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 THE CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1200. 205 wealth and luxury of the city as it existed in 1200. The Cru- saders were amazed at the many forms in which this luxurious wealth was displayed. To the inhabitants of Constantinople this luxury was the outward form in which civilization showed itself — was, in fact, the natural result and the proof of civiliza- tion. To the Crusader it was no more the sign of civilization than was the display of a somewhat similar luxury to the English soldiers who in our own days entered Pekin. The countrymen of Richard the Lion-hearted, the contemporaries of the barons who secured our great charter, no less than the countrymen of Philip of France and Frederic Barbarossa, mar- velled at what they saw ; but they felt that all the luxury was associated with much that was mean, debasing, and effeminate. They saw wealth, and with it cowardice, luxurious habits of life, lying and treachery, the glorification of the few at the expense of the many, and the absence of public spirit, with its corresponding results in the administration of government. Side by side with the gorgeous pageantry of the court there ^^ . . was an amount of effeminacy which rio^htly impressed Effeminacy of, ^ , - ^ ^ o ./ i the ruling the Crusadcrs with a low ooinion of the state into classes. , . *• which the empire had fallen. Native writers, as well as travellers from Western Europe, abound with stories showing to what a degree this effeminacy had been developed. It seemed to the men of the West, who counted courage as the highest virtue, as the virtue which implied almost all others, that the manliness had gone out of the race in consequence of its wealth. At times, no doubt, they were led into the mis- take of under-estimating the valor of their enemies, and of supposing that because they were luxurious they were cowards ; as when the Germans, who, under Conrad, King of Swabia, with a more numerous force had attacked the Roman army in 1147, were defeated by the superior strategy of the enemy they had despised. What the Crusaders found fault with were the results of a The influence ^^^o Period of decadcncc in social manners and life, soctety i"n lie t^^e history of which it is not difficult to trace. The capital. success of the New Eome in Asia had been the principal cause of its weakness, and largely contributed to its