The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

Each lord had to oppose his revolted subjects alone; and after long and sanguinary contests,[554] sometimes the baron, the bishop, or the abbot succeeded in subjugating the people; sometimes the burghers contrived, by perseverance, to wring from the nobles themselves a charter which assured their freedom.

This struggle[555] was at its height, at the time when the fall of Edessa and the growing power of the Moslems called Europe to engage in a second crusade; but the barons at that moment found their privileges invaded both by the crown and the people; and the latter discovered that they had rights to maintain in their own land—that they were no longer the mere slaves to whom all countries were alike—that prospects were opened before them which during the first crusade they hardly dreamed of—that the swords which had before been employed in fighting the quarrels of their lords at home, or raising them to honour and fame abroad, were now required to defend their property, their happiness, and the new station they had created for themselves in society. Thus the period at which aid became imperatively necessary to the Christians at Jerusalem, was when France was least calculated to afford it. Nevertheless, the superstition of a king and the eloquence of a churchman combined to produce a second crusade; but in this instance it was but a great military expedition, and no longer the enthusiastic effort of a nation, or a great popular movement throughout the whole of the Christian world.

One of the strongest proofs of this fact[556] is the scantiness of historians on the second crusade, and the style in which those that do exist, speak of its operations. It is no longer the glory of Christendom that they mention, but the glory of the king; no more the deliverance of the Holy Land, but merely the acts of the monarch.

In pursuance of the general plan of extending the dominion of the crown, which had been conceived by Louis VI., and carried on with such infinite perseverance by his great minister Suger, Louis VII., the succeeding monarch, on hearing of the election of the Archbishop of Bourges by the chapter of that city, without his previous consent, had declared the nomination invalid, and proceeded to acts of such flagrant opposition to the papal jurisdiction, that the church used her most terrific thunders to awe the monarch to her will. Thibalt, Count of Champagne, armed in support of the pope’s authority, and Louis instantly marched to chastise his rebellious vassal. Thibalt was soon reduced to obedience, but the anger of the monarch was not appeased by submission; for, even after the town of Vitry had surrendered, he set fire to the church, in which nearly thirteen hundred people had taken refuge, and disgraced his triumph by one of the direst pieces of cruelty upon record. A severe illness, however, soon followed, and reflection brought remorse. At that time the news of the fall of Edessa was fresh in Europe; and Louis, in the vain hope of expiating his crime, determined to promote a crusade, and lead his forces himself to the aid of Jerusalem.

Deputies were speedily sent to the Pope Eugenius, who willingly abetted in the king’s design, and commissioned the famous St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to preach the Cross through France and Germany. St. Bernard possessed every requisite for such a mission.[557] From his earliest years he had been filled with religious enthusiasm; he had abandoned high prospects to dedicate himself entirely to an austere and gloomy fanaticism; he had reformed many abuses in the church, reproved crime wherever he found it, and raised the clerical character in the eyes of the people, too much accustomed to behold among his order nothing but vice, ignorance, and indolence. He was one of the most powerful orators of his day, endowed with high and commanding talents of many kinds; and in his controversy with the celebrated Abelard, the severe purity of his life and manners had proved most eloquent against his rival. Thus, when after repeated entreaties[558] he went forth to preach the crusade, few that heard him were not either impressed by his sanctity, persuaded by his eloquence, or carried away by his zeal: and thus, notwithstanding the unfavourable state of France,[559] a multitude of men took the symbol of the Cross, and prepared to follow the monarch into Palestine. In Germany the effects of his overpowering oratory were the same. Those who understood not even the language that he spoke, became awed by his gestures and the dignified enthusiasm of his manner, and devoted themselves to the crusade, though the tongue in which it was preached was unknown to them. Wherever he went his presence was supposed to operate miracles, and the sick are reported to have recovered by his touch, or at his command; while all the legions of devils, with which popish superstition peopled the atmosphere, took flight at his approach. For some time Conrad, Emperor of Germany, suffered[560] St. Bernard to call the inhabitants of his dominions to the crusade without taking any active part in his proceedings, but at length the startling eloquence of the Abbot of Clairvaux reached even the bosom of the monarch, and he declared his intention of following the Cross himself. At Vezelai Louis VII. received the symbol: but the most powerful obstacle that he found to his undertaking was the just and continued opposition of his minister,[561] Suger, who endeavoured by every means to dissuade the monarch from abandoning his kingdom. All persuasions were vain; and having committed the care of his estates to that faithful servant,[562] Louis himself, accompanied by Eleonor, his queen, departed for Metz, where he was joined by an immense multitude of nobles and knights, among whom were crusaders from England[563] and the remote islands of the northern sea. Ambassadors from Roger, King of Apulia, had already warned Louis of the treachery of the Greeks, and besought him to take any other way than that through the dominions of the emperor; but the French monarch was biassed by other counsels, and determined upon following the plan before laid down.

The Emperor of Germany was the first[564] to set out, and by June reached Constantinople in safety, followed by a large body of armed men, and a number of women whose gay dress, half-military, half-feminine, gave the march the appearance of some bright fantastic cavalcade.

The King of France, having previously received[565] at St. Denis, the consecrated banner as a warrior, and the staff and scrip[566] as a pilgrim, now quitted Metz, and proceeded by Worms and Ratisbon. Here he was met by envoys from the Emperor of the East, charged with letters so filled with flattery and fair speeches, that Louis is reported to have blushed, and the Bishop of Langres to have observed—

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

Here,[567] too, the French beheld, for the first time, the custom of an inferior standing in the presence of his lord. The object of the emperor was to obtain from Louis a promise to pass through his territories without violence, and to yield to him every town from which he should expel the Turks, and which had ever belonged to the Grecian territory.

Part of this proposal was acceded to, and part refused; and the army marched on through Hungary into Greece. The progress of the second crusade was of course subject to the same difficulties that attended that of the first, through a waste and deserted land; but many other obstacles no longer existed—the people of the country were more accustomed to the appearance of strangers;[568] the army was restrained by the presence of the king; and the whole account of the march to Constantinople leaves the impression of a more civilized state of society than that which existed at the period of the first crusade. We meet with no massacres, no burning of towns, no countries laid waste: and though there are to be found petty squabbles between the soldiers and the townspeople, frays, and even bloodshed; yet these were but individual outrages, kindled by private passions, and speedily put down by the arm of authority.