as a citizen, has obtained for his laborious researches the encouragement of a government, the patron of all good studies; he has deserved the gratitude not of his countrymen only, but of the whole of learned Europe.

At an era when all minds are turned to

wards new ideas, it is perhaps peculiarly useful to awaken the recollection of a distant past. All the world think themselves capable of judging of former times upon slender and superficial information. To know them is another thing. The most certain way to derive no benefit from the study of history, is to engage in it with a spirit of hostility. If we despise our ancestors, let us a little dread the retribution of posterity."

ON THE CRUSADES.

Translated from the German of
FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.

IT has been remarked by those who have described the journeys of individual pilgrims to the Holy Land, that the motives by which these persons were induced to perform their travels, were far from being at all periods the same; the first of them were actuated by the simple suggestions of piety; curiosity and the love of adventure mingled very considerably in the views of those who succeeded them; and others who, at a period yet later, pursued the same route, contrived to preserve all the worldly zeal of sagacious merchants, in the midst of pilgrimages still nominally undertaken for the purpose of renouncing the world over the grave of the Redeemer. An observation, not very dissimilar to this, may be made in regard to the purposes and character of those great associations of armed pilgrims-the Crusades. The first, under the pious Godfrey de Bouillogne, was entirely the work of religious enthusiasm; and, for that reason perhaps, above all succeeding expeditions, it was irresistible in its progress, and happy in its effects. In the times immediately subsequent, more particularly in the heroic contests of Richard Coeur-de-Lion with the chivalrous Saladin, the original object appears to have been more lost sight of, and the mainspring of action to have proceeded from the romantic spirit of warlike glory and adventure. In the sequel, when Crusades came to be conducted in a more business-like manner, when the Greek empire had become Latinized by means of their VOL. IV.

frequency, and the leaders began to calculate with the foresight of politicians, that the conquest of Egypt was these things were all so many sympa necessary step to that of Palestine, toms of decay in the spirit of enthu siasm-that spirit, in whose strength alone expeditions so stupendous in magnitude, and so unnatural in purpose, could be carried through with any hope of ultimate success. This flame shone, indeed, once again in St Lewis, but that was only a flash in the socket. It was speedily extinguished; and in the end the only advantage derived from these most laborious and perilous adventures, fell to the share of the maritime powers of Italy, above all, of the Venetians, who had taken little part in the expeditions themselves, excepting with mercantile views and mercantile weapons. Such is the course of human events! One lofty thought, one almighty feeling, seizes and possesses the spirit of an age, no less easily than of an individual, lifts it above all the trammels of custom, and enables it to deem and to find no obstacle unsurmountable. But when possession has once cloyed the excited ardour, when the spirit that sported with peril, and was prodigal of strength, has become cooled, prudence steps in, and the charm is for ever lost in the first calculation of advantage.

Among the great number of extraordinary persons and heroes which the history of this period displays, none perhaps is so well fitted to represent the whole power of the ruling spirit of chivalry-to show how men forgot even the character of royalty in that of knighthood, as Richard of England. By his scarcely credible feats of valour, his perilous return, his captivity, his misfortunes, which could do all but tame his lion heart,-by every incident in his chivalrous life-he is fitted to be the type and symbol of the age of the Crusades. Characters such as this, or even as that of Godfrey and other more strictly religious Crusaders, are more adapted to be comprehended and depicted by the imagination of a Tasso, than to be penetrated and explained by the perspicuity of a Tacitus. The characters and heroes of the middle age are, indeed, throughout distinguished from those of classical antiquity, by this circumstance, that their lives and actions were always more under the command and direction of

2Q

imagination than of reason. The character of Alexander the Great alone, forms an exception from the general character of the cultivated Greeks and Romans, and bears some resemblance (as indeed the characters of the Orientals do) to that of the middle age, inasmuch as imagination and enthusiasm seem to have had more influence upon him than reason and calculation. It was thus that in all the struggles, dangers, wanderings of this period, the fullness of animal life was spread over and breathed from every thing; that breath and magic of fancy which has power to adorn alike rejoicing and humiliation, triumph and despair. In the old northern sagas, the heroic spirits of the Valhalla are represented as enjoying themselves during the day in warlike contests, till, on the going down of the sun, all their wounds are healed by the power of magic, and they sit down with Odin to the friendly banquet;-in like manner, the knightly combats of this romantic time appear very often to have been engaged in with scarcely any political purpose or consequences, and the only real or desired result of a whole life of peril and adventure, to have been nothing more than the feeling of repose, the retirement of peaceful recollection, the stillness of the evening succeeding the splendour and fervours of the day. What a contrast do these spirits afford to those whose workings we witness in times of greater prudence and refinement, when statesmen and warriors are such only from situation, and seem to follow in the wake of events, rather than to rule and preside over their current. It is doubtful whether all the other advantages which these possess, are sufficient to atone for their comparative poverty of spirit and of feeling.

The spirit of chivalry, nevertheless, forms only one epoch, and presents only one view of the middle age; and how marked and predominant soever over the whole of its manners and characters, the imagination, and the power of great ruling passions may have been, we must by no means deny to this period the still deeper influence of its great law-givers. The very names of Alfred of England, Stephen the legislator of Hungary, and St Lewis of France, are sufficient to prove the absurdity of any such neglect. Many of our German kings and em

perors might in like manner be named, who were not only brave warriors, but thoughtful and skilful generals; nay, not merely commanders of armies, but accomplished sovereigns, capable of weighing well, and directing well, every item of their political strength. The German characters are particularly distinguished by their strength and seriousness of heroic power: of such power and loftiness of character is the middle ages, the combat of the emperor Frederick I. with Henry the Lion (of Brunswick) furnishes a striking example and image. The powerful, upright, austere emperor, burning with wrath against his friend for having deserted him in his Italian contests, overthrowing with the stormy rage of a hero, one, in heroism as in power, inferior only to himself,

but the moment the enemy is at his feet, melted by all the returning warmth of friendship toward the old brother in arms,-all this forms a delightful and ennobling picture of the spirit of the times. It was by such feelings as these that rulers and princes were then governed, above all, among the Germans. The Italian characters of the middle age, on the other hand, from their habitudes of republican party-war, and their heartless politics, were fashioned into a much nearer resemblance of the great men of antiquity. The true chivalrous spirit exerted by far its most exclusive power over the Normans, whose spirit and manners were at this period common, in a great measure, to France and England, while these kingdoms were so closely connected with Normandy, and through it with each other.

The want of unity of purpose and action, which was the chief cause of failure in all the Crusades, is to be ascribed not merely to the ill-concerted plans of the different leaders and expeditions, but also to great and essential differences in the external situations, as well as in the national propensities and feelings, of the different peoples of the west. The Spaniards were so much occupied at home with their perpetual struggle against the Moors, that they could take little share in the remoter warfares of the Cross. Similar causes might be adduced to explain the want of co-operation among the more distant tribes of the north. The north of Italy and

Germany, the whole imperial dominions, were completely filled by the great contest between the church and empire, agitated and lacerated every where by the rivalry of the Guelphs and Ghibellines to such a degree, that, although they did take a part, and a most effective one, in the Crusades, they were all very tardy in doing so; or, at least, did not follow the tendency of the time with that ready impetuosity which was displayed by the Norman-English, the Norman-Neopolitans, the warriors of Normandy itself, or those of France, who so much resembled all these in spirit and character. These kindred nations were all strong in redundant population and warlike zeal, and they had little business at home to prevent them from employing this strength abroad. It may be, that had they acted in hearty unison, they were of themselves abundantly sufficient for carrying through the whole work,-at all events, their striking similarity of character and situation must have mightily facilitated their measures, and tended to their ultimate success.

The great German Crusades under Conrad III. and Frederick I. were eminently unfortunate, chiefly by means of the influence of climate, and the jealousy of the Greeks. Frederick II. was indeed active and zealous in his time; but he satisfied himself with procuring a very favourable peace, and was glad to return home to his favourite Sicily. The only powers which had any regular and enduring plan, or were indeed seriously interested in the protracting of the struggle, were the Head of the Church and the Maritime States of Italy; in very different ways, indeed, and with very different interests. Upon the whole, when we reflect on the disunited and discordant elements of which the European power was composed, and on the necessary difficulty, or rather impossibility, of directing that terrible engine long to any one purpose, one should be inclined to wonder that the kingdom of Jerusalem subsisted so long as it did, rather than that its unsubstantial fabric at last yielded to the unremitted and zealous efforts of the Saracen princes.

Of all the effects of the Crusades, the animating stimulus given to the spirit of chivalry is the most remarkable: it is true, that the laws of

honour, the noviciate in arms, and the whole system of the morality of gentlemanship, had already been reduced to a regular form, arranged in steps and degrees, and connected with exterior marks of distinction,-and that a foundation had therefore been laid for the essence of chivalry. These elements, however, were never brought into their full splendour of action, till knights, serving under the banner of the Cross, and elevated by the consciousness of their magnificence, were set gradually free from the shackles, not only of feudalism, but of nationality, and learned to regard and reverence themselves as the immediate champions and servants of God and universal Christendom. The three great spiritual orders of knighthood, which Europe received from the East and the Crusades, were the fountains and patterns of all other orders; the order of St John, namely, whose members preserved alive the original spirit of chivalry down to very modern times, in their perpetual opposition to the Ottoman arms; the Teutonic order, which conquered and civilized Prussia, and planted with Christian colonies the borders of the Baltic; and, lastly, the order of the Templars, which, after a short and splendid existence, was, in a manner so terrible, annihilated by the covetous rage of the French king. In regard to that influx of ideas, which may have proceeded from the East to the West, the order of the Temple was certainly the most remarkable of the three. In France, where also Europe witnessed the first bloody spectacle of a religious war in the persecution of the Albigenses-on the same soil where, under Louis XIV., the despairing Camisardes were at last reduced and extirpated,-in the same cruel and bigotted France, the Knights Templars were doomed to encounter a similar catastrophe. But the righteous blood of Molay left a curse behind, and neither the king who perpetrated, nor the pontiff who sanctioned his murder, long survived their atrocious guilt. What the ruling ideas were of this order, what was the unrevealed part of its purpose and destination, we have not the means to discover; the existence of such secrets is all that we can positively ascertain in regard to them. The order was annihilated in France, and even in the other

countries of Europe the decree of the Pope was carried into execution; but in most districts the cruelty of the measure was tempered by those who were compelled to carry it into execution, and the Knights Templars were willingly admitted into the body of those other orders which were called to inherit their forfeited possessions. The spirit of the order was not extirpated it ceased to act visibly, and to be talked of; but its influence was enduring and powerful, notwithstanding of its unobtrusiveness.

After the power which the improvement of the system of chivalry exerted over the fortunes of Europe, the most considerable among the other effects of the Crusades, was perhaps their influence upon commerce. The extension of trade, however it was brought about, operated certainly in the most striking manner, both in improving the condition of cities and their inhabitants, and through these in lending new life to the arts. The notion that our modern European nations were, in their first attempts towards refine ment in the arts, the imitators and disciples of the Orientals, falls to the ground, to whatever department we seek to apply it. The chief influence which the East had was over our poetry, and even there its only effect was lending new spirit and stimulus to that mass of original imaginations which we of old possessed. Nevertheless, the period when the East had begun to exert its power over our spirits, was, we must ever recollect, the true period of our chivalrous poetry-of that poetry which flourished among the Germans and Normans of the 12th and 13th centuries, and which, somewhat later, in the hands of Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, gave birth to a set of masterpieces which are the common property and pride of all Europe. The Germans, even in the Carlovingian times, had heroic poems and love songs,* and, indeed, of that sort of marvellous which is the pecuculiar characteristic of the chivalrous poets, specimens may be found abundantly in the old sagas of the north. But the Crusades gave a new spring to the fancy, and, in the midst of their inspiration, the elder heroic poems were mostly either re-modelled or for ever lost. The chivalrous poet

» Mynne-lieder.

ry was the true copy and constant companion of the chivalrous life, and is therefore its best commentary and image.* The ambitious spirit of the Burghers, whose wealth and importance were every day increasing, took greater delight, on the other hand, in the more substantial monuments of architecture. Rival cities were continually endeavouring to surpass each other in the splendour of their edifices, and many of these erections are still remaining, to excite our astonishment and our admiration.

This art was developed the next after that of poetry, and its most flourishing period was in this age. In the elder Carlovingian period, and under the Saxon emperors, the close connexion between the empire and Constantinople, introduced into Germany, as well as into Italy, some imitation of the later style of Greek architecture. But at this period there came into Germany, still more distinctly and splendidly into the Netherlands and England, that fashion of architecture which we know by the name of Gothic. That this also was of Oriental origin has often been asserted, but there are many remains of Saracen architecture in Spain and Portugal, whose appearance and character leave that idea entirely without support. This style of architecture, chiefly displayed in ecclesiastical buildings, appropriated to its own purposes the painting of the day, such as it was, and consecrated it also to the ornament of churches. The effect of the allegorical paintings usual in the Greek churches, seems to have been as powerful, at one period, upon our painters, as that of the splendid churches of Constantinople was on our architects. In the oldest remains of the art, the painting of Byzantines, Netherlanders, and Italians, is seen to have been essentially the same. At a time somewhat later, both in respect to painting and architecture, the nations of the West were more original, and therefore more successful.

The true acquisition for which the Europeans were indebted to the Arabs, lay in the department of science and knowledge, and even this was restricted to a very little of chemistry, medi

This subject may be seen more fully discussed in " Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature," vol. i. § 8.

cine, and astrology, and to a few wretched translations of some of the books of Aristotle, which, in that miserable and mutilated condition, can scarcely be said to have been a very valuable present. Compared with the Europeans, indeed, the Mahometan tribes, which possessed at that time the interior parts of Palestine, and which therefore had most intercourse with the Crusaders, were a very rude people. The flourishing era of the Caliphate was long gone by. It is true, that the Spanish Moors were far more polished and learned than any of their contemporaries in the West, but the national and religious wrath with which they were regarded, prevented the gaining any considerable advantage from the example of their cultivation.

The whole of this epoch, in which Christians and Mahometans were brought so closely into contact, when the East and West were, after a separation of many centuries, once more approximated to each other, cannot but fix the attention of the observer upon that remarkable man whose spirit has been for these twelve hundred years the spirit and unseen ruler of the half of Asia. Mahomet must awake in every mind all that admiration which the union of heroic power with enthusiasm, both directed to one end, by the energy of an overmastering spirit, is ever calculated to produce. The firmness of that unalterable faith which this man, with all the appearance of simplicity, and without having recourse, as it would seem, to any of the usual tricks of religious impostors, found means to establish in the bosom of his followers, must ever be regarded as one of the most singular and inexplicable phenomena in the whole history of the world. The people which was his instrument, and which, through his means, becaine in the sequel one of the most powerful in the earth, lived, before the time of Mahomet, in the Patriarchal division of tribes, but was united by the common possession of a fine language, and a body of warlike and amatory poetry. They were not altogether unacquainted with the old traditions of Sacred antiquity; they derived, at least, from the indistinct recollection of them, a certain loftiness of conception; and, compared even with the most celebrated of nations, they were still entitled

to be considered as a high-minded and noble people. With the fresh impetus which they derived from the ministrations of Mahomet, the Arabs, in a short space of time, extended their power over the finest countries of the world-from the rich islands of India to Portugal, and from Caucasus to the yet unexplored depths of Africa. The doctrine of their Prophet, founded on the purest and sublimest ideas of the Godhead, and perplexing the understanding by no unintelligible mysteries-inculcating, beyond all other virtues, the exercise of valour and heroism, and tempering these stern injunctions with many delightful and emblematic fancies,-how, it may well be asked, has it happened, that this faith, so keenly adopted by many nations, should not have taken possession, with equal ease, of the whole? That dangerous and destructive conflict, between the Church and the State, which tore Christendom in sunder, found no part in the empire of Mahomet, where both powers were for ever blended together in irresistible union. The faith of Mahomet itself may also be looked upon as more adapted for the nature of man, since, throughout Asia and Africa, its precepts have all along been not nominally, but really obeyed; while in Christendom, the life and manners not only of individuals, but of whole ages, have so often appeared to be exactly the reverse of what they should have been according to the system of Christ; where, in one word, the ideal excellence, held up by the faith, has always been looked upon as something unattainable even by its most fervent disciples.-Such are the grounds upon which a tame and common-place philosophy has frequently assigned to Mahometanism the superiority over Christianity, and it was natural that it should make such use of such arguments. But the history of the world teaches a conclusion very different from that adopted by these superficial philosophers; it has long since determined the great question, whether the faith of Christianity, or that of Mahomet, be the better fitted to promote the cultivation and excellence of the human mind? The spirit of pride and haughtiness which breathes in the pages of the Koran, and which presents so striking a contrast to the gentleness and love found in those of Bible, might seem at first sight