THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CRUSADES.

THERE

HERE are certain periods distinctly marked by events and effects peculiarly their own, in which the devastations of war and the fusings of contest or conquest produce characteristics wholly sui generis, and which mark an epoch in the condition of humanity— periods in which a new impulse is given to human thought and effort, new causes are set in operation, and greater and more wide-reaching effects are produced; from which, too, new characters, if not new races of men, are evolved. This was preeminently the case in the period embraced by the Crusades. When their history as to the field in which they operated, their causes, character, and effects are considered in the extent of their range and significance, it cannot but be acknowledged that they were the turning point not only of European, but even of Christian civilization.

This epoch, however, did not entirely take its rise with the first call to the Holy War at the close of the eleventh century, but may be traced back, as to its origin, to a date several centuries previous. At the close of the seventh decade of the sixth century, the city of Mecca had its population increased by one unit destined to become one of the most important factors in the progress of human events. Notable neither in its birth or parentage, having in itself nothing of special promise, it was yet not to be lost in the ever rising and falling

tide of humanity, but to grow and increase until the one babe should have become millions of men, and its increase a mighty force in one of the grandest movements of the world's history. For, from that humble birth sprang a multitudinous people, imbued with a religious enthusiasm and military ardor never before witnessed. Inspired with the belief of being chosen of God for the conquest of the world and the subjugation of all nations to the faith of Allah, they extended 'their conquests with such marvelous rapidity, that in little more than a hundred years they had spread from their obscure birth-place in Arabia to the Tagus of Spain, and the Ganges of India. Their military discipline and renown became the prolific source of heroic souls; their faith the promoter of learning, the patron of science, the nurse of art. But in all this, and more than all this, it was the sworn foe of the religion of the Cross. And the millions which adhered to and were inspired by this faith had a compact unity which made their assaults well-nigh irresistible, and their every attempt at further conquest an almost unvarying success. It is more than probable, if no cause had arisen to unite the peoples of Europe against the Moslem, he would, from his vantage-ground in Spain, Sicily, and Southern Italy, have completely overrun the Western continent, and subjected it to the dominion of the Crescent. Indeed, it was almost at this very period of the opening of the Crusades that Malek Shah contemplated a descent with his myriads upon Europe, which in the divided and chaotic state of its peoples could have made but trifling resistance. And, as all help from Eastern Christianity would have been looked for in vain, since the Greek empire, with its corrupt rulers, its effeminate people, and its degenerate soldiery, which had learned to tremble at the very name of Islam, could have interposed but a very frail barrier to the determined and impetuous onset of the followers of the False Prophet, there is little reason to doubt that Moslemism would have been established over all Europe. True, in that case all there was noble and beautiful in Oriental civilization might have become the heritage of the West; but what benefit this would ultimately have conferred, let the stagnation of the East for centuries past-its ignorance, its dead literature, its social degradation-answer. Christianity in such an event, though no one convinced of its divine origin and its inherent vitality can for a moment believe in the possibility of its utter extinction by any force or under any circumstances, yet, trampled down under the iron heel of its despotic and ruthless conqueror, it could have been capable of little more than a hidden and constantly struggling existence. The birth of Mohammed, then, was the first link in the great chain of events which led to the mighty

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drama of the middle ages, and the record of this drama is but the history of the gigantic struggle between Christianity and Islam.

The field of the Crusades had no less a boundary than nearly the whole of Europe, and all that part of Western Asia where the cause of Christ had ever obtained a foothold, centring, however, in and about one renowned city-Jerusalem. Europe, as Heeren says, was not only begirdled by, but attempted to be united into a mighty worldempire, by a most potent influence and bond, the Roman Hierarchy. The change which had taken place in this hierarchy about two decennials before the Crusades had not only revolutionized it, but had taken such powerful hold on all the diplomatic relations and policies of states that, during the entire two centuries of this period, Roman politics guided and directed the whole movement. And not only was there this intimate connection between the hierarchy, as a political power, and the Crusades, but their central idea, entertained by their originator, was at first received from this hierarchic world-policy. The working and effect of this, therefore, must be taken into account in studying the philosophy of the Crusades.

The daring and fertile brain of Hildebrand was the source whence this hierarchic idea mainly sprang, and his the bold and energetic spirit that sought to give it shape and scope. Under the guise of Reformer of the Christian world, he sought to lay his hand on every power and every state, to subject them to the untrammelled authority of the See of Rome. Long before this, ere he had ascended the papal chair, he had been the soul of the Roman hierarchy; and seeing how easily all things moved to his wishes, he seemed to see no serious obstacle in the way of establishing the universal and unlimited authority of the church over all conditions of society. His idea seemed to be, "the pope is Christ's vicegerent on earth, and as such is elevated above all human power;" but the pope being the head of the church, this, of course, involved the church's entire independence of the state. One of his first acts, therefore, was the release of the priesthood from their dependence on nobles and kings in the matter of investiture. But the liberty thus obtained by ecclesiastics was only to make them more subject to the church, which even then was intended to mean the pope. As to the state, they were more independent than any members of society ever have been or ought to be; as to the church, they were reduced to a more servile bondage than one would think would be willingly submitted to by any body of intelligent men. But this was not enough. Gregory VII also aimed at subjecting the whole civil power to that of the church. Equality · of authority was impossible; one or the other must be inferior and

subject, and Gregory determined that that one should not be the church. Of course this could not be effected without a struggle, and therefore, immediately on attaining to the papal power, he entered upon the contest. And not only did he make the attempt, but at the very outset he assumed the tone and mien of a superior to all other potentates. Rulers were but servants acting under divine authority; and that authority he assumed was not only represented by, but absolutely vested in, the pope. The kingdoms of Europe, with surprising alacrity, bowed their necks to the yoke. Hungary and Spain, Germany and France, England and Scandinavia, acknowledged his haughty assumptions, and sooner or later submitted. The crown of Russia, even, he pretended to give away, as if it had always been at his disposal. The Greek and Armenian churches-arch-rebels to Rome in her own view-he sought to cajole into a union with the Latin church, or menaced with his wrath. Wherever the Cross had had influence he extended his claim. And even the emperor of Morocco he addressed in the same lordly style as that he used towards the "sons of the church" who ruled in Europe. Such a man, of course, could not easily brook the oppressed condition of Christians in Jerusalem. Accordingly he early turned his attention thither, and called on the emperor-Henry the Fourth and his German people to deliver their Christian brethren out of the hands of the Turk, and promised Henry for this the recovery of his lost provinces from the Byzantine emperor and the glory of subjecting the Greek church to the authority of the papal chair. This was seconded also by the action of the intended victim himself. "The valiant lion," as his followers called · him, Alp Aislan, ruler of the Seljukian Turks, was striving to make himself master of the Byzantine empire. Already he threatened Constantinople. Michael VII, the Greek emperor, invoked Gregory's aid, and the latter exerted himself the more readily to enlist the princes of the West in counteracting the Turk's design, as he flattered himself that thus he would the sooner accomplish that one of his great objects, the union of the Greek and Latin churches. Thus the main idea of the Crusades, the elevation in the East of the Christian over the Moslem power, was already entertained by Gregory VII; and this, as well as the design of establishing the complete supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, did not slumber in the brain of his successors, but constantly became more and more pronounced, and the central thought of all pontifical action, until, under Urban II, this, as well as the preaching of the Hermit, had prepared all Christendom to respond to the call for the first Crusade with the unanimous cry, "Deus vult, Deus vult!"

If now we cast a glance at the condition of Europe, we shall see how that contributed to the easy furtherance of the grand idea, when once broached. Politically all Europe was feudal, its body politic being scarcely more than a rude sort of military system, if that can be called a system which was largely composed of the mere débris of former nationalities, broken and shattered by repeated foreign invasions and internal strife. There was not lacking, indeed, that natural dash and bravery which more or less is possessed by every individual man, but there was among the peoples nothing of that national esprit de corps which is as much the outgrowth of a patriotismfostering nationality as of military discipline. Feudalism means segregation. France was as distinct from, and almost as ignorant of Germany, as if their respective territories had been separated by oceans, instead of a narrow stream. Nay, not nations only, neighborhoods were segregated—each feudal lord being often but an isolated entity, acting for himself alone, without much care or thought of his neighbor, unless it was to meet in combat or carousal. And though there were superior lords and kings, yet in the homage to these there entered but little thought of that honor and obedience which an unswerving allegiance begets; their homage to superiors being as fickle as their friendship among equals. The feudatories, divided among themselves, waged war against their king. Hence genuine patriotism, in its fullest sense, was an almost impossibility. And in this is doubtless to be sought one of the reasons of that ease with which the people in such prodigious numbers were drawn from their native abodes to enlist under the banner of the Cross.

Socially, Europe, at the opening of the Crusades, was as chaotic as it was politically, having, with the exception of its general religious belief, scarcely a sentiment or interest in common. Education for the common people there was none, and even the greatest lords often knew not enough to read the title-deeds to their estates, if they ever troubled themselves about any such legal forms. Letters were confined mainly to the dank and dark walls of cloisters and monasteries. Refinement, as we now know it, was an unheard-of thing, a ducal hall having hardly as much ornamentation and comfort as a parlor of our cottagers. And as for the common people, they had abodes only; homes they scarcely knew. There was but one exception to this, and that was in those places where the Roman idea of municipality had either been preserved or re-established. It was emphatically the "Iron Age." Power, might, force, were the leading watch-words of the day, and that, of course, in an entirely material, barbaric sense. From this what could be expected but that cruelty and rapine should