(1) As multitudes of wealthy vassals and knights repaired to the Holy Land in the first campaigns, and many of them never returned, their estates were of course sold or swallowed up by others. By this they profited who could, the liege lord, the church, the cities already established, each after his own manner: this promoted and accelerated the course of things, tending to confirm the regal power by the erection of a middle class, but was by no means its commencement.
(2) Men became acquainted with countries, people, religions, and constitutions of which they were before ignorant; their narrow sphere of vision was enlarged; they acquired new ideas, new impulses. Attention was drawn to things which would otherwise have been neglected; what had long existed in Europe was employed to better purpose; and as the world was found to be wider than had been supposed, curiosity was excited after a knowledge of its remotest parts. The mighty conquests made by Jenghiz Khan in the north and east of Asia attracted men’s eyes chiefly towards Tatary; whither Marco Polo the Venetian, Rubruquis (Guillaume de Rubrouck), the Frenchman, and John de Plano Carpino (Giovanni Piano Carpini), an Italian, travelled with very different views: the first, for the purpose of trade; the second, to satisfy royal curiosity; the third, sent by the pope, to make converts of the people. These travels, of course, have no connection with the Crusades, before and after which they were undertaken. The Levant itself is less known to us from these expeditions, than might have been expected: the accounts the Orientals give of it, even in the period when Syria swarmed with Christians, are still indispensable to us.
(3) Finally, in this holy theatre Europeans became better acquainted with one another, though not in a manner much to be prized. With this more intimate acquaintance kings and princes for the most part brought home an implacable enmity: in particular the wars between England and France derived from them fresh fuel. The unfortunate experiment, that a Christian republic could and might contend in unison against infidels, formed a precedent for similar wars in Europe, which have since extended to other quarters of the globe. At the same time it cannot be denied that, while the neighbouring powers of Europe obtained a closer inspection of their mutual weaknesses and strength, some obscure hints were given for a more comprehensive policy, and a new system of relationship in peace and war. Everyone was desirous of wealth, trade, conveniences, and luxuries; as an uncultivated mind is prone to admire these in strangers, and envy them in the hands of another. Few, who returned from the East, could be satisfied with European manners; even their heroism left much behind, awkwardly imitated Asia in the West, or longed for fresh travels and adventures. For the actual and permanent good produced by any event is always proportionate to its consonancy with reason.
Unfortunate would it have been for Europe if, at the time its military swarms were contending for the Holy Sepulchre in a corner of Syria, the arms of Jenghiz Khan had been sooner and more powerfully turned toward the West. Then probably our quarter of the globe would have been the prey of the Mongols, like Poland and Russia; and its nations might have dislodged, with the pilgrim’s staff in their hands, to tell their beads round the object of their contention.[b]
GIBBON ON THE RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES
As soon as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in the Mohammedan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the valour, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics were at length honoured with a Greek version. But the national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution; and the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.
If we compare, at the era of the Crusades, the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East. Yet in a reign of sixty years the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia.
The principle of the Crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the Inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.
The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country; the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with the climates of the East.