The Historians' History of the World 08

As Lord Bacon said in his War with Spain: “Forasmuch as it is a fundamental law in the Turkish empire, that they may, without any other provocation, make war upon Christendom for the propagation of their law; so that there lieth upon Christians a perpetual fear of war, hanging over their heads, from them; and therefore, they may at all times, as they think good, be upon the preventive.” But before they could have been justified on this last-mentioned argument, proof was necessary that the danger was imminent, and that time and circumstances had not reduced the principle to a mere dry, inoperative letter of the law. In the first hundred and fifty years of Mohammedan history, the Mussulmans made continued and successful attacks on the Christians; and the invasion of France by the Spanish and African Moors, seemed to endanger Christendom as a world independent of and not tributary to the Saracens. In all that long period the people of the West might have instituted crusades on principles of self-defence. But as they had acquiesced for ages in the existence of Islam, they could not afterwards draw the sword, except for the purpose of preventing or repelling new aggressions. No dangers hung over Christendom at the time when the Crusades commenced.

MORAL EFFECTS

On principles of morals and politics the holy wars cannot be justified. Yet war became a sacred duty, and obligatory on every class of mankind. The fair face of religion was besmeared with blood, and heavenly attraction was changed for demoniacal repulsiveness. The Crusades encouraged the most horrible violences of fanaticism. They were the precedent for the military contentions of the church with the Prussians and Albigenses; and as the execrable Inquisition arose out of the spirit of clerical dragooning, the wars in Palestine brought a frightful calamity on the world. Universal dominion was the ambition of the Roman pontiffs; and the iniquity of the means was in dreadful accordance with the audacity of the project. The pastors of the church used anathemas, excommunications, interdicts, and every weapon in the storehouse of spiritual artillery; and when the world was in arms for the purpose of destroying infidels, it was natural that the soldiers of God should turn aside and chastise other foes to the true religion. Crusades with idolaters and erring Christians were considered as virtuous and as necessary as crusades with Saracens; the south of France was saturated with heretical blood; and those booted apostles, the Teutonic knights, converted, sword in hand, the Prussians and Lithuanians from idolatry to Christianity.

The sword of religious persecution was not directed against Turks and heretics only. The reader remembers the sanguinary enormities that disgraced the opening of the First Crusade. Not only was this instance of persecution of the Jews the earliest one upon record in the annals of the West since the fall of the Roman Empire, but it is also true that that wretched people met with most of their dreadful calamities during the time of the holy wars. It is highly probable that the hatred which the Christians felt against them was embittered by that fierce and mistaken zeal for religion which gave birth to the Crusades; and as the chief object of those Crusades was the recovery of the sepulchre at Jerusalem, it was natural that the Christian belligerents should behold with equal detestation the nation which had crucified the Saviour and the nation which continued to profane his tomb. This conjecture is much confirmed by the circumstance, that the prevailing prejudice in the Middle Ages against the Jews was that they often crucified Christian children in mockery of the great sacrifice. If it be objected to this reasoning that the crusading Cœur de Lion befriended the Jews, we reply that the crusading king Edward I expelled them from England.