Having said that, after the council, every one retired to his home, he continues thus:—“Immediately the fame of this great event being spread through the universe, penetrated the minds of Christians with its mild breath, and wherever it blew, there was no nation, however distant or obscure it might be, that did not send some of its people. This zeal not only animated the provinces bordering on the Mediterranean, but all who had ever even heard of the name of a Christian in the most remote isles, and among barbarous nations. Then the Welshman abandoned his forests and neglected his hunting; the Scotchman deserted the fleas with which he is so familiar; the Dane ceased to swallow his intoxicating draughts; and the Norican turned his back upon his raw fish.[130] The fields were left by the cultivators, and the houses by their inhabitants; all the cities were deserted. People were restrained neither by the ties of blood nor the love of country; they saw nothing but God. All that was in the granaries or destined for food, was left under the guardianship of the greedy agriculturist. The voyage to Jerusalem was the only thing hoped for or thought of. Joy animated the hearts of all who set out; grief dwelt in the hearts of all who remained. Why do I say, of those who remained? You might have seen the husband setting forth with his wife, with all his family; you would have laughed to see all the penates put in motion and loaded upon cars. The road was too narrow for the passengers, more room was wanted for the travellers, so great and numerous was the crowd.”
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No. 5.—Page 82, Vol. I.
Robert of Normandy.
Robert had, before the crusades, long and serious quarrels with his father, William II. of Normandy and I. of England. In 1080, he quitted his country and sought the protection of his uncles, Robert, count of Flanders, Udo, archbishop of Trèves, and several other princes of the houses of Lorraine, Germany, Aquitain, and Gascony. He made his complaints to them, mingling falsehood with truth, and received great assistance from them. But he squandered their gifts among actors, parasites, and courtezans. He was so prodigal that he soon became straitened again, and was obliged to have recourse to usurers. “Every one,” says the chronicler Orderic Vital, “knew Duke Robert for an indolent, weak prince. So the ill-intentioned, despising him, took advantage of his character to excite trouble and factions. The duke was bold, valiant, worthy of praise in many respects, and naturally eloquent; but he was inconsiderate, prodigal in his bounty, free of promises, light and imprudent in his falsehoods, allowing himself to be easily prevailed upon by prayers; mild in character and slow to punish crime; changeable in his decisions, too familiar in his conversation, and by that means drawing upon himself the contempt of the ill-disposed. He was stout, and short of stature, whence his father named him Courte-Heuse. He was anxious to please everybody, and gave, or promised, or granted, all that was asked of him. Prodigal of his patrimony, he diminished it daily by giving imprudently to every one what he desired. Thus he became poor, and furnished others with means to act against him.” When the first crusade took place, Normandy, ill-governed by such a prince, was in the most deplorable condition. Duke Robert, in fear of the greatest evils, saw no better means of avoiding them, than by pledging his duchy with his brother William Rufus, for five years, for the sum of ten thousand marks, and setting out for Jerusalem. With his exploits in the Holy Land our readers are acquainted. In the year 1100, Robert, on his return from Palestine, landed in Apulia, where he fell in love with Sibylla, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversana, nephew of Duke Guiscard. He married her, and took her into Normandy, obtaining from his father-in-law the means of redeeming his duchy. He lived there eight years much in the same fashion as before his pilgrimage. At the end of that period, and in consequence of events foreign to our object, he was made prisoner at Tinchebray in Normandy, by his brother Henry, who carried him to London, where he remained confined twenty-seven years, but always living amidst the enjoyments of life.
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No. 6.
Charlemagne.
Whilst searching the Chronicles for passages illustrative of our work, we met with a portrait of Charlemagne so exceedingly interesting, that although he had nothing to do with the crusades, we cannot refrain from presenting it to our readers, begging them to remember that Charlemagne was considered, even in Asia, as the most powerful prince of Europe.
“Charlemagne, who attained the highest degree of celebrity and glory, of a scrupulous and profound piety, was well informed in letters and philosophy, was the avenger and ardent propagator of the Christian religion, and the defender and supporter of justice and truth. Charlemagne’s face was very white (at the time he was crowned by the pope, Leo), his countenance was cheerful, and whether standing or sitting, his carriage was equally majestic. Although his neck was thick and rather short, and his belly too protuberant, all his limbs were well proportioned. On days of festivity he wore a mantle of gold tissue, and a chaussure ornamented with precious stones. His sagum, or cloak, was fastened with a golden clasp, and his diadem was enriched with gold and jewels. Towards the end of his career, he was seized, on his return from Spain, with a fever, which lasted four years, and rendered him lame. He followed rather his own inclinations than the advice of his physicians, for whom he had a kind of aversion, because they wished him to abstain from roast meat, of which he was very fond, and to accustom himself to live on boiled meats. Charles was called great on account of his great good fortune, in which he was not inferior to his father, but was, on the contrary, more frequently a conqueror and more illustrious. In his youth his hair was brown, and his complexion ruddy; he was handsome, and had much dignity in his carriage; he was very generous, very equitable in his judgments, eloquent, and very well informed. He enjoyed every day the sports of the chase and the exercise of riding on horseback; he was exceedingly fond of tepid baths, to which he invited not only his children but the lords of his court, his friends, and his guards, so that there were often more than a hundred persons in the bath with him. He was moderate in his eating, and still more so in his drinking; nevertheless he often complained that fasts were injurious to him. He rarely gave great banquets, except upon solemn occasions. There were, ordinarily, not more than four dishes on his table, besides the roast meat which he so greatly preferred. Whilst he ate, a person read to him histories and accounts of the actions of the ancients, or else the book of the City of God, by Saint Augustine, for which he had a great predilection. During the repast he never drank more than three times. In summer, he took fruit after dinner, and slept two or three hours, undressed as if at night. His dress was that of the Franks, and he constantly wore a sword; the sword-belt and baldric being of gold or silver. Sometimes he wore two swords. He spoke several languages. He had around him doctors of the seven liberal arts, who instructed him daily; that is to say, a deacon of Pisa, in grammar; a Saxon, in rhetoric, dialectics, and astronomy; and Albin, surnamed Alouin, in the other arts. He himself made some reforms in the art of reading and in that of singing, although he never read in public aloud, and never sang but with the choir. He caused all the laws of his kingdom to be written, that were not so before. He himself wrote the actions and the wars of the ancients, and began a grammar of the language of his country. He had every night a hundred and twenty guards around his bed. Ten were placed at his head, ten at his feet, and ten on each side of him, and each of these forty held a naked sword in one hand and a lighted torch in the other.”