The Crusaders (Volume 2); Or, Scenes, Events, and Characters, from the Times of the Crusades. Or, Scenes, Events, and Characters, from the Times of the Crusades (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1834. Excerpt: ... THE CRUSADERS. THE SECOND CRUSADE.* STATE OF THINGS IN FRANCE. The dismay in the Christian settlements in the East, caused by the loss of Edessa, and the prospect of the consolidation of the Mohammedan power in Syria, was necessarily very great. Like all colonists, the Latins naturally looked for aid in time of need to the parent state. Accordingly the most pressing letters from the queen, the patriarch, the prelates, and barons of Jerusalem, were brought to Europe, which pictured the forlorn condition of the holy places, and implored the aid of the valiant knights of France. But times were different now from what they had been half a century before. Then the East was in a great measure an unknown land, imagination was * The principal authorities for the Second Crusade are, besides the Archbishop of Tyre, Odo de Diogilo (Deuil) De Eaeped. Lud. VII. in Orientem, Otto of Freysingen De gest. Frid. I. and the Greek writers Cinnamus and Nicetas. VOL. II. B therefore at liberty to cast over it her illusive hues, and the simple eloquence of a Peter the Hermit sufficed to rouse nations and princes to arms. " Now the illusion was dispelled; the toils and dangers of the march through Asia were well-known; narratives of the sufferings of the first crusaders had been composed; there were few families of which some member had not joined one of the various armies or caravans of pilgrims to the Holy Land, and who had not either perished on the road, or returned home with a dismal tale of sufferings undergone. It was also seen to what poverty many of the first crusaders had reduced their families, by selling their lands to equip themselves for expeditions in which they had only found their death. The belief of the necessity, though not of the merit, of pilgrimage, was perhaps also abated. In France...