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 446 THE DECLINE AND FALL the swords of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages as a salutary antidote : they prevented the total extinction of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the poor and defenceless, and presen'ed or revived the peace and order of civil society. But the independence, rapine, and discord of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good ; and every hope of industry and improve- ment was crushed by the iron weight of the martial aristocracy. Among the causes that undermined the Gothic edifice, a con- spicuous place must be allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often extin- guished, in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which un- locked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shojD of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part of the com- munity. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and bai-ren trees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of the soil. A.D. 1020 Digression on the Family of Courtenay. The purple of three emperors who have reigned at Constanti- nople will authorise or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunes of the house of Courtenay, ■''^* in the three princi- pal branches : I. Of Edessa ; II. Of France ; and III. Of Eng- land ; of which the last only has survived the revolutions of eight hundred years. Origin of the I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and c^ourtenay. of knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is most strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age the laws and manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks of society : the dukes and counts, who shared the empire of Charlemagne, converted their office to an inheritance ; and to his children each feudal lord bequeathed his honour and ^ I have applied, but not confined, myself to A Genealogical History of the Nolle and Illustrious Family of Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector of Honiton ; Exon. 1735, in folio. The first part is ex- tracted from William of Tyre ; the second from Bouchet's French history ; and the third from various memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of Devonshire. The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and more industry than criticism.