THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

PART I.

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

of Bavaria, and several other princes. After the lapse of a few months, Andrew returned into Europe. The remaining chiefs carried on the war with vigour, and, in 1220, made themselves masters of Damietta, the strongest city in Egypt; but their prosperity was of a short duration; for, in the following year, their fleet was totally ruined by that of the Saracens, their provisions were cut off, and their army reduced to the greatest difficulties. This irre

etta, blasted all their hopes, and removed the flattering prospects which their successful beginnings had presented to their expectations.*

ditions.* Innocent III., therefore, sounded the charge; but the greatest part of the European princes and nations were deaf to the voice of the holy trumpet. At length, however, after many unsuccessful attempts in different countries, a body of French nobles entered into an alliance with the republic of Venice, and set sail for the east with an army that was far from being formidable. The event of this new expedition was by no means answerable to the expectations of the pontiff.parable loss, being followed by that of DamiThe French and Venetians, instead of steering their course toward Palestine, sailed directly for Constantinople, and, in 1203, took that imperial city by storm, with a design of restoring to the throne Isaac Angelus, who implored their succour against the violence of his brother Alexius, the usurper of the empire. In the following year a dreadful sedition was raised at Constantinople, in which the emperor Isaac was put to death, and his son, the young Alexius, was strangled by Alexius Ducas, the ringleader of this furious faction.† The account of this atrocity no sooner came to the ears of the chiefs of the crusade, than they made themselves masters of Constantinople for the second time, dethroned and drove from the city the tyrant Ducas, and elected Baldwin, || count of Flanders, emperor of the Greeks. This proceeding was a source of new divisions; for, about two years after this, the Greeks resolved to set up, in opposition to this Latin emperor, one of their own nation, and elected, for that purpose, Theodore Lascaris, who chose Nice in Bithynia for the place of his imperial residence. From this period until the year 1261, two emperors reigned over the Greeks; one of their own nation, who resided at Nice; and the other of Latin or French extraction, who lived at Constantinople, the ancient metropolis of the empire. But, in the year 1261, the face of things was changed by the Grecian emperor, Michael Palæologus, who, by the valour and stratagems of his general, Cæsar Alexius, became master of Constantinople, and forced the Latin emperor to abandon that city, and save himself by flight into Italy. Thus fell the empire of the Franks at Constantinople, || after a duration of fifty-seven years.‡

V. The legates and missionaries of the court of Rome still continued to animate the languishing zeal of the European princes in behalf of the Christian cause in Palestine, and to revive the spirit of crusading, which so many calamities and disasters had almost totally extinguished. At length, in consequence of their lively remonstrances, a new army was raised, and a new expedition undertaken, which excited great expectations, and drew the ||attention of Europe so much the more, as it was generally believed that this army was to be commanded by the emperor Frederic II. That prince had, indeed, obliged himself by a solemn promise, made to the Roman pontiff, to undertake the direction of this enterprise; and what added a new degree of force to this engagement, and seemed to render the violation of it impossible, was the marriage that he had contracted, in 1223, with Jolanda, daughter of John, count of Brienne, and king of Jerusalem; by which alliance that kingdom was to be added to his European dominions. Notwithstanding these inducements, he postponed his voyage under various pretences, and did not set out until the year 1228, when, after having been excommunicated on account of his delay, by the incensed pontiff Gregory IX,† he followed with a small train of attendants the troops, who expected, with the most anxious impatience, his arrival in Palestine. No sooner did he land in that disputed kingdom, than, instead of carrying on the war with vigour, he turned all his thoughts toward peace, and, without consulting the other princes and IV. Another sacred expedition was under- chiefs of the crusade, concluded, in 1229, a taken in 1217, under the pontificate of Hono-treaty of peace, or rather a truce of ten years, rius III., by the confederate arms of Italy and Germany. The allied army was commanded in chief by Andrew, king of Hungary, who was joined by Leopold, duke of Austria, Louis

*This is remarked by the writers of the twelfth century, who soon perceived the avaricious and despotic views of the pontiffs, in the encouragement they gave to the crusades. See Matth. Paris, Hist. Major.

The

with Malec-al-Camel, sultan of Egypt. principal article of this treaty was, that Frederic should be put in possession of the city and kingdom of Jerusalem. This condition was immediately executed; and the emperor,

*See Jac. de Vitriaco, Histor. Oriental. et Marinus Sanutus, Secret. fidel. Crucis inter Bongarsianos de sacris bellis Scriptores, seu Gesta Dei per Francos. This papal excommunication, which was The learned authors of the Universal Histo- drawn up in the most outrageous and indecent lan ry call this ringleader, by mistake, John Ducas. guage, was so far from exciting Frederic to acceleSee, for a full account of this empire, Du Fresne, rate his departure for Palestine, that it produced no Histoire de l'Empire de Constantinople sous les Empe-effect upon him at all, and was, on the contrary, rereurs Francois; in the former part of which we find ceived with the utmost contempt. He defended the Histoire de la Conquete de la Ville de Constan- himself by his ambassador at Rome, and showed that tinople par les Francois, written by Godfrey de the reasons of his delay were solid and just, and not Ville-Harduin, one of the French chiefs concerned mere pretexts, as the pope had pretended. At the in the expedition. This work makes a part of the same time, he wrote a remarkable letter to Henry Byzantine history. See also Claude Fontenay, His- III. king of England, in which he complained of the toire de l'Eglise Gallicane, tom. x. Guntheri Monachi insatiable avarice, the boundless ambition, the perHistor. capta a Latinis Constantinopoleos, in Henr. fidious and hypocritical proceedings of the Roman Canisii Lect. Antiq. tom. iv.-Innocentii III. Epis- pontiffs. See Fleury, Histoire Ecclesiastique, liv. tol. a Baluzio edit. ixxix. tom. xvi.

entering the city with great pomp, accompanied || Egypt with a formidable army and a numerous by a numerous train, placed the crown upon his head with his own hands; and, having thus settled affairs in Palestine, he returned without delay into Italy, to appease the discords and commotions which the vindictive and ambitious pontiff had excited in his absence. Notwithstanding all the reproaches that were cast upon the emperor by the pope and his creatures, this expedition was, in reality, the most successful of any that had been undertaken against the infidels.*

fleet, from a notion that the conquest of this province would enable him to carry on the war in Syria and Palestine with greater facility and success. The first attempts of the zealous monarch were crowned with victory; for Damietta, that famous Egyptian city, yielded to his arms; but the smiling prospect was soon changed, and the progress of the war presented one uniform scene of calamity and desolation.. The united horrors of famine and pestilence overwhelmed the royal army, whose provisions VI. The expeditions that followed this were were cut off by the Mohammedans, in 1250; less important, and also less successful. In 1239, Robert, earl of Artois, the king's brother, Theobald VI.,† count of Champagne and king having surprised the Saracen army, and,. of Navarre, set out from Marseilles for the through an excess of valour, pursued them too Holy Land, accompanied by several French far, was slain in the engagement; and, a few and German princes, as did also, in the follow- days after, Louis, two of his brothers,* and the ing year, Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother to greatest part of his army, were made prisoners Henry III., king of England. The issue of in a bloody action, after a bold and obstinate these two expeditions by no means correspond-resistance. This valiant monarch, who was ed with the preparations which were made to endowed with true greatness of mind, and who render them successful. The former failed was extremely pious; though after the manner through the influence of the emperor's am- that prevailed in this age of superstition and bassadors in Palestine, who renewed the truce darkness, was ransomed at an immense price;† with the Moslems; while on the other hand, a and, after having spent about four years in considerable body of Christians were defeated Palestine, returned into France, in 1254, with at Gaza, and such as escaped the carnage re- a handful of men,‡ the miserable remains of his turned into Europe. This fatal event was formidable army. principally occasioned by the discord that reigned between the templars and the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Hence it came to pass, that the arrival of Richard, which had been industriously retarded by Gregory, and which had revived, in some degree, the hopes of the vanquished, was ineffectual to repair|| their losses; and all that this prince could do, was to enter, with the consent of the allies, into a truce, upon as good conditions as the declining state of their affairs would admit. This truce was accordingly concluded with the sultan of Egypt in 1241; after which Richard immediately set sail for Europe.§

VII. The affairs of the Christians in the east daily declined. Intestine discords and ill-conducted expeditions had reduced them almost to extremities, when Louis IX., king of France, who was canonised after his death, and is still worshipped with the utmost devotion,attempted their restoration. It was in consequence of a vow, which this prince had made in the year 1248, when he was seized with a dangerous illness, that he undertook this arduous task; and, in the execution of it, he set sail for

* See the writers who have composed the history of the holy wars, and of the life and exploits of Frederic II. See also Muratori's Annales Italiæ, and the various authors of the Germanic History.

Dr. Mosheim calls him, by a mistake, Theobald V., unless we attribute this fault to an error of the press.

This was Frederic II. who had a great party in Palestine, and did not act in concert with the clergy and the creatures of his bitter enemy, Gregory IX.; from which division the Christian cause suf

fered much.

VIII. No calamities could deject the courage or damp the invincible spirit of Louis; nor did he look upon his vow as fulfilled by what he had already done in Palestine. He therefore resolved upon a new expedition, fitted out a formidable fleet, with which he set sail for Africa, accompanied by a splendid train of princes and nobles, and proposed to begin in that part of the world his operations against the infidels, that he might either convert them to the Christian faith, or draw from their treasures the means of carrying on more effectually the war in Asia. Immediately after his arrival upon the African coast, he made himself mas||ter of the fort of Carthage; but this success was soon followed by a fatal change in his affairs. A pestilential disease broke out in the fleet, in the harbour of Tunis, carried off the greatest part of the army, and seized, at length, the monarch himself, who fell a victim to its rage, on the 25th of August, 1270.§

*

Alphonsus, earl of Poictiers, and Charles, earl of Anjou.

ration of Damietta, the king was obliged to pay for The ransom, which, together with the restohis liberty, was 800,000 gold bezants, and not 80,000, as Collier erroneously reckons. This sum, whichr was equal then to 500,000 livres of French money, would, in our days, amount to the value of 4,000,000of livres, that is, to about 170,000l. sterling..

Of 2,800 illustrious knights, who set out with Louis from France, there remained about 100 when he sailed from Palestine. See Joinville's Hist. de S. Louis.

§ Among the various histories that deserve to be consulted for a more ample account of this last crusade, the principal place is due to the Histoire de S. Louis IX. du nom, Roy de France, ecrite par Jean § All these circumstances are accurately related Sr. de Joinville, enrichie de nouvelles Dissertations and illustrated by the learned George Christ. Ge- et Observations Historiques, par Charles du Fresne, baureus, in his Historia Ricardi Imperatoris, lib. i. Paris, 1688. See also Filleau de la Chaise, Histoire p. 34.-It appears, however, by the Epistolæ Petri de de S. Louis, Paris, 1688, 2 vols. 8vo.-Menconis Vineis, that Richard was created, by Frederic, his Chronicon, in Ant. Matthæi Analect. veteris ævi, lord lieutenant of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and tom. iii.-Luc. Wadding, Annales Minorum, tom. iv. this furnishes a probable reason why Gregory used-Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom.iii.-Pierre Claude all possible means to retard Richard's voyage. Fontenay, Histoire de l'Eglise Gallicane, tom. xi.

Louis was the last of the European princes || that embarked in the holy war; the dangers and difficulties, the calamities and disorders, and the enormous expenses that accompanied each crusade, disgusted the most zealous, and discouraged the most intrepid promoters of these fanatical expeditions. In consequence of this, the Latin empire in the east declined apace, notwithstanding the efforts of the Roman pontiffs to maintain and support it; and in the year 1291, after the taking of Ptolemais by the Mohammedans, it was entirely over-who chiefly contributed to this happy revoluthrown. It is natural to inquire into the true causes that contributed to this unhappy revolution in Palestine; and these causes are evident. We must not seek for them either in the councils or in the valour of the infidels, but in the dissensions that reigned in the Christian armies, in the profligate lives of those who called themselves the champions of the cross, and in the ignorance, obstinacy, avarice, and insolence, of the pope's legates.

IX. Christianity had not yet tamed the ferocity, or conquered the pagan superstitions and prejudices, that still prevailed in some of the western provinces. Among others, the Prussians, a fierce and savage nation, retained the idolatrous worship of their ancestors with the most obstinate perseverance; nor did the arguments and exhortations employed by the ecclesiastics, who were sent from time to time to convert them, produce the least effect upon their stubborn and intractable spirits. The brutish firmness of these Pagans induced Conrad, duke of Masovia, to have recourse to more forcible methods than reason and argument, in order to effect their conversion. For this purpose, he addressed himself, in the year 1230, to the knights of the Teutonic order of St. Mary, (who, after their expulsion from Palestine, had settled at Venice,) and engaged them, by pompous promises, to undertake the conquest and conversion of the Prussians. The knights accordingly arrived in Prussia, under the command of Herman de Saltza, and, after a most cruel and obstinate war of fifty years with that resolute people, obliged them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Teutonic order, and to embrace the Christian faith.† After having established Christianity, and fixed their own dominion in Prussia, these booted apostles made several incursions into the neighbouring countries, and particularly into Lithuania, where they pillaged, burned, massacred, and ruined all before them, until they forced the inhabitants of that miserable province to profess a feigned submission to the Gospel, or rather to the furious and unrelenting missionaries, by whom it was propagated in a manner so contrary to its divine maxims, and to the benevolent spirit of its celestial author.‡

*Ant. Matthæi Analecta veteris ævi, tom. v. Jac. Echardi Scriptor. Dominican. tom. i.-Imola in Dantem, in Muratorii Antiq. Italicæ medii ævi, tom. i. †See Matthæi Analecta vet. ævi, tom. iii. p. 18. tom. v. p. 684-689.-Chronicon Prussiæ, by Peter of Duisburg.-Hartknock's History of the Prussian Church, written in the German language, book i. chap. i., and Antiquitates Prussiæ, Diss. xiv.-Baluzii Miscellanea, tom. vii.-Wadding's Annales Minor. tom. iv.-Histoire de Pologne par Solignac, tom. ii.

Beside the authors mentioned in the preceding
VOL. 1.-43

X. In Spain the cause of the Gospel gained ground. The kings of Castile, Leon, Navarre, and Arragon, waged perpetual war with the Saracen princes, who held still under their dominion the kingdoms of Valencia, Granada, and Murcia, together with the province of Andalusia; and this war was carried on with such success, that the Saracen dominion declined apace, and was daily reduced within narrower bounds, while the limits of the church were extended on every side. The princes tion were Ferdinand, king of Leon and Castile, who, after his death, obtained a place in the kalendar, his father Alphonso IX., king of Leon, and James I., of Arragon.* The last, more especially, distinguised himself eminently by his fervent zeal for the advancement of Christianity; for no sooner had he made himself master of Valencia, in the year 1236, than he employed, with the greatest pains and assiduity, every possible method of converting to the faith his Arabian subjects, whose expulsion would have been an irreparable loss to his || kingdom. For this purpose he ordered the Dominicans, of whose ministry he principally made use in this salutary work, to learn the Arabic tongue; and he founded public schools at Majorca and Barcelona, in which a considerable number of youths were educated in a manner that might enable them to preach the Gospel in that language. When these pious efforts were found to be ineffectual, pope Clement IV. exhorted the king to drive the Mohammedans out of Spain. The obsequious prince attempted to follow the counsel of the inconsiderate pontiff; in the execution of which, however, he met with great difficulty, from the opposition of the Spanish nobles on one hand, and from the obstinacy of the Moors on the other.†

CHAPTER II.

Concerning the Calamitous Events that happened to the Church during this Century.

I. THE accounts we have already given of the Tartarian conquests, and of the unhappy issue of the crusades, will be sufficient to suggest a lively idea of the melancholy condition to which the Christians were reduced in Asia; and, if the Saracens had been infected with the same odious spirit of persecution that possessed the crusards, there would not perhaps have remained a single Christian in that part of the world. But, though these infidels were chargeable with various crimes, and had frequently treated the Christians in a rigorous and injurious manner, they looked with horror upon those scenes of persecution, which the Latins exhibited as the exploits of heroic piety, and considered it as the highest and most atrocious mark of injustice and cruelty, to force unhappy men, by fire and sword, to abandon their religious principles, or to put them to death merely because they refused to change their

note, see Ludwig's Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum omnis ævi, tom. i.

* See Joh. Ferreras, History of Spain, vol. iv.

† See Geddes' History of the Expulsion of the Morescoes, in his Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. i.

opinions. After the destruction of the king- III. If the accusations brought against Fre dom of Jerusalem, many of the Latins remain-deric II. by pope Gregory IX. deserve any creed still in Syria, and, retiring into the dark dit, that prince may be ranked among the most and solitary recesses of mount Libanus, lived inveterate and malignant enemies of the Christhere in a savage manner, and lost, by degrees, || tian_religion, since he was charged by the all sense of religion and humanity, as appears pontiff with having said, that the world had from the conduct and characters of their de- been deceived by three impostors, Moses, scendants, who still inhabit the same unculti- Christ, and Mohammed.* This charge was vated wilds, and who seem almost entirely answered by a solemn and public profession of destitute of all knowledge of God and religion.* his faith, which the emperor addressed to all II. The Latin writers of this age complain the kings and princes of Europe, to whom also in many places of the growth of infidelity, of had been addressed the accusation brought daring and licentious writers, some of whom against him. The charge, however, was foundpublicly attacked the doctrines of Christianity, ed upon the testimony of Henry Raspon, landwhile others went so far as atheistically to call grave of Thuringia, who declared that he had in question the perfections and government of heard the emperor pronounce the abominable the Supreme Being. These complaints, how- blasphemy above mentioned. It is, after all, ever they might have been exaggerated in difficult to decide with sufficient evidence upon some respects, were yet far from being entirely this point. Frederic, who was extremely pasdestitute of foundation; and the superstition sionate and imprudent, may, perhaps, in a fit of the age was too naturally adapted to create of rage, have suffered some such expression as a number of infidels and libertines, among men this to escape his reflection; and this is renwho had more capacity than judgment, more dered probable by the company he frequented, wit than solidity. Persons of this character, and the number of learned Aristotelians who when they fixed their attention only upon that were always about his person, and might sugabsurd system of religion, which the Roman gest matter enough for such impious exprespontiffs and their dependants exhibited as the sions, as that now under consideration. It was true religion of Christ, and maintained by the this affair that gave occasion, in after-times, to odious influence of bloody persecution, were, the invention of that fabulous account, which for want of the means of being better instruct- supposes the detestable book concerning the ed, unhappily induced to consider the Christian three impostors to have been composed by the religion as a fable, invented and propagated by emperor himself, or by Peter de Vineis, a native greedy and ambitious priests, in order to fill of Capua, a man of great credit and authority, their coffers, and to render their authority re- whom that princes had chosen for his prime spectable. The philosophy of Aristotle, which minister, and in whom he placed the highest flourished in all the European schools, and was confidence. looked upon as the very essence of right reason, contributed much to support this delusion, and to nourish a proud and presumptuous spirit of infidelity. This quibbling and intricate philosophy led many to reject some of the most evident and important doctrines both of natural and revealed religion, such as the doctrine of a divine providence governing the universe, the immortality of the soul, the scriptural account of the origin of the world, and various points of less moment. Not only were these doctrines rejected, but the most perni-vidence; that the world was eternal and the soul cious errors were industriously propagated in opposition to them, by a set of Aristotelians, who were extremely active in gaining proselytes to their impious jargon.†

* A certain tribe called Derusi, or Drusi, who inhabit the recesses of the mounts Liban and Anti-Liban, pretend to a descent from the ancient Franks, who were once masters of Palestine. This derivation is, indeed, doubtful. It is however certain, that there still remain in these countries descendants of those whom the holy war led from Europe into Palestine, though they do very little honour to their ancestors, and have nothing of Christians but the

name.

† See Sti. Thomæ Summa contra Gentes, and Bernardi Monetæ Summa contra Catharos et WaldenBes. The latter writer, in the work now mentioned, combats, with great spirit, those enemies of Christianity who appeared in his time. In the fourth chapter of the fifth book, p. 416, he disputes, in an ample and copious manner, against those who af firmed, that the soul perished with the body; refutes, in the eleventh chapter, p. 477, those Aristotelian philosophers, who held, that the world had existed from all eternity, and would never have an end; and, in the fifteenth chapter, p. 554, he attacks those, who, despising the authority of the sacred writings, deny the existence of human liberty, and

maintain, that all things, and even the crimes of the wicked, are the effects of an absolute and irresistible necessity. Add to these authors, Tempier's Indiculus Errorum, qui a nonnullis Magistris Lutetiæ publice privatimque docebantur, Anno 1277, in Bibliotheca Patrum Maxima, tom. xxv. p. 233; as also rard du Bois' Hist. Eccles. Paris, tom. ii. p. 501. The Boulay's Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. iii. p. 433, and Getenets of these doctors will, no doubt, appear of a surprising nature; for they taught, "that there was only one intellect among all the human race; that all things were subject to absolute fate or necessity; that the universe was not governed by a divine pro

mortal;" and they maintained these and the like philosophy of Aristotle. But, at the same time, to monstrous errors, by arguments drawn from the avoid the just resentment of the people, they held up, as a buckler against their adversaries, that most dangerous and pernicious distinction between theological and philosophical truth, which has been since used, with the most cunning and bad faith, by the more recent Aristotelians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. "These things," say they, (as we learn from Tempier, who was bishop of Paris,)" are true in philosophy, but not according to the catholic faith." Vera sunt hæc secundum philosophiam, non secundum fidem catholicam.

*Matthew Paris, Historia Major, p. 408, 459.Petr. de Vincis Epistolar. lib. i.

† Herm. Gigantis Flores Temporum, p. 126.-Chr. Fred. Ayrmann, Sylloge Anecdotor. tom. i. p. 639.

See Casim. Oudini Comment. de Scriptor. Ecclesiasticis, tom. iii. p. 66.-Alb. Henr. de Sallengre, Memoires d'Histoire et de Literature, tom. i. part i. p. 386.

The book entitled Liber de iii. Impostoribus, sive Tractatus de Vanitate Religionum, is really a book which had no existence at the time that the most noise was made about it, and was spoken of by multitudes before it had been seen by any one person. Its supposed existence was probably owing to an impious saying of Simon Tournay, doctor of divinity in the university of Paris in the thirteenth