tunately landed in the harbour of Jaffa. Two moveable turrets were constructed at the expense, and in the stations, of the duke of Lorraine and the count of Toulouse, and rolled forwards with devout labour, not to the most accessible, but to the most neglected, parts of the fortification. Raymond's tower was reduced to ashes by the fire of the besieged, but his colleague was more vigilant and successful;" the enemies were driven by his archers from the rampart; the drawbridge was let down; and on a Friday, at three in the afternoon," the day and hour of the Passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the emulation of valour; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mahometan yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the adventurers had agreed to respect the exclusive property of the first occupant; and the spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps and massy vases of gold and silver, rewarded the diligence, and displayed the generosity, of Tancred. A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians resistance might provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre; 110 and the infection of the dead bodies produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some sentiments of compassion; yet we may praise the more selfish lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe-conduct to the garrison of the citadel. The holy sepulchre was now free; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts and in an humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the Saviour of the world; and bedewed with

110 Besides the Latins, who are not ashamed of the massacre, see Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 363), Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 243), and M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 99), from Aboulmahasen.

The old tower Psephina, in the middle ages Neblosa, was named Castellum Pisanum, from the patriarch Daimbert. It is still the citadel, the residence of the Turkish aga, and commands a prospect of the Dead Sea, Judea, and Arabia (D'Anville, p. 19-23). It was likewise called the Tower of David, ruggis mappsγεθίστατος.

This does not appear by Wilken's account, p. 294. They fought in vain the whole of the Thursday.-M.

July 15th, 1099. Weil, Chalifen, vol. iii. p. 172; Wilken, vol. i. p. 300,-S.

The massacre lasted a week. It was not the result of the unbridled rage of a victorious soldiery, but the deliberate act of a council of the chiefs, Michaud, vol. į p. 447, 449.—S,

tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption. This union of the fiercest and most tender passions has been variously considered by two philosophers: by the one,112 as easy and natural; by the other,113 as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigorously applied to the same persons and the same hour: the example of the virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they cleansed their bodies they purified their minds; nor shall I believe hat the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre.*

reign of Godfrey

of Bouillon,

A.D. 1099, July 23A.D. 1100, July 18.

Eight days after this memorable event, which pope Urban did not Election and live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the Great and Stephen of Chartres had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two Roberts, the duke of Normandy 114 and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers,b and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year,115 too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a sum

112 Hume, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 311, 312, octavo edition. 113 Voltaire, in his Essai sur l'Histoire Générale, tom. ii. c. 54, p. 345, 346. 114 The English ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the Provincials to Raymond of Toulouse, the glory of refusing the crown; but the honest voice of tradition has preserved the memory of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136) of the count of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was possessed by his descendants.

115 See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c., in William of Tyre, 1. ix. c. 1–12, and in the conclusion of the Latin historians of the first crusade.

The end of Peter the Hermit deserves to be mentioned. After the conquest of Jerusalem, whereby his vow had been fulfilled, he took no further part in the proceedings of the crusaders, but returned home and founded a monastery at Huy, where he died sixteen years afterwards. Wilken, vol. i. p. 299.-S.

Raimond appears to have declined all

open pretensions to the crown, though he probably cherished a secret wish to obtain it. His renunciation rests on the authority of four writers-Albert Aquensis, Raimund de Agiles, Guibert, and Anna Comnena; and therefore not solely on the assertion of the Provençals. Wilken, vol. i. p. 302; Michaud, vol. i. p. 456. -S.

Ascalon,

A.D. 1099,

mons to the field, by the approach of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalised the valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived from the Battle of prodigious inequality of numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot on the side of the Fatimites; August 12. but, except three thousand Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of iron, the barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valour of the Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After suspending before the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot soldiers, for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague of Antioch: the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious clamours had required that the choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin clergy: the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was justified by the reproach of heresy or schism;116 and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the Oriental Christians regretted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome: he brought a fleet of his countrymen to the succour of the Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of the church. The new patriarch immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa ; instead of a firm and generous

116 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479.

117

117 See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in William of Tyre (1. ix. c. 15-18, x. 4, 7, 9), who asserts with marvellous candour the independence of the conquerors and kings of Jerusalem.

20,000 Franks, 300,000 Musulmen, according to Wilken, vol. ii. p. 9.-M.

Arnulf was first chosen but illegiti

mately, and degraded. He was ever after the secret enemy of Daimbert or Dagobert. Wilken, vol. i. p. 306, vol. ii. p. 52.—M.

refusal, the hero negociated with the priest; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus.

A.D. 1099-1187.

118

Without this indulgence the conqueror would have almost been The kingdom stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jeof Jerusalem, rusalem and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent country." Within this narrow verge the Mahometans were still lodged in some impregnable castles: and the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrim were exposed to daily and domestic hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne, the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Israel.119 After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, and Ascalon, 120 which were powerfully assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of Flanders and Norway,121 the range of sea-coast from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of Edessa and Tripoli owned themselves the

118 Willerm. Tyr. 1. x. 19. The Historia Hierosolimitana of Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. i. c. 21-50), and the Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinus Sanutus (1. iii. p. 1 [7?]), describe the state and conquests of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.

119 An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000 or 1,574,000 fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and slaves, may imply a population of thirteen millious, in a country sixty leagues in length and thirty broad. The honest and rational Le Clerc (Comment. on 2nd Samuel, xxiv, and 1st Chronicles, xxi.) æstuat angusto in limite, and mutters his suspicion of a false transcript; a dangerous suspicion!*

120 These sieges are related, each in its proper place, in the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to the xviiith book, and more briefly told by Bernardus Thesaurarius (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, c. 87-98, p. 732-740). Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of Muratori.

121 Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et maxime de ea parte quæ Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (1. xi. c. 14, p. 804) marks their course per Britannicum mare et Calpen to the siege of Sidon.

vassals of the king of Jerusalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo were the only relics of the Mahometan conquests in Syria.125 The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into these transmarine colonies. According to the feudal jurisprudence, the principal states and subordinate baronies descended in the line of male and female succession: 123 but the children of the first conquerors, 124 a motley and degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the climate; the arrival of new crusaders from Europe was a doubtful hope and a casual event. The service of the feudal tenures 125 was performed by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid of two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers on horseback.126 Five thousand and seventy-five serjeants, most probably foot-soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities; and the whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks. 127 But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John,128 and of the temple of Solomon; 129 on the strange association of a monastic and military life,

122 Benelathir, apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 150, 151, a.d. 1127. He must speak of the inland country.

123 Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of female succession in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta virilia et virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons and with the approbation of her feudal lord, a noble damsel was obliged to choose a husband and champion (Assises de Jérusalem, c. 242, &c.). See in M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 441-471) the accurate and useful tables of these dynasties, which are chiefly drawn from the Lignages d'Outremer.

124 They were called by derision Poullains, Pullani, and their name is never pro nounced without contempt (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 535; and Observations sur Joinville, p. 84, 85; Jacob. à Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. I. i. c. 67, 72; and Sanut, 1. iii. p. viii. c. 2, p. 182). Illustrium virorum qui ad Terræ Sanctæ. liberationem in ipsâ manserunt degeneres filii . . . . . in deliciis enutriti, molles et effeminati, &c.

.....

125 This authentic detail is extracted from the Assises de Jérusalem (c. 324, 326331). Sanut (1. iii. p. viii. c. 1, p. 174) reckons only 518 knights and 5775 followers,

126 The sum total, and the division, ascertain the service of the three great baronies at 100 knights each; and the text of the Assises, which extends the number to 500, can only be justified by this supposition.

In Yet on great emergencies (says Sanut) the barons brought a voluntary aid; decentem comitivam militum juxta statum suum.

128 William of Tyre (1. xviii. c. 3, 4, 5) relates the ignoble origin and early insolence of the Hospitalers, who soon deserted their humble patron, St. John the Eleemosynary, for the more august character of St. John the Baptist (see the ineffectual struggles of Pagi, Critica, A.D. 1099, No. 14-18). They assumed the profession of arms about the year 1120; the Hospital was mater; the Temple filia; the Teutonic order was founded A.D. 1190, at the siege of Acre (Mosheim, Institut. p 389, 390).

129 See St. Bernard de Laude Nova Militia Templi, composed A.D. 1132-1136, in Opp. tom. i. p. ii. p. 547-563, edit. Mabillon, Venet. 1750. Such an encomium, which is thrown away on the dead Templars, would be highly valued by the historians of Malta.