Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have been almost stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jerusalem and Joppa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent country. Within this narrow verge, the Mohammedans were still lodged in some impregnable castles; and the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrim were exposed to daily and domestic hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne, the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Israel. After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripolis, Tyre, and Askalon, which were powerfully assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of Flanders and Norway, the range of sea coast from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of Edessa and Tripolis owned themselves the vassals of the king of Jerusalem; the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo were the only relics of the Mohammedan conquests in Syria.
The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into these transmarine colonies. The whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks. But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John, and of the Temple of Solomon; on the strange association of a monastic and military life, which fanaticism might suggest, but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the vows of these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were immortal; and the speedy donation of twenty-eight thousand farms, or manors, enabled them to support a regular force of cavalry and infantry for the defence of Palestine. The austerity of the convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms; the world was scandalised by the pride, avarice, and corruption of these Christian soldiers. But in their most dissolute period, the knights of the Hospital and Temple maintained their fearless and fanatic character; they neglected to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ; and the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the Crusades, has been transplanted by this institution from the Holy Sepulchre to the Isle of Malta.
No sooner had Godfrey de Bouillon accepted the office of supreme magistrate, than he solicited the public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, who were the best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarchs and barons of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assize of Jerusalem—a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence.
The justice and freedom of the constitution were maintained by two tribunals of unequal dignity, which were instituted by Godfrey de Bouillon after the conquest of Jerusalem. The king, in person, presided in the upper court, the court of the barons. Of those the four most conspicuous were the prince of Galilee, the lord of Sidon and Cæsarea, and the counts of Joppa and Tripolis, who, perhaps with the constable and marshal, were in a special manner the compeers and judges of each other. But all the nobles who held their lands immediately of the crown were entitled and bound to attend the king’s court; and each baron exercised a similar jurisdiction in the subordinate assemblies of his own feudatories. The trial by battle was established in all criminal cases which affected the life, or limb, or honour, of any person; and in all civil transactions, of or above the value of one mark of silver.
Among the causes which enfranchised the plebeians from the yoke of feudal tyranny, the institution of cities and corporations is one of the most powerful; and if those of Palestine are coeval with the First Crusade, they may be ranked with the most ancient of the Latin world. Many of the pilgrims had escaped from their lords under the banner of the cross; and it was the policy of the French princes to tempt their stay by the assurance of the rights and privileges of freemen. It is expressly declared in the Assize of Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights and barons, the court of peers, in which he presided himself, Godfrey de Bouillon established a second tribunal, in which his person was represented by his viscount. The jurisdiction of this inferior court extended over the burgesses of the kingdom; and it was composed of a select number of the most discreet and worthy citizens, who were sworn to judge, according to the laws, of the actions and fortunes of their equals. In the conquest and settlement of new cities, the example of Jerusalem was imitated by the kings and their great vassals; and above thirty similar corporations were founded before the loss of the Holy Land. Another class of subjects, the Syrians, or oriental Christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy, and protected by the toleration of the state. Godfrey listened to their reasonable prayer, that they might be judged by their own national laws. A third court was instituted for their use, of limited and domestic jurisdiction; the sworn members were Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the office of the president (in Arabic, of the rais) was sometimes exercised by the viscount of the city. At an immeasurable distance below the nobles, the burgesses, and the strangers, the Assize of Jerusalem condescends to mention the villeins and slaves, the peasants of the land and the captives of war, who were almost equally considered as the objects of property. The relief or protection of these unhappy men was not esteemed worthy of the care of the legislator; but he diligently provides for the recovery, though not indeed for the punishment, of the fugitives. Like hounds, or hawks, which had strayed from the lawful owner, they might be lost and claimed; the slave and falcon were of the same value; but three slaves, or twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price of the war-horse; and a sum of three hundred pieces of gold was fixed, in the age of chivalry, as the equivalent of the more noble animal.[b]
RESULTS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE
As if obeying the impetus it had received, the new state continued the spirit of conquest under Godfrey’s first two successors—Baldwin I (1100-1118) and Baldwin II of Bourg (1118-1131). But after these two reigns decadence began in discord. The atabegs who ruled at Mosul and Damascus took Edessa and massacred its people in 1144. There needed nothing less than this bloody disaster, which left Palestine exposed, to drive Europe to the renewal of crusade.
The First Crusade was very different from the seven others. It kindled all Europe, profoundly stirred the masses, both people and peers, and was the symptom of a great upheaval of sentiments and ideals. Those of the two following centuries had not the same motive. They were almost all conducted by kings who had kept aloof from the first; and even if faith were never absent, politics was often superior.
The Second Crusade felt still a vivid reflection of the spirit of devotion that animated the First; but it was no longer the work of the people but of princes—the emperor Conrad III and King Louis VII of France, who took the cross in spite of the prudent counsels of his minister, Abbé Suger. This Crusade was preached in France and Germany by St. Bernard; but already the zeal was somewhat chilled. A general tax levied on the whole kingdom of France, and on every class—nobles, priests, or peasants—roused much protest; at Sens the people killed the abbé of St. Pierre le Vif, ruler of part of their city, because of an impost he had wished to collect. “The king,” said a contemporary, “started on his way in the midst of curses.” St. Bernard had been offered the command of the expedition, but remembering Peter the Hermit, he refused.[e]
This Peter the Hermit, who for all his meek and lowly manner had unhinged all Europe and led a huge rabble to the slaughter in Asia Minor, had received an address of thanks in Jerusalem when the city had been taken; and then retiring to his native France had built a monastery at Huy on the Maas, where he lived quietly and died obscurely in 1115, recking nothing of the series of bloody wars that were to follow as the aftermath of his perfervid oratory and fanatic frenzy.[a]