to the feudal jurisprudence, the
principal states and subordinate baronies descended in the line of male
and female succession: [123] but the children of the first conquerors,
[124] a motley and degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the
climate; the arrival of new crusaders from Europe was a doubtful
hope and a casual event. The service of the feudal tenures [125] was
performed by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid
of two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and
each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers on
horseback. [126] Five thousand and seventy sergeants, most probably
foot-soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities; and the whole
legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a
slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks.
[127] But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of
the Hospital of St. John, [128] and of the temple of Solomon; [129]
on the strange association of a monastic and military life, which
fanaticism might suggest, but which policy must approve. The flower of
the nobility of Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the
vows, of these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were
immortal; and the speedy donation of twenty-eight thousand farms, or
manors, [130] enabled them to support a regular force of cavalry and
infantry for the defence of Palestine. The austerity of the convent soon
evaporated in the exercise of arms; the world was scandalized by the
pride, avarice, and corruption of these Christian soldiers; their claims
of immunity and jurisdiction disturbed the harmony of the church and
state; and the public peace was endangered by their jealous emulation.
But in their most dissolute period, the knights of their hospital and
temple maintained their fearless and fanatic character: they neglected
to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ; and
the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the crusades, has
been transplanted by this institution from the holy sepulchre to the
Isle of Malta. [131]

[Footnote 118: Willerm. Tyr. l. x. 19. The Historia Hierosolimitana of
Jacobus a Vitriaco (l. i. c. 21-50) and the Secreta Fidelium Crucis of
Marinus Sanutus (l. iii. p. 1) describe the state and conquests of the
Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.]

[Footnote 119: An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi and