BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,
AUTHOR OF “DE L’ORME,” “DARNLEY,” “RICHELIEU,” ETC.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
82 CLIFF STREET.
In writing the pages which follow this Preface, I have had to encounterthe difficulty of compressing very extensive matter into an extremelylimited space. As the subject was, in my eyes, a very interesting one, andevery particular connected with it had often been food for thought andobject of entertainment to myself, the task of curtailing was the moreungrateful: nor should I have undertaken it, had I not been convinced bymy publisher that one volume would be as much as the public in generalwould be inclined to read. I wished to write upon Chivalry and theCrusades, because I fancied that in the hypotheses of many other authors Ihad discovered various errors and misstatements, which gave a falseimpression of both the institution and the enterprise; and I haveendeavoured, in putting forth my own view of the subject, to advance noone point, however minute, which cannot be justified by indisputableauthority. A favourite theory is too often, in historical writing like thebed of the ancient Greek; and facts are either stretched or lopped away toagree with it: but to ensure as much accuracy as possible, I have takenpains to mark in the margin of the pages the different writers on whoseassertions my own statements are founded, with a corresponding figure, bywhich each particular may be referred to its authority.
[Pg iv]In regard to these authors themselves, it seems necessary here to givesome information, that those persons who are inclined to inquire beyondthe mere surface may know what credit is to be attached to each.
On the first crusade we have a whole host of contemporary writers, many ofwhom were present at the events they describe. Besides these are severalothers, who, though they wrote at an after-period, took infinite pains torender their account as correct as possible. The authors I haveprincipally cited for all the earlier facts of the Holy War are, Williamof Tyre, Albert of Aix, Fulcher of Chartres, Raimond of Agiles, Guibert ofNogent, Radulph of Caën, and Robert, surnamed the Monk.
William of Tyre is, beyond all doubt, the most illustrious of the manyhistorians who have written on the crusades. Born in Palestine, and thoughboth educated for the church and raised step by step to its highestdignities, yet mingling continually in the political changes of the HolyLand—the preceptor of one of its kings—frequently employed in embassiesto Europe, and ultimately Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the kingdomof Jerusalem, William possessed the most extensive means of gatheringmaterials for the great work he has left to posterity. He brought to histask, also, a powerful mind, as well as considerable discrimination; andwas infinitely superior in education and every intellectual quality to thegeneral chroniclers of his age. He was not born, however, at the time ofthe first crusade; and consequently, where he[Pg v] speaks of the events ofthat enterprise, we may look upon him as an historian, clear, talented,elegant, and not extremely credulous; but we must not expect to find thevivid identity of contemporaneous writing. In regard to the history of hisown days he is invaluable, and in respect to that of the times whichpreceded them, his work is certainly superior, as a whole, to any thingthat has since been written on the subject.
A much more vivi