The History of the Crusades (vol. 3 of 3)

by J. Fr. Michaud

Since it can with truth be said that the crusades added some lustre and gave some ascendancy to chivalry, it must be agreed that they rendered essential service to humanity.

If the institution of chivalry was a barrier against license and barbarism, the institution of the clergy, founded upon more fixed and durable principles, ought to have rendered still greater services to civilization.

The ascendancy and wealth of the clergy placed them on an equality with the nobility, in the feudal system; but it must be allowed that the rank assigned them in this order of things was repugnant to their character and to the state of society. We do not hesitate to say that the feudal system had a tendency to corrupt the institution of the clergy, as the clergy corrupted the feudal system. The clergy, instructed in principles of peace, were not fit to carry out the conditions of the military régime; on the other side, the military régime was sure to change the pacific manners of the clergy. It was not at all uncommon to see prelates clad in cuirass and helmet. Sometimes country priests led to battle the flock which a religion of peace had confided to them. This military spirit in ecclesiastics was much increased by the crusades, in which their arms were sanctified by the object of the war. The clergy, however, never became sufficiently warlike to fulfil all the feudal engagements; and we may add likewise, that they were not always sufficiently pacific to fulfil all their religious duties.

It may be concluded, from what we have just said, that the ecclesiastical order and the feudal government would, in the long run, repel each other. If we consult the history of the middle ages, we shall see that the barons and nobles often showed themselves jealous of the power of the clergy, and that the clergy, in the end, contributed to the ruin of the foundations of feudalism.

The existence of the clergy underwent many modifications, according to times, places, and circumstances. In Italy, they enjoyed but very little credit, and took part in most popular factions. In Germany, the high clergy shared with the nobility the wrecks of imperial power. In Spain, they contributed greatly to the expulsion of the Moors, and the spoils of the vanquished added to their wealth. In England, the clergy associated themselves with the barons, and contended with the crown. In France, they attached themselves to royalty, and favoured the constantly increasing power of the monarchs.

If we may judge by the councils which were held during the crusades, most of which were occupied with reforming ecclesiastical discipline, we have reason to believe that the morals of the clergy had then a strong tendency to corruption. Old chronicles are particularly severe against the Crusaders and the clergy of the East, whom they unceasingly accuse of outraging morality and religion by their excesses. Some of the chroniclers even, like James of Vitry, draw such hideous pictures, that they are suspected of injustice, or at least of exaggeration. It is not useless, for the sake of historical truth, to remark here, that most of the historians of whom we now speak, belonged to the class of preachers charged with the task of censuring their age, and who were often obliged to darken their colours in order to move the multitude. In all times, sacred orators have been seen exaggerating the vices it was their object to combat; and if we were not aware of the charity which animates them, we might sometimes mistake their discourses for violent satires. This is an observation of which we ought not to lose sight whilst reading the chronicles of the middle ages, which are almost all drawn up by ecclesiastics, accustomed by their profession to judge their contemporaries with severity. Another observation proved by history is, that corruption is spoken of with more bitterness in times in which it is scarcely known, than in times in which it has become general. In ages in which some ideas of virtue still prevail, people accuse themselves; and in ages quite corrupted, they praise themselves.

A chronicle of the time of the first crusades tells us, that the iniquities of men had then reached their height; and, what at once characterizes the spirit of the chronicler and that of his age, he adds that these iniquities would have shortened the duration of the world, “if it had not been that some new monastic congregations were formed.” In fact, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more monasteries were founded than in all the other centuries of the middle ages. The enthusiasm for the holy wars, by exalting the imaginations of nations, had produced a mental revolution; prodigies were everywhere seen that had never been observed till that time; devotion itself believed that it could no longer attain salvation by ordinary ways: whilst a crowd of warriors precipitated themselves upon the East, many pious souls, to perform penance, sought for private mortifications, and devoted themselves to the rigours of a voluntary exile, or buried themselves in deserts.

At the head of the monastic congregations which were formed at this period, we must place that of the Brothers of Mercy, which had its birth in the third crusade, and was instituted for the purpose of delivering captives. These venerable cenobites, after the example of the heroes of chivalry, sought for victims to console, and for the miserable to succour. Like knights, they exposed themselves to a thousand dangers, and braved death in the exercise of beneficence and charity. It was during the sixth crusade that the two orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis arose, orders which, according to the expression of the abbot of Usberg, renewed the youth of the Church. From the thirteenth century these two orders sent missions into the East, and into the north of Asia. Whilst the Tartar hordes were overturning empires, ravaging Europe, and threatening all Christendom, poor priests traversed the solitudes of Tartary, penetrated even into China; and, peaceful conquerors, armed with the Gospel, extended the empire of Christianity, and planted the standard of the cross at the extremities of the known world. The religious colonies which they then founded in Asia lasted much longer than the colonies founded by the Crusaders.

We will not attempt to enumerate all the services which religious communities rendered society. They had regulations which might serve for models in the infancy of political legislation. They were in all respects like the corporations of cities. Whilst anarchy disturbed cities, the woods had their legislation; and the germs of civilization developed themselves in silence and in solitude.

It was in monasteries that were found the only schools in which letters were taught, and that the Latin language, and the wonders it produced, were preserved. It was in them that studious men kept a faithful register of events, and employed themselves in transmitting to us those historical documents without which the glory and the manners of our ancestors would be unknown to us.