The Historians' History of the World 08

From what has been said it is certain that the Crusades helped to infuse into the West a taste for painting, sculpture, and architecture. The spirit of conquest has always awakened that of the fine arts. Though artists may flee from the clash of arms, their souls, inspired by the commotion of great warlike movements and the general emulation of courage and valour, exhibit at such time a noble ambition for glory. The aspect of the theatre of desolation and carnage, swept by the conqueror’s tread, kindles often the sacred fire, which is extinguished in times of peace and tranquillity, and marvellous productions, conceived and matured in deep thought, quickly follow the imperfect and hastily finished sketch. Nations also wish to celebrate, by public monuments, triumphs watered with their blood and tears. For this reason painters display on heroes’ heads the wings of victory, are lavish with palm and crown, and place on every side the emblems of fame. Cities become filled with superb buildings, and public squares peopled with folk of bronze and marble who seem to live and breathe.e

HERDER’S OPINION OF THE CRUSADES

It has been customary to ascribe so many beneficial effects to the Crusades, that, conformably to this opinion, our quarter of the globe must require a similar fever, to agitate and excite its forces, once in every five or six centuries; but a closer inspection will show that most of these effects proceeded not from the Crusades, at least not from them alone; and that among the various impulses Europe then received, they were at most accelerating shocks, acting upon the whole in collateral or oblique directions, with which the minds of Europeans might well have dispensed. Indeed it is a mere phantom of the brain to frame one prime source of events out of seven distinct expeditions, undertaken in a period of two centuries, by different nations, and from various motives, solely because they bore one common name.

Trade the Europeans had already opened with the Arabian states, before the Crusades: and they were at liberty to have profited by it, and extended it, in a far more honourable way than by predatory campaigns. By these, indeed, carriers, bankers, and purveyors were gainers: but all their gain accrued from the Christians, against whose property they were in fact the crusaders. What was torn from the Greek Empire was a disgraceful traders’ booty, serving, by extremely enfeebling this empire, to render Constantinople an easier prey at a future period to the Turkish hordes, who were continually pressing more closely upon it. The Venetian Lion of St. Mark prepared the way, by the Fourth Crusade, for the Turks to enter Europe and spread themselves so widely in it. The Genoese, it is true, assisted one branch of the Greek emperors to re-ascend the throne: but it was the throne of a weakened, broken empire, which fell an easy prey to the Turks; then both the Venetians and Genoese lost their best possessions, and finally almost all their trade, in the Mediterranean and Euxine seas.

Chivalry arose not from the Crusades, but the Crusades from chivalry: the flower of French and Norman knighthood appeared in Palestine in the first campaign. The Crusades, indeed, contributed rather to rob chivalry of its proper honours, and to convert real armed knights into mere armorial ones. For in Palestine many assumed the crested helmet, which in Europe they durst not have borne: they brought home with them armorial devices and nobility, which they transmitted to their families, and thus introduced a new class, the nobility of the herald’s office, and in time also nobility by letters patent. As the number of the ancient dynasties, the true equestrian nobility, lessened, these new men sought to obtain possessions and hereditary prerogatives, like them: they carefully enumerated their ancestors, acquired dignities and privileges, and in a few generations assumed the title of ancient nobility; though they had not the slightest pretensions to rank with those dynasties which were princes to them. Every man that bore arms in Palestine might become a knight: the first Crusades were years of general jubilee for Europe. These new nobles in right of military service were soon of great use to growing monarchy, which cunningly knew how to avail itself of them against such of the superior vassals as still remained. Thus passion balances passion, and one appearance counteracts another: and at length the nobility of the camp and the court totally obliterated the ancient chivalry.