All documents avouch, and all facts prove, that this was actually their primitive character. Who were the first crusaders who put themselves in motion? Bands of populace, who departed under the conduct of Peter the Hermit, without preparation, and without guides or chiefs, followed, rather than led, by some obscure knights, and who, after traversing Germany and the Greek empire, dispersed or perished in Asia Minor.
The superior class, the feudal nobility, was, in its turn, eager for the crusade. Under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon, the lords and their followers set off full of ardour. When they had traversed Asia Minor, the chiefs became lukewarm and weary, were little disposed to continue the route, and felt inclined to throw aside all considerations but themselves, to make conquests, and gain establishments. The commonalty of the army rose in anger; they were bent on proceeding to Jerusalem; the deliverance of Jerusalem was the object of the crusade, and not to gain principalities for Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond, or any other. The popular, national, European impulse prevailed over all individual schemes; the chiefs had not sufficient ascendancy over the masses to bend them to their selfish interests.
The sovereigns, who had remained aloof from the first crusade, were finally drawn into the movement like the people. The great crusades of the twelfth century were commanded by kings.
I pass at once to the end of the thirteenth century. Crusades were still talked of in Europe, were still preached with zeal. The popes urged sovereigns and people; councils were held in commendation of the Holy Land; but every one hung back, and was indifferent about going. Something had passed into the European mind and society which put an end to crusades. There were still some particular expeditions; a few lords and parties of men still departed for Jerusalem, but the general movement was evidently arrested. Yet it does not appear that either the necessity for continuing in it or the facility of so doing had ceased. The Moslems triumphed more and more in Asia. The Christian kingdom founded at Jerusalem had fallen into their power. It was necessary to reconquer it; to secure success, the means were much greater than they were at the time that the crusades commenced; a great number of Christians were established, and still powerful, in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. The best modes of travelling there, and of acting effectually, were much better known than at the earlier period. But, however, all this was unavailing to reanimate the crusading spirit. It is clear that the two great powers of society—the sovereigns on the one hand, and the nations on the other—wished for no more crusades.
It has been repeatedly said that this arose from lassitude; that Europe was tired with thus pouring upon Asia. It is proper that this word lassitude, which is so often used on similar occasions, should be understood, for it is singularly inappropriate. It is not true that human generations are weary with what they have not done, weary of the fatigues of their fathers. Lassitude or weariness is personal, and is not transmitted like an inheritance. The men of the thirteenth century were not fatigued with the crusades of the twelfth; another cause operated upon them. A great change had been effected in ideas, feelings, and social positions. The same wants and desires were no longer felt. The same things were no longer either believed or wished for. Such political or moral metamorphoses, and not weariness, explain the varying conduct of successive generations. The lassitude which is attributed to them is a metaphor void of truth.
Two great causes, the one moral, the other social, threw Europe into the crusades.
The moral cause was the impulse derived from religious sentiments and creed. Since the end of the seventh century, Christianity had fought against Mohammedanism, and had conquered it in Europe, after being fearfully menaced by it; it had succeeded in restricting it to Spain. Thence also it was constantly labouring to expel it. The crusades have been represented as a sort of accident, as an unforeseen and unbruited event, brought about by the recitals of pilgrims on their return from Jerusalem, and the preachings of Peter the Hermit. Nothing of the kind. The crusades were the continuation and apogœum of the great contest carried on for four centuries between Christianity and Mohammedanism. The theatre of that contest had previously been in Europe, then it was transported into Asia. If I put any value on those comparisons and parallels in which people sometimes delight to press, suitably or unsuitably, historical facts, I might exhibit Christianity as running in Asia exactly the same career, and undergoing the same fate, as Mohammedanism in Europe. Mohammedanism was established in Spain, where it conquered and founded a kingdom and principalities. The Christians did that also in Asia, and they found themselves, with regard to the Mohammedans, in the same position as the latter in Spain with regard to the Christians. The kingdom of Jerusalem and that of Grenada precisely corresponded. However, such likenesses or similitudes are of very little consequence. The great fact was the contest of the two religious and social systems. The crusades were its main and culminating crisis. In that is their historical character, the bond which unites them to the entirety of affairs.
Another cause, the social state of Europe in the eleventh century, equally contributed to their breaking forth. I have been particular in explaining why nothing of a general nature could gain establishment in Europe from the fifth to the eleventh century, and I endeavoured to show how completely the local system prevailed, and within what narrow limits states, existences, and minds were confined. The feudal system had effected that. After some time, limits so narrow no longer satisfied; human thought and activity were eager to overleap the bounds to which they were restricted. The wandering life had ceased, but not the taste for its excitement and adventures. The populations rushed to the crusades as to a new existence, wider and more varied than their own, pleasurable to them as both recalling the ancient liberty of barbarism, and opening out vast prospects for the future.