Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 6 | Page 5

the perpetual return of the same causes and
effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or recovery of the
Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessful copies of the
original. [Footnote 8: For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna
Comnena, Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of Albert
Aquensis.)] [Footnote 9: For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and
Louis VII., see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18 - 19,) Otho of Frisingen,
(l. i. c. 34 - 45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,) Struvius,
(Corpus Hist Germanicae, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum
a Duchesne tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41 - 48
Cinnamus l. ii. p. 41 - 49.] [Footnote 10: For the third crusade, of
Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas in Isaac Angel. l. 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 Anonymus de Expeditione Asiatica Fred. I.
(in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498 - 526, edit. Basnage.)] I.
Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the first pilgrims,

the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and merit, to
Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. 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 followers moved forward 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. ^11 ^* 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 character of Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause,
and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from the
feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king, was
each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate
attendants in the field; ^12 and if the light-armed troops, the peasant
infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorously
excluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four hundred
thousand souls. The West, from Rome to Britain, was called into action;
the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and
it is affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait or
river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand,
desisted from the endless and formidable computation. ^13 In the third
crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of the
Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous.
Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of the
German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot,
were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after such
repetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousand
pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. ^14 Such
extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries;
but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence of
an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaud
their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but they

confessed the strength and courage of the French cavalry, and the
infantry of the Germans; ^15 and the strangers are described as an iron
race, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spilt blood
like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of
females rode in the attitude and armor of men; and the chief of these
Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the
Golden- footed Dame. [Footnote 11: Anne, who states these later
swarms at 40,000 horse and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and
places at their head two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were
strangely ignorant of the names, families, and possessions of the Latin
princes.] [Footnote *: It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of
which was headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of
Blandras, which set forth on the wild, yet, with a more disciplined army,
not impolitic, enterprise of