The Story of Europe

by Marshall, H. E.

  The Teutonic Order

  In the time of the third Crusade another similar order was founded, and as the members were chiefly German it became known as the Teutonic Order. They took as their habit a white robe with a black cross, and like the order of St. John, this order had its beginnings in a hospital founded by some German merchants. Like the other similar orders, it soon became a great military and trading organization, with fleets and lands, and almost regal power. But the Teutonic Knights played a much greater part in the expansion of Germany than in the conquest of Palestine. Their presence had little influence on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, whereas without the support of the Hospitallers and the Templars it could not have continued to exist.

  CHAPTER XXV

  The Crusades: The Latin Empire of Constantinople

  THE second Crusade set out about fifty years after the first. Since Urban had preached the first enthusiasm for the Holy War had spread so that even sovereign rulers had become infected by it, and now Louis VII, king of France, and Conrad III, emperor of Germany, became the leaders of the new venture. But this Crusade accomplished nothing.

  The Third Crusade

  The third Crusade was called forth by the recapture of both Acre and Jerusalem by the Turks. This time three kings led the armies, Richard Cœur de Lion, king of England; Philip II, king of France; and Frederick Red Beard, or Barbarossa, emperor of Germany. Frederick, however, died long before he reached the Holy Land. Philip and Richard went on, and after a siege of nearly two years, they recovered possession of Acre. Then Philip and Richard quarrelled, and Philip went home. Richard lingered on in Palestine, but he could not regain possession of Jerusalem, and at length, after signing a truce of three years with the Sultan, he, too, returned home.

  Fourth Crusade

  The fourth Crusade had far more effect on Europe than on Palestine. For instead of going to Jerusalem the Crusaders turned aside and took Constantinople.

  Isaac II, a weak and degenerate emperor, had been deposed and blinded by his brother Alexius, who caused himself to he crowned as Alexius III. But Isaac's son, a boy of twelve, also named Alexius, escaped from Constantinople, fled to Italy, and there and in other European states begged for help against the usurper. He received it at last from the Crusaders gathered to fight for the city of God.

  These Crusaders had already turned from their first purpose, and had helped the Venetians to recover the City of Zara which had revolted from the Republic of Venice, and placed itself under the protection of the king of Hungary. They had done this, too, in spite of the thunders of the pope, who forbade them to touch the city. For the king of Hungary had taken the cross, "and he who attacked a city belonging to him made himself an enemy of the Church," said the pope.

  By the time Zara was taken it was too late in the year to go on to Palestine, so the Crusaders passed the winter there. And here came young Alexius to entreat their aid. In return he promised to pay a large sum of money, and in his own and his father's name, swore to put an end to the division between the Greek and the Roman Church, and bring the whole Eastern Empire under the sway of the pope. That, surely, thought the Crusaders, would be a righteous deed, and in spite of some opposition among their ranks, they promised Alexius the help he craved.

  The Crusaders attack Constantinople

  So in April 1203 the Crusaders set sail. A great company of Venetians joined them also, and Constantinople was attacked both by land and sea, and the great city which had so often withstood the onslaught of heathen and infidel, fell before the host of Christian brigands. Alexius fled, the feeble and now blind emperor Isaac was restored to the throne with his son Alexius IV as co-emperor.

  But two such emperors, one blind and decrepit, the other young and utterly frivolous, were ill-fitted to rule the Empire in troublous times. When Alexius tried to fulfil his promise, to bring the Empire under the sway of the pope the people rose in rebellion. During the turmoil the old emperor Isaac died, and Alexius also was slain, his reign having lasted only six months.

  A new emperor, Alexius V, was placed upon the throne, but the Crusaders took up arms against him. Constantinople was sacked and burned, and Alexius V fled for his life. Then from among their own number the Crusaders chose another emperor, Baldwin, Count of Flanders.

  In the Eastern Empire the feudal system was unknown. The emperors might be despotic or corrupt, but at least their subjects had not to fear the rapine of their fellow-subjects. Now its Latin conquerors endeavoured to introduce the feudal system. The Empire was parcelled out among them, and the emperor became merely a feudal chieftain. The Greek clergy were driven from their churches, and a host of priests and monks were imported from Rome in order to convert the people. For, although the Greeks were Christians, because they did not acknowledge the pope as head of the Church, they seemed to the narrow-minded Crusaders to be infidels, almost as much as the Mohammedans, and in sore need of conversion.

  But the task of turning the Eastern Empire into a feudal state, and the Greek Church into an obedient daughter of Rome, proved a task too great for the Latins. There was no sympathy between the rulers and the ruled. The Greeks were worn out and effete, but their learning and culture were far beyond that of their western conquerors. Their ideas of civilization were altogether different. Yet for fifty-seven years the Latin Empire struggled on. Then one day, with a mere handful of soldiers, a Greek general surprised and took Constantinople. The Frankish emperor, Baldwin II, fled away, a Greek emperor (Michael VIII) was once more proclaimed, and the Latin domination of the Eastern Empire came to an end.

  Fifth Crusade

  The only Crusade after the third which brought any relief to pilgrims to the Holy Land was the fifth. That, strange to say, was followed, not by the pope's blessing but by his curse. For Frederick II, emperor of Germany, who led it, was under the ban of the Church when he set out. That an excommunicated man should dare to fight for the Lord's Tomb seemed a mockery and an insult, a cause not for rejoicing but for sorrow and anger. Yet Frederick succeeded where others had failed. He fought little, but by diplomacy he won a ten years' truce from the sultan, and also the assurance of a safe passage for pilgrims through Palestine to the Holy Places.

  Other Crusades followed but they did little for the cause. The passionate enthusiasm which had made the first possible died down. One by one every town which the Crusaders had conquered was again taken from them by the Mohammedans until only Acre was left. At length that, too, fell before the Turks, and in 1291 the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem came to an end.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The Effect of the Crusades—The Fall of Constantinople

  FOR two centuries the Crusades had filled Europe with unrest. The lives of millions of men had been sacrificed, and in the end the Holy Land remained in the possession of the unbeliever. The Crusaders had accomplished nothing of what they had set out to do. But they had wrought great changes in Europe. For one thing they had caused a redistribution of wealth and power. They had helped to weaken the power of the great feudal lords, and they had strengthened that of both kings and peoples.

  When the great nobles wanted money to enable them to set out on a Crusade they sold or mortgaged their lands and everything they possessed. To such an extent was this so that King Richard of England declared that he would sell London if he could find a suitable purchaser. In this way many great estates changed hands. Some were bought by churchmen, thus the Church grew stronger. Others came into the hands of the kings, either by purchase, or because the vassal to whom they had been granted never returned from the Holy Land, and they naturally fell to the king as overlord. Thus the kings became stronger.

  But most of all the people benefited. In return for money supplied the feudal lords were obliged to grant many privileges to the towns. The burghers began to have new ideas of freedom, manufactures and commerce increased, guilds and corporations were founded, and soon became powerful. For the mere equipment of the great hosts which every now and again took their way towards Palestine
necessitated a certain amount of trade and manufacture. The transporting of these same hosts across the seas encouraged shipbuilding. New plants and fruits, such as lemons, apricots, maize, and sugar-cane, were introduced into Europe, through which both agriculture and manufactures were given an impetus.

  The villains and slaves, too, profited. For in the absence of the constantly warring nobles they could sow and reap in peace, and life for them became both happier and easier. A few also bought their freedom by following their lord's example and taking the cross. Everywhere thus the bands which had bound society began to loosen, and the great gulf which had separated the upper and the lower classes began to be bridged.

  In the nobles themselves changes took place. They had gone forth to fight the infidel, scorning him as a barbarian. Everywhere in the east, both in the Eastern Empire and in the Mohammedan lands, they had found a culture and civilization far greater than their own. Science, especially that of medicine, was far more advanced in the east than in the west. Even in the science of war the Crusaders found that they had something to learn form the despised infidel. In the west it had required a knightly vow to make a man courteous and gentle. Everywhere in the east the Crusaders found a refinement of manners to them undreamed of. They found a love of art and letters, and graces of life, of which before they had had no conception. And although they affected to despise these things they were not without their influence.

  Added to this the mere act of travel broadened their minds. Many who joined the Crusades had never before left their own village. They had no consciousness of other lands or peoples. Now, as for weeks they marched through strange countries, their ides of the world became enlarged. They heard of yet other lands far beyond Palestine. The desire to know more of them was awakened and a great impulse was given to the study of geography and of history. Poetic literature, too, received an impulse, and many of the finest mediæval romances have to do with the story of the Crusades.

  These changes only came gradually. They were changes which were bound to come, and if the Crusades had never taken place they would have come in time. But the Crusades undoubtedly hastened that time.

  The Ottoman Turks

  One other office the Crusades performed. That was keeping the Turks out of Europe. For while they were engaged with the Crusades they had no energies to attack the Eastern Empire. And when the Crusades came to an end the Empire of the Seljukian Turks was also tottering to its fall. But its place was soon taken by that of the Ottoman Turks, who had been driven westward by the great Genghis Khan and his successors.

  They were at first only a small tribe of pastoral warriors. But they increased rapidly in power, and before the end of the thirteenth century they had become a menace to the Eastern Empire. Bit by bit they wrested from the Greeks what little remained of their possessions in Asia, then they passed into Europe.

  On and on they came, farther and farther west. Nothing it seemed could stay their conquering march, and all Christian Europe trembled. Then once more the pope called upon Christian warriors to defend the Church of Christ against the infidel, and the kings of France, Germany, and Hungary, uniting their forces, marched to check the terrible foe. But at the battle of Nicopolis in Bulgaria the Christian army was cut to pieces, and the victorious foe vowed that he would not stay his march until he had stabled his horses in the Church of St. Peter at Rome.

  Fall of Constantinople

  But before he had time to fulfil his threat the Turk was called back to fight another foe and defend his conquests against the attacks of the terrible Mongol, Tamerlane. The Turks in their turn went down before this fierce conqueror, and the Ottoman power was humbled to the dust. But in a wonderfully short time the Ottomans recovered themselves, and fifty years after their defeat by Tamerlane they, for the last time, laid siege to Constantinople. This time the capital of the Eastern Empire, which had withstood their onslaughts for so many hundred years, fell. The last emperor, named Constantine, like the founder of the Eastern Empire, died fighting for his capital, and the great sultan, Mohammed II, rode in triumph into the Church of St. Sophia.

  Thus the Crescent triumphed over the Cross, and an Asiatic and alien people took their place among the nations of Europe. They held sway over a huge territory, including parts of what are now Austria, Hungary, Russia, Greece, Serbia, Rumania, and Bulgaria, besides many other lesser provinces. From the Black Sea to the Adriatic, from the Dniester and the Bug to the Mediterranean, the Crescent flew victorious. Added to this the Ottomans had a great Empire in Asia and Africa, and the Sultan boasted "that he was master of many kingdoms, ruler of three continents, and lord of two seas."

  The Ottoman Turks were the last barbarian tribe to settle upon European soil. They did not disappear like the Huns, they were not driven forth like the Saracens, they have in no way become Europeanized like the Hungarians or Magyars, they have remained Asiatic and alien, a blot upon the map of Europe to this day.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  The Holy Roman Empire—Strife with the Popes—Commercial Progress

  THE Saxon line of emperors came to an end with Henry V (see Chapter XX), and under the Hohenstaufens the bitter struggle between popes and emperors continued. Emperors, too, still strove after world dominion, while their power over Germany was yet unstable.

  At length both Germany and Italy became divided into two great parties. In Germany the factions were known as Welfs and Waiblings, in Italy as Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Welfs or Guelphs were followers of the pope, the Waiblings or Ghibellines were followers of the emperor, Waibling being a sort of surname given to the Hohenstaufens from their castle of that name.

  Frederick I, Barbarossa

  In the tremendous struggle between pope and emperor the Empire was to succumb, but for a time the inevitable end was staved off by the genius of a great man. This was Frederick I, Barbarossa. Strong and just, a great statesman and a great soldier, he was, perhaps, the best emperor who has ever ruled over Germany.

  Under him once again the warring states were united. Even he could not entirely put down private warfare but he greatly reduced it, and in the comparative peace the country became more prosperous and united than ever before. It would have been well for Germany had Barbarossa been content with his work there. But once again the desire for world dominion and the fatal connection with Italy brought ruin.

  The Normans were by this time firmly established in Italy, and the south was thus practically lost to the Empire. In the north the great cities had grown powerful, and taking advantage of the quarrels between pope and emperor had wrung themselves free and formed republics. The emperors' quarrels with the pope were bitter and frequent, and in these struggles the popes sometimes sought help from the Normans, sometimes from the Lombard cities. They used their spiritual powers against the emperor also, and like some of his predecessors, Barbarossa was excommunicated. But the thunders of the Church did not affect him as they had affected Henry IV. For Barbarossa ruled Germany with a strong hand, and the German bishops were emperor's men rather than pope's men. They did homage to the emperor for their fiefs, and rode with his army. Had the German Church always been thus true to the emperor the fate of the German Empire might have been other than it was.

  Italy and the Empire

  Soon after his coronation Frederick entered Italy and in several campaigns reduced the Lombard cities to submission. It was done with not a little cruelty, Milan being razed to the ground. He placed German rulers over the cities and provinces and laid upon the people such a burden of taxes that the record of them was called "The book of pain and mourning."

  Frederick's first papal quarrel was with Adrien IV, the only Englishman who ever sat upon the papal throne. It began over a very small matter. Adrien wrote a letter to Frederick in which he seemed to claim that the Empire was his (the pope's) gift and the emperor merely his vassal. At this assumption the imperial wrath blazed furiously. The pope was roused to equal fury, and only his death saved the emperor from excommunication.

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sp; But his death, far from ending the quarrel, only added more fury to it. For two popes were now elected, the emperor's party choosing Victor IV, the pope's party Alexander III. Each pope, as soon as he was enthroned, excommunicated his rival, and Alexander III also excommunicated the emperor.

  Barbarossa cared little for the thunders of the Church. But Alexander was a formidable foe. It was he who later threatened Henry II of England with excommunication for the murder of Thomas à Becket. Against such a pope the emperor needed all his strength, and soon his cause was endangered by the death of his own pope. But nothing daunted, he elected another, Paschal III, and marching on Rome, he took the city, and triumphantly enthroned his pope there, while Alexander fled in dismay.

  The emperor had conquered, but in the very moment of his triumph disaster overtook him. Pestilence wasted his army, and the Lombard cities, joining hands with Pope Alexander, rose in revolt. Frederick sent to Germany for reinforcements, they were refused, and in the battle of Legnano he was defeated by the Lombards.

  This battle was a turning point in Frederick's reign. After it he saw that it was useless longer to struggle against the growing spirit of freedom which had grown up among the cities of Italy. So he made peace with the Lombards, keeping only a vague suzerainty over them. He also gave up the cause of the rival pope, and made peace with Alexander, who removed the ban of excommunication from him. Even after this, however, his dealings with the popes were never altogether smooth.