Читать книгу History of the Crusades - Joseph François Michaud - Страница 13

The Crusaders exhibited another spectacle with which antiquity was unacquainted—the union of religious humility with the love of glory. History shows us constantly these haughty heroes, the terror of Asia and the Mussulmans, bending their victorious brows to the dust, and marching from conquest to conquest, covered with the sack of penitence. The priests, who exhorted them in battle, only raised their courage by reproaching them with their sins. When they met with reverses, a thousand voices were raised among them to accuse their own misconduct; and when they were victorious, it was God alone that gave them the victory, and religion forbade their claiming glory from it.[215]

The historian may be permitted to think that this difference between the heroes of the “Iliad” and those of the holy war is not sufficiently marked in the poem of “Jerusalem Delivered.”[216] Another reproach may likewise be addressed to the bard of Rinaldo and Godfrey; the ideas of magic and gallantry which he has too freely lavished upon his poem are not in accordance with the truth of history. Magic, which is nothing but a sort of degenerated superstition, and which only deals with small things, was but little known to the Crusaders. Their superstition, however gross, had something noble and grand in it, which associated them sufficiently with the spirit of the epopée, without the poet having anything to alter; their character and manners were grave and austere, and exceedingly well suited to the dignity of a religious epic. It was not till long after the first crusade that magic formed any part of the superstition of the Franks, or that their warlike manners abandoned the prominently epic character which distinguished them, to adopt the romantic character which they have preserved in all books of chivalry. It appears to us that we discover in Tasso much more of the manners of the times in which he lived than of those of the end of the eleventh century, the period of the events which form the subject of his poem.

But it does not enter into the plan or the object of this work to carry such observations further.[217] After having spoken of the heroic deeds and of all that was wonderful in the first crusade, I will turn my attention to the immediate effects it produced upon Europe and Asia. We are sufficiently well acquainted with the evils by which it was followed; great disasters are the familiar subjects of history, but the slow and almost insensible progress of the good that may result from a great revolution, is much less easily perceived.

The first result of this crusade was to carry terror among the Mussulman nations, and to place it out of their power to undertake for a length of time any warlike enterprises against the West. Thanks to the victories of the Crusaders, the Greek empire extended its limits, and Constantinople, which was the road to the West for the Saracens, was rendered safe from their attacks. In this distant expedition Europe lost the flower of its population, but it was not, as Asia was, the theatre of a bloody and disastrous war; of a war in which nothing was respected, in which provinces and cities were, by turns, ravaged by the conquerors and the conquered. Whilst the warriors of Europe were shedding their blood on the plains of the East, the West remained in profound peace. Among Christian nations it was then considered a crime to take up arms for any other cause than that of Jesus Christ. This opinion contributed greatly to check the frightful brigandage that had prevailed, and to increase respect for the truce of God, which was, in the middle ages, the germ or the signal of the best institutions. Whatever were the reverses of the crusades, they were less deplorable than the civil wars and the scourges of feudal anarchy that had so long ravaged all the countries of the West.

This first crusade produced other advantages to Europe.[218] The East, by the holy war, was in some sort laid open to the West, which, before, was but little acquainted with it; the Mediterranean became more frequented by European vessels, navigation made some progress, and commerce, particularly that of the Pisans and Genoese, must have been increased and enriched by the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem. A great part, it is true, of the gold and silver of Europe was carried into Asia by the Crusaders; but these treasures, heaped up and concealed by avarice and fear, had been long abstracted from circulation; the gold which was not carried away by the Crusaders circulated more freely, and Europe, with a less quantity of money, appeared all at once more rich than it had ever been.

We cannot perceive, whatever may have been asserted, that in the first crusade Europe received any great quantity of knowledge from the East. During the eleventh century, Asia had been the theatre of the most sanguinary revolutions. At this period the Saracens, but more particularly the Turks, cultivated neither the arts nor the sciences. The Crusaders had no other relation with them but a war of extermination. On another side, the Franks held the Greek among whom, besides, the arts and sciences were declining, in too much contempt to borrow any kind of instruction from them; nevertheless, as the events of the crusade had strongly affected the imagination of nations, this great and imposing spectacle was sufficient to give an impetus to the human mind in the West. Several writers undertook to trace the history of this memorable period. Raymond d’Agiles, Robert the monk of St. Remy, Tudebode, Foulcher de Chartres, Abbot Guibert, Baudry, the bishop of Dol, and Albert d’Aix were contemporary historians, and most of them ocular witnesses of the conquests and exploits they have described. The histories they have left us are not destitute of merit, and some of them are even better than that which was written of the same kind among either the Greeks or the Arabs. These writers were animated in their labours by the same spirit of piety which governed the heroes of the cross. This spirit of piety caused them to take up the pen, and persuaded them that they wrote for the cause of God. They would have thought themselves wanting in their duty as Christians, if they had not employed their abilities in transmitting the events of the holy war to posterity. In whatever manner we judge of their motives, we cannot avoid being convinced that they have rendered great services to history, and that without them the heroic times of our annals would have remained without monuments.

The wonderful portion of the character of this first crusade likewise awakened the epic muse. Raoul de Caen,[219] who, in his history, sometimes sounds the epic trumpet in order worthily to celebrate the “gestes” of Tancred, is not deficient in either warmth or fancy. The conquest of Jerusalem was during the twelfth century the subject of several works in verse. A Limousin knight, Geoffrey de la Tour, called the prior or abbot of the Vigeois, described very tolerably the events of these wars in a large volume all written in his maternal tongue, and in vulgar rhyme, in order that the people might understand it the better. This poem, written in verse, which was the fruit of the labour of twelve years, is lost. Many other similar works have doubtless shared the same fate; but that which remains suffices to prove that human intelligence began to expand at the commencement of the twelfth century.

Before this period, the science of legislation, which is the first and most important of all, had made but very little progress. Some cities of Italy and the provinces near the Pyrenees, where the Goths had encouraged the Roman laws, alone exhibited glimmerings of civilization. Among the rules and ordinances that Gaston de Béarn laid down before his departure for the Holy Land, are to be found many points and particulars which deserve to be preserved by history, because they exhibit the feeble beginnings of a legislation which time and fortunate circumstances would perfect. Peace, says this legislator of the eleventh century, shall be observed at all times towards clerks, monks, travellers, and ladies and their suite.—If any one takes refuge in the abode of a lady, he shall enjoy security of person, on paying all loss or consequent injury. Let the peasant live in peace; let his cattle and agricultural instruments be exempt from seizure.[220] These benevolent dispositions were inspired by the spirit of chivalry, which had made some progress in the wars against the Saracens of Spain; they were particularly the works of the councils[221] which undertook to put a stop to private wars and the excess of feudal anarchy. The holy wars beyond the seas finished that which chivalry had begun, they perfected chivalry itself. The council of Clermont and the crusade that followed it only developed and consolidated all which preceding councils, all that the wisest lords and princes, had done for the cause of humanity.

Many of the princes of the crusades, such as the duke of Brittany and Robert count of Flanders, signalized their return by establishing wise regulations. A few salutary institutions began to displace the violent abuses of feudalism, and there might be seen, at least in some provinces, what a regime founded by the sword could exhibit of a moderate kind in its legislation.

It was in France that these changes were most obvious, because France had taken the greatest part in the crusade. Many nobles emancipated their serfs upon their following them in this expedition. Giraud and Giraudet Adhemar de Monthiel, who followed their brother, the bishop of Puy, to the holy war, to encourage and reward some of their vassals, by whom they were accompanied, granted them several fiefs by an act drawn up in the same year as the taking of Jerusalem. We might quote many similar acts made during the crusade and in the first year that followed it. Liberty awaited in the West the small number that returned from the holy war, who seemed to acknowledge no other master but Jesus Christ.

In this crusade the nobility lost some portion of a power which they had abused, but they had more splendour and were held in greater honour. The king of France, although for a long time obnoxious to the censures of the Church, and although he did not distinguish himself by any great personal qualities, had a more tranquil and prosperous reign than his predecessors; he began to shake off the yoke of the great vassals of the crown, of whom several were ruined or perished in the holy war. We have often repeated that the crusade placed great wealth in the hands of the clergy; but we must likewise add, that the clergy composed the most enlightened part of the nation, and that this increase of prosperity was in the nature of things. After the first crusade, was seen that which is always to be observed in all nations that are progressing in civilization. Power had a tendency to centralize itself in the hands of him who protected liberty. Glory became the reward of all who were called upon to defend their country; consideration and riches took a direction towards that class from which intelligence was to be expected.

It is certain that knowledge arose in Europe among the clergy, and that they alone were able to consecrate in some way many of the salutary results of the crusades. As long as the clergy powerfully assisted the progress of civilization, they preserved their wealth; as soon as they went beyond civilization, they lost it. This is the course of things on earth. As long as institutions are favourable to society, society reveres them;[222] when under some relations they are esteemed less useful, they lose their importance. Without any necessity for declamation, we must leave the ingratitude natural to nations to take its course, as we must their inconstancy, and to time; which are but too powerful in destroying instruments which society has employed with some advantage.

Many cities of Italy had arrived at a certain degree of civilization before the first crusade; but this civilization, born in the midst of a barbarous age, and spread amongst some isolated nations divided among themselves, had no power to attain maturity. For civilization to produce the salutary effects it is capable of, everything must at the same time, have a tendency to the same perfection. Knowledge, laws, morals, power, all must proceed together. This is what has happened in France;[223] therefore must France one day become the model and centre of civilization in Europe. The holy wars contributed much to this happy revolution, which may be seen even in the first crusade.