awakened the emulation of the western pilgrims. Nothing could exceed the surprise of the Crusaders at beholding the city of Constantine. Foucher de Chartres exclaimed in his enthusiasm: “Oh, what a vast and beautiful city is Constantinople!” The German historian Gunther likewise expresses his admiration, and says that such magnificence could not be believed if it were not seen. The marshal of Champagne relates that the French knights, on seeing the beautiful towers and the superb palaces of Byzantium, could not persuade themselves that there could be such a rich city in all the world!

Italy, which derived such advantages from its relations with the East, profited greatly by the masterpieces of Greece. The inhabitants of Rome, and of several other cities founded and embellished by the Romans, had before them remains of antiquity that might serve them as models. The riches which their commerce brought them furnished them with the means of encouraging industry and the arts, which assist in the embellishment of cities. The cities of Italy,—Venice in particular,—had palaces and sumptuous edifices before the crusades. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the taste for beautiful architecture changed the face of Italy, and spread by degrees throughout the rest of Europe.

We must add, however, that the fine arts, with the exception of architecture, owed very little to the frequent communications with the East. Painting was despised among the Mussulmans, to whom the Koran forbade the reproduction of the images of man or of animated beings. The Latins likewise, as our readers may remember, after the taking of Constantinople, destroyed most of the monuments raised by the genius of sculpture, and converted the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles into pieces of coin.

The indolent and silent character of the orientals was not calculated to carry music to perfection, as this art bespeaks a lively and warm imagination in a people; and the Greeks had for a long time lost the secret of those melodious songs which, in the times of Linus and Orpheus, charmed the heights of Rhodope and the woods of Mænalus. The history of music, then, has very little to do with that of the holy wars. When Italy saw the fine arts revive, they sprang up as a natural production of the soil, as plants indigenous to the climate; they owed their splendour to the prosperous state of society, and followed, as a consequence of the opulence and luxury which commerce and industry had produced.[122]

The revival of the fine arts announced that of letters. But if it be true that letters owed a part of their progress to the influence of the crusades, it must be confessed that the Crusaders did not always show themselves disposed to profit by them for themselves: nothing can exceed the ignorance of the Crusaders who then set out for the East. History informs us that after the taking of Jerusalem, they burnt at Tripoli a library which contained the most precious monuments of oriental literature: at the taking of Constantinople, a conflagration devoured the literary treasures of ancient Greece. The Crusaders beheld this misfortune with so much indifference, that not one of their chronicles makes mention of it, and posterity would have been ignorant of it but for the eloquent complaints of Nicetas.

The science which gained most by these distant expeditions was doubtless geography. Before the crusades, this science was quite unknown. Countries, the least distant from each other, had no intercommunication. Burgundy was scarcely known at Paris; in Burgundy Paris was considered as a very remote place. The Crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit were not acquainted with the names of the cities of Germany and Hungary which they passed through. They experienced a defeat at Mersbourg, and the contemporary chronicles that speak of it content themselves with calling the Hungarian city Malleville, or the city of misfortune.

If the Franks scarcely knew their own country, what must have been their ignorance of the countries of the East? We may judge by the necessity they felt for taking their guides from among the Greeks, whom they mistrusted, and by their extreme embarrassment whenever these guides abandoned them. Several armies perished from want of knowing the places to which victory conducted them. Most of the chroniclers knew no more about the matter than the Crusaders; and this it is that renders it so difficult to follow them in Asia Minor and Syria.

One most remarkable circumstance is, that out of more than two hundred chronicles that speak of Egypt, we have not been able to find more than one that makes mention of the Pyramids. James of Vitry, who sojourned for a long time in Syria, and who appears to have possessed as much knowledge as was then common to the learned, repeats, in his descriptions of the East, the fables of Herodotus; such as the history of the Amazons and that of the phœnix. We can scarcely forbear laughing at the simple credulity of Joinville, who tells us gravely, in his memoirs, that the trees of the terrestrial paradise produce cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and that these spices are fished out of the waters of the Nile, whither they have been carried by the winds.

The Crusaders, constantly engaged in fighting, never entertained the idea of making themselves acquainted with the countries subdued by their arms. Nevertheless, in consequence of them, religion and commerce,—the one led by the desire of spreading the Gospel, the other by the hopes of gaining wealth, opened some new routes, and gained useful notions concerning the East during the crusades. The missionaries sent by the court of Rome and by St. Louis travelled over the vast regions of Asia, and commerce either followed or went before them in these distant journeys. The accounts of Rubruquis, Asselin, John Plan Carpin, and Marco Paolo, contain observations of which the truth and correctness are recognised at the present day.

We may add that the Crusaders, who went from all the countries of Europe, became acquainted with each other beneath the standard of the cross. Nations were no longer foreign to each other; which dissipated the ignorance in which they had been regarding the names of the cities and provinces of the West.

The geographical charts of this period neither give the configuration of the globe, nor the extent of countries, nor the position or limits of emperors; they merely trace, by vague designations, that which struck travellers most forcibly,—such as the curiosities of each country, the animals, the buildings, and the various dresses of men. We have seen a map of the world, which is attached to the chronicle of St. Denis, and which appears to have been made in the thirteenth century: we do not find, as in modern maps, the names of the four cardinal points set down, but on the four sides are written the names of the principal winds, to the number of twelve. Jerusalem, according to the opinion of the time, is placed in the centre of the three parts of the known world; a large edifice surmounted by a cross represents the holy city. Around this queen of cities, the author of the map has figured, by other edifices, the cities of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, &c.: the distances are marked without any attention to exactness; all appears thrown at random on the paper: this confused mass of edifices or houses, seems to be less a representation of the universe than the shapeless picture of a great city, built without plan or regularity.

We may judge by this how completely geography was then in its infancy; but, at the same time, it renders it evident that it was not quite neglected, as till that time it had been. Thus, we have a right to believe they would not stand still there, and that geographical knowledge would soon advance. In the fourteenth century, the countries of the East were already much better known, if we may judge by the chart which Sanuti presented to the pope, and which may be seen in the collection of the historians of the crusades by Bengars.

The sciences most useful to man, such as medicine, might have made some progress during the crusades, if the Crusaders had profited by the knowledge of the Orientals. In medicine particularly, the Arabians had more positive knowledge than the Latins. At the siege of Ptolemaïs, we have seen that Saladin sent his physicians to Richard; but we do not learn that the king of England sent his to Saladin, when he fell ill. In the first crusade of St. Louis, the physicians who accompanied the army of the Crusaders understood nothing of the scurvy and other epidemic diseases, which exercised such ravages in the camp of the Christians. Their ignorance was not less fatal than the contagion: when Louis IX. and his warriors became the prisoners of the Mussulmans, the diseases which desolated them ceased all at once, because they were no longer attended by their own physicians, but were placed under the care of the Arabians.

The East then furnished Europe with several processes and remedies from which modern medicine, for a length of time, derived great advantage. Cassia and senna came from Asia, and became known in the West at the period of the crusades. Theriaca, which played so great a part in the medicine of the middle ages, was brought from Antioch to Venice. Robert of Normandy, on his return from the Holy Land, after the taking of Jerusalem, obtained from the school of Salerno a collection of Hygeian precepts, which became proverbs among all the nations of Europe.

And yet these discoveries, and this knowledge of the Orientals, did not much enlighten the West in the art of curing. Properly to receive lessons of experience of this kind, preliminary studies were necessary, and the physicians of Europe were then too ignorant to profit by the learning of the Arabians. At this period, religious charity raised a great number of open asylums for suffering humanity. But this charity, however admirable, when its object was to attend the sick, and comfort them in their sufferings, knew but very little of the symptoms or the character of the numberless diseases which attack the life of man. It may be safely said, that during the crusades, we received from the East many more serious diseases than true instruction in medicine. We know that there were numerous lazar-houses established in Europe in the time of the crusades; but we know nothing of the remedies employed for the cure of leprosy. Isolation appears to have been the only curative or preservative means known for this malady, which many learned physicians now look upon as mere prejudice. The spirit of devotion richly endowed lepers, without doing anything for their cure. Leprosy, in the end, disappeared without the assistance of medicine, and the property bestowed upon lazar-houses was transferred to the hospitals; which was advantageous to humanity, and may be set down as one of the benefits of the crusades.[123]

We will say nothing of the other sciences, which owed still less than geography and medicine to the holy wars.

The Saracens of Syria were very little enlightened in the middle ages. In the East, the state of knowledge, like everything else, depended upon the reign of a great prince; whilst this prince reigned, knowledge flourished by his influence; at his death, everything returned to darkness, as the natural state of countries governed by Islamism.[124]

The Franks gained more by their commerce with the Greeks than by that with the Saracens. The Crusaders established continual relations between the cities of Italy and the empire of Byzantium. Some sparks of the genius of the Greeks were glimmering in Italy before the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.

A college for young Greeks was established at Paris in the reign of Philip Augustus. In the thirteenth century universities flourished at Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, in which the Greek language was taught; and later, the Oriental languages were added, by a decree of the council of Vienna.

We find in a chronicle of St. Denis these remarkable words:—“This year, 1257, William, a physician, brought some Greek books from Constantinople.” Thus, the arrival of some volumes from Greece was an event worthy of being recorded, and the importance attached to it, already announced the disposition of men’s minds.

When the Turks became masters of Constantinople, the learned, exiled from their country, came to establish themselves in Italy, where the Greek muses formed an alliance with the Latin muses. The venerable interpreters of antiquity were hailed everywhere with eagerness, and the communication of their knowledge was repaid by generous hospitality. Among the distinguished men to whom the muses of ancient Greece owed an honourable protection, we must not forget Nicholas V., who, as the head of the Christians of the West, excommunicated the Greek Church, and, as a scholar, seemed to have vowed a worship to the genius of Homer and Plato.[125] Printing, which had then recently been invented, was employed to preserve the literary treasures brought from the East, and made them for ever safe from the scythe of Time, the furies of war, or the hands of barbarians. The Iliad and the Odyssey found readers in places which had inspired the Æneid; the orations of Demosthenes were again read amid the wrecks of the forum, where the learned might believe they still listened to the voice of Cicero. The genius of the Italians, kindled by the masterpieces of ancient Rome and of old Athens, produced fresh masterpieces; and Italy presented a phenomenon which the world will, perhaps, never see again,—that of a nation which, in the space of a few centuries, obtained twice the palm of literature in two different languages.

It was from Constantinople we received the philosophy of Aristotle. We can scarcely say to what extent the true friends of intelligence ought to congratulate themselves on this head. Aristotle had disciples, partisans, and martyrs; the philosopher of Stagyra was very near being preferred to the Bible; the contemners of Aristotle were called Biblici. At that period a mania for subtleties was introduced into the schools, which dishonoured the teaching of philosophy. Reason was no longer studied in the mind of man, but in a book; nature was no longer studied in the universe, but in Aristotle. The schools became like fencing-matches. In an age in which everything was decided by violence, the human mind wished to have its species of warfare; so that victory in most affairs was considered justice; and became, in the schools, the only reason. We may believe that this philosophy did not much assist the march of true wisdom; but we must admit, that if it did, for a moment, lead the human mind astray, it did not quite arrest its progress. It exercised the faculties of man, and by that means assisted in their development. At the commencement of societies, it is less the errors of the mind than its inaction that retains nations in the darkness of barbarism.