The History of the Crusades: All Volumes by Joseph Francois Michaud

Author:Joseph Francois Michaud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT

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EACH OF THE PRECEDING crusades had a distinct object, a march which could be easily followed, and was only remarkable for great exploits or great reverses. That which we have just described, which embraces a period of thirty years, is mingled with so many different events, with so many clashing interests, so many passions foreign to the holy wars, that it at first appears to present only a confused picture; and the historian, constantly occupied in relating the revolutions of the East and of the West, may with reason be accused of having, as a European Christian, forgotten Jerusalem and the cause of Christ.

When we have read the twelfth book of this history, we perceive that we are already far from the age that gave birth to the crusades, and witnessed their brilliant progress. When comparing this war with those that preceded it, it is easy to see that it has a different character, not only in the manner in which it was conducted, but in the means employed to inflame the zeal of the Christians, and induce them to take up arms.

When we observe the incredible efforts of the popes to arm the nations of the West, we are at first astonished at the small quantity of success obtained by their exhortations, their menaces, and their prayers. We have but to compare the Council of Clermont, held by Urban, with the Council of the Lateran, presided over by Gregory. In the first, the complaints of Jerusalem excite the tears and sobs of the auditory; in the second, a thousand different objects intrude, to occupy the attention of the fathers of the Church, who express themselves upon the misfortunes of the Holy Land, without emotion and without pain. At the voice of Urban, knights, barons, and ecclesiastics all swore together to go and fight against the infidels; the council became, in a moment, an assembled host of intrepid warriors: it was not so at the Council of the Lateran, in which no one took the cross, or burst forth into an expression of that high enthusiasm which the pope desired to awaken in all hearts.

We have drawn attention, in the course of our recital, to the circumstance of pilgrims being permitted by the preachers of the holy war to buy off their vow by paying a sum of money; this mode of expiating sins appeared to be a scandalous innovation: and the indulgence of the missionaries of the holy war, who thus released the faithful from the pilgrimage, made them lose a considerable portion of their ascendancy. They were not, as formerly, the messengers of Heaven; the multitude no longer endowed them with the power of working miracles; they were even sometimes obliged to employ the menaces and promises of the Church to draw hearers to their sermons; in short, at length the people ceased to consider them as the interpreters of the gospel, and saw in them only the collectors of the dues of the Holy See.

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