Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/347

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 325 by the emperor Frederic Barbarossa,!^ who sympathized with his brothers of France and Eng-land in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare : and a brief parallel may save the repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it may seem, a regular story of the crusades would exhibit a perpetual return of the same causes and effects ; and the frequent attempts for the defence and recovery of the Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessful copies of the original. I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the Their first pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adven- turers. At their head were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria and Aquitain : the first a descendant of Hugh Capet, the second a father of the Brunswick line ; the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his church and palace ; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow. The huge and disorderly bodies of their folloAvers moved forwards in two columns : and, if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot. 12 The armies of the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia : the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the presence of their sovereigns ; and both the rank and personal characters of Conrad and Louis gave a dig- nity to their cause and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from the feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of sources, Odo de Deogilo (Deuil), De Profectione Ludovici VII. regis Francorum in orientem, is important : Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. 185, p. 1205 sqq. For a full enumeration of the sources, see Kugler, Studien zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzuges, 1866.] 11 For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas in Isaac. Angel. 1. ii. c. 3-8, p. 257-266; Struv. (Corpus Hist. Germ. p. 414), and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406-416, edit. Struv.) and the Anonynius de Expeditione Asiatica ; Fred. I. (in Canisii, Antiq. Lection, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498-526, edit. Basnage). [A. Chroust, Tagono, Ansbcrt und die Historia Peregrinorum, 1892. Fischer, Geschichte des Kreuzzuges Kaiser Friedrichs I., 1870.] 1- Aime, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse, and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their liead two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of the names, families, and possessions of the Latin princes.