Joseph Harvey Ward
The Hand of Providence
In this vile horde no pretense was kept up of order or of decency. Driven to madness by disappointment and famine, and expecting, in their ignorance, that every town they came to must be Jerusalem, they laid hands on whatever they could in their extremity. Their track was marked by robbery, fire and bloodshed. In the first Crusade alone, more than five hundred thousand human beings perished. However, a better organized expedition soon followed, commanded by Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine. By him Jerusalem was captured July 15th, A. D. 1099. As might be expected, its siege and capture were attended by the perpetration of cruelties almost surpassing belief.
What a contrast to the conduct of the Arabs, when the Caliph Omar took Jerusalem, A. D. 637! He rode into the city by the side of the patriarch, Saphronius, conversing with him on its antiquities. When the time of evening prayer arrived, he declined to pay his devotions in the church of Constantine, fearing that his followers might wish to imitate his example, and thus render it practically useless to the Christians; but he knelt outside in the yard near the entrance gate. What a supreme act of religious toleration! When will free-born Americans learn to act thus nobly?
But in the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls, infants were thrown over the battlements, men and women were tortured that they might be compelled to disclose hidden wealth, the Jews were driven into their synagogue and there burnt. A massacre of seventy thousand persons took place, and the pope's especial ambassador was seen "partaking in the triumph."
Such were the exploits of the first Crusade. The second was barren of results except the inhuman butchery of thousands of unoffending Jews. The third produced no permanent effects, but a halo of false glory is shed around it, from the exploits of Richard the Lion-heart, king of England, who was connected with it, and whose adventures have stirred to enthusiasm even the dullest of historians. With great difficulty, Pope Innocent III., succeeded in preparing the fourth Crusade, A. D. 1202. The government of Venice agreed to furnish ships to carry them to Palestine, but, actuated by a love of plunder, and a desire to gratify the bitter feeling which existed between the popes of Rome and the bishops of Constantinople, they turned aside to vent their rage on their fellow-Christians. Constantinople was taken by storm A. D. 1204. On the night of its capture more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities of France. The treasures of the churches were carried away, and even the tombs of the ancient emperors were rifled in the mad search for relics.
Thus, Crusade followed Crusade for more than one hundred and fifty years, until nine armies, comprising more than three millions of men, laid their bodies down to decay and their bones to whiten on the plains and hill-sides of the East.
Among all the enterprises, none were more wild and wicked than those which are called the "Crusades of the children." Emissaries from Rome went throughout Western Europe, preaching and declaring that God would only give the Holy Land into the hands of innocent children. Pope Innocent III. applauded their wild enthusiasm. "These children," said he, "are a reproach to us of riper age. While they hurry to Palestine, we are asleep."
A few words will suffice to tell the story how twenty thousand children, under the boy Stephen, encamped around Vendome. In less than a month ten thousand of them had perished or strayed away. When they reached Marseilles, they lingered near the shore, expecting the Mediterranean to divide, and, like the Red Sea in ancient times, give them a dry passage to Palestine. At length two merchants offered to convey them there in ships, without charge; but at the end of their journey they found themselves, not in Palestine, but in the slave markets of Alexandria and Algiers.
A sequel to this "o'er true tale" is found in the sufferings of another rabble of thirty thousand boys and girls, who, under the peasant lad, Nicholas, in crossing the Alps lost nearly half their number. Five thousand reached Genoa, and, being invited by the senate, concluded to settle there. The rest marched to Brindisi, and, setting sail for Palestine, were never heard of more.
Worthless in themselves and wholly useless as a means for founding any permanent dominion in Palestine or elsewhere, these enterprises were a means in the overruling hand of God of effecting the nations of Europe in a way which the promoters never dreamed of.
Their results were many and various. One was that they drew away many of the warlike and turbulent, and gave, as it were, a resting time for the states of Western Europe, during which, learning, science and general culture, among the quietly-disposed, made rapid advances, and many cities and smaller states rose from obscurity to opulence and power.
Another was the change of feeling which took place in the Crusaders themselves. What a surprise awaited these religious barbarians—for such they really were—when for the first time they gazed on the splendors of Constantinople in its palmiest days! What a contrast to their own rude homes, when they passed into Asia Minor, that garden of the world, presenting well-cultivated fields, orchards, vineyards, palaces and schools, the civilization of a thousand years! How unexpected the character of those Saracens, whom they had been taught to regard as no better than bloodthirsty fiends, but whom they found to be valiant, merciful and just!
When Richard the Lion-heart, king of England, lay in his tent consumed by a fever, there came into the camp camels laden with snow, from Mount Lebanon, to assuage his disease. It was a present from his enemy, the great Mahometan Saladin—the homage of one brave soldier to another. But when Richard was returning to England it was by a Christian prince, who should have aided him, that he was treacherously seized and secretly confined.
This was doubtless only one of many such incidents. Every Crusader must have recognized the difference between what they had anticipated and what they had found. They had seen undaunted courage, chivalrous bearing, intellectual culture and religious toleration far greater than their own. When the Crusaders returned to their native lands, they carried with them the memory of their experiences, and a relish for more polished manners and a higher civilization than that to which they had been accustomed at home. Hence, immediately after the Crusades the arts and sciences began to be sedulously cultivated in Europe. They had departed with the intent of conquering, aye even exterminating their enemies; but by contact with those enemies they had learned in some things "a more excellent way." The words of the Koran inscribed on the banner of Saladin are true: "There is no conqueror but God!" Equally true the words written by the Prophet Esdras, as he sat by the side of the willow-fringed river of Babylon more than twenty-three hundred years ago: "As for truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth for evermore," (see Apocrypha, I. Esdras, iv., 38).
CHAPTER VII
THE DAWN OF MODERN INTELLIGENCE
THE MORNING DAWNS—RISE OF KNIGHTHOOD—PRINCIPLES OF KNIGHTS—APOSTATE PRIESTS HELD IN CONTEMPT—WALDENSES—PERSECUTIONS IN SOUTHERN FRANCE—RISE OF THE INQUISITION—LIBERAL POLICY OF FREDERICK—"EVERLASTING GOSPEL"—ITS REMARKABLE TEACHINGS—BACON'S DISCOVERIES—GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE—AZORES AND CANARY ISLANDS—TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO—CONDITION OF EUROPEAN STATES—MODERN STATES.
Those who have waited for the dawning of the morning in the latter part of a clear summer night, can understand the delight experienced at the first tokens of approaching day. At first the rays of light are very faint and only perceptible to a keen and experienced eye. As time wears on the timid approach of twilight becomes more perceptible. The intense blue of the sky begins to soften. The rays that first darted up in the far north-east, though occasionally intercepted by mountains or banks of clouds, gradually swing around to the east. The darkness of the night dissolves into the glories of the dawn. The great watch-stars fade away, one by one. The whole firmament is filled with the inflowing tides of morning light. At length a stream of golden sunlight flashes out from above the hills and turns the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. Thus the king of day begins his course arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man.
In like manner we may in imagination gaze at the dawning of "the dispensation of the fullness of times," and watch the increasing rays of moral, intellectual and spiritual light, feeble indeed at first, yet constantly growing stronger, though sometimes intercepted by mountains of bigotry and mists of error, until at length the gospel's glorious sunshine again lights a benighted world, and the divine authority and Priesthood are restored to the children of men. But let us not anticipate. Let us rather patiently decipher on history's scroll the characters written there by the finger of God. Let us carefully watch the development of His purposes amid the strife and commotion of those perilous times.
With the close of the Crusades the midnight darkness of human history ended. Human misery had reached its climax. Superstition and ignorance had done their most terrible work. Thousands, aye even millions had had an opportunity of comparing the teachings and pretenses of Rome with other civilizations. It is almost needless to say that Catholicism had seriously suffered by the comparison. Rome was weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Those of the Crusaders who remained in Palestine were soon blended with the Mahometan population, and in a few years scarce a vestige of them remained. Many of the leaders who returned were, like Richard the Lion-Hearted, full of praise of the treatment they had received from their enemies, and spent much of their time in founding various orders of chivalry and knighthood. At first those orders received the benediction of the popes. Some of them were even organized before they returned from the Holy Land. Of such were the famous knights of St. John and Knights Hospitaller. But it was soon found that those brave men loved liberty more than priestcraft, so after a time, notwithstanding their eminent services, they were weakened and divided by stratagem, charges were preferred against them and they were cruelly put to death. The story of their fate will ever, remain one of the darkest pages in the annals of our race. But their death only accelerated the progress of their ideas. The spirit and institutions of chivalry spread rapidly.
Treachery and hypocrisy were held by them in detestation. "To speak the truth, to succor the helpless and never turn back from an enemy," was the first vow of the youth who sought the honors of chivalry.
In an age of darkness and degradation, chivalry developed the character of woman. It caused her virtues to be appreciated and honored, made her the equal and companion of man, and the object of his love and devotion. The love of God and the protection of women were enjoined as a single duty (see Halem's Middle Ages, page 512). He who was faithful to his vow and true to his wife was sure of salvation in the opinion of the knights, though he failed to perform the penance prescribed by the Romish clergy.
Chivalry was the religion of the heart, in a rude and untutored age. It had the effect of infusing more of humanity and generous principle into the operations of war than the ancient nations had any conception of. Hence we seldom or never hear in modern times of such scenes of unmingled atrocity, such deadly treachery, such extensive and cold-blooded massacres as we so frequently read of in ancient pagan or papal history.
At the close of the Crusades a great change commenced in society. The minstrels, who with harps had gone about singing ballads, commemorating deeds of heroism and adventure, now changed their theme and sang songs of a very different character. Amid shouts of laughter they went through the land, wagging their heads, and slyly winking their eyes, and singing derisive songs about the amours of the priests, who in turn were not slow to denounce the minstrels as lewd blasphemers and atheists.
While the young were singing, the old were thinking; while the gay were carried away with romance and chivalry, the grave and reflecting were falling into heresy.
About A. D. 1100, Peter Waldo, a wealthy citizen of Lyons, became convinced of the corruptions of Rome. He, probably aided by others, translated the scriptures into Provencal French. Thus, to him the world is indebted for the first translation of the Bible into a modern tongue. Waldo could not long remain in Lyons. He fled into Germany and afterwards settled in Bohemia, where he died about A. D. 1179. He was the instrument of spreading those liberal ideas in Bohemia, of which John Huss and Jerome of Prague became in after times worthy representatives. At the time of his death it is said that Waldo had five hundred thousand followers.
Already, A. D. 1134, Peter de Brueys had been burned at Languedoc for denying infant baptism. Already the valleys of Piedmont were full of Waldenses, who denounced the greed of the popes and the intermingling of bishops in bloodshed and war. At this juncture Innocent III., ascended the pontifical throne. Here was a state of things which, as he considered, demanded immediate attention. The methods to which he resorted for the suppression and extinction of heretics, as misbelievers were called, have made his name forever infamous.
Innocent well knew that the greed and the corruptions of the clergy had made them unpopular with the people. He therefore established the mendicant orders of priests, more commonly known under the names of Franciscans and Dominicans. Vowed to poverty and living on alms, they lived and moved among the masses, and yet were held sacred. The accusations and dissipation of luxury so forcibly urged against the regular clergy, were altogether inapplicable to these half-starved wandering fanatics. Once more for a time the popes had gained possession of the ear of the masses.
At this time Southern France was the garden of reform. Here the eloquence of Abelard, the patriotism of Arnold and the statesmanship of Frederick wielded a mighty influence. Like seeds falling into good ground, they brought forth much fruit. Already Arnold had been burned at the stake and his ashes thrown on the waves of the Tiber. He has thus become the heritage, as it were, of every nation whose shores are washed by the tides of the sea. Seven centuries have rolled by since then, yet the memory of Arnold of Brescia is ever green; the principles for which he lived and died are now incorporated in every constitutional government on the globe.
In no land were his principles more prevalent than in Southern France, and on it Innocent determined to vent his rage. In looking around for a suitable pretext that would rouse the masses and excite them to religious frenzy, he soon discovered the object for which he sought. It was Raymond, earl of Toulouse, who had so far turned Mahometan that he had no less than three wives in emulation of his Saracen neighbors beyond the Pyrenees. An investigation of the domestic life of Raymond, would have shown it to have been far more honorable than that of the popes, themselves. Raymond was therefore arrested on the charge of heresy, of harboring heretics and placing offices of trust in the hands of worthy Jews. His subjects were indignant, for Raymond, it would seem, was a wise and good ruler and much loved by his people.
In the disputes that ensued the pope's ambassador was accidentally killed. Innocent considered this a sufficient reason for sending into the earl's dominion an army of nearly five hundred thousand men. There was no alternative for the earl but to submit. He surrendered up his strong places, and even acknowledged the justice of his punishment. He was publicly stripped naked to the waist, and, with a rope around his neck, led to the altar of the cathedral and there scourged.
But the humiliation and scourging of the earl was not sufficient to satisfy the soldiery. They had come for blood and plunder, and blood and plunder they must have. Then followed such a scene of horror as tongue or pen cannot describe. The army was officered by Roman and French prelates. Bishops were its generals and an archdeacon its engineer. The pope's ambassador was the commander-in-chief, who, when asked by a subordinate officer at the battle of Beziers, how the Catholics might be distinguished from the misbelievers and saved, replied: "Kill them all, God will know His own in the resurrection." In the church of St. Mary Magdalene, seven thousand persons were massacred. In the city twenty thousand more were slaughtered. The place was then fired and left as a monument of priestly vengeance.
At the massacre of Levaur four hundred persons were piled together and burned. The embassador, in making up his dispatches to the pope, said that "they made a wonderful blaze, and then went to burn everlastingly in hell."
It was hoped that these horrors would so terrify men that they would never again dare to use the God-given power of reason. The soil had been steeped with the blood of men and the air polluted by their burnings; yet all this did not stifle the truth, nor prevent its growth. Hoping still to effect this, that infernal institution, the Inquisition, was established. Its projectors intended it not only to put an end to public teaching, but also to private thought. When once the Inquisition seized its victim, no person, not even the nearest relative, could converse with him, write to him or intercede for him. He was lost to public view until the hour for his torture or execution had arrived. In Spain alone more than three hundred and forty thousand passed through its terrible ordeal. But this fearful tribunal did not fail to draw upon itself the indignation of men. Such outrages against humanity cannot be perpetrated without bringing retribution in the end.
The great forces which were then at work in society, were well illustrated in the characters of the two leading actors. On one side stands Innocent III., his hands red with the blood of his fellow-men, and hesitating at no atrocity in order to accomplish his purposes.
On the other, was Frederick II., emperor of Germany and Italy. Frederick's early life had been spent in familiar intercourse with Jews and Arabs. In a Saracen university he had received his education; and to his many other accomplishments, he added the speaking of the Arabic as fluently as a Saracen. Jewish and Saracen philosophers had taught him to sneer at the pretensions of the church of Rome: as might be expected he soon came in conflict with her authority.
Between Innocent and Frederick was perpetual enmity; but for a time the conflict was deferred. During this interval the greatness of Frederick was manifested in the internal improvements of his kingdom. He instituted a representative assembly or parliament, which by his sanction framed a code of wise and useful laws. This code asserted the principle of equal rights to all, the peasants, the nobles and the church, and an equal proportion of taxation. It also provided for the toleration of all religions, Catholic, Jewish and Mahometan. Frederick emancipated all the serfs and slaves of his dominions, established cheap courts of justice for the poor, and regulated trade and commerce. He even laid down some of those commercial and political maxims recently discussed by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and only in our own times finally received as true. He also established fairs and markets, for the exchange of products, and offered prizes for mechanical improvements and the best breeds of domestic animals. In Naples he founded a great university with liberal provision for worthy but indigent youths. Under him sculpture, painting, poetry and music were liberally patronized, and the Italian tongue first rose to the dignity of a language.
All this was an abomination in the sight of Rome. Gregory IX., succeeded to the pontifical chair in A. D. 1228. Frederick and his parliaments, his laws and universities, his libraries and his toleration were all denounced, and Frederick himself was delivered over to Satan for the good of his soul. For thirty years Frederick combated the power of the church, but he sank in the conflict at last. But the fate of men is by no means an indication of the fate of principles.
"Truth crushed to earth will rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers."
Though denounced then, Frederick is now considered one of the benefactors of his race.
Meanwhile an ominous cloud was gathering in the horizon of Rome. The Franciscans, weary of poverty, began to denounce the luxury and corruptions of the regular clergy. At this juncture a strange book made its appearance, which, under the title of "The Everlasting Gospel," struck terror to the hearts of the papal authorities.
It was affirmed that an angel brought it from heaven and gave it to the priest called Cyril, who it was said delivered it to the Abbot Joachim, by whom the book was published. Cyril had been dead about fifty years when the work first made its appearance. According to the admissions of Catholic historians, "The work displayed an enlarged and masterly conception of the historical progress of humanity." It claimed that Romanism had done its work and must now make way for a new order of ideas. It proceeded to show that there are epochs, or ages in the divine government of the world. During the Jewish dispensation, it had been under the immediate influence of God the Father. For the next twelve hundred years, it had been under the control of God the Son, but the time has now arrived when the world would be under the special control of the Holy Spirit. That man need no longer treasure up the relics of antiquity, search after the sayings of the early fathers or even solely and implicitly rely on the letter of the ancient scriptures, for the Holy Spirit would manifest itself in visions, dreams and revelations to the children of men.
One of the grand principles which it taught was, "the divine right of private judgment." It asserted that genius should not be considered an individual possession, but rather "the gift of God—the visible manifestation of the secret workings of the Holy Spirit for the elevation of the race." In short, it taught that "every invention and discovery was only, in some degree, a revelation of God to man," an unfolding of the secret laws of nature to man's finite understanding. It considered, "those heroes as inspired, who, springing from society at appointed epochs, displayed a mental or moral power beyond the ordinary limits of humanity, and around whom, as around a superior and mysterious power, nations and individuals unhesitatingly gather."
It recognized the hand of God in those grand revolutions, those great men, those mighty nations, which, arising from obscurity, communicate a fresh impulse, new vigor and advanced ideas to the human race. It was without doubt the most powerful written work which had appeared since the days of the apostles. No wonder the pope, Alexander IV., took immediate measures for its destruction. So far from being suppressed, its copies were multiplied rapidly, though printing was as yet unknown.
On the far off plains of Bohemia, among the rugged mountains of the Tyrol, by Alpine torrents and in the valleys of Piedmont, as well as on the distant shores of England and Scotland, its words were carefully read and pondered. In size it was nearly equal to the New Testament, and by many of the humble classes it was revered as its equal in authority. Many of its truths were conveyed in the form of fable or parable. Historians generally write in the interest of some sect or party, and finding in it little to flatter the pride or vanity of man, have frequently passed it by in silence or have given it merely a passing notice, but it was evidently an instrument in the hands of God for awakening human intellect.
Meanwhile the boundaries of human knowledge were greatly enlarged. Chemistry and medicine had taken their places as established sciences. Roger Bacon, who was born A. D. 1214, had already astonished the learned by his experiments and discoveries in optics, mathematics and chemistry. At the present time it is almost impossible to comprehend the difficulties and perils which then attended every step in experimental science. For example, in making some experiments on the properties of antimony, or stibium, as it was then called, it was found that when given to the swine in their food it increased their fatness with surprising rapidity. But when it was administered to some half-starved monks the poor fellows were every one killed. Hence the modern name of antimony, from anti, against, and moine, a monk. It may also be added that antimony, whether used as a medicine or in the composition of printer's type for the dissemination of truth is equally unhealthy for sectarian bigots of every description.
Geographical knowledge had also been greatly extended. Adventurous merchants had sailed along both the eastern and western shores of Africa far south of the equator, for they discovered stars and constellations invisible in northern latitudes. The Azores and Canary Islands had been rediscovered after a lapse of more than a thousand years. Portuguese sailors had already made voyages to far off Iceland, the "Ullima Thule" of the ancients. With the exception of north-eastern Asia and southern Africa, the entire boundaries of the eastern continent were known. Marco Polo, in the interests of Venetian commerce, had explored the vast regions of central Asia, and Moorish merchants of Tripoli, by means of caravans, had trafficked with the tribes of central Africa.
The states of Europe had commenced to assume their modern forms; Portugal had become independent of Spain about A. D. 1139; Switzerland, under Rudolph of Hapsburg, became a distinct nationality in A. D. 1151; Ireland was subjugated by Henry II., of England, in A. D. 1172, and British constitutional government commenced by wresting the Magna Charta from King John, in A. D. 1215.
In fine arts we find that Cimabue, who was born in A. D. 1140, and his pupil Giotto, who was born in A. D. 1276, established the Italian school of modern painting.
The foregoing will indicate to some extent the condition of society at the latter end of the thirteenth century. The darkness of night had commenced to vanish. The morning star of intelligence had arisen, heralding the coming of a peaceful day—
"A day not cloudless or devoid of storm,
But sunny for the most and clear and warm."