the dupes and victims of a treacherous foreigner. John, with these aids, was resolved to make a vigorous effort for the preservation of his crown. But this vicious tyrant, from whom England could in no situation have ever received benefit, was cut off by a fever at Newark. Henry III., his son, a boy of nine years of age, was immediately crowned at Bristol, under the auspices of the earl of Pembroke, Mareschal of England, who was at the same time appointed guardian of the king and protector of the realm. The disaffected barons, whose object of hatred and enmity was now removed, returned cheerfully to their allegiance. Lewis found himself deserted by all his partisans among the English; an engagement ensued, in which the French troops were defeated; and their prince, finding his cause to be daily declining, was glad at last to conclude a peace with the protector, and entirely to evacuate the kingdom.

CHAPTER IX.

State of Europe in the Thirteenth Century-The Crusades.

WHILE these eventful transactions were carrying on in England, and John, by compulsion, was making those concessions to his barons, which a wise and a good prince would not have thought it injurious to regal dignity to have voluntarily granted, a young emperor had been elected in Germany, and enjoyed the throne which Otho IV. had resigned before his death; this was Frederick II., son of the emperor Henry VI. The emperors, at this time, were much more powerful than their neighboring monarchs of France; for, besides Suabia, and the other extensive territories which Frederick had in Germany, he likewise possessed Naples and Sicily by inheritance; and Lombardy, though sometimes struggling for independence, had long been considered as an appanage of the empire.

The pope reigned absolute at Rome, where all the municipal magistrates were subject to his control and authority. Milan, Brescia, Nantua, Vicenza, Padua, Ferrara, and almost all the cities of Romagna, had, under the pope's protection, entered into a confederacy against the emperor. Cremona, Bergamo, Modena, Parma, Reggio, and Trent were of the imperial party. These opposite interests produced the factions of Guelph and Ghibelline, which for a length of time embroiled all Italy in

divisions, and split towns and even families into parties. The Guelphs stood up for the supremacy of the pope, the Ghibellines for that of the emperor.

Frederick II., by his policy and his arms, carried on a vigorous contest with four popes successively without bringing any of them to submission. By two of these popes, Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., he was excommunicated and solemnly deposed; but Frederick kept possession of his throne and maintained his independence. In consequence of the last sentence of deposition, he wrote, in the most spirited manner, to all the princes of Germany, "I am not the first," says he, "whom the clergy have treated so unworthily, and I shall not be the last. But you are the cause of it, by obeying those hypocrites, whose ambition, you are sensible, is carried beyond all bounds. How many infamous actions may you not discover in the court of Rome! While those pontiffs are abandoned to the vices of the age, and intoxicated with pleasure, the greatness of their wealth extinguishes in their minds all sense of religion. It is, therefore, a work of charity to deprive them of those pernicious treasures which are their ruin; and in this cause you ought all to cooperate with me.

Con

Innocent IV. endeavored by every engine in his power to excite the Germans to rebel against this spirited emperor. spiracies were formed against his life-assassins hired to murder him-and several attempts made to cut him off by poison. Of all these iniquitous proceedings he made loud complaints, which the pope never gave himself the trouble of answering. Whether these machinations were in the end effectual is not certainly known; but Frederick, after a life of much disquiet, died at Naples in the fifty-second year of his age, and thirty-eighth of his reign.

For eighteen years after the death of Frederick II., the Germanic empire was without a sovereign, and was rent by incessant factions and divisions. Yet, distracted as they were among themselves, the Germans allowed the pope to gain nothing by their situation. Italy, indeed, was equally a prey to factions, which gave the popes too much to do at home to think of meddling with the affairs of a distant kingdom. France was still weak, and Spain was divided between the Christians and Mahometans. England, as we have seen, was a miserable theatre of civil war and anarchy. Yet, at this period, distracted as appears to have been the face of all Europe, one great scheme or project seems to have given a species of union to this discordant mass; a project, from the issue of which arose new kingdoms, new establishments, and a new system of manners. This was the crusades, or holy wars, of which we now proceed to give a short ac

count.

We have mentioned the irruption of the Turks, or Turcomans upon the empire of the Caliphs. The manners of these Tur

comans were like those of most of the other tribes from the north of Asia; that is to say, they were freebooters, who lived by plunder, and had no strong attachment to any country. The Turks, it is probable, came from those regions beyond Mount Taurus and Imaus, and were, therefore, a race of Tartars. About the eleventh century they made an irruption upon Muscovy, and came down upon the banks of the Caspian Sea. The imprudent policy of the Arabians themselves first introduced these strangers into their empire, who were destined to overthrow it. One of the caliphs, grandson of Haroun Alraschid, hired a body of Turks to be his life-guards; this gave them some name and reputation they gradually increased in number, and acquired influence in the civil wars, which took place on occasion of the succession to the caliphate. The caliphs of the race of the Abasside were deprived by the caliphs of the race of Fatima of Syria, Egypt, and Africa; and the Turks subdued at last, and stripped of their dominions, both the Abasside and the Fatimites.

Bagdad, the seat of the empire of the caliphs, was taken by the Turks in the year 1055, and these conquerors followed the same commendable policy with the Franks, the Goths, and Normans, in accommodating themselves to the laws and manners of the conquered people. From this period, the caliphs, from being temporal monarchs, became only the heads or supreme pontiffs of the Mahometan religion, as the popes of the Christian; but the difference was, that the caliphs were sinking from their ancient dignity, while the popes were daily advancing in power and splendor. At the time of the first crusade, Arabia was under a Turkish sultan, though the caliph still retained his rank and nominal importance. Persia and Asia Minor were likewise governed by Turkish usurpers; the empire of Constantinople had been in some degree of lustre under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and under Nicephorus Phocas; but the succeeding princes weakened and reduced it to a shadow. Michael Paphlagonatus lost Sicily, and Romanus Diogenes almost all that remained in the East, except the kingdom of Pontus; and that province, which is now called Turcomania, fell soon after into the hands of Solyman the Turk, who being now master of the greatest part of Asia Minor, established the seat of his empire at Nicæa, and began to threaten Constantinople at the time of the commencement of the first crusade.

The Greek empire, thus circumscribed in Asia, comprehended, however, or the European side, all Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, and Illyria, and the Isle of Crete, now Candia. The city of Constantinople itself was populous, opulent, and voluptuous. Its inhabitants styled themselves not Greeks, but Romans, and the people of Rome, whom they termed Latins, were, in their opinion, a set of barbarians, who had revolted from them and shaken off their authority.

The territory of Palestine, or the Holy Land, appears to have

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been over-stocked with inhabitants, great numbers of whom had dispersed themselves into different parts of Asia and Africa, where hey applied to traffic with uncommon spirit for those rude ages.

When Omar, the successor of Mahomet, seized on the fertile country of Syria, he took possession of Palestine, and as the Mahometans esteemed Jerusalem a holy city, Omar built there a magnificent mosque. Jerusalem at this time contained about seven or eight thousand inhabitants, whose chief wealth arose from the charitable donations of pilgrims, both Christians and Mahometans for the latter paid a degree of veneration to the mosque of Omar, as well as the Christians to the holy sepulchre.

A pilgrim, to whom history has given the name of Peter the Hermit, first raised up that spirit of THE CRUSADES which inflamed all Europe. This man, who was a native of Amiens, had travelled into the Holy Land, where he had suffered much oppression from the Turks. At his return to Rome, he complained in such high terms of the grievances to which the Christian pilgrims were subjected, that Urban II. thought him a very fit person to set on foot the grand design which the popes had long entertained of arming the whole Christian world against the infidels; and Urban himself convoked a general council at Placentia, where the project was proposed and highly approved of; but from the occupation which the Italian nobility found at that time at home, no active measure followed this approbation. The French possessed more of the spirit of adventure than the Italians. The design was no sooner proposed in a council, held at Clermont, in Auvergne, than they took up arms with the most enthusiastic emulation. The principal nobles immediately sold their lands to raise money for the expedition, and the church bought them at an easy rate, and thus acquired immense territorial possessions: even the poorest barons set out upon their own charges, and the vassals attended the standard of their lords. Besides these, whom we may suppose to have been influenced by the piety of the design, an innumerable multitude, a motley assemblage of beggars, slaves, malefactors, strumpets, debauchees, and profligates of all kinds, joined the throng, and hoped to find in those scenes of holy car nage and desolation, means of making their fortune by plunder.* A general rendezvous was appointed at Constantinople. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Brabant, a lineal descendant of Charlemagne, was, from his great military character, chosen to command an army of seventy thousand foot, and ten thousand horse, all armed completely in steel. Above eighty thousand ranged themselves under the banner of Peter the Hermit, who walked at their head

* Many even of these miscreants had their own motives of piety. Mr. Gibbon's observation has both truth and wit in it. "At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren."-Gibbon, ch. lxviii.

with a rope about his waist, and sandals on his feet. Peter's lieutenant was Walter the Pennyless, and in the van of his troop were carried a sacred goose, and a goat, which (monstrous to believe!) were said to be filled with the Holy Ghost. This immense and disorderly multitude began their march towards the East in the year 1095. They made the first essay of their arms, not upon the unbelievers, but on their fellow Christians. The first exploit which signalized the expedition was the taking of a small Christian city in Hungary, which had refused to starve its own inhabitants by supplying such a tribe of hungry locusts with provisions. This impious city was stormed and pillaged, and the inhabitants massacred. Another band of these adventurers were employed, in the meantime, in putting to death all the Jews wherever they could find them. The consequence of these abominable proceedings was, that the crusaders were considered as enemies wherever they passed, and most of the countries rose in arms to oppose their progress. No less than three different armies were cut to pieces in Hungary. Peter the Hermit, however, found his way to Constantinople, where Alexius Commenus was at that time emperor, a prince of great wisdom and moderation, which he clearly manifested by his conduct to the crusaders Dreading the consequences of that spirit of enthusiasm which had put in motion such immense multitudes, Alexius, though with much reluctance, thought it his wisest policy to put on the appearance of friendship, and to allow them a free passage through the imperial dominions into Asia. Anna Commena, the daughter of Alexius, an accomplished princess, who has excellently written the history of her own time, relates many circumstances which strongly mark the rude, uncivilized, and brutal spirit of those heroes or chieftains who figured in those romantic expeditions; among the rest is one anecdote extremely characteristical. The chiefs of the crusade being admitted to an audience of the emperor who was seated on his throne, amidst all the pomp of Eastern magnificence, one of these captains, a Frank count, stepping up to the throne, seated himself by the emperor's side, saying, in the Frank language, "What a pretty fellow of an emperor is this who places himself above such men as we are!" Earl Baldwin, one of the crusaders, ashamed of this unmannerly insolence of his countryman, rose immediately, and pulling him from his seat, thrust him out of the assembly. Alexius, with much prudence, expressed no resentment at daily instances of similar brutality; he took a wiser course, he hastened to get rid of his troublesome guests by furnishing them with every necessary aid; and he fitted out his vessels immediately to transport them across the Bosphorus. They landed in Asia, and marched on with the utmost alacrity to meet the infidels but Solyman, the sultan of Nicæa, gave them a very fatal check. The greatest part of those immense numbers, which had ranged themselves under the Hermit's standard,