All nations bore their part in this mighty tragedy. The Franks were there, under Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, in such strength as to have stamped their name in the East upon Europeans in general; the English nobly supported the ancient fame of their country under the lion-hearted King; the Germans followed the Dukes of Austria and Bavaria; the Flemings those of Hainault and Brabant; the Italians and Spaniards reappeared on the fields of Roman fame; even the distant Swedes and Norwegians, the descendants of the Goths and Normans, sent forth their contingents to combat in the common cause of Christianity. Nor were the forces of Asia assembled in less marvellous proportions. The bands of Persia were there, terrible as when they destroyed the legions of Crassus and Antony, or withstood the invasions of Heraclius and Julian; the descendants of the followers of Sesostris appeared on the field of ancient and forgotten glory; the swarthy visages of the Ethiopians were seen; the distant Tartars hurried to the theatre of carnage and plunder; the Arabs, flushed with the conquest of the Eastern world, combated, with unconquerable resolution, for the faith of Mahomet. The arms of Europe were tested against those of Asia, as much as the courage of the descendants of Japhet was with the daring of the children of Ishmael. The long lance, ponderous panoply, and weighty war-horse of the West, was matched against the twisted hauberk, sharp sabre, and incomparable steeds of the East; the sword crossed with the cimeter, the dagger with the poniard; the armour of Milan was scarce proof against the Damascus blade; the archers of England tried their strength with the bowmen of Arabia. Nor were rousing passions, animating recollections, and charmed desires awanting to sustain the courage on both sides. The Christians asserted the ancient superiority of Europe over Asia; the Saracens were proud of the recent conquest of the East, Africa, and Southern Europe, by their arms; the former pointed to a world subdued and long held in subjection—the latter to a world newly reft from the infidel, and won by their sabres to the sway of the Crescent. The one deemed themselves secure of salvation while combating for the Cross, and sought an entrance to heaven through the breach of Jerusalem; the other, strong in the belief of fatalism, advanced fearless to the conflict, and strove for the houris of Paradise amidst the lances of the Christians.
When nations so powerful, leaders so renowned, forces so vast, courage so unshaken in the contending parties, were brought into collision, under the influence of passions so strong, enthusiasm so exalted, devotion so profound, it was impossible that innumerable deeds of heroism should not have been performed on both sides. If a poet equal to Homer had arisen in Europe to sing the conflict, the warriors of the Crusades would have been engraven on our minds like the heroes of the Iliad; and all future ages would have resounded with their exploits, as they have with those of Achilles and Agamemnon, of Ajax and Ulysses, of Hector and Diomede. But though Tasso has with incomparable beauty enshrined in immortal verse the feelings of chivalry, and the enthusiasm of the Crusades, he has not left a poem which has taken, or ever can take, the general hold of the minds of men, which the Iliad has done. The reason is, it is not founded in nature—it is the ideal—but it is not the ideal based on the real. Considered as a work of imagination, the Gerusalemme Liberata is one of the most exquisite conceptions of human fancy, and will for ever command the admiration of romantic and elevated minds. But it wants that yet higher excellence, which arises from a thorough knowledge of human nature—a graphic delineation of actual character, a faithful picture of the real passions and sufferings of mortality. It is the most perfect example of poetic fancy; but the highest species of the epic poem is to be found not in poetic fancy, but poetic history. The heroes and heroines of the Jerusalem Delivered are noble and attractive. It is impossible to study them without admiration; but they resemble real life as much as the Enchanted Forest and spacious battle-fields, which Tasso has described in the environs of Jerusalem, do the arid ridges, waterless ravines, and stone-covered hills in the real scene, which have been painted by the matchless pens of Chateaubriand and Lamartine.
The love of Tancred, the tenderness of Erminia, the heroism of Rinaldo, are indelibly engraven in the recollection of every sensitive reader of Tasso; but no man ever saw such characters, or any thing resembling them, in real life. They are aërial beings, like Miranda in the "Tempest," or Rosalind in the forest; but they recall no traits of actual existence. The enchantment of Armida, the death of Clorinda, belong to a different class. They rise to the highest flights of the epic muse; for female fascination is the same in all ages; and Tasso drew from the life in the first, while his exquisite taste and elevated soul raised him to the highest moral sublimity and pathos which human nature can reach in the second. Considered, however, as the poetic history of the Crusades, as the Iliad of modern times, the Jerusalem Delivered will not bear any comparison with its immortal predecessor. It conveys little idea of the real events; it embodies no traits of nature; it has enshrined no traditions of the past. The distant era of the Crusades, separated by three centuries from the time when he wrote, had come down to Tasso, blended with the refinements of civilization, the courtesy of chivalry, the graces of antiquity, the conceits of the troubadours. In one respect only he has faithfully portrayed the feelings of the time when his poem was laid. In the uniform elevation of mind in Godfrey of Bouillon; his constant forgetfulness of self; his sublime devotion to the objects of his mission, is to be found a true picture of the spirit of the Crusades, as it appeared in their most dignified champions. And it is fortunate for mankind that the noble portrait has been arrayed in such colours as must render it as immortal as the human race.
If poetry has failed in portraying the real spirit of the Crusades, has history been more successful? Never was a nobler theme presented to human ambition. We may see what may be made of it, by the inimitable fragment of its annals which Gibbon has left in his narrative of the storming of Constantinople by the Franks and Venetians. Only think what a subject is presented to the soul of genius, guiding the hand, and sustaining the effort of industry! The rise of the Mahometan power in the East, and the subjugation of Palestine by the arms of the Saracens; the profound indignation excited in Europe by the narratives of the sufferings of the Christians who had made pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre; the sudden and almost miraculous impulse communicated to multitudes by the preaching of Peter the Hermit; the universal frenzy which seized all classes, and the general desertion of fields and cities, in the anxiety to share in the holy enterprise of rescuing it from the infidels; the unparalleled sufferings and total destruction of the huge multitude of men, women, and children who formed the vanguard of Europe, and perished in the first Crusade, make up, as it were the first act of the eventful story. Next comes the firm array of warriors which was led by Godfrey of Bouillon in the second Crusade. Their march through Hungary and Turkey to Constantinople; the description of the Queen of the East, with its formidable ramparts, noble harbours, and crafty government; the battles of Nice and Dorislaus, and marvellous defeats of the Persians by the arms of the Christians; the long duration, and almost fabulous termination of the siege of Antioch, by the miracle of the holy lance; the advance to Jerusalem; the defeat of the Egyptians before its walls, and final storming of the holy city by the resistless prowess of the crusaders, terminate the second act of the mighty drama.
The third commences with the establishment, in a durable manner, of the Latins in Palestine, and the extension of its limits,—by the subjection of Ptolemais, Edessa, and a number of strongholds towards the east. The constitution of the monarchy by the "Assizes of Jerusalem," the most regular and perfect model of feudal sovereignty that ever was formed; with the singular orders of the knights-templars, hospitallers, and of St John of Jerusalem, which in a manner organized the strength of Europe for its defence, blend the detail of manners, institutions, and military establishments, with the otherwise too frequent narratives of battles and sieges. Next come the vast and almost convulsive efforts of the Orientals to expel the Christians from their shores; the long wars and slow degrees by which the monarchy of Palestine was abridged, and at last its strength broken by the victorious sword of Saladin, and the wood of the true cross lost, in the battle of Tiberias. But this terrible event, which at once restored Jerusalem to the power of the Saracens, again roused the declining spirit of European enterprise. A hero rose up for the defence of the Holy Land. Richard Cœur de Lion and Philip Augustus appeared at the head of the chivalry of England and France. The siege of Ptolemais exceeded in heroic deeds that of Troy; the battle of Ascalon broke the strength and humbled the pride of Saladin; and, but for the jealousy and defection of France, Richard would have again rescued the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels, and perhaps permanently established a Christian monarchy on the shores of Palestine.
The fourth Crusade, under Dandolo, when the arms of the Faithful were turned aside from the holy enterprise by the spoils of Constantinople, and the blind Doge leapt from his galleys on the towers of the imperial city, forms the splendid subject of the fourth act. The marvellous spectacle was there exhibited of a band of adventurers, not mustering above twenty thousand combatants, carrying by storm the mighty Queen of the East, subverting the Byzantine empire, and establishing themselves in a durable manner, in feudal sovereignty, over the whole of Greece and European Turkey. The wonderful powers of Gibbon, the luminous pages of Sismondi, have thrown a flood of light on this extraordinary event, and almost brought its principal events before our eyes. The passage of the Dardanelles by the Christian armament; the fears of the warriors at embarking in the mighty enterprise of attacking the imperial city; the imposing aspect of its palaces, domes, and battlements; the sturdy resistance of the Latin squares to the desultory charges of the Byzantine troops; in fine, the storm of the city itself, and overthrow of the empire of the Cæsars, stand forth in the most brilliant light in the immortal pages of these two writers. But great and romantic as this event was, it was an episode in the history of the Crusades, it was a diversion of its forces, a deviation from its spirit. It is an ordinary, though highly interesting and eventful siege; very different from the consecration of the forces of Europe to the rescuing of the Holy Sepulchre.
Very different was the result of the last Crusade, under Saint Louis, which shortly after terminated in the capture of Ptolemais, and the final expulsion of the Christians from the shores of Palestine. Melancholy, however, as are the features of that eventful story, it excites a deeper emotion than the triumphant storm of Constantinople by the champions of the Cross. St Louis was unfortunate, but he was so in a noble cause; he preserved the purity of his character, the dignity of his mission, equally amidst the arrows of the Egyptians on the banks of the Nile, as in the death-bestrodden shores of the Lybian Desert. There is nothing more sublime in history than the death of this truly saint-like prince, amidst his weeping followers. England reappeared with lustre in the last glare of the flames of the crusades, before they sunk for ever; the blood of the Plantagenets proved worthy of itself. Prince Edward again erected the banner of victory before the walls of Acre, and his heroic consort, who sucked the poison of the assassin from his wounds, has passed, like Belisarius or Cœur de Lion, into the immortal shrine of romance. Awful was the catastrophe in which the tragedy terminated; and the storm of Acre, and slaughter of thirty thousand of the Faithful, while it finally expelled the Christians from the Holy Land, awakened the European powers, when too late, to a sense of the ruinous effect of those divisions which had permitted the vanguard of Christendom, the bulwark of the faith, to languish and perish, after an heroic resistance, on the shores of Asia.
Nor was it long before the disastrous consequences of these divisions appeared, and it was made manifest, even to the most inconsiderate, what dangers had been averted from the shores of Europe, by the contest which had so long fixed the struggle on those of Asia. The dreadful arms of the Mahometans, no longer restrained by the lances of the Crusaders, appeared in menacing, and apparently irresistible strength, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Empire after empire sank beneath their strokes. Constantinople, and with it the empire of the East, yielded to the arms of Mahomet II.; Rhodes, with its spacious ramparts and well-defended bastions, to those of Solyman the Magnificent; Malta, the key to the Mediterranean, was only saved by the almost superhuman valour of its devoted knights; Hungary was overrun; Vienna besieged; and the death of Solyman alone prevented him from realizing his threat, of stabling his steed at the high altar of St Peter's. The glorious victory of Lepanto, the raising of the siege of Vienna by John Sobieski, only preserved, at distant intervals, Christendom from subjugation, and possibly the faith of the gospel from extinction on the earth. A consideration of these dangers may illustrate of what incalculable service the Crusades were to the cause of true religion and civilization, by fixing the contest for two centuries in Asia, when it was most to be dreaded in Europe; and permitting the strength of Christendom to grow, during that long period, till, when it was seriously assailed in its own home, it was able to defend itself. It may show us what we owe to the valour of those devoted champions of the Cross, who struggled with the might of Islamism when "it was strongest, and ruled it when it was wildest;" and teach us to look with thankfulness on the dispensations of that over-ruling Providence, which causes even the most vehement and apparently extravagant passions of the human mind to minister to the final good of humanity.
For a long period after their termination, the Crusades were regarded by the world, and treated by historians, as the mere ebullition of frenzied fanaticism—as a useless and deplorable effusion of human blood. It may be conceived with what satisfaction these views were received by Voltaire, and the whole sceptical writers of France, and how completely, in consequence, they deluded more than one generation. Robertson was the first who pointed out some of the important consequences which the Crusades had on the structure of society, and progress of improvement in modern Europe. Guizot and Sismondi have followed in the same track; and the truths they have unfolded are so evident, that they have received the unanimous concurrence of all thinking persons. Certain it is, that so vast a migration of men, so prodigious a heave of the human race, could not have taken place without producing the most important effects. Few as were the warriors who returned from the Holy Wars, in comparison of those who set out, they brought back with them many of the most important acquisitions of time and value, and arts of the East. The terrace cultivation of Tuscany, the invaluable irrigation of Lombardy, date from the Crusades: it was from the warriors or pilgrims that returned from the Holy Land, that the incomparable silk and velvet manufactures, and delicate jewellery of Venice and Genoa, took their rise. Nor were the consequences less material on those who remained behind, and did not share in the immediate fruits of Oriental enterprise. Immense was the impulse communicated to Europe by the prodigious migration. It dispelled prejudice, by bringing distant improvement before the eyes; awakened activity, by exhibiting to the senses the effects of foreign enterprise; it drew forth and expended long accumulated capital; the fitting out so vast a host of warriors stimulated labour, as the wars of the French Revolution did those of the European states six centuries afterwards. The feudal aristocracy never recovered the shock given to their power by the destruction of many families, and the overwhelming debts fastened on others, by these costly and protracted contests. Great part of the prosperity, freedom, and happiness which have since prevailed in the principal European monarchies, is to be ascribed to the Crusades. So great an intermingling of the different faiths and races of mankind, never takes place without producing lasting and beneficial consequences.
These views have been amply illustrated by the philosophic historians of modern times. But there is another effect of far more importance than them all put together, which has not yet attracted the attention it deserves, because the opposite set of evils are only beginning now to rise into general and formidable activity. This is the fixing the mind, and still more the heart of Europe, for so long a period, on generous and disinterested objects. Whoever has attentively considered the constitution of human nature as he feels it in himself, or has observed it in others,—whether as shown in the private society with which he has mingled, or the public concerns of nations he has observed,—will at once admit that SELFISHNESS is its greatest bane. It is at once the source of individual degradation and of public ruin. He knew the human heart well who prescribed as the first of social duties, "to love our neighbour as ourself." Of what incalculable importance was it, then, to have the mind of Europe, during so many generations, withdrawn from selfish considerations, emancipated from the sway of individual desire, and devoted to objects of generous or spiritual ambition! The passion of the Crusades may have been wild, extravagant, irrational, but it was noble, disinterested, and heroic. It was founded on the sacrifice of self to duty; not on the sacrifice, so common in later times, of duty to self. In the individuals engaged in the Holy Wars, doubtless, there was the usual proportion of human selfishness and passion. Certainly they had not all the self-control of St Anthony, or the self-denial of St Jerome. But this is the case with all great movements. The principle which moved the general mind was grand and generous. It first severed war from the passion of lust or revenge, and the thirst for plunder on which it had hitherto been founded, and based it on the generous and disinterested object of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre. Courage was sanctified, because it was exerted in a noble cause: even bloodshed became excusable, for it was done to stop the shedding of blood. The noble and heroic feelings which have taken such hold of the mind of modern Europe, and distinguish it from any other age or quarter of the globe, have mainly arisen from the profound emotions awakened by the mingling of the passions of chivalry with the aspirations of devotion during the Crusades. The sacrifice of several millions of men, however dreadful an evil, was a transient and slight calamity, when set against the incalculable effect of communicating such feelings to their descendants, and stamping them for ever upon the race of Japhet, destined to people and subdue the world.