ported partly by the revenues arifing from these fines. Thus monarchs acquired more effectual authority; no longer regarded their nobles as their equals, or found it neceffary to have recourfe to feeble efforts to control their power. They began not only to hold the fceptre, but to brandish the fword; and had more complete means to check the defigns of their barons by intimidation, or punish their rebellion by force of arms.

Charles the feventh of France, prompted by his defire of expelling the English from France in the year 1445, was the firft monarch who eftablished a standing army; he retained a large body of forces in his fervice, and appointed funds for their regular payment. Many of the principal nobility foon reforted to his ftandard, and looked up to him as the judge, and the rewarder of merit. The connexion between them was ftrengthened, and the feudal militia, who were only occafionally called out, were in time fuperfeded by foldiers accustomed to long and regular fervice. This example of breaking the independent power of the barons was followed by the politic Henry VII. of England. He undermined that edifice, which it was not prudent to attack with open force. By judicious laws he permitted his nobles to cut off the entail of their eftates, and to fell them. He prohibited them from keeping numerous bands of retainers, which had rendered them formidable to his predeceffors. By encouraging agriculture and commerce, and all the arts of peace during a long reign, and by enforcing a vigo

a vigorous, impartial, and general execution of the laws, he not only removed many immediate evils refulting from the feudal fyftem, but provided against their return. The influence of his falutary plans was gradually felt, and they contributed more and more, in procefs of time, to establish good government, to reprefs the arrogance of the higher, and to improve the condition of the middle and inferior claffes of his fubjects, by freeing them from the yoke of petty tyrants, and imparting to them the principal advantages of liberty.

II. The Crufades.

Few expeditions are more extraordinary than thofe which were undertaken for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Turks by the crufades. They took the name of crufaders, or Croifes from the crofs which they wore on their fhoulders in gold, filk, or cloth. In the firft crufade all were red; in the third, the French alone preferved that colour, while green croffes were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English, Each company likewife bore a standard, on which was painted a crofs. If we confider the great numbers of Europeans, who were engaged in them, or their long and obftinate perfeverance in the fame defign, notwithstanding numerous hardships, loffes, and defeats; and if we reflect upon the important confequences, with which thefe enterprifes were attended, both to themfelves and their defcendants;

the

the hiftory of the crufades, including a period of one hundred and feventy-five years, from A. D. 1095 to 1270, will be found to deferve particular regard, and to follow in proper order our survey of the feudal fyftem".

From the æra of the crufades may be traced the diffufion of feveral kinds of knowledge; and from the communication of the western with the eastern nations, arofe a fucceffion of caufes, which with different degrees of influence, and with more or lefs rapidity, contributed to introduce order and improvement into fociety.

Judea, or the holy land, was the highest object of veneration to the Chriftians of the middle ages. There had lived the Son of God; there he had performed the most aftonifhing miracles; and there he had fuffered death for the fins of the world. His holy fepulchre was preferved at Jerufalem; and as a degree of veneration was annexed to this confecrated place, nearly approaching to idolatry, a vifit to it was regarded as the moft meritorious fervice, which could be paid to heaven; and it was eagerly frequented by crowds of pilgrims from every part of Europe. If it be natural to the human

The authorities for my account may be found in the Univerfal History, book 1. c. 2. b. 23. c. 5. &c. Pauli Æmilii Gefta. Francorum. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, wherever he has good authority to fupport his statements, v. 6. c. 59. &c. Knolles's Hiftory of the Turks; the Hiftory of Modern Europe, and Robertfon's Charles V.

mind to furvey thofe fpots, which have been the abodes of illuftrious perfons, or the scenes of great tranfactions, with delight, what must have been the veneration with which the Chriftians of thofe times, the ruling paffion of whofe mind was religious enthufiafm, regarded a country, which the Almighty had felected as the refidence of his beloved Son, and the place where that Son had fhed his precious blood, to expiate the fins, and accomplish the redemption of mankind? The zealous travellers who made a pilgrimage to Paleftine were long expofed to the infults, extortions, and cruelty of the Infidels: but at length their complaints roufed the Europeans to attempt their expulfion,

The First Crufade from A. D. 1095 to 1099.

Peter furnamed the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy, was the moft zealous and indefatigable promoter of this firft expedition. He was a man of acute understanding and keen observation; in the garb of a Pilgrim he had vifited the holy fepulchre, and had noticed the infults and hardfhips to which the Chriftians were expofed. He brought letters from the patriarch of Jerufalem to Pope Urban the fecond, in which their fufferings were defcribed in the most pathetic terms, and the Christian states of Europe were exhorted to redress their grievances, and retaliate upon their Infidel Tyrants, from an apprehenfion that the Turks, more ferocious

ferocious and more fubtle than the Saracens, were aiming at univerfal empire. The ambaffadors of the Greek Emperor Alexius Comnenus represented in the council of Placentia, to the numerous Bishops and Clergy there affembled, the imminent danger of their mafter, and his capital, from the vicinity of the Turks. The Pope afterwards, in a great council held at Clermont, enlarged upon the fame topics, and ftated that the defire of the Turks for empire could only be fatisfied with the conqueft of the whole world. The indignation and the ardour of perfons of all ranks were excited, and they refolved to commence the expedition to the holy land without delay. Peter the Hermit with fandals on his feet, and a rope round his waift, led the way: Great numbers of devotees, chiefly compofed of peasants, neither furnished with neceffaries, nor regulated by difcipline, followed his fteps. Their ignorance magnified the hopes and leffened the dangers of the undertaking. In the forefts of Hungary and Bulgaria, many of them fell a facrifice to the indignation of the inhabitants provoked by their rapine and plunder. A pyramid of bones, erected by Solyman, the Emperor of the Turks, near the city of Nice, marked the spot where many of those who penetrated farther than their companions, had been defeated; and of the first Crufaders very great numbers are faid to have perifhed, before a fingle city was taken from the infidels.

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