their hoy vow: and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of cowardice: the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre of Christ, was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength: and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in their footsteps. The ignorance which magnified the hopes, diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labours. Yet the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna, provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray, according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles, peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value of property was depreciated by the eager competition of multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers.(33) Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched by the epidemical disease; the sovereigns acquired at a cheap rate the domains of their vassals: and the ecclesiastical purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark; and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his breast, was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest benefices of Palestine.(34) [A. D. 1096.] The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims: but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians; and I shall briefly despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the chiefs. Early in the spring, from the con fines of France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Pennyless, a valiant though needy soldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims, whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine spirit. (35) Of these, and of other bands of enthusiasts, the first and

(33) Guibert (p. 481,) paints in lively colours this general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing before their eyes, Erat itaque videre miraculum caro omnes emere, atque vili vendere, &c.

(34) Some instances of these stigmata are given in the Esprit des Croisades (tom. iii. p. 169, &c.), from authors whom I have not seen.

(35) Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanæ levitatis,

most easy wartare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich, and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion. (36) At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred:(37) nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

[A. D. 1096.] Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse an interval of six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary(38) and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers; but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity: the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor; but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims. Agriculture must have been unskilful and languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek præfect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody.(39) About a third of the naked fugitives, and the hermit Peter was of the number, escaped to the Thracian mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succour of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses; but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment, than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor, and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road of Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Pennyless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without suc

anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundæ viæ fecerant, &c. (Albert. Aquensis. 1. i. c. 31, p. 196). Had these peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descendants would have glossed over with some specious and subtle allegory.*

(36) Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich, generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the Messiah (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier). In seventy years (he wrote about A. D. 1170,) they had recovered from these

massacres.

(37) These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true, that St. Bernard (Epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329,) admonishes the oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judæi, non sunt trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival monk.t (38) See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho of Frisingen, 1. ji. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665, 666.

(39) The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius, are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient and modern geography. Ante Portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson; Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith; Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg (de Regibus Hungariæ, tom. iii. p. 19-53.

cess to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumour that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Soliman tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nice; they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones(40) informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand had already perished before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise.(41)

None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent conquest; the kings of Spain were engaged in a domestic war against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland, Denmark,(42) Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the passions and interests of the South. The religious ardour was more strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an important place in the feudal system. Their situation will naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition, by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine,(43) was the inheritance of his mother; and, by the emperor's bounty, he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the Ardennes.(44) In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bear. ing arms against the pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but a deliverer. His valour was matured by prudence and moderation; his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon(45) was accompanied by his two brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine was alike celebrated on either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education he was equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine assembled their vassals; and the confederate force that marched under his banner was composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse. II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the

(40) Anne Comnena (Alexiad, 1. x. p. 287,) describes this osuv koλwros as a mountain vnλov xai βάθος και πλάτος αξιολογώτατον. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks themselves as the materials of a wall.

(41) See next page.

(42) The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted, and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of Tasso (tom. iv. p. 111–115).

(43) The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingea, or Lorraine, were broken into the two dutchies, of the Moselle, and of the Meuse; the first has preserved its name, which in the latter has been changed into that of Brabant (Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 283-288).

(44) See, in the Description of France, by the Abbé de Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54. Brabant, part ii. p. 47, 48. Bouillon, p. 134. On bis departure, Godfrey sold or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.

(45) See the family character of Godfrey, in William of Tyre, 1. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert (p. 485), liis sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur. (c. 78,1

king's presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh count of Vermandois was the most conspicuous of the princes who assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied, not so much to his merit or possessions (though neither were contemptible), as to the royal birth of the brother of the king of France.(46) Robert duke of Normandy was the eldest son of William the Conqueror; but on his father's death he was deprived of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks he mortgaged Normandy during his absence to the English usurper;(47) but his engagement and behaviour in the holy war, announced in Robert a reformation of manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem. Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which in this century gave three queens to the thrones of France, England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the Chris tians; but in the exploits of a soldier, he sometimes forgot the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature; and in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen(48) was chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who were possessed of three or four towns, would exceed, says a contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war.(49) III. In the south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar, bishop of Puy, the pope's legate, and by Raymond, count of St. Giles and Thoulouse, who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp, whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper, haughty, envious, and obstinate; and though he resigned an ample patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion, was not exempt from avarice and ambition.(50) A mercantile, rather than a martial, spirit, prevailed among his provincials, (51) a common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and Languedoc,(52) the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. From the

(46) Anne Comnena supposes that Hugh was proud of his nobility, riches, and power (1. x. p. 288): the last two articles appear more equivocal; but an evyeveia, which seven hundred years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.

(47) Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in Camden. Normanicis. He pawned the dutchy for one hundredth part of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields fifty-seven millions to the king (Necker, Administration des Finances, tom. i. p. 287).

(48) His original letter to his wife is inserted in the Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d'Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 63.

(49) Unius enim, duûm, trium seu quatuor oppidorum dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and interesting Guibert, p. 486).

(50) It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anne Comnen. Alexiad, I x. xi.) and the Arabians (Longueruana, p. 129).

(51) Omnes de Burgundiâ, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et Gothi (of Languedoc), provinciales appellabantur, cæteri vero Francigenæ et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.

(52) The town of his birth, or first appanage, was consecrated to St. Ægidius, whose name, as early as the first crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St. Giles. It is situate in the Lower Languedoc, between Nismes and the Rhône, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation of Rayinond (Melanges tirés d'une grande Bibliothèque, tom xxxvii p 51