This crusade was followed by others, as we shall see by and by; but meanwhile, I may say that, although the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was never strong, and soon showed signs of decay, these crusades brought the nations of the West, which fought side by side in them, to know more of each other; that they served to increase trade with the East, and so to bring the produce of the Eastern countries within the reach of Europeans; and, as I have said already,[74] they greatly helped to increase the power of the popes, who had seen their way to take the direction of them, and thus get a stronger hold than before on the princes and people of Western Christendom.
NOTES
CHAPTER X.
NEW ORDERS OF MONKS.—MILITARY ORDERS.
In the times of which I have lately been speaking, the monks did much valuable service to the Church and to the world in general. It was mostly through their labours that heathen nations were converted to the Gospel, that their barbarous roughness was tamed, and that learning, although it had greatly decayed, was not altogether lost. Often, where monks had built their houses in lonely places, little clusters of huts grew up round them, and in time these clusters of huts became large and important towns. Monks were very highly thought of, and sometimes it was seen that kings and queens would leave all their worldly grandeur, and would withdraw to spend their last years under the quiet roof of a monastery. But it was found, at the same time, that monks were apt to fall away from the strict rules by which they were bound, so that reforms were continually needed among them.