THE loss of Edessa shook the kingdom of Jerusalem; not so much from the importance of the city or its territory, as from the exposed state in which it left the frontier of the newly-established monarchy. The activity, the perseverance, the power of the Moslems, had been too often felt not to be dreaded, and there is every reason to believe, that the clergy spoke but the wishes of the whole people, when in their letters to Europe, they pressed their Christian brethren to come once more to the succour of Jerusalem. Shame and ambition led the young Count of Edessa to attempt the recovery of his capital as soon as the death of Zenghi, who had taken it, reached his ears. He in consequence collected a large body of troops, and on presenting himself before the walls during the night, was admitted, by his friends, into the town. There, he turned his whole efforts to force the Turkish garrison in the citadel to surrender, before Nourhaddin, the son of Zenghi, could arrive to its aid. But the Saracens held out; and, while the Latin soldiers besieged the castle, they found themselves suddenly 192 surrounded by a large body of the enemy, under the command of Nourhaddin. In this situation, they endeavoured to cut their way through the Turkish force, but, attacked on every side, few of them escaped to tell the tale of their own defeat. Nourhaddin marched over their necks into Edessa, and in order to remove for ever that bulwark to the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, he caused the fortifications to be razed to the ground.
The great consternation of the people of Palestine became great and general. The road to the Holy City lay open before the enemy, and continual applications for assistance reached Europe, but more particularly France.
The state of that country, however, was the least1 propitious, that it is possible to conceive for a crusade. The position of all the orders of society had undergone a change since the period when the wars of the cross were first preached by Peter the Hermit; and, of the many causes which had combined to hurry the armed multitudes to the Holy Land, none remained but the spirit of religious fanaticism and military enterprise. At the time of the first crusade, the feudal system had reached the acme of its power. The barons had 193 placed a king upon the throne. They had rendered their own dominion independent of his, and though they still acknowledged some ties between themselves and the monarch — some vague and general power of restraint in the king and his court of peers — yet those ties were so loose, that power was so undefined in its nature, and so difficult in its exercise, that the nobles were free, and at liberty to act in whatever direction, enthusiasm, ambition, or cupidity might call them, without fear of the sovereign, who was, in fact, but one of their own body loaded with a crown.
The people, too, at that time, both in the towns and in the fields, were the mere slaves of the nobility; and as there existed scarcely a shadow of vigour in the kingly authority, so there remained not an idea of distinct rights and privileges amongst the populace. Thus, the Baronage were then unfettered by dread from any quarter; and the lower classes — both the poorer nobility, and that indistinct tribe (which we find evidently2 marked) who were neither among the absolute serfs of any lord, nor belonging to the military caste — were all glad to engage themselves in wars which held out to them riches and exaltation in this world, and beatification in the next; while they could hope for nothing in their own land but pillage, oppression, and 194 wrong; or slaughter in feuds without an object, and in battles for the benefit of others.
Before the second crusade was contemplated, a change — an immense change had operated itself in the state of society. Just fifty years had passed since the council of Clermont; but the kings of France were no longer the same; the royal authority had acquired force3 — the latent principles of domination had been exercised for the general good. Kings had put forth their hands to check abuses, to punish violence and crime; and the feudal system began to assume the character not of a simple confederation, but of an organized hierarchy,4 in which the whole body was the judge of each individual, and the head of the body the executor of its sentence. Louis VI., commonly called Louis the Fat,5 was the first among the kings of France, who raised the functions of royalty above those of sovereignty, and the distinction between the two states is an important one. The former monarchs of France, including Philip I., under whose reign the first crusade was preached, had each been but sovereigns, who could all upon their vassals to serve them for so many days in the field, and whose rights were either simply personal, that is to say, for their own dignity and benefit, or only general so far as the protection of the whole confederacy from foreign invasion was implied. Louis the Fat, however, saw that in the kingly office was comprised both duties and rights of a different character; the right of punishing private crime,6 and of opposing universal wrong; the duty of maintaining public order, and of promoting by one uniform and acknowledged power, the tranquillity of the whole society, and the security of each individual. The efforts of that prince were 195 confined and partial it is true;7 but he and his great minister, Suger, seized the just idea of he monarchical form of government, and laid the basis of a well-directed and legitimate authority.
This authority, of course, was not pleasing to the barons, whose licence was thus curtailed. Their views, therefore, were turned rather to the maintenance of their own unjust privileges, than to foreign adventures. At the same time, the nobles found themselves assailed by the classes below them, as well as by the power above, and the people of the towns were seen to struggle for the rights and immunities so long denied to them. The Burghers had,8 indeed, been permitted to labour in some small degree for themselves. Though subject to terrible and grievous exactions, they had still thriven under the spirit of commerce and industry. Their lords had sometimes even recourse to them for assistance. The greater part, though of the servile race, had been either freed, or were descended from freed men; and the baron of the town in which they lived, though cruel and tyrannical, was more an exacting protector than a master. At length — the precise time is unknown — the people of the cities began to think of protecting themselves; and, by mutual cooperation, they strove at once to free themselves from the tyranny of a superior lord, and to defend themselves against the encroachments of others. The word commune9 was introduced, and each town of considerable size, hastened to struggle for its liberty. At first the horror and indignation of the nobles were beyond all conception; but the spirit of union among them was not sufficiently active to put down that which animated the commons.
Each lord had to oppose his revolted subjects alone; and after long and sanguinary contests,10 some times the baron, the bishop, or the abbot, succeeded in 196 subjugating the people; sometimes the Burghers contrived, by perseverance, to wring from the nobles themselves a charter which assured their freedom.
This struggle11 was at its height at the time when the fall of Edessa and the growing power of the Moslems, called Europe to engage in a second crusade; but the barons at that moment found their privileges invaded both by the crown and the people; and the latter discovered that they had rights to maintain in their own land — that they were no longer the mere slaves, to whom all countries were alike — that prospects were opened before them which, during the first crusade, they hardly dreamed of — that the swords which had before been employed in fighting the quarrels of their lords at home, or raising them to honour and fame abroad, were now required to defend their property, their happiness, and the new station they had created for themselves in society. Thus the period at which aid became imperatively necessary to the Christians at Jerusalem was when France was least calculated to afford it. Nevertheless, the superstition of a king and the eloquence of a churchman combined to produce a second crusade, but in this instance it was but a great military expedition, and no longer the enthusiastic effort of a nation, or a great popular movement throughout the whole of the Christian world.
One of the strongest proofs of this fact,12 is the scantiness of historians on the second crusade, and the style in which those that do exist, speak of its operations. It is no longer the glory of Christendom that they mention, but the glory of the king; no more the deliverance of the Holy Land, but merely the acts of the monarch.
197In pursuance of the general plan of extending the dominion of the crown, which had been conceived by Louis VI., and carried on with such infinite perseverance by his great minister Suger, Louis VII., the succeeding monarch, on hearing of the election of the Archbishop of Bourges by the chapter of that city, without his previous consent, had declared the nomination invalid, and proceeded to acts of such flagrant opposition to the papal jurisdiction, that the church used her most terrific thunders to awe the monarch over to her will. Thibalt, Count of Champagne, armed in support of the pope’s authority, and Louis instantly marched to chastise his rebellious vassal. Thibalt was soon reduced to obedience, but the anger of the monarch was not appeased by submission; for, even after the town of Vitry had surrendered, he set fire to the church, in which nearly thirteen hundred people had taken refuge, and disgraced his triumph by one of the direst pieces of cruelty upon record. A severe illness, however, soon followed, and reflection brought remorse. At that time the news of the fall of Edessa was fresh in Europe; and Louis, in the vain hope of expiating his crime, determined to promote a crusade, and lead his forces himself to the aid of Jerusalem.
Deputies were speedily sent to the Pope Eugenius, who willingly abetted in the king’s design, and commissioned the famous St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to preach the cross through France and Germany. St. Bernard possessed every requisite for such a mission.13 From his earliest years he had been filled with religious enthusiasm; he had abandoned high prospects to dedicate himself entirely to an austere and gloomy fanaticism; he had reformed many abuses in the church, reproved crime wherever he found it, and raised the clerical character in the eyes of the people, too much accustomed to behold among his order nothing 198 but vice, ignorance, and indolence. He was one of the most powerful orators of his day, endowed with high and commanding talents of many kinds; and in his controversy with the celebrated Abelard, the severe purity of his life and manners had proved most eloquent against his rival. Thus, when after repeated entreaties14 he went forth to preach the crusade, few that heard him were not either impressed by his sanctity, persuaded by his eloquence, or carried away by his zeal: and thus, notwithstanding the unfavourable state of France,15 a multitude of men took the symbol of the cross, and prepared to follow the monarch into Palestine. In Germany the effects of his overpowering oratory were the same. Those who understood not even the language that he spoke, became awed by his gestures and the dignified enthusiasm of his manner, and devoted themselves to the crusade, though the tongue in which it was preached was unknown to them. Wherever he went his presence was supposed to operate miracles, and the sick are reported to have recovered by his touch, or at his command; while all the legions of devils, with which popish superstition peopled the atmosphere, took flight at his approach. For some time Conrad, Emperor of Germany, suffered16 St Bernard to call the inhabitants of his dominions to the crusade without taking any active part in his proceedings, but at length the startling eloquence of the Abbot of Clairvaux reached even the bosom of the monarch, and he declared his intention of following the cross himself. At Vezelai Louis VII. received the symbol; but the most powerful obstacle that he found to his undertaking was the just and continued opposition of his minister,17 Suger, who endeavoured by every means to dissuade the monarch from abandoning his kingdom. All persuasions were 199 vain; and having committed the care of his estates to that faithful servant,18 Louis himself accompanied by Eleonor, his queen, departed for Metz, where he was joined by an immense multitude of nobles and knights, among whom were crusaders from England19 and the remote islands of the northern sea. Ambassadors from Roger, King of Apulia, had already warned Louis of the treachery of the Greeks, and besought him to take any other way than that through the dominions of the emperor; but the French monarch was biassed by other counsels, and determined upon following the plan before laid down.
The Emperor of Germany was the first20 to set out, and by June reached Constantinople in safety, followed by a large body of armed men, and a number of women whose gay dress, half military, half feminine, gave the march the appearance of some bright fantastic cavalcade.
The King of France, having previously received21 at St. Denis, the consecrated banner as a warrior, and the staff and scrip22 as a pilgrim, now quitted Metz, and proceeded by Worms and Ratisbon. Here he was met by envoys from the Emperor of the East, charged with letters so filled with flattery and fair speeches, that Louis is reported to have blushed, and the Bishop of Langres to have observed —
Here,23 too, the French beheld, for the first time, the custom of an inferior standing in the presence of his lord. The object of the Emperor was to obtain from 200 Louis a promise to pass through his territories without violence, and to yield to him every town from which he should expel the Turks, and which had ever belonged to the Grecian territory.
Part of this proposal was acceded to, and part refused: and the army marched on through Hungary into Greece. The progress of the second crusade was of course subject to the same difficulties that attended that of the first, through a waste and deserted land; but many other obstacles no longer existed — the people of the country were more accustomed to the appearance of strangers;24 the army was restrained by the presence of the king; and the whole account of the march to Constantinople leaves the impression of a more civilized state of society than that which existed at the period of the first crusade. We meet with no massacres, no burning of towns, no countries laid waste; and though there are to be found petty squabbles between the soldiers and the townspeople, frays, and even bloodshed; yet these were but individual outrages, kindled by private passions, and speedily put down by the arm of authority.
The Germans25 were less fortunate on their way than the French, and some serious causes of quarrel sprung up between them and the Greeks, in which it is difficult to discover who were the chief aggressors. The Greeks call the Germans26 barbarians, and the Germans accuse the Greeks of every kind of treachery; but it appears evident,27 that Conrad himself was guilty of no small violence on his approach to Constantinople. A most magnificent garden had been laid out at a little distance from that capital, filled with every vegetable luxury of the day, and containing within its walls vast herds of tame animals, for whose security woods had been planted, caverns dug, and lakes contrived; 201 so that the beasts which were confined in this vast prison might follow their natural habits, as if still at liberty. Here also were several buildings, in which the Emperors were accustomed to enjoy the summer: but Conrad, with an unceremonious freedom, partaking not a little of barbarism, broke into this retreat, and wasted and destroyed all that it had required the labour of years to accomplish. Manuel Comnenus, who now sat on the throne of Constantinople, beheld, from the windows of his palace, this strange scene of wanton aggression; and sent messengers28 to Conrad, who was connected with him by marriage,29 desiring an interview. But the Greek would not trust himself out of the walls of his capital, and the German would not venture within them, so that a short time was passed in negotiation; and then Conrad passed over the Hellespont with his forces, relieving the eastern sovereign from the dread and annoyance of his presence. Manuel, however, furnished the German army with guides to conduct it though Asia Minor, and almost all accounts attribute to the Greek the design of betraying his Christian brethren into the hands of the infidels. After passing the sea, the troops of Conrad proceeded in two bodies,30 the one under the Emperor, and the other under the Bishop of Freysinghen; but the guides with which they had been provided, led them into the pathless wilds of Cappadocia, where famine soon reached them. At the moment also when they expected to arrive at Iconium,31 they found themselves attacked by the army of the infidels, swelled to an immense extent by the efforts of the Sultaun of the Seljukian Turks, who, on the first approach of the Christian forces, had spared no means to ensure their destruction. The 202 heavy-armed Germans32 in vain endeavoured to close with the light and agile horsemen of the Turkish host. The treacherous guides had fled on the first sight of the infidels, and the enemy hovered round and round the German army, as it struggled on through the unknown deserts in which it was entangled, smiting every straggler, and hastening its annihilation by continual attacks. Favoured by the fleetness of their horses, and their knowledge of the localities, they passed and repassed the exhausted troops of the Emperor,33 who now endeavoured to retrace his steps, under a continued rain of arrows. No part of the army offered security. The famous Count Bernard with many others, was cut off fighting in the rear; the van was constantly in the presence of an active foe; and the Emperor himself was twice wounded by arrows which fell in the centre of the host. Thus, day after day, thousands on thousands were added to the slain; and, when at length Conrad reached the town of Nice, of seventy thousand knights, and an immense body of foot, who had followed him from Europe, scarcely a tenth part were to be found in the ranks of his shattered army.
That he was betrayed into the hands of the Turks by the guides furnished by the Emperor, no earthly doubt can be entertained; nor is it questionable that Manuel Comnenus was at that time secretly engaged in treaty with the infidels. It is not, indeed, absolutely 203 proved that the Monarch of Constantinople ordered or connived at the destruction of the Christian forces, but every historian34 of the day has suspected him of the treachery, and when such is the case it is probable there was good cause for suspicion.
In the mean while, Louis the younger led the French host to Constantinople, and, unlike Conrad, instantly accepted the Emperor’s invitation to enter the city with a small train. Manuel received him as an equal, descending to the porch of his palace to meet his royal guest. He, of course, pretended to no homage from the King of France, but still his object was to secure to himself all the conquests which Louis might make in the ancient appendages of Greece, without acting himself against the infidels.
To force the French monarch into this concession he pursued a plan of irritating and uncertain negotiations, not at all unlike those carried on by his predecessor Alexius,35 towards the leaders of the former crusade. In the midst of these, however, it was discovered that Manuel had entered into a secret treaty with the Turks; and, indeed, the confidence which the deceitful Greeks placed in the promises of the crusaders, forms a singular and reproachful comment on the constant and remorseless breach of their own. There were many of the leaders of the French who did not scruple to urge Louis to punish by arms, the gross perfidy of the Greek Emperor; and, by taking possession of Constantinople, to sweep away the continual stumblingblock by which the efforts of all the crusades had been impeded. Had Louis acceded to their wishes great and extraordinary results would, no doubt, have been effected towards the permanent occupation of the Holy Land by the Christian powers; but that monarch was not to be seduced into violating his own good faith 204 by the treachery of another, and after having, on the other hand, refused to aid Manuel in the war which had arisen between him and Roger, King of Apulia, he crossed the Bosphorus, and passed into Asia Minor. Thence advancing through Nicomedia,36 Louis proceeded to Nice, and encamped under the walls of that city. Here, the first reports reached him of the fate of the German army, for hitherto the Greeks had continued to fill his ears with nothing but the successes of his fellows in arms. For a time the news was disbelieved, but very soon the arrival of Frederic, Duke of Suabia, charged with messages from the German monarch, brought the melancholy certainty of his defeat.
Louis did all that he could to assuage the grief of the Emperor Conrad,37 and uniting their forces they now marched on by the sea-coast to Ephesus. Here, however, Conrad, mortified at a companionship in which the inferiority of his own troops was painfully contrasted with the multitude and freshness of the French, separated again from Louis; and, sending back the greater part of his army by land, took ship himself and returned to Constantinople, where he was received both with more distinction and more sincerity, on account of the scantiness of his retinue, and the disaster he had suffered.
In the mean while, the French proceeded on their way, and after travelling for some days without opposition, they first encountered the Turks on the banks of the Meander.38 Proud of their success against the Germans, the infidels determined to contest the passage of the river; but the French knights, having found a ford, traversed the stream without difficult, and routed the enemy with great slaughter. The loss of the Christians was so small, consisting only of one knight,39 who perished in the river, that they as usual 205 had recourse to a miracle, to account for so cheap a victory.
Passing onward to Laodicea they found the town completely deserted, and the environs laid waste; and they here heard of the complete destruction of that part of the German army, which had been commanded by the Bishop of Freysinghen.40 In the second day’s journey, after quitting Laodicea, a steep mountain presented itself before the French army, which marched in two bodies, separated by a considerable distance. The commander of the first division, named Geoffroy de Rancun,41 had received orders from the king, who remained with the rear-guard, to halt on the summit of the steep, and there pitch the tents for the night. That Baron, unencumbered by baggage, easily accomplished the ascent, and finding that the day’s progress was considerably less than the usual extent of march, forgot the commands he had received, and advanced two or three miles beyond the spot specified.
The king, with the lesser body of effective troops and the baggage, followed slowly up the mountain, the precipitous acclivity of which rendered the footing of the horses dreadfully insecure, while immense masses of loose stone gave way at every step under the feet of the crusaders,42 and hurried many down into a deep abyss, through which a roaring torrent was rushing onward towards the sea. Suddenly, as they were toiling up, the whole army of the Turks, who had remarked the separation of the division, and watched their moment too surely, appeared on the hill above. A tremendous shower of arrows instantly assailed the Christians. The confusion and dismay were beyond description: thousands fell headlong 206 at once down the precipice, thousands were killed by the masses of rock, which the hurry and agitation of those at the top hurled down upon those below; while the Turks, charging furiously all who had nearly climbed to the summit, drove them back upon the heads of such as were ascending.
Having concluded43 that his advance-guard had secured the ground above, Louis, with the cavalry of his division, had remained in the rear, to cover his army from any attack. The first news of the Turkish force being in presence, was gathered from the complete rout of the foot-soldiers, who had been mounting the hill, and who were now flying in every direction. The king instantly sent round his chaplain, Odon de Deuil, to seek for the other body under Geoffroy de Rancun, and to call it back to his aid; while in the mean time he spurred forward with what cavalry he had, to repel the Turks and protect his infantry. Up so steep an ascent the horses could make but little progress, and the Moslems, finding that their arrows turned off from the steel coats of the knights, aimed at the chargers, which, often mortally wounded, rolled down the steep, carrying their riders along with them. Those knights who succeeded in freeing themselves from their dying steeds were instantly attacked by the Turks, who, with fearful odds on their side, left hardly a living man of all the Chivalry that fought that day. The king even, dismounted by the death of his horse, was surrounded before he could well rise; but, catching the branches of a tree, he sprang upon a high insulated rock, where, armed with his sword alone, he defended himself, till the night falling, freed him from his enemies. His situation now would have been little less hazardous than it was before, had he not luckily encountered a part of the infantry who had remained with the baggage. He was thus enabled, with what troops he could rally, to make 207 his way during the night to the advance-guard, which had, as yet, remained unattacked. Geoffroy de Rancun had nearly been sacrificed to the just resentment of the people, but the uncle of the king having been a participator in his fault, procured him pardon; and the army, which was now reduced to a state of greater discipline than before, by the Grand Master of the Templars,44 who had accompanied it from Constantinople, arrived without much more loss at Attalia.45 Here the Greeks proved more dangerous enemies than the Turks, and every thing was done that human baseness and cunning could suggest, to plunder and destroy the unfortunate crusaders.
Much discussion now took place concerning their further progress, and the difficulties before them rendered it necessary that a part of the host should proceed by sea to Antioch. The king at first determined that that part should be should be the pilgrims on foot; and that he himself with his Chivalry, would follow the path by land. The winter season, however, approaching, the scanty number of vessels that could be procured, and the exorbitant price which the Greeks demanded for the passage of each man — being no less than four marks of silver46 — rendered the transport of the foot impossible. Louis, therefore, eager to reach Jerusalem, distributed what money he could spare amongst the pilgrims, engaged at an enormous price a Greek escort and guide to conduct them by land to Antioch, left the Count of Flanders to command them, and took ship with the rest of his knights. The Count of Flanders soon found that the Greeks, having received their reward, refused to fulfil their agreement, and the impossibility of reaching Antioch without their aid being plain, he embarked and followed the king.
The unhappy pilgrims, who remained cooped up 208 beneath the walls, which they were not permitted to enter, on the one hand, and the Turkish army that watched them with unceasing vigilance, on the other, died, and were slaughtered by thousands. Some strove to force their passage to Antioch by land, and fell beneath the Moslem scimitar. Some cast themselves upon the compassion of the treacherous Greeks, and were more brutally treated than even by their infidel enemies. So miserable at length became their condition, that the Turks themselves ceased to attack them, brought them provisions and pieces of money, and showed them that compassion which their fellow-Christians refused. Thus in the end, several hundreds attached themselves47 to their generous enemies and were tempted to embrace the Moslem creed. The rest either became slaves to the Greeks, or died of pestilence and famine.
In the mean while, Louis and his knights48 arrived at Antioch, where they were received with the appearance of splendid hospitality by Raimond, the prince of that city, who was uncle of Eleonor, the wife of the French monarch. His hospitality, however, was of an interested nature: Antioch and Tripoli hung upon the skirts of the kingdom of Jerusalem as detached principalities, whose connexion with the chief country was vague and insecure. No sooner, therefore, did the news of the crossing of the king of France reach the princes of those cities, than they instantly laid out a thousand plans for engaging Louis in extending the limits of their territories, before permitting him to proceed to Jerusalem. The Prince of Antioch assuredly, had the greatest claim upon the king, by his relationship to the queen;49 and he took every means of working on the husband, by ingratiating himself with the wife. Eleonor was a woman of strong and violent passions,50 and of debauched and 209 libertine manners, and she made no scruple of intriguing and caballing with her uncle to bend the king to his wishes. The Archbishop of Tyre, who was but little given to repeat a scandal, dwells with a tone of certainty upon the immoral life of the Queen of France, and says, she had even consented that her uncle should carry her off, after Louis had formally refused to second his efforts against Cesarea.
However that may be, her conduct was a disgrace to the crusade; and Louis, in his letters to Suger, openly complained of her infidelity.
The king resisted all entreaties and threats, and, equally rejecting the suit of the Count of Tripoli,51 he proceeded to Jerusalem, where the emperor Conrad, having passed by sea from Constantinople, had arrived before him. Here the whole of the princes were called to council; and it was determined that, instead of endeavouring to retake Edessa, which had been the original object of the crusade, the troops of Jerusalem, joined to all that remained of the pilgrim armies, should attempt the siege of Damascus. The monarchs immediately took the field, supported by the knights of the Temple and St. John, who, in point of courage, equalled the Chivalry of any country, and, in discipline, 210 excelled them all. Nourhaddin and Saphaddin, the two sons of the famous Zenghi, threw what men they could suddenly collect, into Damascus, and hastened in person to raise as large a force as possible to attack the Christian army. The crusaders advanced to the city, drove in the Turkish outposts52 that opposed them, and laid siege to the fortifications, which in a short time were so completely ruined, that Damascus could hold out no longer. And yet Damascus did not fall. Dissension, that destroying angel of great enterprises, was busy in the Christian camp. The possession of the still unconquered town53 was disputed among the leaders. Days and weeks passed in contests, and at length, when it was determined that the prize should be given to the Count of Flanders, who had twice visited the Holy Land, the decision caused so much dissatisfaction, that all murmured and none acted. Each one suspected his companion; darks reports and scandalous charges were mutually spread and countenanced; the Templars were accused of having received a bribe from the infidels; the European monarchs54 were supposed to aim at the subjugation of Jerusalem; the conquerors were conquered by their doubts of each other; and, retiring from the spot where they had all but triumphed, they attempted to storm the other side of the city, where the walls were as firm as a rock of adamant.
Repenting of their folly, they soon were willing to return to their former ground, but the fortifications had been repaired, the town had received fresh supplies, and Saphaddin, Emir of Mousul, was marching to its relief. Only one plan was to be pursued. The siege was abandoned, and the leaders,55 discontented with 211 themselves and with each other, retreated gloomily to Jerusalem.
The Emperor of Germany set out immediately for Europe; but Louis, who still hoped to find some opportunity of redeeming his military fame, lingered for several months; while Eleonor continued to sully scenes, whose memory is composed of all that is holy, with her impure amours. At length the pressing entreaties of Suger, induced the French monarch to return to his native land. There he found the authority he had confided to that great and excellent minister had been employed to the infinite benefit of his dominions — he found his finances increased, and order established in every department of the state;56 — and he found, also, that the minister was not only willing, but eager, to yield the reins of government to the hand from which he had received them. During the absence of the king, his brother, Robert of Dreux, who returned before him, had endeavoured to thwart the noble Abbot of St. Denis, and even to snatch the regency from him; but Suger boldly called together a general assembly of the nobility of France, and intrusted his cause to their decision. The court met at Soissons, and unanimously supported the minister against his royal opponent; after which he ruled, indeed, in peace; but Robert strove by every means to poison the mind of the king against him; and it can be little doubted, that Louis, on his departure from Palestine, viewed the conduct of Suger with a very jealous eye.
The effects of his government, however, and the frankness with which he resigned it, at once did away all suspicions. The expedition was now over, but yet one effort more was to be made, before we can consider the second crusade as absolutely terminated.
212Suger had opposed the journey of the king to the Holy Land, but he was not in the least wanting in zeal, or compassionate enthusiasm in favour of his brethren of the east.57 Any thing but the absence of a monarch from his unquiet dominions, he would have considered as a small sacrifice towards the support of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and now, at seventy years, he proposed to rise an army at his own expense, and to finish his days in Palestine. His preparations were carried on with an ardour, an activity, an intelligence, which would have been wonderful even in a man at his prime; but, in the midst of his designs, he was seized with a slow fever, which soon showed him that his end was near. He saw the approach of death with firmness; and, during the four months that preceded his decease, he failed not from the bed of sickness to continue all his orders for the expedition, which could no longer bring living glory to himself. He named the chief whom he thought most worthy to lead it; he bestowed upon him all the treasures he had collected for the purpose; he gave him full instructions for his conduct, and he made him swear upon the cross to fulfil his intentions. Having done this, the Abbot of St. Denis waited calmly the approach of that hour which was to separate him from the living; and died, leaving no one like him in Europe.
With his life appears to have ended the second crusade, which, with fewer obstacles and greater facilities than the first, produced little but disgrace and sorrow to all by whom it was accompanied.58
[213]1 Mills says “The news of the loss of the eastern frontier of the Latin Kingdom, reached France at a time peculiarly favourable for foreign war.” It will be seen that I have taken up a position as exactly the reverse of that assumed by that excellent author as can well be conceived; but I have not done so without much investigation, and the more I consider the subject, the more I am convinced, that the moment when the feudal power was checked by the king and assailed by the communes, was not the most propitious to call the nobility to foreign lands — that the moment in which the burghers were labouring up hill for independence, was not a time for them to abandon the scene of their hopes and endeavours — and that the moment when a kingdom was torn by conflicting powers, when the royal authority was unconfirmed, and the nobility only irritated at its exertion, was not the period that a monarch should have chosen to quit his dominions.
2 A curious essay might be written on the classes or castes in Europe at that period. It is quite a mistaken notion which some persons have entertained, that the only distinctions under the monarch were, noble and serf. We find an immense class, or rather various classes, all of which consisted of freemen, interposed between the lord and his slave. Thus Galbertus Syndick of Bruges, in recounting the death of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, A. D. 1130, mentions not only the Burghers of the town, but various other persons who were not of the noble race, but were then evidently free, as well as the Brabançois or Cotereaux, a sort of freebooting soldier of that day. Guibert of Nogent also, in his own life, and Frodoardus in the history of Rheims, refer to many of whose exact station it is difficult to form an idea.
3 Rouillard, Histoire de Melun; Vie de Bouchard.
4 I know that I use this word not quite correctly, but I can find none other to express more properly what I mean.
5 Suger in vit. Ludovic. VI.
6 Galbert in vit. Carol.
7 Suger in vit. Ludovic. VI.
8 Chron. Vezeliac.
9 Guibert. Nog. in vit. s.
10 Chron. Vezeliac.
11 Gesta regis Ludovici VII.
12 The only two I know who accompanied this crusade, and wrote any detailed account of it, are Odon de Deuil, or Odo de Diagolo, and Frisingen, or Freysinghen. It is an extraordinary fact that the Cardinal de Vitry makes no mention of the second crusade.
13 William of St. Thierry, Mabillon.
14 Geoffroi de Clairvaux; Continuation of the Life of St. Bernard.
15 Odo of Deuil.
16 Mabillon.
17 Guizot.
18 A. D. 1147.
19 Odon de Deuil.
20 William of Tyre.
21 Odon de Deuil.
22 See note X.
23 It appears from the passage of Odo of Deuil which mentions the curious servility, as he designates it, of the Greek never sitting down in the presence of a superior till desired to do so, that the French of that day were not quite so ceremonious as in that of Louis XIV.
24 Odo of Deuil.
25 Nicetas.
26 Cinnamus, cited by Mills.
27 Odon de Deuil.
28 Odon de Deuil.
29 Manuel Comnenus had married Bertha, and Conrad Gertrude, both daughters of Berenger the elder, Count of Sultzbach.
30 Odon de Deuil.
31 William of Tyre; Odon de Deuil.
32 The Pope, in his exhortation to the second crusade, had not only regulated the general conduct of the crusaders, and formally absolved all those who should embrace the cross, but he had given minute particulars for their dress and arms, expressly forbidding all that might encumber them in their journey, such as heavy baggage, and vain superfluities, and all that might lead them from the direct road, such as falcons and hunting-dogs. “Happy had it been for them,” says Odo of Deuil, “if, instead of a scrip, he had commanded the foot pilgrims to bear a cross-bow, and instead of a staff, a sword.”
33 Odo of Deuil; Will. Tyr.
34 Will. Tyre. Odon de Deuil; Gest. Ludovic. VII.; Nicetas.
35 Odon de Deuil.
36 Will. Tyr.; Odon de Deuil.
37 Odon de Deuil; Freysinghen; William of Tyre.
38 William of Tyre.
39 Odon de Deuil.
40 Odo of Deuil always calls Otho, Bishop of Freysinghen, brother of the Emperor Conrad. He was, however, only a half-brother; his relationship being by the mother’s side.
41 Will. Tyrens. lib. xvi.; Odon de Deuil.
42 Odon de Deuil; Will. Tyr.
43 Odon de Deuil.
44 Odon de Deuil.
45 William of Tyre.
46 Odon de Deuil.
47 Odon de Deuil.
48 William of Tyre; Vertot.
49 Gest. Ludovic. regis; William of Tyre; Vertot.
50 Vertot, a learned man and a diligent investigator, speaks of Eleonor in the following curious terms: “On pretend que cette princesse, peu scrupuleuse sur ses devoirs, et devenue éprise d’un jeune Turc baptisé appellé Saladin, ne pouvait se résoudre à s’en séparer, &c.” [People claim that this princess, little scrupulous in her duties, she even fell in love with a young baptized Turk named Saladin, nor was she willing to bring herself to separate from him. — Elf.ed.] These reports of course gave rise to many curious suppositions, especially when Richard Cœur de Lion, Eleonor’s son by her second marriage, went to war in the Holy Land. On his return to France, Louis VII. instantly sought a plausible pretext for delivering himself from his unfaithful wife without causing the scandal of a public exposure of her conduct. A pretence of consanguinity within the forbidden degrees was soon established, and the marriage was annulled. After this Eleonor, who, in addition to her beauty and wit, possessed in her own right the whole of Aquitain, speedily gave her hand to Henry II. of England, and in the end figured in the tragedy of Rosamond of Woodstock.
51 William of Tyre; Vertot.
52 Gest. regis. Ludov. VII.
53 Vertot.
54 William of Tyre; Col. script. Arab.; Vertot.
55 William of Tyre; Freysinghen, reb. gest. Fred.; Gest. reg. Ludovic. VII.
56 Guil. Monach. in vit. Suger. Ab. Sanct. Dion.; Gest. reg. Lud. VII.
57 Guil. Monach. in vit. Sug.
58 All the writers of that day attempt to excuse St. Bernard for having preached a crusade which had so unfortunate a conclusion. The principles upon which they do so, are somewhat curious. The Bishop of Freysinghen declares that it was the vice of the crusaders which called upon their heads the wrath of Heaven; and, to reconcile this fact with the spirit of prophecy which elsewhere he attributes to the Abbot of Clairvaux, declares that prophets are not always able to prophecy. Fresing. de rebus gestis Fred. Imperat. Geoffroy of Clairvaux, who was a contemporary and wrote part of the Life of St. Bernard, would fain prove that the crusade could not be called unfortunate, since, though it did not at all help the Holy Land, it served to people heaven with martyrs.
* This is a quote from Virgil, referring to the Trojan Horse used by the Ancient Greeks in the war against Troy.