[1] The reader will not need to be reminded of the striking summary given by Dr. Newman, in his Lectures on the Turks (pp. 131-133), of the successive measures, spiritual and otherwise, taken by the Popes, from the eleventh to the eighteenth century, to rouse Christendom to a common crusade against the Ottomans, and to mark each victory obtained over them as a fait accompli in the commemorations of the Church.
[2] St. John the Baptist, the patron of the Order.
[3] Roger of Wendover, in his Flowers of History, relates a similar instance of admirable courage on the part of the nuns of Coldingham in Berwickshire, when the country was invaded by the merciless Danes in the year 870. Assembling all the sisters, the holy abbess addressed them, and having obtained from them a promise of implicit obedience to her maternal commands, she “took a razor, and with it cut off her nose, together with her upper lip unto the teeth, presenting herself a horrible spectacle to those who stood by. Filled with admiration at this heroic deed, the whole community followed her example, and each did the like to themselves. With the morrow’s dawn came those most cruel tyrants, to disgrace the holy women dedicated to God, and to pillage and burn the monastery; but on beholding the abbess and all the sisters so frightfully mutilated and stained with their own blood from the sole of their foot unto their head, they retreated in haste from the spot, thinking a moment too long for tarrying there. But as they were retiring, the leaders ordered their wicked followers to set fire and burn the monastery, with all its buildings and its holy inmates. Which being done, the holy abbess and all the holy virgins with her attained the glory of martyrdom.”
[4] The legend is as follows: “A huge serpent, or crocodile,—for it is described as an amphibious animal,—had taken up its abode in a cavern on the brink of a marsh situated at the base of Mount St. Stephen, about two miles from the city, from whence it sallied forth frequently in search of prey. Not only cattle, but even men, became its victims; and the whole island trembled at its voracity. Knight after knight, ambitious of the renown of slaying such a monster, stole singly and secretly to its haunt, and never returned. The creature was covered with scales, which were proof against the keenest arrows and darts: and at length the grand master held it his duty to forbid the knights from courting so unequal an encounter. Deodato de Gozon, a knight of Provence, alone failed to respect this prohibition, and resolved to deliver the island from the monster, or perish. Having often reconnoitered the beast from a distance, he constructed a model of it of wood or pasteboard, and habituated two young bull-dogs to throw themselves under its belly on a certain cry being given, while he himself, mounted and clad in armour, assailed it with his lance. Having perfected his arrangements, he bestrode his charger, and rode down privately into the marsh, leaving several confidential attendants stationed in a spot from whence they could behold the combat. The monster no sooner beheld him approach, than it ran, with open mouth and eyes darting fire, to devour him. Gozon charged it with his lance; but the impenetrable scales turned aside the weapon; and his steed, terrified at the fierce hissing and abominable effluvium of the creature, became so ungovernable that he had to dismount and trust to his good sword and his dogs. But the scales of the monster were as proof against his falchion as his lance. With a slap of its tail it dashed him to the earth, and was just opening its voracious jaws to devour him, helmet, hauberk, spurs and all, when his faithful dogs gripped it tightly with their teeth in a vulnerable part of the belly. On this the knight quickly sprang to his feet, and thrust his sword up to the hilt in a place which had no scales to defend it. The monster, rearing itself in agony, fell with a tremendous hiss on the knight, and again prostrated him in the dust; and though it instantly gasped its last, so prodigious was its size that Gozon would have been squeezed to death, had not his attendants, seeing the object of their terror deprived of life, made haste to his assistance. They found their master in a swoon; but after they had with great difficulty drawn him from under the serpent, he began to breathe again, and speedily recovered. The fame of this achievement being bruited in the city, a multitude of people hurried forth to meet him. He was conducted in triumph to the grand master’s palace; but that dignitary, heedless of popular acclamation, sternly demanded wherefore he had violated his orders, and commanded him to be carried to prison. At a subsequent meeting of the council he proposed that the culprit should atone for his disobedience with his life; but this severe sentence was mitigated to a deprivation of the habit of the order. To this degradation he was forced to submit; but in a little time the grand master relented, and not only restored him to his former rank, but loaded him with favours.” Sutherland’s Knights of Malta vol. i. pp. 275-277.
[5] “In his bull, he bewails the sins of Christendom, which had brought upon them the scourge which is the occasion of his invitation. He speaks of the massacres, the tortures and slavery which had been inflicted on multitudes of the faithful. ‘The mind is horrified,’ he says, ‘at the very mention of these miseries; but it crowns our anguish to reflect, that the whole of Christendom, which if in concord might put an end to these and even greater evils, is either in open war, country with country, or if in apparent peace, is secretly wasted by mutual jealousies and animosities.’” Newman’s Lectures on the History of the Turks, pp. 177-8.
[6] The loss of this battle seems mainly attributable to the rash and arrogant confidence of the French chevaliers. The general conduct of the crusaders likewise was not such as to warrant any expectation of God’s blessing on their enterprise. Not only did they, at the siege of Raco, refuse quarter to such as laid down their arms, but immediately before the first onset at Nicopolis they massacred a number of Turkish prisoners who had surrendered under promise that their lives should be spared. (Creasy’s History of the Ottoman Turks, vol. i. pp. 58-60.) This act of cruelty, however, has been attributed not to the veteran knights, but to some headstrong and intemperate men among their juniors who took the matter into their own hands. Sutherland, vol. i. p. 309.
[7] Commonly called Tamerlane, from Timourlenk, i. e. Timour the Lame,—the name given him by his countrymen on account of the effects of a wound received in early life. His massacres were of a wholesale description. At Ispahan he had a tower constructed of 70,000 human heads; and when Bagdad revolted, he exacted no less than 90,000 for the same purpose. On his march to Delhi, the future capital of his empire, he ordered a general slaughter of his prisoners, 100,000 in number; compelling each of his captains and soldiers to kill his captives with his own hands, under penalty of being themselves put to death, and their property and wives given up to the informer. But Von Hammer relates an instance of his cruelty still more horrible. At the taking of Sebaste, 4,000 Armenian Christians had capitulated, on the condition that, though they were to be sent into slavery, their lives were to be spared. No sooner, however, had they surrendered than the tyrant, faithless to his oath, ordered them to be buried alive with circumstances of the most atrocious barbarity. They were thrown ten together into deep pits with their heads tied between their knees; planks were then laid across, and earth heaped upon them; and there they were left, in their living graves, to die a death of slow and lingering torture.
[8] Here also Timour reared a tower of human heads; but as neither garrison nor town afforded a sufficient number to raise the structure to the accustomed height, he was compelled to have a layer of mud placed between each row of heads.
[9] “Unless the Lord keep the city, he who keepeth it watcheth in vain.”
[10] Vertot.