LVIII. kened the piety of his companions; while they cleansed their CHAP. bodies, they purified their minds; nor shall I believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre. and reign Bouillon, A. D. 1099, July 23... A. D. 1100, July 18. Eight days after this memorable event, which pope Urban Election did not live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the elec- of Godtion of a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Pales- frey of tine. Hugh the Great, and Stephen of Chartres, had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch, and two Roberts, the duke of Normandy114 and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in the West, to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers, and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army, proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory ; but in a city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year,115 too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a summons to the field by the approach of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalized the valour of the French princes, who in this ac- Battle of tion bade a long farewel to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived from the prodigious inequality of numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot on the side of the Fatimites; but, except three thousand Ethiopians or blacks, who were armed with flails, or scourges of iron, the 114 The English ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the Provincials to Raymond of Tholouse, the glory of refusing the crown; but the honest voice of tradition has preserved the memory of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136.) of the count of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was possessed by his descendants. 115 See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c. in William of Tyre, l. ix. c. 1...12. and in the conclusion of the Latin historians of the first crusade. Ascalon. A. D 1099, August 12. LVIII. CHAP. Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valour of the Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After suspending before the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot soldiers, for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague of Antioch: the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious clamours had required that the choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin clergy: the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was jus- tified by the reproach of heresy or schism ;116 and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the Oriental Christians regret ted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome : he brought a fleet of his countrymen to the succour of the Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of the church. The new patriarch11 immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa: instead of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negociated with the priest; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus. The king Without this indulgence, the conqueror would almost have dom of Je- been stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of rusalem, 116 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479. 117 See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in William of Tyre, (1, ix. c. 15...18. x. 4. 7.9), who asserts with marvellous candour the independence of the conquerors and kings of Jerusalem. LVIII. A. D. 1187. Jerusalem and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of CHAP. the adjacent country.118 Within this narrow verge, the Mahometans were still lodged in some impregnable castles; and the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrims, were exposed 1099... to daily and domestic hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne, the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Israel." After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, and Ascalon,120 which were powerfully assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of Flanders and Norway,12' the range of sea-coast from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of Edessa and Tripoli owned themselves the vassals of the king of Jerusalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics of the Mahometan conquests in Syria.122 The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into these transmarine colonies. According to the feudal jurisprudence, the principal states and subordinate baronies descended in the line of male and female succession;123 but the 118 Willerm. Tyr. 1. x. 19. The Historia Hierosolimita of Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. i. c. 21...50), and the Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinus Sanutus (1. iii. p. i.) describe the state and conquests of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. 119 An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000, or 1,574,000 fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and slaves, may imply a population of thirteen milLions, in a country sixty leagues in length, and thirty broad. The honest and rational Le Clerc (Comment. on 2d Samuel xxiv. and 1st Chronicles xxi. astuat angusto in limite, and mutters his suspicion of a false transcript ; a dangerous suspicion! 120 These sieges are related, each in its proper place, in the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to the xviiith book, and more briefly told by Bernardus Thesaurarius (de Acquisitione Terra Sanctæ, c. 89...98. p. 732... 740). Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of Muratori. 121 Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et maxime de câ parte que Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (1. xi. c. 14. p. 804.) marks their course per Britannicum mare et Calpen to the siege of Sidon. 122 Benelathir, apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 150, 151. A. D.1127. He must speak of the inland country. 123 Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of female succession, in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta virilia et virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons, and with the approbation, of her feudal lord, a noble damsel LVIII. CHAP children of the first conquerors, 124 a motley and degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the climate; the arrival of new crusaders from Europe, was a doubtful hope and a casual event. The service of the feudal tenures 125 was performed by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid of two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers on horseback.126 Five thousand and seventy-five serjeants, most probably foot soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities; and the whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks.127 But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the hospital of St. John," and of the temple of Solomon; 129 on the strange association of a monastic and military life, which fanaticism might suggest, but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the vows, of these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were immortal; and the speedy donation of twentyeight thousand farms, or manors,130 enabled them to support 128 was obliged to chuse a husband and champion (Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242, &c). See in M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 441...471.) the accurate and useful tables of these dynasties, which are chiefly drawn from the Lignages d'Outremer. 124 They were called by derision Poullains, Pullani, and their name is never pronounced without contempt (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 535. and Observations sur Joinville, p. 84, 85. Jacob à Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. I. i. c. 67.72. and Sanut, l. iii. p. viii. c. 2. p. 182). Illustrium virorum qui ad Terræ Sanctæ. . . . liberationem in ipsa manserunt degeneres filii . . . . in deliciis enutriti, molles et effæminati, &c. 125 This authentic detail is extracted from the Assises de Jerusalem (c. 324. 326...331). Sanut (1. iii. p. viii. c. 1. p. 174.) reckons only 518 knights, and 5775 followers. 126 The sum total, and the division, ascertain the service of the three great baronies at 100 knights each; and the text of the Assises, which extends the number to 500, can only be justified by this supposition. 127 Yet on great emergencies (says Sanut) the barons brought a voluntary aid, decentem comitivam militum juxta statum suum. 128 William of Tyre (1. xviii. c. 3, 4, 5) relates the ignoble origin, and early insolence, of the Hospitalers, who soon deserted their humble patron, St. John the Eleemosynary, for the more august character of St. John the Baptist (see the ineffectual struggles of Pagi, Critica, A. D. 1099, No. 14 ..18). They assumed the profession of arms about the year 1120; the Hospital was mater, the Temple, filia; the Teutonic order was founded A. D. 1190, at the siege of Acre (Mosheim, Institut. p. 389, 390). 129 See St. Bernard de Laude Nova Militia Templi, composed A. D. 1132...1136, in Opp. tom. i. p. ii. p. 547...563. edit. Mabillon, Venet. 1750. Such an encomium, which is thrown away on the dead Templars, would be highly valued by the historians of Malta. 130 Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 544. He assigns to the Hospitalers LVIII, a regular force of cavalry and infantry for the defence of CHAP. Palestine. The austerity of the convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms: the world was scandalised by the pride, avarice, and corruption of these Christian soldiers; their claims of immunity and jurisdiction disturbed the harmony of the church and state; and the public peace was endangered by their jealous emulation. But in their most dissolute period, the knights of the hospital and temple maintained their fearless and fanatic character: they neglected to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ; and the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the crusades, has been transplanted by this institution from the holy sepulchre to the isle of Malta.131 A. D. 1099 The spirit of freedom, which pervades the feudal institu- Assise of tions, was felt in its strongest energy by the volunteers of Jerusalem, the cross, who elected for their chief the most deserving of ...1369. his peers. Amidst the slaves of Asia, unconscious of the lesson or example, a model of political liberty was introduced: and the laws of the French kingdom are derived from the purest source of equality and justice. Of such laws, the first and indispensable condition is the assent of those, whose obedience they require, and for whose benefit they are designed. No sooner had Godfrey of Bouillon accepted the office of supreme magistrate, than he solicited the public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, who were the best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarch and barons, of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the ASSISE OF JERUSALEM,' a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence. The new code, attested by the seals of the king, the patriarch, and the viscount of Jerusalem, was deposited in the holy sepulchre, enriched with the improve 132 19,000, to the Templars 9,000 maneria, a word of much higher import (as Ducange has rightly observed) in the English than in the French idiom. Manor is a lordship, manoir a dwelling. 131 In the three first books of the Histoire des Chevaliers de Malthe, par l'Abbé de Vertot, the reader may amuse himself with a fair, and sometimes flattering, picture of the order, while it was employed for the defence of Palestine. The subsequent books pursue their emigrations to Rhodes and Malta. 132 The Assises de Jerusalem, in old law French, were printed with Beaumanoir's Coutumes de Beauvoisis (Bourges and Paris, 1690, in folio), and illustrated by Gaspard Thaumas de la Thaumassiere, with a comment and glossary. An Italian version had been published in 1535, at Venice, for the use of the kingdom of Cyprus, |