Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/466

 444 THE DECLINE AND FALL Constantinople : the first importer of windmills ^^ was the bene- factor of nations ; and, if such blessings are enjoyed without any gi'ateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy fi-om Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were more slowly felt and supplied ; the ardour of studious curiosity was awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events ; and, in the age of the crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the litei-ature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures ; neces- sity might produce some interpreters for the grosser business of merchants and soldiers ; but the commerce of the Orientals had not diffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of Europe.^'' If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understand the original text of the gospel ; and the same grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their subjects ; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aris- totle was indeed the oracle of the Western universities ; but it was a barbarous Aristotle ; and, instead of ascending to the fountain-head, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savage fanaticism ; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine ; *" and each relic was preceded and fol- lowed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions ; and the establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indul- ^■' Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia Minor, were used in Nor- mandy as early as the year 1105 (Vie priv4e des Fran9ois, torn. i. p. 42, 43 ; Du- cange. Gloss. Latin, torn. iv. p. 474). s^ See the complaints of Roger Bacon (Biographia Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis's edition). If B icon himself, or Gerbert, understood some Greek, they wee prodigies, and owed nothing to the commerce of the East. 458), a master of the history of the middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which w?re both derive4 from Palestine,
 * ' Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz (Oeuvres de Fontenelle, torn. v. p.