CENT. XII. Courland, and Semigallia; but, in process of time, their victorious arms received several checks; and when the light of the reformation arose upon Germany, they were deprived of the richest provinces which they possessed in that country; though they still retain there a certain portion of their ancient territories.d

in the western and northern

provinces.

CHAPTER II.

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

The state of I. THE progress of Christianity in the west had the church disarmed its most inveterate enemies, and deprived them of the power of doing much mischief, though they still entertained the same aversion to the disciples of Jesus. The Jews and Pagans were no longer able to oppose the propagation of the Gospel, or to oppress its ministers. Their malignity remained; but their credit and authority were gone. The Jews were accused by the Christians of various crimes, whether real or fictitious we shall not determine; but, instead of attacking their accusers, they were content to defend their own lives, and secure their persons, without daring to give vent to their resentAffairs were in a somewhat different state in

ment.

the northern provinces. The Pagans were yet numerous there in several districts; and wherever they composed the majority, they persecuted the Christians with the utmost barbarity, the most unrelent

d See Raymondi Duellii Histor. Ord. Teutonici, published in folio at Vienna, in 1727.-Chronicon Prussia, by Peter Dufburg, published in 4to. at Jena, in the year 1679, by Christoph. Hartknoch.-Helyot, Hist. des Ordres, tome iii. p. 140.-Chronicon Ordinis Teutonici, in Anton. Matthæi Analectis veteris ævi, tom. v. p. 621, 658, ed. nov.-Privilegia Ordinis Teutonici in Petr. à Ludewig Reliquiis Manuscriptor. tom. vi.

ing and merciless fury. It is true, the Christian CENT.XII. kings and princes, who lived in the neighbourhood of these persecuting barbarians, checked by degrees their impetuous rage, and never ceased to harass and weaken them by hostilities and incursions, until at length they subdued them entirely, and deprived them, by force, both of their independence and their superstitions.

II. The writers of this century complain griev- Its sufferings ously of the inhuman rage with which the Saracens in the east. persecuted the Christians in the east; nor can we question the truth of what they relate on the subject of this severe persecution. But they pass over in silence the principal reasons that inflamed the resentment of this fierce people, and voluntarily forget that the Christians were the aggressors in this dreadful war. If we consider the matter with impartiality and candor, the conduct of the Saracens, however barbarous it may have been, will not appear so surprising, particularly when we reflect on the provocations they received. In the first place, they had a right, by the laws of war, to repel by force the violent invasion of their country; and the Christians could not expect, without being chargeable with the most audacious impudence, that a people whom they attacked with a formidable army, and whom, in the fury of their misguided zeal, they massacred without mercy, should receive insults with a tame submission, and give up their lives and possessions without resistance. It must also be confessed, though with sorrow, that the Christians did not content themselves with making war upon the Mohammedans in order to rescue Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre out of their hands, but carried their brutal fury to the greatest length, disgraced their cause by the most detestable crimes, filled the eastern provinces through

e

• Helmold, Chronic. Sclavor. lib. i. cap. xxxiv. p. 88, cap. xxxv. p. 89, cap. xl. p. 99. Lindenbrogii Scriptor. Septentrional. p. 195, 196, 201.- Petri Lambecii Res Hamburg. lib. i.

CENT. XII. Which they passed with scenes of horror, and made the Saracens feel the terrible effects of their violence and barbarity wherever their arms were successful. Is it then so surprising to see the infidel Saracens committing, by way of reprisal, the same barbarities 'that the holy warriors had perpetrated without the least provocation? Is there any thing so new and so extraordinary in this, that a people naturally fierce, and exasperated, moreover, by the calamities of a religious war, carried on against them in contradiction to all the dictates of justice and humanity, should avenge themselves upon the Christians who resided in Palestine, as professing the religion which gave occasion to the war, and attached, of consequence, to the cause of their enemies and invaders?

Prester John dies.

III. The rapid and amazing victories of the great Genghiz-Khan, emperor of the Tartars, gave an unhappy turn to the affairs of the Christians in the northern parts of Asia, near the close of this century. This warlike prince, who was by birth a Mogul, and whose military exploits raise him in the list of fame above almost all the commanders either of ancient or modern times, rendered his name formidable throughout all Asia, whose most flourishing dynasties fell successively before his victorious arms. David, or Unkhan, who, according to some, was the son, or, as others will have it, the brother, but who was certainly the successor, of the famous Prester John, and was himself so called in common discourse, was the first victim that Genghiz sacrificed to his boundless ambition. He invaded his territory, and put to flight his troops in a bloody battle, where David lost, at the same time, his kingdom and his life. The

f The Greek, Latin, and Oriental writers are far from being agreed concerning the year in which the emperor of the Tartars attacked and defeated Prester John. The greater part of the Latin writers place this event in the year 1202, and consequently in the thirteenth century. But Marcus Paulus Venetus (in his book de Regionibus Orientalibus, lib. i. cap. li. lii. liii.) and other historians whose accounts I have followed as the most probable, place the defeat of this second Prester John in the

princes, who governed the Turks, Indians, and the CENT. XII. province of Cathay, fell, in their turn, before the victorious Tartar, and were all either put to death, or rendered tributary; nor did Genghiz stop here, but proceeding into Persia, India, and Arabia, he overturned the Saracen dominion in those regions, and substituted that of the Tartars in its place. From this period the Christian cause lost much of its authority and credit in the provinces that had been ruled by Prester John and his successor David, and continued to decline and lose ground until it sunk entirely under the weight of oppression, and was succeeded in some places by the errors of the Mohammedan faith, and in others by the superstitions of paganism. We must except, however, in this general account, the kingdom of Tangut, the chief residence of Prester John, in which his posterity, who persevered in the profession of Christianity, maintained, for a long time, a certain sort of tributary dominion, which exhibited, indeed, but a faint shadow of their former grandeur h. year 1187. The learned and illustrious Demetrius Cantemir (in his Præf. ad Histor. Imperii Ottomanici, p. 45, tom. i. of the French edition) gives an account of this matter different from the two now mentioned, and affirms, upon the authority of the Arabian writers, that Genghiz did not invade the territories of his neighbours before the year 1214.

See Petit de la Croix, Histoire de Genghiz-Can, p. 120, 121, published in 12mo. at Paris in the year 1711.- Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. at the article Genghiz-Khan, p. 378.-Assemani Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. iii. part i. p. 101, and 295.-Jean du Plan Carpin, Voyage en Tartarie, ch. v. in the Recueil des Voyages au Nord, tome vii. p. 350.

h Assemani Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican, tom. iii. part ii. p. 500.

24

PART II.

THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CENT. XII.

The state

among the Greeks.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the state of Letters and Philosophy during this
Century.

I. NOTWITHSTANDING the decline of the Grecian empire, the calamities in which it was repeatof learning edly involved, and the frequent revolutions and civil wars that consumed its strength, and were precipitating its ruin, the arts and sciences still flourished in Greece, and covered with glory such as cultivated them with assiduity and success. This may be ascribed, not only to the liberality of the emperors, and to the extraordinary zeal which the family of the Comneni discovered for the advancement of learning, but also to the provident vigilance of the patriarchs of Constantinople, who took all possible measures to prevent the clergy from falling into ignorance and sloth, lest the Greek church should thus be deprived of able champions to defend its cause against the Latins. The learned and ingenious commentaries of Eustathius, bishop of Thessalonica, upon Homer and Dionysius the Geographer, are sufficient to show the diligence and labor that were employed by men of the first genius in the improvement of classical erudition, and in the study of antiquity. And if we turn our view toward the various writers who composed in this century the history of their own times, such as Cinnamus, Glycas, Zonaras, Nicephorus, Briennius and others, we shall find in their productions undoubted marks of learning and genius, as well as of a laudable ambition to obtain the esteem and approbation of future ages.