Latest / Normans in Europe / 22 - Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson

Transcript

22 - Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson · Normans in Europe

0:00
Speaker 1: Section twenty two of the Normans in Europe by Arthur
0:03
Speaker 1: Henry Johnson. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
0:08
Speaker 1: Read by Pamelinagami, Chapter fifteen William Rufus ten eighty seven
0:14
Speaker 1: to eleven hundred, Part one, In the separation of England
0:20
Speaker 1: from Normandy. According to the will of the conqueror, we
0:24
Speaker 1: have a clew to the reign of William Rufus and
0:27
Speaker 1: many a succeeding reign. The English welcomed that act as
0:32
Speaker 1: a restoration of their nationality and a pledge that England
0:36
Speaker 1: should no longer be a mere province of the Norman Kingdom,
0:40
Speaker 1: headed therefore by Lanfrunk, who had imbibed thoroughly English sympathies,
0:46
Speaker 1: and Wolfston, Bishop of Worcester, the only national bishop who remained.
0:51
Speaker 1: They heartily supported the claims of William Rufus, and welcomed
0:55
Speaker 1: his coronation at Winchester with the light. The normanage, on
1:00
Speaker 1: the contrary, resented the separation of the two kingdoms, whereby
1:05
Speaker 1: their conquered possessions in England were separated from their hereditary
1:08
Speaker 1: property in Normandy, and their hopes of establishing their feudal
1:12
Speaker 1: independence were marred led by Odo of Bayeux and the
1:17
Speaker 1: Count of Mortines, both half brothers of the conqueror Roger
1:22
Speaker 1: of Montgomery and his son Robert of Belem, Eustace of
1:26
Speaker 1: Bologna and Robert Begod They disputed the will of the
1:30
Speaker 1: conqueror and supported the claim of Robert. Rufus was thus
1:36
Speaker 1: forced to appeal to the English. He issued a proclamation
1:40
Speaker 1: in which he promised to refrain from arbitrary taxations, to
1:45
Speaker 1: give up all newly introduced abuses, and to let everyone
1:49
Speaker 1: sport on his own domain. Then summoning all the English
1:53
Speaker 1: to join him on pain of being proclaimed neathing or worthless,
1:57
Speaker 1: he collected an army to which London and und the
2:00
Speaker 1: sink Ports largely contributed. He reduced the castle of Rochester,
2:05
Speaker 1: which Odo had seized, bought off Robert Montgomery of Shrewsbury,
2:10
Speaker 1: and drove the rebels from the country. He then leagued
2:13
Speaker 1: himself with the discontented nobles of Normandy and invaded the
2:17
Speaker 1: duchy until he was bought off by Robert, who consented
2:21
Speaker 1: to a treaty by which the survivor was to succeed
2:24
Speaker 1: to the other's dominions if either died without heirs. Rufus
2:29
Speaker 1: was thus established on the English throne. Entirely through the
2:33
Speaker 1: assistance of the English. They were ill requited by the
2:37
Speaker 1: oppressive tyrant. As long as Langfrank lived he was restrained
2:42
Speaker 1: by his influence. But when Longfranc died in ten eighty nine,
2:46
Speaker 1: his true character began to show itself. With much of
2:50
Speaker 1: the ability, decision, and good generalship of his father, he
2:55
Speaker 1: presented in other respects a complete contrast to him. William
3:00
Speaker 1: the First, in spite of his many faults, had been
3:03
Speaker 1: at heart a religious an austere man. He had hated
3:06
Speaker 1: anarchy as dangerous to his realm and licentiousness as the
3:11
Speaker 1: outward garb of anarchy. His son was utterly wanting in
3:16
Speaker 1: all religious principle, and shocked the morals even of that
3:20
Speaker 1: age by his boisterous and indecent profligacy. His abilities were
3:25
Speaker 1: prostituted to his selfish love of power, and instead of
3:29
Speaker 1: trying to prevent anarchy in his kingdom, he turned it
3:32
Speaker 1: to his own account. Wanting in the businesslike qualities of
3:37
Speaker 1: his father, he entrusted all state matters to his minister,
3:40
Speaker 1: Ranulf Flambard, who resembled the son much as Lonfranc resembled
3:45
Speaker 1: the father, if Langfranc was the best of the statesman ecclesiastics.
3:51
Speaker 1: Ranulf Flambar was the worst. Born of a low Norman
3:56
Speaker 1: family which had settled in the New Forest under Edward
3:59
Speaker 1: the Confessor, he became one of the clerks of the chancery,
4:03
Speaker 1: rapidly rose to favor and became Bishop of Durham and
4:06
Speaker 1: Chief Minister. Now was seen the result of the great
4:10
Speaker 1: authority assumed by William over the church, and how by
4:14
Speaker 1: a wicked king that power might be abused, and England
4:18
Speaker 1: experienced all the ills to avoid which the papal idea
4:22
Speaker 1: had been formed. Ronald Flambard was one of those churchmen
4:26
Speaker 1: who had become entirely secularized by the drudgery of the
4:30
Speaker 1: chancery business, and now in power, he proceeded to let
4:34
Speaker 1: those secular ideas have full play, without education, but with
4:39
Speaker 1: great natural powers and boundless fluency of tongue. Coarse, impudent
4:44
Speaker 1: and cunning, he was just the servant for the infamous Rufus.
4:50
Speaker 1: Abetted by the King, he ground down the people by
4:52
Speaker 1: fiscal oppression, and then deliberately set to work not only
4:57
Speaker 1: to plunder, but to degrade an injure the church. He
5:01
Speaker 1: introduced a system of bear faced and daring venality which
5:05
Speaker 1: put up everything in church and state for sale, and
5:09
Speaker 1: threatened to secularize the church itself. He started the theory
5:14
Speaker 1: that the vacant benefices belonged to the king, following the
5:18
Speaker 1: analogy of the temporal fiefs. For years after Longfranc's death,
5:23
Speaker 1: the Sea of Canterbury was kept vacant and its revenues
5:27
Speaker 1: were dissipated, in contributing to the dissolute tastes of the king,
5:31
Speaker 1: who declared that no one should be archbishop but himself.
5:36
Speaker 1: In this policy, the Red King was influenced by two motives,
5:40
Speaker 1: first to free himself from the irksome restraint which an
5:44
Speaker 1: archbishop would be sure to place upon his gross and
5:48
Speaker 1: reckless profligacy. And secondly, because he knew that so long
5:53
Speaker 1: as the primacy was vacant, little opposition would be offered
5:57
Speaker 1: to him, and he would find it easy to wreck
5:59
Speaker 1: his will upon the rest of the possessions of the Church.
6:03
Speaker 1: So steadily was this perverse policy maintained that at the
6:07
Speaker 1: end of his reign, not only was the Archbishop of
6:10
Speaker 1: Canterbury in exile, but four bishops and eleven abbeys were
6:15
Speaker 1: without pastors in the struggle. The bishops, jealous of the
6:20
Speaker 1: supremacy of Canterbury, showed singular apathy. Thus, in spite of
6:25
Speaker 1: the discontent of his people and the frequent petitions to him,
6:29
Speaker 1: one of which is peculiar, that the King would allow
6:32
Speaker 1: it to be enjoined, that the people should pray that
6:35
Speaker 1: the King's heart might be changed, he continued obstinate until
6:40
Speaker 1: a dangerous illness brought on a temporary fit of remorse,
6:44
Speaker 1: as violent as is usual in ill balanced minds. Then,
6:49
Speaker 1: at last, giving way to a long expressed desire of
6:52
Speaker 1: his country, he appointed Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury in ten
6:57
Speaker 1: ninety three. This a great man, was a Lombard, like Lonefranc,
7:02
Speaker 1: and of noble birth. He had been attracted to Beck
7:05
Speaker 1: by the fame of Longfunk, and there, in spite of
7:08
Speaker 1: their very different characters, had become one of his dearest friends.
7:13
Speaker 1: To his predecessor, he formed a complete contrast. Longfranc was
7:18
Speaker 1: a man of the world, gifted with a practical, vigorous
7:21
Speaker 1: turn of mind, and some on the contrary, deficient in
7:25
Speaker 1: worldly qualities, far surpassed his friend, An originality of thought
7:29
Speaker 1: and subtlety of mind. He was the first great philosopher
7:33
Speaker 1: of Christian Europe, and in his works at once laid
7:37
Speaker 1: the basis of the future's scholastic philosophy, and went beyond it.
7:42
Speaker 1: Eager for the discovery of exact truth. He plunged fearlessly
7:47
Speaker 1: into the great questions of the proof of the existence
7:50
Speaker 1: of God, the relation of faith to reason, the meaning
7:54
Speaker 1: of the incarnation, subjects which after him were scarcely touched
7:59
Speaker 1: till the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His biographer and friend
8:05
Speaker 1: Dmer tells us of the astonishment caused by his attempts
8:09
Speaker 1: to unravel these, the darkest of the questions concerning the
8:13
Speaker 1: divine nature and our faith, which lay hid or covered
8:17
Speaker 1: by much obscurity in the Divine Scriptures. To this speculative
8:22
Speaker 1: turn of mind, Anselm added a childlike simplicity, a tenderness
8:27
Speaker 1: never surpassed. He loved to teach the young and to
8:30
Speaker 1: mold their minds, when they were still like wax, ready
8:33
Speaker 1: to take the impression marked upon them. He loved to
8:37
Speaker 1: tend the sick, and he behaved, said his chronicler, so
8:41
Speaker 1: that all men loved him as their dear father. He
8:45
Speaker 1: so touched the hearts of the English that there was
8:47
Speaker 1: no count or countess or powerful person, but thought that
8:51
Speaker 1: they had lost much in the sight of God, if
8:54
Speaker 1: it had not chanced to them to have done some
8:56
Speaker 1: service to him. So it was he was to those
9:00
Speaker 1: in health, a father, to the sick, a mother. Even
9:04
Speaker 1: the stern conqueror. William loved him better than any man,
9:07
Speaker 1: and wished to see him before any one else when
9:10
Speaker 1: he lay on his death bed. Yet with all this tenderness,
9:15
Speaker 1: he was austere inexorably severe to his own faults and
9:19
Speaker 1: to those of others, and once convinced that any course
9:22
Speaker 1: was wrong, no power on earth could make him acquiesce
9:26
Speaker 1: in it. After Lanfranc had been removed to Saint Stephen's
9:30
Speaker 1: at Conte Anselm had become abbot of Beck, and now
9:34
Speaker 1: he was called to succeed him in the Sea of Canterbury.
9:38
Speaker 1: This he accepted very much against his will and only
9:41
Speaker 1: with the highest sense of duty, upon William making three promises.
9:46
Speaker 1: One to acknowledge Urban the second Pope. Two to restore
9:52
Speaker 1: all property belonging to the See of Canterbury. Three to
9:56
Speaker 1: act on the advice and counsel of the archbishop. The
10:00
Speaker 1: ills which might ensue from the subservience of the church
10:03
Speaker 1: to the king had clearly appeared during the past few years,
10:07
Speaker 1: and must have furnished proof to Anselm of the dangers
10:10
Speaker 1: of the system. England thereby was in danger of again
10:14
Speaker 1: being cut off from Rome, and of having its church
10:17
Speaker 1: reduced to the condition of a mere slave to the King,
10:20
Speaker 1: who could despoil it of its revenues at will. It
10:24
Speaker 1: would have thus lost all independence, have become degraded, and
10:29
Speaker 1: losing all moral consistency of purpose, would have ceased to
10:32
Speaker 1: struggle against immorality and wickedness, or to influence the country
10:37
Speaker 1: for good. But Anselm scarcely needed such argument, for as
10:42
Speaker 1: if by poetic justice ruthless could not have appointed a
10:46
Speaker 1: more resolute antagonist. Lanfranc was the representative of the independence
10:52
Speaker 1: of the National Church. Anselm was the supporter of the
10:55
Speaker 1: papal authority in its extremest pretensions. Deficient in the strong
11:01
Speaker 1: practical common sense which characterized his predecessor, he was, by
11:06
Speaker 1: his contemplative, imaginative character, better fitted to find rest and
11:11
Speaker 1: a great ideal to which his philosophical spirit would give
11:15
Speaker 1: an existence and a reality which it did not in
11:18
Speaker 1: fact possess. Lnfranc was a thorough man of the world,
11:22
Speaker 1: and saw the dangers of the papal scheme and how
11:25
Speaker 1: it failed in the working. Anselm was in no sort
11:29
Speaker 1: of man of the world, but a speculative recluse, a
11:32
Speaker 1: man of books and thought, and was carried away by
11:35
Speaker 1: the magnificence of the scheme, which promised to complete the
11:38
Speaker 1: gradation of the hierarchy and give completeness and sanctity to
11:42
Speaker 1: the whole feudal society. The whole world might be considered
11:47
Speaker 1: as holding of one another, and all eventually of the Pope,
11:50
Speaker 1: who himself, as his vice regent, held of Christ. Thus
11:55
Speaker 1: all the world might be considered the vassals and servants
11:58
Speaker 1: of Christ in as well as in fact. Was not
12:03
Speaker 1: this worth struggling, for such were the thoughts of the
12:06
Speaker 1: man whom William Rufus had placed in the archae episcopal chair,
12:11
Speaker 1: The result might have been easily foreseen. The archbishop at
12:15
Speaker 1: once claimed the fulfillment of the promises made when he
12:18
Speaker 1: accepted the primacy. He reproved the vices of the royal court,
12:23
Speaker 1: where the King, with his renewed health, had retaken to
12:26
Speaker 1: his old courses, and where the licentious ways of the courtiers,
12:30
Speaker 1: their effeminate dress, long hair, and peaked shoes did violence
12:35
Speaker 1: to Anselm's pious character. He attacked the king for keeping
12:40
Speaker 1: benefices vacant and refusing to restore the property alienated from
12:44
Speaker 1: the Sea of Canterbury. William, on his part, demanded a
12:48
Speaker 1: gift from his see. This ansel not improperly refused, because
12:53
Speaker 1: a simoniacal interpretation might be put upon the transaction, and
12:57
Speaker 1: it would inevitably lead to simony. The question of investiture
13:02
Speaker 1: next came forward. The grant of the pallium or ecclesiastical vestment,
13:07
Speaker 1: symbolical of metropolitan authority, had been claimed by the pope
13:10
Speaker 1: since the sixth century, and Anselm now asked leave to
13:14
Speaker 1: go to Rome to obtain it. William refused with anger,
13:18
Speaker 1: declaring that he had not yet even accepted Urban the second,
13:22
Speaker 1: who was struggling against an antipope, and he claimed the
13:25
Speaker 1: right of acknowledging the pope or no as he pleased.
13:29
Speaker 1: He even thought of deposing Anselman, and this was supported
13:32
Speaker 1: by the bishops, who showed strange servility. But the common
13:36
Speaker 1: sense of the barons checked him, and the matter was
13:39
Speaker 1: settled by a compromise. Urban struggling, as he was with
13:44
Speaker 1: the Emperor Henry the Fourth on the same question, dared
13:47
Speaker 1: not press his claims on England, and when William acknowledged him,
13:51
Speaker 1: allowed the pallium to be laid on the altar rails.
13:54
Speaker 1: Whence Anselm took it and invested himself, but there could
13:58
Speaker 1: be no truce between archbasship and king. And finally, when
14:02
Speaker 1: Rufus accused Anselm of sending his contingent improperly armed to
14:06
Speaker 1: the Welsh war, then going on, Anselm demanded leave to
14:10
Speaker 1: go to Rome to consult the Pope. William seized the
14:14
Speaker 1: opportunity of freeing himself from his archbishop. In ten ninety seven,
14:19
Speaker 1: he bade him go, but never more return, and for
14:23
Speaker 1: the rest of the King's life the Sea of Canterbury
14:26
Speaker 1: was kept practically vacant, and the revenues were appropriated by
14:30
Speaker 1: the king. Thus began that system of appeals to Rome
14:34
Speaker 1: which became so fruitful of future ills. Yet in all
14:38
Speaker 1: this Anselm was so clearly fighting for what was right
14:42
Speaker 1: that our sympathies are entirely with him, and we are
14:45
Speaker 1: only too glad to forgive any slight temper or want
14:49
Speaker 1: of tact and courtesy, which at times appear in him.
14:52
Speaker 1: He was not indeed fitted to battle with the world
14:56
Speaker 1: with the overbearing insolence and noisy tyranny of a wanton despoce.
15:00
Speaker 1: Like William rufus Edmer, his loving chronicler most pathetically illustrates this.
15:06
Speaker 1: We were accustomed to lead him away from the assembly
15:10
Speaker 1: a little when he was tired, and restore him with
15:13
Speaker 1: a passage of scripture or a theological question. We asked
15:17
Speaker 1: him why he, such a vigorous man, became, on such
15:21
Speaker 1: occasions so weak and fainthearted. He replied that in this
15:25
Speaker 1: respect he was altogether a child. He likened himself to
15:30
Speaker 1: an owl who was only well when it is with
15:33
Speaker 1: its young ones in its hole. But if it comes
15:36
Speaker 1: out among the crows and ravens, sees nothing but pecking
15:39
Speaker 1: beaks and knows not which way to turn. Nor again,
15:44
Speaker 1: are we inclined to be scrupulous even on questions where
15:47
Speaker 1: principle was at stake, such as the question of the pallium,
15:51
Speaker 1: which affected the principle of the royal supremacy, Or again
15:55
Speaker 1: Anselm's demand to go to Rome for advice, whereby he
15:58
Speaker 1: had broken. So his cruel oppressor asserted William the Conqueror's customs.
16:05
Speaker 1: The question of principle we postpone to Henry the First's reign,
16:09
Speaker 1: when it comes forward more prominently during the quarrel with Rufus,
16:13
Speaker 1: it is overborne by other questions. William Rufus was of violent, unscrupulous,
16:20
Speaker 1: and rapacious tyrant, the very man against whom the Pope
16:24
Speaker 1: had raised his scheme. And Anselm, after having most unwillingly
16:28
Speaker 1: accepted the archaepiscopal office, resolutely stood up for the good
16:33
Speaker 1: and right and just. Indeed, we go as far as
16:36
Speaker 1: to say that had all kings been like Rufus, all
16:40
Speaker 1: archbishops like Anselm, the papal authority could not have been
16:44
Speaker 1: pressed too strongly, or the ecclesiastical censures wielded too severely.
16:51
Speaker 1: The existence of such kings, of such brutality and selfishness
16:55
Speaker 1: and misrule justifies the extremist of the papal claims. And lastly,
17:01
Speaker 1: it is important to remember that in this opposition of
17:04
Speaker 1: the Church to the irresponsible despotism of the Norman kings,
17:08
Speaker 1: the people first learnt their right and duty to resist
17:11
Speaker 1: an encroaching royal power, a lesson which they had else
17:15
Speaker 1: easily forgotten during the quarrel with Anselm. The following events
17:20
Speaker 1: had happened. Malcolm canmore brought up in the court of
17:24
Speaker 1: Edward the Confessor, had overthrown the usurper Macbeth in ten
17:28
Speaker 1: fifty four through the aid of Seaward of Northumbria. This
17:33
Speaker 1: English alliance was subsequently strengthened by his marriage with Margaret,
17:37
Speaker 1: sister of Edgar the Athling. Accordingly, during William's reign, Malcolm
17:42
Speaker 1: had supported the national revolts against the conqueror, but had
17:46
Speaker 1: been defeated and forced to swear allegiance to William. He still, however,
17:50
Speaker 1: continued his English policy, and his court formed the chief
17:54
Speaker 1: refuge for the English when flying from Norman tyranny. Thus,
17:59
Speaker 1: the English language institutions spread to Scotland, and the latter
18:03
Speaker 1: became the basis of the Scotch constitution. Feudalism was established.
18:08
Speaker 1: The Lothians, anglicized by the recoil of the Norman invasion,
18:12
Speaker 1: were thoroughly civilized and under Malcolm, began to form the
18:16
Speaker 1: nucleus of the future Scottish kingdom. The discipline and ceremonial
18:21
Speaker 1: of the English Church were introduced to improve the conditions
18:24
Speaker 1: of the Celtic Church, which had become disorganized. English clergy
18:29
Speaker 1: were sent by Longfroan and monasteries after the Norman model
18:33
Speaker 1: were established. In ten ninety one, hostilities broke out once
18:37
Speaker 1: more between the two countries. The quarrel was at first
18:41
Speaker 1: compromised by Malcolm doing homage to William, but two years
18:45
Speaker 1: afterwards Malcolm complained of William's conduct in fortifying Carlisle and
18:50
Speaker 1: settling English peasants from the south there. This, he asserted
18:55
Speaker 1: to be a violation of the rights of the Scotch king,
18:58
Speaker 1: who claimed Cumberland as an immediate lord. In ten ninety three,
19:03
Speaker 1: on William's refusal to do him justice, Malcolm invaded the
19:08
Speaker 1: northern counties, but when he was besieging Annik was surprised
19:12
Speaker 1: by Robert Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland and slain. Margaret died
19:17
Speaker 1: soon after, and Scotland became the victim of a civil war.
19:22
Speaker 1: The Celtic population, who had been jealous of the English
19:25
Speaker 1: sympathies of Malcolm and the supremacy of Lothian, followed. Donald Bean,
19:31
Speaker 1: the brother of Malcolm, who also gained the support of
19:34
Speaker 1: Magnus of Norway, while Malcolm's children led the English party.
19:39
Speaker 1: This war was not ended till the year ten ninety seven,
19:43
Speaker 1: when Edgar, the son of Margaret was restored by Edgar
19:46
Speaker 1: the Atheling, with the help of an English army lent
19:49
Speaker 1: him by William. Under this king, the Anglicizing process became complete,
19:55
Speaker 1: and Scotland became at some little distance behind the counterpart
19:59
Speaker 1: of the ingas England. Meanwhile, Rufus had been engaged in
20:03
Speaker 1: crushing another rebellion of his feudal nobles, headed by Mowbray,
20:08
Speaker 1: Earl of Northumberland, and in another war with Robert in
20:12
Speaker 1: ten ninety four. On this occasion he ordered a general
20:16
Speaker 1: levy of the militia to the coast, and then, exacting
20:19
Speaker 1: ten shillings from each the journey money they had received
20:23
Speaker 1: from their counties, sent them home again. This extortion helped
20:28
Speaker 1: to fill his treasury, but the war was not carried on,
20:31
Speaker 1: and shortly afterwards Robert, eager to join the First Crusade,
20:35
Speaker 1: pledged Normandy to his brother for the sum of six thousand,
20:40
Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty six pounds. In the crusade which
20:45
Speaker 1: followed ten ninety five to ten ninety nine, but few
20:48
Speaker 1: of William's subjects took part. It was not till the
20:52
Speaker 1: Second Crusade that England caught the enthusiasm of the continent
20:56
Speaker 1: and joined the rest of Europe in her great wars
20:58
Speaker 1: against the East. But many a Norman noble followed Robert
21:02
Speaker 1: to join their cousins of the south on the shores
21:04
Speaker 1: of Palestine. And the fortunes of the First Crusade are
21:08
Speaker 1: so closely bound up with the Norman name that it
21:11
Speaker 1: calls for a passing notice. Here. To understand the causes
21:15
Speaker 1: of the Crusades, we must remember the many conflicting emotions
21:19
Speaker 1: which stirred the heart of Europe, and which for once
21:22
Speaker 1: united in the Crusades, hurled Western Europe upon Asia. These causes,
21:28
Speaker 1: as far as the masses were concerned, were mainly two
21:31
Speaker 1: one a spirit of religious enthusiasm. This taking, as was
21:36
Speaker 1: natural in those days, and outward material form, had caused
21:40
Speaker 1: that great monastic revival of which we have before spoken,
21:44
Speaker 1: and had led many pilgrims along the weary and dangerous
21:47
Speaker 1: road to Palestine. The fascination of the Holy Land was irresistible.
21:53
Speaker 1: Men could not believe that there was not some real,
21:56
Speaker 1: tangible virtue in the Holy Land itself, would not the
22:00
Speaker 1: mere standing on the ground, hallowed by the scenes of
22:03
Speaker 1: their Lord's life and death, at once purge them of
22:06
Speaker 1: the pollution of their sins and make them clean. Thus,
22:10
Speaker 1: as we draw near to the era of the Crusades,
22:13
Speaker 1: there is hardly a king, a duke, a count who
22:16
Speaker 1: had not been on a pilgrimage to the holy places,
22:19
Speaker 1: or had not died lamenting that death had cut him
22:22
Speaker 1: off ere his vow had been fulfilled. This was the
22:26
Speaker 1: spirit which was lashed to religious frenzy by the news
22:30
Speaker 1: that Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the Turks
22:33
Speaker 1: in ten ninety six, that the pilgrims were cruelly treated,
22:37
Speaker 1: and that the sepulcher of our Lord, hitherto respected even
22:40
Speaker 1: by Mohometans, was treated with contempt. Two. There was that
22:46
Speaker 1: spirit of adventure, which, often degenerating into reckless license, alone
22:52
Speaker 1: explains the anarchy of the times. In the Crusade, men
22:56
Speaker 1: saw for the first time the possibility of satisfying these
23:00
Speaker 1: strangely divergent passions, and hence, in part the extraordinary enthusiasm
23:05
Speaker 1: which seized on Western Christendom hitherto these discordant impulses had
23:11
Speaker 1: conflicted and had caused the strange contrasts marking the lives
23:16
Speaker 1: of the men of the earlier ages, cruelty and rapacity
23:20
Speaker 1: alternating with strange fits of terrified devotion. A life spent
23:24
Speaker 1: and wild license suddenly hid in the obscurity of a
23:28
Speaker 1: monastery man, expiating past misdeeds by frantic efforts of self abasement.
23:35
Speaker 1: But among the leaders, these simple motives were supplemented and
23:38
Speaker 1: sometimes obscured by others. The popes saw in the crusades
23:43
Speaker 1: the only hope of a great coalition against the infidel foe.
23:48
Speaker 1: The Turkish hosts were threatening Europe, and if not checked
23:52
Speaker 1: in time, the struggle might have to be fought out
23:55
Speaker 1: in Europe itself. Europe, unconscious as she was of her unity,
24:01
Speaker 1: knew not how to coalesce. The Church alone formed a
24:04
Speaker 1: bond of union, and the only hope of united action
24:08
Speaker 1: lay in a religious war. So thought Gregory the seventh himself,
24:12
Speaker 1: and he had tried to preach a crusade before his death.
24:15
Speaker 1: To this view, in the case of Urban the Second
24:17
Speaker 1: was added the imperative necessity of gaining the aid of
24:21
Speaker 1: Europe against his rival. The anti pope set up by
24:24
Speaker 1: Henry the fourth, And how could this be better done
24:28
Speaker 1: than by his enemy, the Emperor, preaching a crusade, and
24:31
Speaker 1: thus assuming the leadership of the great Christian army, whose designs,
24:35
Speaker 1: it might be said the Emperor was thwarting by his
24:39
Speaker 1: own selfish aims. The commercial towns of Italy looked to
24:43
Speaker 1: these crusades in the hope of re establishing their commerce
24:46
Speaker 1: with the East, which had been endangered by the fall
24:49
Speaker 1: of Jerusalem at that time the market for Eastern goods.
24:54
Speaker 1: But lastly, the counts and feudal lords of Europe hoped
24:57
Speaker 1: to carve principalities for themselves out of the wealthy East.
25:01
Speaker 1: We have mentioned a few of the many causes which
25:04
Speaker 1: led to the Crusades, because these alone explained the strange
25:07
Speaker 1: unanimity which for once seized Europe. For the rest we
25:12
Speaker 1: must content ourselves with dwelling on the influence of the
25:16
Speaker 1: Normans upon the First Crusade. End of Section twenty two