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matters involved in the present enquiry. In
their laudable efforts for the overthrow of the
biwbear of Ecclesiastical Despotism, they
have seldom reflected deeply upon the cir
cumstances in which it had its origin. The
Church has been too often presented to the
view as some hateful and hideous monster —
-oine system of morals as much opposed to
the true principles of Religion, as at war with
the best interests of humanity.
Though the object of the present paper re
lates chiefly to the influence of the Crusades,
on the Arts and Literature of Europe, it may
he well, previously, to indulge in a rapid sur
vey of the derivation and extent of that as
tonishing command which the Christian
Church possessed, in an age of iron barba
rism, over the feelings and conduct of men—
especially too, as it is in that we are taught
to discover one of the chief inducements to
those projects, which form the subject of the
present essay.
At that well known period of history, when
the golden eagles of Caesar and the Antonines
having triumphed in every section of the
known world, beamed as proudly in the sun
light on the banks of the Ganges or Indus, as
on the shores of Britain or Gaul, or even at
home itself, power, civilization and refine
ment, seemed to have reached too, their far
thest limit. Impregnable from without, and
united within, Rome confided less in the pow
er of her arms than in the virtue and integrity
of her citizens.
This period was not of long duration. Em
pires are like individuals; no sooner do they
attain maturity and fulfil the great purposes
for which an overruling Providence called
them into existence, than decay and ultimate
dissolution imperceptibly steal over their bril
liancy. The cypress springs near the laurel and
mingles its breath with its sweetest perfume.
Those very instruments, by whose wonderful
prowess, when guided by virtue and public
spirit, Rome had attained so much splendor,
now changed into ruffian bands, whose venal
rapacity was only equalled by their boldness,
became the very agents of her punishment
and destruction.
Intoxicated with the spoil of conquered na
tions, and revelling amid their excesses, the
Imperial Government neglected the high trust,
which, though they had bargained and paid
for its exercise, it was still their duty to per
form. The protection of the frontiers, the re
dress of grievances and the suppression of re
volt, were altogether omitted. Experience
teaches that eternal vigilance is as necessary
for the preservation of authority as it is for
the safety of liberty itself. The vast tribes
of barbarians, who, though nominally inclu
ded within the limits of the empire, never felt
sympathy with either its laws, people or in
stitutions, now 7 seized the favorable opportu
nity of wreaking their long delayed, long an
ticipated, vengeance. Like some black cloud,
which is at first scarcely discernible, and
seems indeed a mere speck on the horizon,
but when augmented by others equally hos
tile, spreads its dark and lurid mass over the
whole face of the heavens, dealing around
destruction and death—so, favored by the cor
ruption and effeminacy of the times, the savage
Goths and Vandals, with the resisistless im
petuosity of the mountain torrent, rushed in
countless thousands over the feeble defences
s till left, and deluged the fallen empire with
ignorance, barbarity and superstition.
It is amid the chaotic mass of discordant
elements, which so complete a revolution
might be expected to create, that we are to
trace the origin of that anomalous jurisdiction
which the heads of the Christian Church sub
sequently exercised. It was founded upon
and supported by the stern rule of circum
stances. Individuals who acknowledged no
•superior upon earth, with whom physical
superiority and strength were the only re
ceived passports to distinction, were but ill
qualified* to enact the part of grave political
legislators, or an obedient and docile peop’e.
©© TT SHI IE m ILII IF ItEA Hi ¥ ®ASSIT IT S ♦
Thus, while Europe, resounding with the
intestine broils of the conquerors, presented
the appearance of one vast continued camp,
with every portion of her territory, atone time
or another, the theatre of angry contention,
and hut a single attempt made at the civil re
straint of her warlike inhabitants, under the
form of the Feudal System , (an institution ne
cessarily stamped with all the peculiarities of
the age,) —there was but one feeling in which
they all united—one power alone, to whose
influence all yielded universal assent. The
Church, the venerated depository of the sa
cred Truth of Divine Revelation, alone stood
on neutral ground, alike the sanctuary of
guilt the shield of innocence, and the uncom
promising foe of civil oppression. The only
light in those dark and benighted times, we
are filled with admiration when we see its
once despised emblem, surrounded by the
crush of falling empires and exploded sys
tems, rising triumphantly above the gloom of
ignorance and the terrors of persecution.
A comprehensive sketch like the present,
will not allow us space for more than a pass
ing notice of the principal features of that re
markable institution, to which we have ad
verted.
Every trace of Roman laws, institutions
and civilization having been abolished, that
stupendous fabric was erected in their stead,
which, successively adopted in every part of
Europe, continued the settled policy of the
Continent for so many hundred years after.
Founded upon a continued connecting link of
Military Despotism, from the king or chief
lord of the fee, down to the “villein” or cul
tivator of the soil, the juramentum fidelitatis
bound the feudatary to hold himself in abso
lute subjection each to his immediate superior.
The generous personal independence of mod
ern times was never dreamed of. The com
parative freedom of Rome was regarded as
the badge of an effeminacy they were deter
mined to extirpate, and its benefits forgotten
in their abhorrence of every thing that de
rived its existence from her hated race. The
singular spectacle is now 7 presented often in
the most narrow 7 territory of Europe, of scores
of petty kings, each absolute w r ithin his small
limits, no longer bound together by a common
tie of interest and affection, but constantly en
gaged in fierce and deadly strife w 7 ith each
other. ‘Those arms which had humbled to
the dust the haughty pride of Rome, and the
polished refinement of Athens, now turned
with equal animosity against themselves. To
theii credit be it said, that it is to the monks
of the middle ages that w 7 e owe much that we
now 7 hold dear or sacred. How 7 much would
modern times have known of the variety and
copiousness of Homer, the graceful polish of
Virgil, the terseness of Sallust, or the energy
of Demosthenes, if these estimable men had
not spent their lives and energies in the glo
rious taste of hoarding up and preserving amid
the gloom of their cloisters, the immortal pro
ductions of their unrivalled genius ? Poster
ity indeed ow r es a deep debt of gratitude to
these rnucli reviled ecclesiastics—and posteri
ty alone can pay it!
Tom by anarchy and civil commotion,
wdiich with fearful precision was wasting her
energies and depopulating her territory, Eu
rope suffered equally, no matter whose brow
was enwreathed by the laurel of victory.—
The iron hand of oppression still continued
to crush every attempt at the establishment of
Reform. The productive classes of society
still groaned in a state of the most abject sla
very, and had it not been for that great enter
prize which now 7 arose like some mighty and
universal impulse to govern and direct the
public mind, it would be difficult to estimate
how long the march of improvement might
have been retarded.
The deep veneration and respect which the
Church always encouraged, and a Christian
people will always feel for those countries in
which the sublime mysteries of man's atone
ment were enacted, have alwav; lent to the
name of Palestine a charm and an association
peculiar to itself. Here did pilgrims, assem
bling from every clime and nation under the
sun, wherever the blessings of Christianity
had been permitted to penetrate, rejoice to
bend their weary footsteps, in the evening of
life —happy, if in their dying hour, their fa
ding sight could catch the last rays of the set
ting sun, streaming amid scenes rendered sa
cred by the passion and sufferings of the Re
deemer of mankind ’
For, long after the conversion of Constan
tine, this desire of visiting scenes so holy
could be exercised with perfect freedom from
restraint. The journey w r as comparatively
easy, and thousands stood ready to aid the
pilgrim in a duty considered imperative on
all. But towards the end of the eleventh cen
tury, the holy land, and consequently the sa
cred relics at Jerusalem, having fallen into
the hands of the successors of Mahomet, the
pious devotees then first began to experience
difficulty in the performance of their accus
tomed devotions, until at length the cupidity
and intolerance of the Turkish Government
rendered it a matter perilous and venturesome
in the extreme.
it would seem hardly necessary to state the
effect which an occurrence like this was so
w 7 ell calculated to produce ; the universal in
dignation thus excited, was every day renewed
by successive recitals of inhuman cruelties
committed in the Holy Land—of unprovoked
insults offered to Religion, and of the merci
less massacre of the Pilgrims, until the public
mind had reached-that, state of moral phrenzy
and enthusiasm, when the slightest impulse
would have been sufficient to put the whole
mass into the most violent commotion.
To the considerate and well informed, to
whom alone we address these pages, it would
appear superfluous to enter into any detail of
those movements which, arising more imme
diately from the efforts of Peter the Hermit,
have been so fully and justly displayed in
their subsequent progress, by numerous and
skilful writers since the very eraof their com
mencement. Nor are we inclined to incur
the just censure of Addison, by encumbering
the columns of this journal with an account
of a matter with which few are unacquaint
ed, and upon whose general features all are
agreed. That persons bearing the sacred
standard of the Cross did commit excesses
worthy of the most unmitigated censure, we
cannot here deny, when we have authorities
such as those of Guibert de Nogent, Baldric,
and others equally respectable, to sustain that
position. But the experience of all times,
(and although on a much smaller scale in our
own favored land,) sufficiently justifies the
assumption that periods of popular excite
ment while they encourage the growth of
public virtue, afford also the most favorable
occasion for the triumph of abandoned des
peradoes, who, infamous in crime and brutal
in desire, have no other aim than that of grat
ifying their impious passions, amidst the ruin
and devastation of their country.
It is upon these grounds we draw the broad
line of distinction between those who acted
solely’ from a religious, though perhaps fanat
ical impulse, and men who had merely in
view the promotion of their own selfish inter
ests. W e are not to conclude that because
these crimes took place at this particular
moment, and among men in apparent connec
tion with the objects of the Crusaders, that it
would necessarily iollow that all were alike
imbued with a similar spirit, it is only after
the habitual exercise of private injustice and
fraud, that the criminal becoming more bold
and fearless, at length ventures in public to
commit offences which inevitably draw down
upon him the punishment so justly their due.
By far advanced along the toilsome path of
human existence, and uninfluenced by the
force of circumstances which then obtained,
with untroubled calmness and the sober spirit
of true philosophy, we can now look back
and view those actions in which the most ar
dent feelings of the human breast were once
absorbed. Inflexible in the pursuit of truth,
we bring them to the bar of an enlightened
criticism, and compare at the same moment,
the events, themselves, their causes and their
consequences.
Times of popular convulsion and excitement
have been always remarked to have produced
the most salutary influence on the moralchar
acter and intellectual advancement of nations.
It was amid the perilous exigencies in which
Greece was often placed during the contests
with the grasping ambition of Persia, that her
mental and intellectual superiority attained
that maturity and preeminence which gave
the sons of her Athens and Sparta the highest
place among the defenders of Western Europer
and bequeathed to posterity 7 , with the glowing
language of her Thucydides and Plutarch,
those brilliant examples of daring valor and
heroic self-devotion which have alike immor
talized the classic land in which they, took
place, the actors themselves, and the writers
who described them!
The commotion of civil war preceded the
genius and refinement of the Augustan age,
and the frantic spirit of the Crusaders awoke
Literature a # nd the Arts from the sleep of five
long centuries.
I. On turning over the historical records of
this important era, the philosophic enquirer is
struck by the important changes which from
henceforth begin gradually to develope them
selves over the face of Europe. Their ener
gies spent in the holy wars, and their minds
improved by the advantages of travel, the
haughty barons were at first less capable of
resisting the encroachment of regal power and
afterwards better satisfied with that regular
and orderly administration of government to
which it gave rise. The Feudal System at
length falls before the increased force of civil
authority. Private corporations# begin to be
instituted and encouraged, become wealthy
communities bound together by a mutability
of interest, forming as well the most powerful
check upon the usurpations and oppression ot
the nobility, as the nucleus around which the
scattered elements of social combination might
once more be collected. The removal ol so
great an obstacle in the path of improvement
thus caused by the Crusades, may be legiti
mately considered as the first instance of their
beneficial tendency. The predominant mili
tary spirit of the age thus eradicated, the
minds of men turned for excitement to more
pleasing pursuits —and hence did they also
give the first impulse to the cause of Litera
ture and Science.
11. No sooner had the causes heretofore
mentioned began to operate, and the unsettled
habits of the people, through their means, ac
quired that permanence and consistency with
out which literary merit can never be ob
tained, than the flowers of literature, which
before bloomed scatteringly and neglected,
now’ sprung up in unbidden myriads to the
sight giving rich promise of future excellence.
The choicest gems of Arabian andO*ntal
learning were introduced and studied with
aviditv. and the seeds of that intellectual
J 7
Greatness sown, even in whose first fruits we
© 1
may discover much of that freshness and en
ergetic beauty of conception which have
above all distinguished the writings of aTasso
and a Dante. The palaces and the public
buildings assume a more gorgeous and stately
appearance ; the churches in particular, be
come remarkable for beauty and magnificence,
and the genius of sculpture and painting, em
boldened by the return of public prosperity,
and the encouragement of taste assume a vig
or and perfection which has not been since,
and probably never will be, surpassed, hol
lowing the chain of events, link by link, in
the improved condition of society 7 and the re
newed taste for Literature and the Arts, we
discern the second of the beneficial results
which followed the prosecution of ihe Cru
sades.
111. Nor should we close this imperfect
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