History cannot affirm that this crusade made great progress in the civilisation of Europe. The Greeks had preserved the jurisprudence of Justinian; the empire possessed wise regulations upon the levying of imposts and the administration of the public revenues; but the Latins disdained these monuments of human wisdom and of the experience of many ages; they coveted nothing the Greeks possessed but their territories and their wealth. Most of the knights took a pride in their ignorance, and amongst the spoils of Constantinople, attached no value to the ingenious productions of Greece. Amidst the conflagrations that consumed the mansions and palaces of the capital, they beheld with indifference large and valuable libraries given up to the flames. We may add that the necessity for both conquerors and conquered of intercommunication must have contributed to the spreading of the Latin language among the Greeks, and that of the Greeks among the Latins.
The crusaders likewise profited by several useful inventions, and transmitted them to their compatriots; and the fields and gardens of Italy and France were enriched by some plants till that time unknown in the West. Boniface sent into his marquisate some seeds of maize, which had never before been cultivated in Italy; a public document, which still exists, attests the gratitude of the people of Montferrat. The magistrates received the innocent fruits of victory with great solemnity, and, upon their altars, called down a blessing upon a production of Greece, that would one day constitute the wealth of the plains of Italy.
Flanders, Champagne, and most of the provinces of France, which had sent their bravest warriors to the crusade, fruitlessly lavished their population and their treasures upon the conquest of Byzantium. We may say that these intrepid fighters gained nothing by this wonderful war, but the glory of having given, for a moment, masters to Constantinople, and lords to Greece. And yet these distant conquests, and this new empire, which drew from France its turbulent and ambitious princes, must have been favourable to the French monarchy. Philip Augustus must have been pleased by the absence of the great vassals of the crown, and had reason to learn with joy that the count of Flanders, a troublesome neighbour, and a not very submissive vassal, had obtained an empire in the East. The French monarchy thus derived some advantage from this crusade; but the republic of Venice profited much more by it. This republic, which scarcely possessed a population of two hundred thousand souls, and had not the power to make its authority respected on the continent, in the first place, made use of the arms of the crusaders, to subdue cities, of which, without their assistance, she could never have made herself mistress. By the conquest of Constantinople, she enlarged her credit and her commerce in the East, and brought under her laws some of the richest possessions of the Greek emperors. She increased the reputation of her navy, and raised herself above all the maritime nations of Europe. The Venetians never neglected the interests or glory of their own country, whilst the French knights scarcely ever fought for any object but personal glory and their own ambition. Of her new possessions in the East, Venice only retained such as she judged necessary to the prosperity of her commerce, or the maintenance of her marine.[d]
THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (1212 A.D.)
[1212 A.D.]
Some of the best witnesses for the history of the Middle Ages affirm that, seduced by the preaching of fanatics, the children of France and Germany, about the year 1212, thought themselves authorised by heaven to attempt the rescue of the Sepulchre, and ran about the country, crying, “Lord Jesus Christ, restore thy cross to us.” Boys and girls stole from their homes, “no bolts, no bars, no fear of fathers or love of mothers, could hold them back,” and the number of youthful converts was thirty thousand. They were organised by some fanatical wretches, one of whom was taken and hanged at Cologne. The children drove down France, crossed the Alps, and those who survived thirst, hunger, and heat, presented themselves at the gates of the seaports of Italy and the south of France. Many were driven back to their homes; but seven large ships full of them went from Marseilles; two of the vessels were wrecked on the isle of St. Peter, the rest of the ships went to Bougie and Alexandria, and the masters sold the children to slavery. These singular events are mentioned by four contemporary writers. (1) Alberic, monk of Trois Fontaines, in his chronicle. (2) Godfrey of St. Pantaleon, in his annals. The editor cites in his margin a Belgic chronicle as a testimony. (3) Sicard, bishop of Cremona. (4) M. Paris. Roger Bacon, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, thus speaks of the Crusade of Children: “Forsan vidistis aut audistis pro certo quod pueri de regno Franciæ semel occurrebant in infinita multitudine post quondam malignum hominem, ita quod nec a patribus, nec a matribus, nec amicis poterant detineri, et positi sunt in navibus et Saracenis redditi, et non sunt adhuc 64 anni.” Honest Fuller says: “This crusade was done by the instinct of the devil, who, as it were, desired a cordial of children’s blood, to comfort his weak stomach, long cloyed with murdering of men.”[c]
A German Noble, Thirteenth Century
This expedition beyond the seas, undertaken about 1212, and composed entirely of children, if not one of the most striking events of the Crusades, certainly appears not one of the least extraordinary. Whoever is acquainted with the taste of the Middle Ages for the marvellous, and has only read the incomplete account of the modern historians of the Crusades, is at first tempted to range this expedition among fabulous adventures; and to procure it any credit, it is necessary to produce evidences worthy of our confidence.
With regard to the date, contemporary historians all place this crusade under the year 1212, or 1213 at the latest. It is only by an error very easy to be reconciled, that others advance it twelve years, or put it back ten. As to the places that witnessed the birth and growth of such an enterprise, it appears that the crusaders belonged to two nations, and formed two troops, which followed different routes; one, leaving Germany, traversed Saxony and the Alps and arrived on the shores of the Adriatic Sea; France furnished the others, who, after collecting in the environs of Paris, crossed Burgundy, and arrived at Marseilles, the place of embarkation. Prestiges, fanaticism, the announcement of prodigies, were all employed to rouse the youth of these countries and put them in motion. It was reported, according to Vincent de Beauvais, that the Old Man of the Mountain, who was accustomed to educate arsacides from the tenderest age, detained two clerks captives, and would only grant them their liberty upon condition that they brought him back some young boys from France. The opinion then was, that these children, deceived by false visions, and seduced by the promises of these two clerks, marked themselves with the sign of the cross.