Project BookRead - FREE Online Book: The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Volume 6 by Edward Gibbon, Esq.

The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Volume 6
Edward Gibbon, Esq.

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 6
Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 6

The Crusades.

Part I.

Preservation Of The Greek Empire. - Numbers, Passage, And
Event, Of The Second And Third Crusades. - St. Bernard. - Reign
Of Saladin In Egypt And Syria. - His Conquest Of Jerusalem. -
Naval Crusades. - Richard The First Of England. - Pope Innocent
The Third; And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades. - The Emperor
Frederic The Second. - Louis The Ninth Of France; And The Two
Last Crusades. - Expulsion Of The Latins Or Franks By The
Mamelukes.

In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps
compare the emperor Alexius ^1 to the jackal, who is said to
follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion.
Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first
crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits
which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity
and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this
threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the
neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind
valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty
Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the
sea-coast were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks
were driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of
Ephesu and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were
restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
Hellespont to the banks of the Maeander, and the rocky shores of
Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the towns were
rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled with
colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more
distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may
forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy
sepulchre; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul
reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and
obedience to his throne; but he had promised to assist their
enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and
treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the
sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear
that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the
kingdom of Jerusalem; ^2 but the borders of Cilicia and Syria
were more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his
arms. The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or
dispersed; the principality of Antioch was left without a head,
by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond; his ransom had
oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers were
insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In
this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of
leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful
Tancred; of arming the West against the Byzantine empire; and of
executing the design which he inherited from the lessons and
example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine:
and, if we may credit a tale of the princess Anne, he passed the
hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin. ^3 But his reception in
France was dignified by the public applause, and his marriage
with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, since the
bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command;
and he repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse
and forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates
of Europe. ^4 The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius,
the progress of famine and approach of winter, eluded his
ambitious hopes; and the venal confederates were seduced from his
standard. A treaty of peace ^5 suspended the fears of the Greeks;
and they were finally delivered by the death of an adversary,
whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor
prosperity could satiate. His children succeeded to the
principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly
defined, the homage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of
Tarsus and Malmistra were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of
the coast of Anatolia, they possessed the entire circuit from
Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The Seljukian dynasty of Roum ^6
was separated on all sides from the sea and their Mussulman
brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by the victories and
even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss of Nice, they
removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and in land
town above three hundred miles from Constantinople. ^7 Instead of
trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an
offensive war against the Turks, and the first crusade prevented
the fall of the declining empire.

[Footnote 1: Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia
Minor Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321 - 325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician
war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328 - 324; the war of
Epirus, with tedious prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345 - 406; the
death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p. 419.]
[Footnote 2: The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a
nominal dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one
is still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully
placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor,
(Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]
[Footnote 3: Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation,
he was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how
the Barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction.
This absurd tale is unknown to the Latins.
Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and
Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princess Anne, except
in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has already
quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adopted
by Norman princes. On this authority Wilker inclines to believe
the fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14. - M.]
[Footnote 4: In the Byzantine geography, must mean England; yet
we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not
suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange, Not. ad
Alexiad. p. 41.)]

[Footnote 5: The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 406 -
416) is an original and curious piece, which would require, and
might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.]

[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii.
part ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and
Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins,
and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs
of Roum.]

[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and
by Strabo, with an ambiguous title, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 121.)
Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude of Jews and
Gentiles. under the corrupt name of Kunijah, it is described as
a great city, with a river and garden, three leagues from the
mountains, and decorated (I know not why) with Plato's tomb,
(Abulfeda, tabul. xvii. p. 303 vers. Reiske; and the Index
Geographicus of Schulrens from Ibn Said.)]

In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by
land from the West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and
pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany were excited by the
example and success of the first crusade. ^8 Forty-eight years
after the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the emperor, and the
French king, Conrad the Third and Louis the Seventh, undertook
the second crusade to support the falling fortunes of the Latins.
^9 A grand division of the third crusade was led by the emperor
Frederic Barbarossa, ^10 who sympathized with his brothers of
France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three
expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness
of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the
nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel

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