![The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/3/9/9/the-historians-history-of-the-world-08-parthians-sassanids-and-arabs-the-crusades-and-the-papacy-download.jpg)
The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]». Краткое содержание книги:
[1050-1076 A.D.]
The inclination to acquire holiness by the journey to Jerusalem became at length so general that the troops of pilgrims alarmed by their numbers the countries through which they passed, and although they came not as soldiers they were designated “the armies of the Lord.” In the year 1054, Litbert, bishop of Cambray, set out for the Holy Land, followed by more than three thousand pilgrims from the provinces of Picardy and Flanders.
Ten years after, seven thousand Christians set out together from the banks of the Rhine. This numerous caravan, which was the forerunner of the Crusades, crossed Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Thrace, and was welcomed at Constantinople by the emperor Constantine Ducas. After having visited the churches of Byzantium, the pilgrims of the West traversed Asia Minor and Syria without danger; but when they approached Jerusalem, the sight of their riches aroused the cupidity of the Bedouin Arabs, undisciplined hordes, who had neither country nor settled abode, and who had rendered themselves formidable in the civil wars of the East. The Arabs attacked the pilgrims of the West, and compelled them to sustain a siege in an abandoned village; and this was on a Good Friday. The emir of Ramala, informed by some fugitives, came happily to their rescue, delivered them from the death with which they were threatened, and permitted them to continue their journey. After having lost more than three thousand of their companions, they returned to Europe, to relate their tragical adventures, and the dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
THE TURKS IN POWER
[1076-1088 A.D.]
New perils and the most violent persecutions at this period threatened both the pilgrims of the West and the Christians of Palestine. Asia was once again about to change masters, and tremble beneath a fresh tyranny. During several centuries the rich countries of the East had been subject to continual invasions from the wild hordes of Tatary. The Turks, issuing from countries situated beyond the Oxus, had rendered themselves masters of Persia. Palestine yielded to the power of the Turks. The conquerors spared neither the Christians nor the children of Ali, whom the caliph of Baghdad represented to be the enemies of God. The Egyptian garrison was massacred, and the mosques and the churches were delivered up to pillage. The Holy City was flooded with the blood of Christians and Mussulmans.
Other tribes of Turks, led by Suleiman, penetrated into Asia Minor. They took possession of all the provinces through which pilgrims were accustomed to pass on their way to Jerusalem. The standard of the prophet floated over the walls of Edessa, Iconium, Tarsus, and Antioch. Thousands of children had been circumcised. Everywhere the laws of the Koran took the place of those of the Evangelists and of Greece. The black or white tents of the Turks covered the plains and the mountains of Bithynia and Cappadocia, and their flocks pastured among the ruins of the monasteries and churches. The Greeks had never had to contend against more cruel and terrible enemies than the Turks. In the midst of revolutions and civil wars, the Greek Empire was hastening to its fall.
Whilst the empire of the East approached its fall and appeared sapped by time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy. The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had no relations with each other; and mistaking their political interests, made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and concluded peace without being at all aware whether it was advantageous or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that Europe was full of soldiers and covered with strong castles, the states themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an army to defend them.
Ten years before the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks, Michael Ducas, the successor of Romanus Diogenes, had implored the assistance of the pope and the princes of the West. He had promised to remove all the barriers which separated the Greek from the Roman church, if the Latins would take up arms against the infidels. Gregory VII then filled the chair of St. Peter. The hope of extending the religion and the empire of the holy see into the East made him receive kindly the humble supplications of Michael Ducas. Excited by his discourses, fifty thousand pilgrims agreed to follow Gregory to Constantinople, and thence to Syria; but the affairs of Europe suspended the execution of his projects.
Every day the power of the popes was augmented by the progress of Christianity, and by the ever-increasing influence of the Latin clergy. Rome was become a second time the capital of the world, and appeared to have resumed, under the monk Hildebrand, the empire it had enjoyed under the cæsars. Armed with the two-edged sword of Peter, Gregory loudly proclaimed that all the kingdoms of the earth were under the dominion of the holy see, and that his authority ought to be as universal as the church of which he was the head. These dangerous pretensions, fostered by the opinions of his age, engaged him immediately in violent disputes with the emperor of Germany. He desired also to dictate laws to France, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and England; and thinking of nothing but making himself acknowledged as the great arbiter of states, he launched his anathemas even against the throne of Constantinople, which he had undertaken to defend, and gave no more attention to the deliverance of Jerusalem.
After the death of Gregory, Victor III, although he pursued the policy of his predecessor and had to contend against the emperor of Germany and the party of the anti-pope Guibert (Clement III), did not neglect the opportunity of making war against the Mussulmans. The Saracens, inhabiting Africa, disturbed the navigation of the Mediterranean, and threatened the coast of Italy. Victor invited the Christians to take arms, and promised them the remission of all their sins if they went to fight against the infidels. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and several other cities, urged by their zeal for religion and their desire to defend their commerce, equipped fleets, levied troops, and made a descent upon the coasts of Africa, where, if we are to believe the chronicles of the time, they cut in pieces an army of one hundred thousand Saracens.b
PETER THE HERMIT
[1088-1095 A.D.]
The true story of the first Crusade is, as Kuglerd says, sufficiently marvellous. It was a vast awakening in which religion, adventure, and design forced the European peoples out of their narrow lines of life and brought the West and East again in contact, and it grows in strangeness as we trace the story in detail. But monkish, uncritical writings which record the vague traditions of that great uprising have not rested satisfied with the marvellous truth: they have added much that is legendary. Among the legends that have failed to stand the test of recent scholarship, is the famous one which made Peter the Hermit the originator of the first Crusade. We may now feel sure that it was not Peter but Urban II who set going the great impetus; but the legend of Peter the Hermit has grown into the story of the first Crusade, and won its place in history from the belief of centuries. The reader must, however, be aware, as he reads it, that we have no authentic account of Peter’s preaching before the Council of Clermont. He was probably one of the preachers who scattered the enthusiasm of that council in northeastern France. His preaching was likely limited to the land where he could be understood in the vernacular, and his real influence is rather to be estimated by the rabble that followed him and Walter the Penniless, to leave their bones by the Danube or Bosporus. So much prefaced, let us turn to the story.