BORDER FREEBOOTERS. Minstrelsy of Scottish Border, ib. VIEW OF SCOTTISH CAMP, A. D. 1513, AND CITY OF EDINBURGH FROM BLACKFORD HILL. Marmion, THE LAST MINSTREL. Lay of the Last Minstrel, READINGS FOR THE YOUNG. THE CRUSADERS. THE devotional journeys, called pilgrimages, to the tombs of the religious persons mentioned in Scripture, or the places where they had wrought their miracles, were accounted meritorious displays of piety, the performance of which, by the tenets of the Catholic Church, was held the surest and most acceptable mode of avertmg the wrath of Heaven for past transgressions, or exhibiting gratitude for mercies received. Men who were in difficulties or in dangers often made a vow, that, in the event of their being extricated, they would make a journey to some sanctified shrine in Italy or in Palestine, and there testify their sense of the protection of Heaven, by alms, prayers, and gifts to the church. The Holy Sepulchre itself, of which the site was handed down by tradition, was naturally a principal object of these religious peregrinations, as best entitled to the respect and adoration of all Christians. While Palestine remained a part of the Grecian cr A Eastern Empire, the access of the European pilgrims to the holy places which they desired to visit, was naturally facilitated by every means in the power of the Christian governors of the provinces where they lay, and of the priests to whose keeping these places were committed. Their churches were enriched by the gifts which failed not to express the devotion of the pilgrims, and the vanity of the priests was flattered by the resort of so many persons of consequence from the most distant parts of Christendom, to worship at their peculiar shrines. Even when, in the course of the tenth century, the Holy Land fell under the power of the Saracens, that people, although votaries of another faith, felt their own interest in permitting, under payment of a certain capitation tax, the concourse of European pilgrims to Jerusalem, and other places which they accounted sacred. But when the power of the Saracens was in a great measure divided or destroyed, and the Turks, also followers of Mahomet, but a far more rude and fanatical race, became masters of Jerusalem, the treatment of the Christians, whether natives of Palestine or pilgrims who came to worship there, was in every respect changed for the worse. The Saracens, a civilized and refined people compared with the Turks, had governed the country under fixed rules of tribute, and preferred the moderate but secure profit derived from the taxes imposed on the pilgrims, to that which might be obtained by a system of robbery, plunder, and ill-usage. But the Turks, a fiercer, more bigoted, and more short-sighted race, preferred the pleasure of insulting and maltreating the Christians, whom they contemned and hated, and not only harassed them by the most exorbitant exactions, but often added to these personal ill-usage of the most revolting kind. The pilgrims were entirely at the mercy of every paltry Turkish officer, and an act of devotion, in itself perilous and expensive, was rendered too frequently an introduction to martyrdom. The clergy of the Christians were insulted, stript, and thrown into dungeons; nor was any circumstance omitted by the savage masters of the Holy City, which could shew the pilgrims at how great a hazard they must in future expect permission to pay their homage there. These evils had been sufficiently felt by all who had visited the East, but at length they made so strong an impression on the spirit of one man, that, like fire alighting among materials highly combustible, the flame spread throughout all Europe. The person who effected so great a sensation by such slight means, was called Peter the Hermit. He was, we are informed, of a slight and indifferent figure, which sometimes exposed him to be neglected; but he was a powerful orator. He had himself been a pilgrim in Palestine, and possessed the impressive requisite that he could bear testimony as an eye-witness to the atrocities of the Turks, and the sufferings of the Christians. He repaired from court to court, from castle to castle, from city to city, setting forth at each the shame done to Christendom, in leaving the holiest places connected with her religion in possession of a heathen and barbarous foe. He appealed to the religion of one sovereign, to the fears of another, to the spirit of chivalry professed by them all. Urban II., then Pope, saw the importance of uniting the European nations, soldiers by habit and inclination, in a task so honourable to religion, and so likely to give importance to the Roman See. At the Council of Clermont [A.D. 1095], ambassadors from the Grecian emperor were introduced to the Assembly, who, with humble deference, stated to the prelates and the lay chivalry of Europe the dangers to their Christian sovereign, arising from the increasing strength of the Moslem empire, by which he was surrounded, and, forgetting the wordy and assuming language which they were accustomed to use, supplicated, with humiliating earnestness, the advantage of some assistance from Europe. The Pontiff himself set forth the advantage, or rather necessity of laying all meaner or more worldly tasks aside, until the Holy Land should be freed from the heathen usurpers who were its tyrants. To all, however criminal, who should lend aid to this sacred warfare, Urban promised a full remission of their sins here, and an indubitable portion of the joys of heaven hereafter. He then appealed to the temporal princes, with the enthusiastic quotation of such texts of Scripture as were most likely to inflame their natural valour. "Gird on your swords,” he said, ye men of valour; it is our part to pray, it is yours to fight. It is ours, with Moses, to hold up our hands unremittingly to God; it is yours to stretch out the sword against the children of Amalek.-So be it." The assembly answered, as to a summons blown by an archangel,"It is the will of God-it is the will of God!" Thousands devoted themselves to the service of God, as they imagined, and to the recovery of Palestine, with 66 |