Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/557

 The Crusades 473 musk, pearls, and ivory — were brought by the Mohammedans from the East to the commercial towns of Palestine and Syria ; then, through the Italian merchants, they found their way into France and Germany, suggesting ideas of luxury hitherto scarcely dreamed of by the still half-barbarous Franks. Moreover, the Crusades had a great effect upon the methods Effects of of warfare, for the soldiers from the West learned from the orTwarfare^^ Greeks about the old Roman methods of constructing machines for attacking castles and walled towns. This led, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter (see section 64), to the con- struction in western Europe of stone castles, first with square towers and later with round ones, the remains of which are so common in Germany, France, and England. The Crusades also produced heraldry, or the science of coats of arms. These were the badges that single knights or groups of knights adopted in order to distinguish themselves from other people. Some of the results of the Crusades upon western Europe Results of must already be obvious, even from this very brief account. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen, Germans, and Eng- lishmen had traveled to the Orient by land and by sea. Most of them came from hamlets or castles where they could never have learned much of the great world beyond the confines of their native village or province. They suddenly found them- selves in great cities and in the midst of unfamiliar peoples and customs. This could not fail to make them think and give them new ideas to carry home. The Crusade took the place of a liberal education. The crusaders came into contact with those who knew more than they did, above all the Arabs, and brought back with them new notions of comfort and luxury. Yet in attempting to estimate the debt of the West to the Crusades it should be remembered that many of the new things may well have come from Constantinople, or through the Mohammedans of Sicily and Spain,^ quite independently of the 1 The western Europeans derived many important ideas from the Mohamme- dans in Spain, as Arabic numerals, alchemy, algebra, and the use of paper.