[178] The year 1263 answered to the year 602 of the Hegyra.
[179] Montesquieu foretells the fate of Mahometanism; not as Innocent did, but philosophically. He likewise predicts “that France will fall by the sword;” but whether the sword will be drawn by foreigners or her own sons, he does not say.—Trans.
[180] Gibbon says: “Some deep reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod at Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded either in matter or fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided the impulse of manners and prejudice.” With great respect for our illustrious historian, I cannot quite agree with him; the popes were in many instances the first to kindle the flame, and were always anxious to keep it burning. In the part of our history now before us, it is plain it would have gone out but for the great exertions of Innocent. The crusades were a powerful engine in the hands of the popes; they could not afford to let them go to decay.—Trans.
[181] The cardinal de Courçon was an Englishman by family. He had studied at the University of Paris, and from that was connected with Lothaire, who became pope under the name of Innocent III. It is to this friendship that Peter Robert de Courçon owed his elevation. There is a very long notice of this person by the late M. du Theil, in Les Notices des Manuscrits, tom. vi.
[182] The continuator of William of Tyre expresses himself thus:—Il ot en France un clerc qui prescha de la croix, qui avait nom mâitre Jacques de Vitri; cil en croisa mult, là où il étoit en la predication, l’eslurent les chanoines d’Acre, et mandèrent à l’apostolle (le pape) qu’il lor envoyast pour estre évesque d’Acre; et sachiez s’il n’en eust le commandement l’apostolle, il ne l’eust mie reçu, mais toutes voies passa-t-il outremer, et fust évesque grand pièce, et fist mult de biens en la terre; mais puis resigna-t-il, et retourna en France, et puis fut il cardinal de Rome. [As M. Michaud has placed this note all in the text, and has only given it to show the curious mode of expression, I have followed his example.—Trans.]
[183] Philip granted this fortieth, without reference to the future—absque consuetudine, and upon condition that this voluntary gift should be employed wherever the king of England and the barons of the two kingdoms should think best.—See Le Rec. des Ord. tom. i. p. 31.
[184] In the royal regulations of Philip Augustus, there is an order relative to the debts contracted by the Crusaders as members of a commune. We think our readers will not be displeased by the particulars of this order. “As to the Crusaders, members of certain communes, we order,” says the king, “that if the commune itself be charged with any levy, whether for foot or horse soldiers (l’ost et la chevauchée), the inclosure of the city, the defence of the city in the event of a siege, or for any debt that is due, and contracted before they took the cross, they shall be held subject to the payment of their proportion, equally with the other inhabitants who have not taken the cross; but as to the debts contracted after the period at which they shall have taken the cross, the Crusaders shall remain exempt, not only until their approaching departure, but until their return.”—See the Recueil des Ordonnances, Dachery, and the sixth vol. of the Notices des Manuscrits, dissertation de M. du Theil sur Robert de Courçon.
[185] In the charter granted by King John, that monarch expressly says that he grants this charter by the advice of the archbishop of Canterbury, of seven bishops, and the pope’s nuncio.
[186] This victory of Bouvines, which had such happy results for the French monarchy, will be worthily celebrated in the poem of Philip Auguste, by M. Perceval de Grand-maison: we cannot sufficiently praise our poets who take their subjects from the greatest periods of our annals.
[187] Upon the holding of this council, the Chronicle of Opsberg, the monk Godfrey, Matthew Paris, Albert Stadensis, the Chronicle of Fassano, and particularly the collection of the councils, may be consulted. Fleury enters into very copious details.—See the sixteenth vol. of the Histoire Ecclésiastique.