Britannica; Perrot's Collection Historique des Ordres
de Chivalrie; St. Palaye's Memoires de l'Ancienne Chivalrie; Buckle's
History of Civilization; Palgrave's English Commonwealth; Martin's
History of France; Freeman's Norman Conquest; M. Fauriel's History of
Provencal Poetry; Froissart's Chronicles; also the general English
histories of the reign of Edward III. Don Quixote should he read in this
connection. And Tennyson in his "Idylls of the King" has incorporated
the spirit of ancient chivalry.

THE CRUSADES.

* * * * *

A.D. 1095-1272.

The great external event of the Middle Ages was the Crusades,--indeed,
they were the only common enterprise in which Europe ever engaged. Such
an event ought to be very interesting, since it has reference to
conflicting passions and interests. Unfortunately, in a literary point
of view, there is no central figure in the great drama which the princes
of Europe played for two hundred years, and hence the Crusades have but
little dramatic interest. No one man represents that mighty movement. It
was a great wave of inundation, flooding Asia with the unemployed forces
of Europe, animated by passions which excite our admiration, our pity,
and our reprobation. They are chiefly interesting for their results, and
results which were unforeseen. A philosopher sees in them the hand of
Providence,--the overruling of mortal wrath to the praise of Him who
governs the universe. I know of no great movement of blind forces so
pregnant with mighty consequences.

The Crusades were a semi-religious and a semi-military movement. They
represent the passions and ideas of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries,--its chivalry, its hatred of Mohammedanism, and its desire to
possess the spots consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord. Their long
continuance shows the intensity of the sentiments which animated them.
They were aggressive wars, alike fierce and unfortunate, absorbing to
the nations that embarked in them, but of no interest to us apart from
the moral lessons to be drawn from them. Perhaps one reason why history
is so dull to most people is that the greater part of it is a record of
battles and sieges, of military heroes and conquerors. This is
pre-eminently true of Greece, of Rome, of the Middle Ages, and of our
modern times down to the nineteenth century. But such chronicles of
everlasting battles and sieges do not satisfy this generation. Hence our