made him save and conduct to Ascalon the CHAP. VI. only few Muselmans, except the slaves, who escaped the general butchery. The synagogues were set on fire, and the Jews perished in the flames.*

3

* This account of the siege of Jerusalem has been taken (frequently a mere verbal translation) from the original writers, or their immediate abridgments in Bongarsius, Gesta, 27, 28. Robert, 74, 76. Baldric, 132, 134. Raimond, 175, 178, the first thirty-one chapters of the sixth book of Albert of Aix, Guibert, 533, 537, the second Gesta, 573, 577, and the eighth book of William of Tyre. Add to these, Ordericus Vitalis, 756. Mus. Ital. i. 223, 226. Ralph of Caen, 324, &c. Malmsbury, 443, &c. and M. Paris, 41, The Archbishop of Tyre only mentions one massacre: that in the temple of Solomon, in which ten thousand men fell. He justifies it on the argument, that the Saracens deserved punishment for their profanation of the holy places, He then says, there were about the same number killed in the streets. There is no doubt that the Christians murdered the Muselmans from principle. In the middle ages the vice of intolerance attacked the lives of men in later times it has, with more humanity and refinement, distributed their rights and possessions only. The total number of the Moslem victims is not mentioned by the Latin writers. Aboulmahasen, one of De Guignes' authorities (Hist. des Huns, &c. vol. ii. p. 99), says, that one hundred thousand people perished in the mosques of Sakra and Akra, and one hundred thousand were made prisoners; the aged and infirm were killed, and the women became captives. These general expressions are as useful as "the sands of the sea," and "the stars of the

"Heaven,"

CHAP. VI:

262

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES.

Heaven," of the Greek authors. The Christians made no prisoners; and Albert is decisive that in days of chivalry women were assassinated. Abulfeda (vol. iii. p. 519, ed. Reiske) coolly says, that the massacre lasted seven days, and that seventy thousand persons were killed in the mosque of Omar. But Aboulmahasen and Abulfeda lived many years after the event, and only wrote from incorrect tradition.

CHAP. VII.

THE STATE OF THE HOLY LAND AFTER THE

FIRST CRUSADE.

Foundation of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem...... Succession of kings between the first and second Crusades......Godfrey......Baldwin I......Baldwin II. ......Fulk......Baldwin III......Political history of the kingdom of Jerusalem......Limits of the kingdom......Military history......Mode of warfare ......Supplement to the first Crusade......Death of the count of Tholouse......Foundation of the county of Tripoli......History of that state......Affairs of Antioch......History of Edessa......The Courtenay family......Fall of Edessa......Vain attempt to recover it.

JERUSALEM was in the hands of the Christians; CHAP.VII. the sepulchre was redeemed, and the blood of the Moslems atoned for profanation. The coolest policy must approve the conduct of the vanquishers subsequently to the capture of the city, though it was the result of martial phrensy; for, surrounded by Muselman foes, the new inhabitants of Jerusalem could alone preserve their independence by extending their territory. A Chris

s 4

CHAP.VII. A Christian kingdom was raised, and the laws, language,* and manners of Europe were planted in Palestine. A minute and chronological history of the battles and sieges in which the Latins were involved, would be neither profitable nor agreeable; but a full and distinct knowledge may be gained of the effects of the first Crusade, if we separate the military from the civil transactions, and regard the natural relations of things rather than the order of time: The political history of Palestine forms the subject of the present chapter. The next will com. prise

* The language of the Latin Christians in Palestine was the same as that which was spoken in Northern France, and which was carried by the Normans into England, and superceded the Anglo Saxon. It was a dialect of the Romane or Romance language, and was called the French Romane, in *.distinction from the other dialect called the Provençal Romane. As another name of the latter was afterwards an important territorial distinction, I may remind the reader that in the provinces to the south of the Loire the affirmative yes was expressed by the word oc, in the north it was called oil; and hence Dante has named the southern language, langue d'oc; and the northern, langue d'oil.

In strict propriety, the word Crusade is applicable to the state of every Christian who assumed the badge of the cross, travelled to the holy land, and fought with the infidels. But I shall use the word in the confined sense of those great or national armaments which went to Palestine at the instigation of the Pope, or of a general council, and in consequence of some important political event in the east.

prise a view of the constitution and laws of the CHAP.VII. Latins, and some religious and military insti

tutions which distinguished the newly established kingdom.

of the Latin

Jerusalem,

On the eighth day after the capture of the holy Foundation city, the princes assembled for the august pur- kingdom of pose of electing a monarch. The deliberations A.D. 1099, 23 July. were interrupted by several of the clergy, as representatives of the bishop of Calabria and Arnold, one of whom was ambitious of the patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the other of the bishoprick of Bethlehem. The meddling priests confessed the propriety of electing a king but declared that precedence should accompany rank, and that as spiritual things were more worthy than those of a temporal nature, the choice of a patriarch should take place before that of a monarch. The princes treated this intrusion with contempt; and it was resolved that personal merit should be rewarded by royal dignities. The rank, family, and possessions of the chieftains were known to each other; but

private

*The archbishop of Tyre admits the force of the general reasoning involved in this declaration, but is indignant that such arguments should be used as a mere cloak to ambition. He every where censures Arnold for profligate manners; and Raimond d'Agiles says, that the debaucheries of this priest were the subjects of the songs of the army.