[263] M. Cerbied has translated this piece into French, which for several reasons deserves to be known. This poem, in seven cantos, was composed by Narses-le-Beau, the Armenian patriarch of the city of Edessa, to console his fellow-citizens in their misfortune, and arouse the zeal of the defenders of the Christian religion against the Turks.
[264] Godfrey, who was abbot of Clairvaux after St. Bernard, has left us a life of this saint, in which he does not speak of the crusade; the reason of this is that St. Bernard was reproached with the crusade, and that his panegyrist thence thought proper to pass over this remarkable epoch. We have several other lives of St. Bernard; the best and most complete is that which is printed in La France Littéraire.
[265] Commota est quidem et contremuit terra, quia cœpit Deus cœli perdere terram suam.—St. Bernard, epist. cccxxii.
[266] Nunquid potest mittere angelorum plusquam duodecim legiones, aut certè dicere verbo, et liberabitur terra sua?—St. Bernard, epist. cccxxii.
[267] The pulpit from which St. Bernard preached the crusade remained in the church of Vèzelai until the period of the revolution of 1789.
[268] The Abbé Velly thus relates the same fact: “Satisfied with the character of preacher and thaumaturge ’performer of miracles), St. Bernard set out for Germany, where he put to silence another monk, who, without having the authority of the pope, dared to exhort the Christian nations to take up arms for the assistance of their brethren in Asia.”
[269] These exclamations were pronounced in old German:—Christ uns gende, die heiligen alle helffen uns.
[270] Philip, archdeacon of Liege, afterwards a monk of Clairvaux, has made a detailed relation of the miracles of St. Bernard, from the first Sunday in Advent, the first day of December, 1146, to Thursday, the second day of the following January. In his relations he produces ten ocular witnesses, whose names he gives. Le Père Maimbourg, in his History of the Crusades, does not appear to believe in the authenticity of the miracles of St. Bernard; the author of the Life of Suger, 3 vols. in 12mo., sharply reproves Maimbourg for his incredulity. We do not think it at all necessary to go into this question; we believe it to be quite sufficient to know that the contemporaries of St. Bernard had faith in his miracles, and that this faith made them perform things which simple reason might call miraculous.
[271] A German historian speaks thus of this crusade:—Si autem aliter non, hâc tamen ratione, exitum habuit expeditio frequens, purgaretur eo genere hominum qui rapinis consueverunt victitare; mœstum devotione qualicunque, omnes id genus homines, pro remedio peccatorum sacram amplexi militiam, in eam nomine dedêre volentes expeditionem.—Krantz, vi. sax. c. 13; De Regibus Hierosolymorum, auctore Christophano Besoldo, p. 214.
[272] The pope had forbidden luxury among the Crusaders; he expressed himself thus in a circular:—Nec eant in vestibus pretiosis, et cum canibus sive avibus, aut aliis quæ ostentationi potius et lasciviæ, quam necessariis videantur usibus deservire, sed in modesto apparatu, et habitu, in quo pœnitentiam potius agere quam inanem affectari gloriam videantur.