The Historians' History of the World 08

The political changes in England cannot with justice be attributed to the Crusades. Until the days of Richard I holy wars had not become a general or a national concern. The monarchy stood the same at the close of his reign as at its commencement; and the only favourable issue of Cœur de Lion’s armament was an increase of military reputation. His renunciation of feudal sovereignty over Scotland had no influence on politics. Edward I pressed his claim, although Richard had deprived him of his strongest support. The pusillanimous John assumed the cross; but that circumstance did not occur until after he had surrendered his crown to the papal see, and until the barons had formed a confederacy against him. His assumption of the cross neither retarded nor accelerated the progress of English liberty. The pope was not linked to him by stronger ties than those which had formerly bound them; and the barons were not deceived by the religious hypocrisy of the king. The transmarine expeditions of the earls of Cornwall and Salisbury, and of Prince Edward in the reign of Henry III, were the ebullitions of religious and military ardour, but did not affect the general course of events.

The great political circumstance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was important above all others to civil liberty, was the appearance of free and corporate towns. But the Crusades neither produced their establishment nor affected their history. After various vicissitudes of fortune, the battle of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance, established the independence of the towns in the north of Italy. The Crusades did not contribute to these events; for the two sacred expeditions which had taken place were as disastrous to peasants as to princes, and drained Europe of all ranks of society. Consequently it was not from the holy wars that the people gained their liberties. We find that so ill regulated was the liberty of the towns alluded to, that anarchy soon succeeded. Men of personal importance and wealth aspired to sovereign honours; an overwhelming aristocracy extinguished freedom, and at the end of the thirteenth century there were as many princes in Tuscany and Lombardy as there had been free towns at the end of the twelfth.

It is only in the maritime cities of Italy that any indisputable influence of the Crusades can be marked. Trade with the Christian states in Palestine, and the furnishing of transports to the pilgrims, increased the wealth of the commercial cities. The capture of Constantinople by the French and Venetians was important in its issues. Venice regained maritime ascendency; but it was soon taken from her by the Genoese, who aided the Greeks to recover their capital. Genoa then became a leading power in the Mediterranean, and she subdued Pisa. The rapid increase of the wealth and power of Venice and Genoa, and the eventual destruction of Pisa seem, then, to form the principal circumstances in commercial history which the Crusades were instrumental in producing. But how insignificant were these events, both locally and generally, both in their relation to Italy and to the general history of Europe, when compared with the discovery of a maritime passage to India!

A view of the heroic ages of Christianity, in regard to their grand and general results, is a useful and important, though a melancholy employment. The Crusades retarded the march of civilisation, thickened the clouds of ignorance and superstition; and encouraged intolerance, cruelty, and fierceness. Religion lost its mildness and charity; and war its mitigating qualities of honour and courtesy. Such were the bitter fruits of the holy wars!c

INFLUENCE UPON COMMERCE

Trade with the East, at that time, embraced many more articles of commerce than at the present day. Sugar and several other commodities sought for as luxuries or used as medicine, which now come entirely from the new world, were brought from Egypt or the Indies. Europeans looked to Asia for precious gems, especially emeralds, whose worth equalled that of diamonds, until the discovery of the rich mines in the mountains of America. Pearls were then to be found only on the shores of oriental seas. The Crusades gave the peoples of Europe a taste for delicacies and Asiatic ornaments, which several of them had never before known. Vanity and enervation made precious stones, silks, perfumes, and all the products less useful than pleasant which nature has sown in profusion throughout the Orient, necessary to them.