French, German, and Italian ecclesiastics were educated at the Moorish Universities. One of these, Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester, introduced the Arabic numerals, the greatest instrument of science, originally derived from India, into Europe. The manufacture of gunpowder, the use of artillery, many of the nobler kinds of metallurgy, were also brought from the East and communicated to Europe by the Moors.

A great and permanent impetus was given to the civilization of the West by that vast movement of the Middle Ages, whereby, in the words of the Byzantine Princess, Anna Comnena, all Europe was precipitated on Asia. The Crusades have been so often treated in detail that we shall only notice a few of their more striking results. These religious wars united the nations of the West in a grand political league long before any similar union could otherwise have taken place. They also greatly improved, or, indeed, almost created, the military organization of Europe, and inspired and fostered the spirit of chivalry in her populations. They led to the abolition of serfdom by the substitution of martial service instead of the abject vassalage to which the masses had been accustomed. By enforcing the so-called Truce of God they prevented the pernicious practice of private warfare, and turned the arms of Christendom against its common foe. Vast multitudes were led to visit Italy, Constantinople, and the East-the seats of ancient learning, and the scenes of splendid opulence. Extended travel enlarged their knowledge of the geography, literature, natural history, and productions of foreign lands. In the East still lingered the remains of the science of the palmy days of the Caliphate. The rustic manners of the Crusaders became polished by their contact with the more refined oriental races. To the British or German knight, who had never stirred farther from his ancestral castle than a boar hunt or a stag chase led him, what a wonder-land must Italy and the East have been, with their great cities, their marble palaces, porphyry pillars, and jasper domes! The Crusaders, becoming acquainted with the luxuries of the Orient, discovered new wants, felt new desires, and brought home a knowledge of arts and elegances before unknown.

The result was seen in the greater splendor of the Western courts, in their more gorgeous pomp and ceremonial, and in

the more refined taste in pleasure, dress, and ornaments. The miracles and treasures of ancient art and architecture in Greece and Italy, far more numerous then than now, did much to create and develop a taste for the beautiful, and to enlarge the sphere of human enjoyment. The refining influence of the East and South have left their mark in every corner of Europe, from Gibraltar to Norway, from Ireland to Hungary, from the crosses on the doors to the arabesque traceries in cathedrals and castles.

It is not wonderful that these great and stirring events, with their combined religious enthusiasm and military splendor, awoke the imagination of the poets. They gave a new impulse to thought, and a greater depth and strength to feeling. They inspired the muse of Tasso and many a lesser bard, and supplied the theme of the great Christian epic, Gierusalemme Liberata.

The Crusaders, moreover, made several commercial settlements in the East, the trade of which survived their military occupation by the Latins. Thus a valuable commerce sprang up, which contributed greatly to enrich the resources, ameliorate the manners, and increase the comforts of the West.

But there were grave and serious evils resulting from the Crusades, which went far to counterbalance all these advantages. The lives and labors of millions were lost to Europe, and buried beneath the sands of Syria. Many noble families became extinguished by the fortunes of war, or impoverished by the sale or mortgaging of their estates to furnish the means for military equipment. The influence of the Pope, as the organizer of the Crusades and common father of Christendom, was greatly augmented. The opulence and corruption of the religious orders was increased by the reversion to their possession of many estates whose heirs had perished in the field. Vast numbers of oriental relics, many of them spurious and absurd, became objects of idolatrous worship. Many corruptions of the Greek Church were imitated, many Syrian and Greek saints introduced into the calendar, and many Eastern legends and superstitions acquired currency.

Of most important bearing on the literary history of Europe was the fall of Constantinople, A. D. 1453. Terrific and protracted was the struggle for the key of Eastern empire and the

throne of the Eastern Cæsars. The toils of Fate at length encompassed the doomed city. The cup of her iniquity was full. The wrath of heaven, long invoked by her horrid abominations, at length burst in flame upon her head. The fierce and fiery Mohammed, like an avenging messenger of doom-an awful Nemesis-appeared before her walls. Never was more dreadful night than the eve of the final assault. The blaze of nocturnal fires illumined the entire extent of massy wall. The novel terror of the lightning flash and thunder stroke of the newlyinvented cannon-terrific to the Greeks as the bolts of Jovewere added to the more familiar concussions of the batteringrams; while the mysterious and inextinguishable Greek fire heightened the horror of the scene. Above the din of conflict were heard the shouts of the terrible Janissaries-eager for the slaughter as hounds in leash-Allah Akbar! Allah hu! while within the doomed city arose, amid the darkness, from the sad procession of priests and warriors wending to the Church of St. Sophia, the wailing dirge, Kyrie eleeson! Christe eleeson!

All Europe was aghast with horror and dismay at the fall of the ancient seat of Greek empire. The Pope summoned the en tire West, from Sweden to Naples, from Poland to Britain to drive the Turk from European soil. But spiritual anathemas and political leagues were alike despised by the victorious invader. He crossed to Italy, seized and sacked Otranto, and would probably have become master of old as well as of New Rome had he not been overtaken by Death, a conqueror as relentless as himself.

The Byzantine capital was the great treasure-house of ancient learning. There the Greek language-the language of Homer and the gods-was a living tongue. That tongue, corrupted by the populace, it is true, was spoken by the nobles with sufficient purity to enable them to delight in the sublime dreams of Plato, the dark tragedy of Eschylus, or the Christian eloquence of Chrysostom. The victorious army of the Turks compelled the flight of the Muses. A vast number of educated Greeks emigrated to Italy, and were dispersed throughout the entire West. The immense collection of MSS., statues, antiques, gems, vases, intaglios, and treasures of art and objects of luxury was scattered throughout Europe. Florence became a

haven for the exiled Greeks. Cosmo de Medicis and his illustrious descendant, Lorenzo il Magnifico, became the zealous patrons of the new learning. Thus the ancient literature, which withered and was forgotten under its native skies, revived and flourished in a western clime.

Simultaneously with the fall of Constantinople, the invention of a German mechanic gave wings to the new learning, wherewith it might fly, as lightly as the thistle-down, to the ends of the earth. This wonderful art gave a permanent life to that ancient literature which was in such imminent danger of extinction, and, by the immense multiplication of copies, made it thenceforth indestructible. By this revival and diffusion of Greek learning, also, a mighty impetus was given to the great Reformation, which was soon to emancipate the minds of millions, and to stimulate the process of free inquiry wherever Protestantism should prevail.

Another very powerful Oriental influence exerted upon Europe was that of the Jewish race. That race, though everywhere proscribed and persecuted, every-where obtained a footing, and, by the advancement of science and commerce, repaid with benefits the injuries it received. Yet the tale of their persecution by fire and faggot, by rack and dungeon, is one of the darkest pages in European history. Pillaged and plundered, scattered and peeled, branded and mutilated, smitten by every hand and execrated by every lip, they seemed to bear, in all its bitterness of woe, the terrible curse invoked by their fathers, "His blood-the blood of the Innocent One-be upon us and on our children." Trampled and beaten to the earth, decimated and slaughtered, they have yet, like the trodden grass that ranker grows, increased and multiplied in spite of their opposition. Those "Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind," exiled from the home of their fathers, and harried from land to land, have verily eaten the unleavened bread and bitter herbs of bondage, and drunken the waters of Marah. In many foreign lands they have sat beside strange streams and wept as they remembered Zion.

"Anathema Maranatha! was the cry

That rang from town to town, from street to street;

At every gate the accursed Mordecai

Was mocked and jeered and spurned by Christian feet."

But that toleration which they found nowhere among the

disciples of the Galilean, they received from the followers of the False Prophet. They were advanced to the highest positions of trust and honor at the courts of the Saracen conquerors of Spain. They became the treasurers and confidential advisers of the Emirs. They were frequently the chancellors and professors of the Moorish universities. They were generally the favorite physicians of the rulers, an office not less influential than that of the confessors of the catholic sovereigns of Europe. There was, indeed, a mutual bond of sympathy between the children of Ishmael and those of Isaac. Besides their common descent from the Father of the faithful, and their kindred languages, customs, and traditions, their similar creeds concerning the unity of the Godhead, and their aversion to the Trinitarian theology of the Christians, drew them more closely together. In Alexandria the Jews had acquired all the learning of the East. Indeed, it was from them and the Nestorians, doubtless, that the Saracens acquired those germs of science and philosophy which they afterward developed to such munificent results, alike on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Guadalquivir. Thus a mighty but intangible influence accompanied their invasion of Europe that the iron hammer of Charles Martel could not beat back. Great numbers of Jews came to Spain with the Saracens. They became the first and, for a long time, almost the only physicians of Europe. They enriched the materia medica with discoveries of chemistry, in which they were expert. The healing art was previously obscured and debased by magic, sorcery, and empiricism. These hags of darkness, to use the figure of Professor Draper, vanished at the crowing of the Esculapian cock, announcing that the intellectual dawn of Europe had arrived. The system of supernaturalism, which universally obtained, was first assailed by the practical science of the Jews. Their rationalistic diagnosis relieved disease of its spiritual terrors, and sapped the foundation of superstition in Europe, as Christian science is at present doing in India. This, and their great wealth, made them the frequent victims of the Inquisition. Notwithstanding, some of them became the private physicians even of the Popes who persecuted their race. They taught in the Rabbinical schools of Italy, Sicily, and France, as well as in Spain. Persecution and travel sharpened their naturally acute intellects, so that