CHAP. III. § 1. The inhabitants of the Byzantine empire were from early times familiarised with the passage of immense caravans of pilgrims, and due arrangements were made for this intercourse, which was a regular source of profit. Even the Saracens had generally treated the pilgrims with consideration, as men who were engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. The chronicles of the time relate that a band of pilgrims amounting to seven thousand, led by the archbishop of Mentz and four bishops, passed through Constantinople in the reign of Constantine X. (Ducas.)1 Near Jerusalem they were attacked by wandering tribes, but were relieved by the Saracen emir of Ramla, who hastened to their assistance. The conquests of the Seljouk Turks had already thrown all Syria into a state of disorder, and the Bedouin Arabs began to push their plundering excursions far into the cultivated districts. This army of pilgrims was prevented from visiting the Jordan and the Dead Sea by the robbers of the desert, and it is reported that the caravan lost three thousand of its number before returning home. The misfortunes of so numerous a body of men resounded throughout the Christian world; and year after year bringing tidings of new disasters, the fermentation of the public mind continually increased. No distinct project was formed for delivering the holy sepulchre, but a general desire was awakened to remedy the insecurity attending the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The conquest of Palestine by the Seljouk Turks, in 1076, increased the disorders. These nomades neglected to guard the roads, and augmented the exactions on the pilgrims. In the West, the passion for pilgrimages was increasing, while in the East, the dangers to which the pilgrims were exposed were augmenting still more rapidly. A cry for vengeance was the consequence. The Franks and Normans were 1 A.D. 1064 or 1065. Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, i. 67, who refers to Annalium Baronii epitome, p. 11, cap. v. p. 432. PILGRIMAGES IN ELEVENTH CENTURY. 83 § 1. men of action, more prompt to war than to complaint. CHAP. III. The mine was already prepared, when Peter the Hermit applied the match to the inflammatory materials. Commercial interests were not unconnected with the origin of the Crusades, for they tended at least to cement the unanimity in all classes of society. The commercial enterprise of the age was perhaps too confined for us to attribute to commerce a prominent part in producing these great expeditions; but if all notice of the facts that connect them with the progress of trade were to be overlooked, a very inaccurate idea would be formed of the various causes of their origin. Commerce exercised almost as much influence in producing the Crusades, as the Crusades did in improving and extending the relations of commerce.1 It must be observed that the early Crusaders followed the routes used by the commercial caravans which carried on the trade between Germany, Constantinople, and Syria. This had been very considerable in earlier times, and had enriched the Avars and the Bulgarians.2 From Constantinople to Antioch, the great road had always been much frequented, until the commercial communications in Asia Minor were deranged by the incursions of the Seljouk Turks. In the year 1035, before their arrival, Robert, Duke of Normandy, called Robert the Devil, the father of William the Conqueror, when on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem with a numerous suite, joined a caravan of merchants travelling to Antioch, in order to traverse Asia Minor under their guidance. The great losses of the Crusaders in their 1 Thirty-five years before the Crusades, Ingulph, the Secretary of William the Conqueror, mentions that in returning from the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he found a fleet of Genoese merchantmen at Jaffa, in one of which he took his passage to Europe. Histoire de la République de Gènes, par Vincens, 1. 40. 2 Capitularies of Charlemagne, Baiuze, i. 755. The Bulgarian trade is mentioned by Suidas, v. Bouλyapoi. The pilgrimage of Robert the Devil was much talked of, and gives a good idea of the pilgrimages then in fashion with princes and nobles. He reached Constantinople with a numerous and splendid suite of Norman gentlemen. The emperor, Michael IV., received him at a public audience; but either $ 1. CHAP. III. expeditions by land, are not therefore to be attributed so much to absolute ignorance of the nature of the country, as to utter inattention to the arrangements required by their numbers, and to incapacity for exercising habitual forethought and restraint. As early as the first Crusade, the fleets of the Italian republics would have sufficed to transport large armies direct to Palestine. The Venetians and Byzantines are said by Anna Comnena to have lost thirteen thousand men in a naval defeat they sustained from Robert Guiscard, near Corfu, in 1084; and the Byzantine princess can hardly be suspected of any wish to magnify the losses of her father's subjects and allies.1 Amalfi, Pisa, and Genoa were all able to send large fleets to Palestine as soon as they heard that the Crusaders had got possession of Jerusalem.2 During the age immediately preceding the Crusades, society had received a great development, and commerce had both aided and profited by the movement. There is no greater anachronism than to suppose that the commercial greatness of the Italian republics arose out of these expeditions. Their commerce was already so extensive, that the commercial alarm caused by the conduct of the Seljouk Turks was really one of the causes of the Crusades. The caravans of pilgrims which repaired from personal vanity, or the pride of Byzantine etiquette, the Paphlagonian moneychanger, whom a turn of fortune had seated on the throne of Constantine, left the Duke standing. Robert made a sign to his companions to imitate his proceedings. All dropped their rich velvet cloaks and sate down on them. On quitting the audience chamber they left their cloaks on the ground. A chamberlain followed to remind them, but Robert replied, "It is not the usage of Norman gentlemen to carry away their chairs." As he was travelling through Asia Minor, he was met by a Norman pilgrim, who asked him if he had any message to send home. The Duke was in a litter, carried by four negroes. "Tell them in Normandy that you saw me carried to heaven by four devils," was all he had to say. He was poisoned at Nicæa, on his return, by one of his attendants. 1 Anna Comnena, 161. A ship at this time generally carried one hundred and forty men. The Norman fleet consisted of one hundred and twenty ships. Gullielmus Apul., lib. v. Anna Comnena, 336, mentions a Pisan fleet. $2. annually to the East, supplied Europe with many neces- CHAP. III. sary commodities, whose augmented price was felt as a universal grievance. The fair held at Jerusalem during Easter was at that time of great commercial importance to all the nations of Europe, and this market was in danger of being closed. The commerce of the East, if it were allowed to exist at all by the Mahommedans, seemed to be in danger of becoming a monopoly in the hands of the Greeks. Thus we see that the Norman and Frank spirit of adventure, the ancient superstitions of the people, the interests of the Latin church, the cruelties of the Mahommedans, and the commercial necessities of the times, all conspired to awaken enthusiastic aspirations after something greater than the commonplace existence of ordinary life in the eleventh century; and every class of society found its peculiar passions gratified by the great cry for the deliverance of Christ's tomb from the hands of the infidels. The historians of the Crusades often endeavour to give a miraculous character to the effects of the preaching of Peter the Hermit; but we have seen in our own day Father Mathews in morals, and Daniel O'Connell in politics, produce almost as wonderful effects. SECT. II. QUARRELS WITH THE BYZANTINE EMPERORS DURING THE The disputes that occurred between the emperor Alexius I. and the earliest Crusaders have been recounted by historians and novelists. The conduct of the Byzantine emperor was certainly deficient both in prudence and good faith; but it must not be forgotten that his enmity was justified by the rapacity of the Crusaders, who plundered his subjects, and the inso CHAP. III. lence of their leaders who insulted his authority and his The Franks and Byzantine Greeks were in conditions of society too dissimilar for them to associate familiarly, without forming erroneous estimates of their respective characters. Political order and civil law were in the opinion of the Greeks the true bonds of society: the right of the individual to redress his own wrongs with his sword, was among the Franks the most valuable privilege of existence. The authority of the central government, in the well-organised administration of the Byzantine empire, reduced the greatest nobles to the rank of abject slaves in the opinion of the feudal barons; while the right of every private gentleman to decide questions of police and municipal law by an appeal to his sword, was a monstrous absurdity in the eyes of the Greeks, and rendered society among the Western nations little better than an assemblage of bandits. The conduct of the clergy did nothing to promote Christian charity. The contempt of the learned members of the Eastern church for the ignorance of their Latin brethren, was changed into abhorrence when they beheld men calling themselves bishops galloping about the streets of Constantinople in coats of mail. The Latin priesthood, on the other hand, despised both the pastors and the flocks, when they saw men hoping by scholastic phrases to influence the conduct of soldiers; and they condemned the Christianity which suffered its priests to submit to the authority of the civil magistrate in the servile spirit of the Greek clergy. In addition to this discordance in the elements of society, it is amusing to find the Greeks and Franks mutually accusing one another of precisely the same faults and vices. Both accuse their rivals of falsehood and treachery; 1 The Frank historians mention burning towns occupied by the heretical subjects of Alexius I., with singular indifference :-"Combussimus castrum cum habitatoribus suis, scilicet hæreticorum congregatione."-Gesta Franc. et alior. Hierosol., c. iv. Bongars. |