Among all the productions of mind, those which ought to be ranked first, were such as had for object the preservation of the memory of events. At all periods of the middle ages, chronicles appeared, to which were consigned the important facts of history. In many monasteries were kept registers or journals, in which was inserted everything remarkable that happened in the various parts of the world. Monks, in the general assemblies, sometimes communicated these registers to each other, and this communication assisted them in rendering their chronicles more complete. In ages less remote from us, other cenobites have collected, with laborious care, these same chronicles, concealed in the solitude of cloisters, and have transmitted them to posterity as the most precious monuments of old times.
The ancient chroniclers were simple and pious men; they considered the least falsehood as a mortal sin; they were scrupulous in telling the truth, when they were acquainted with it. Most of them would have thought themselves deficient in the duties of an historian, if they had not gone back to the creation of the world, or at least to the deluge. Among the events which they relate, they never forgot such as would strike the vulgar, and which struck themselves; as the revolutions of nature, famines, prodigies, &c. According to the spirit of their age, the foundation of a monastery holds a more conspicuous place in their recitals than that of a kingdom or of a republic. Politics are quite unknown to them; and everything which astonishes them, everything they do not easily comprehend, they rarely fail to account for by a miracle.
Such is the character of our old chroniclers; and even when they do not inform us of that which we desire to know, their simplicity touches us, and their ingenuousness interests us. When they tell us of wonderful things which were believed in their times, and of which they appear fully persuaded, they do nothing but paint themselves and their age.
But we must beware of fancying the Oriental chronicles of the same period more perfect than our own. We find in them the same spirit of superstition and credulity, united to that spirit of fatalism which characterizes the Mussulman faith.
It is quite in vain for us to seek in Arabian historians any of those thoughts that instruct us in the knowledge of human passions or political revolutions. They almost always neglect the most important circumstances of events, in order to describe whimsical particularities, or to enter into insignificant details; thus, obeying the spirit of oriental despotism, which wills that man should be always occupied with little things. When they relate the fall of an empire, if asked why it has fallen, they reply: “God knows, God has willed it so.” In all their chronicles which we have consulted, whenever the Mussulmans triumph over the Christians, we never find any other reflection but this: “God is God, and Mahomet is his prophet.” When the Christians gain a victory, the Mussulman chronicles preserve a perfect silence, contenting themselves with saying: “May God curse them!”
Oriental historical productions are very far from redeeming this absence of remark by another merit, such as order, clearness, or elegance; most of their accounts are nothing but a nomenclature of facts confusedly arranged. Quotations from the Koran, verses made upon the occurrence of an event, some comparisons which belong rather to poetry than history,—such are the only ornaments of their narrations.
We see by this that our chronicles of the middle ages have nothing to envy in those of the East. Most of them, it is true, are of an extreme dryness, and have neither precision nor method. But still some few of them do not appear unworthy of attracting the attention of scholars and men of taste. As their authors wrote in Latin, we have reason to believe that the great works of antiquity were not unknown to them, and in many of their recitals, we may easily perceive they have had models.
History must have made some progress during the crusades. These long wars between the Christians and the Mussulmans were like a great spectacle at which Europe and Asia were present. The importance of the events, and the lively interest which Christendom took in them, inspired several writers with the desire of retracing the history of them. A crowd of chroniclers arose in the West, among whom some were not unworthy of the name of historians. Everybody is acquainted with William of Tyre, who may be called the Livy of the crusades, Albert d’Aix, Baudry, archbishop of Dol, Odo of Deuil, and particularly James of Vitry, in whom we meet with vivid and animated descriptions, a rapid and flowing style, and a narration almost always elegant:—and, though last, not least, Villehardouin and Joinville, who wrote in the French language, and whose memoirs are the earliest monuments of French literature.
But all these events which presented to historians such rich pictures, the wonders of nascent institutions, the prodigies of the social world issuing from the chaos of barbarism, must not only have awakened the curiosity, they must have struck vividly the minds of new generations. This grand spectacle, without doubt, contributed to the development of the faculties connected with the imagination. After having seen the simple and faithful relations of events, the genius of poets was called upon to add something to the truthful pictures of the chroniclers. The troubadours who flourished during the crusades were not likely to neglect the exploits of so many gallant knights. We hear their voices constantly mingling with those of the preachers of the holy wars, and find their poetical fictions everywhere confounded with the narrations of history.