The History of Chivalry. G. P. R. James
Читать онлайн.| Название | The History of Chivalry |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | G. P. R. James |
| Жанр | Языкознание |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Языкознание |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 4064066157272 |
G. P. R. James
The History of Chivalry
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066157272
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
In writing the pages which follow this Preface, I have had to encounter the difficulty of compressing very extensive matter into an extremely limited space. As the subject was, in my eyes, a very interesting one, and every particular connected with it had often been food for thought and object of entertainment to myself, the task of curtailing was the more ungrateful: nor should I have undertaken it, had I not been convinced by my publisher that one volume would be as much as the public in general would be inclined to read. I wished to write upon Chivalry and the Crusades, because I fancied that in the hypotheses of many other authors I had discovered various errors and misstatements, which gave a false impression of both the institution and the enterprise; and I have endeavoured, in putting forth my own view of the subject, to advance no one point, however minute, which cannot be justified by indisputable authority. A favourite theory is too often, in historical writing like the bed of the ancient Greek; and facts are either stretched or lopped away to agree with it: but to ensure as much accuracy as possible, I have taken pains to mark in the margin of the pages the different writers on whose assertions my own statements are founded, with a corresponding figure, by which each particular may be referred to its authority.
In regard to these authors themselves, it seems necessary here to give some information, that those persons who are inclined to inquire beyond the 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 of whom were present at the events they describe. Besides these are several others, who, though they wrote at an after-period, took infinite pains to render their account as correct as possible. The authors I have principally cited for all the earlier facts of the Holy War are, William of Tyre, Albert of Aix, Fulcher of Chartres, Raimond of Agiles, Guibert of Nogent, Radulph of Caën, and Robert, surnamed the Monk.
William of Tyre is, beyond all doubt, the most illustrious of the many historians who have written on the crusades. Born in Palestine, and though both educated for the church and raised step by step to its highest dignities, yet mingling continually in the political changes of the Holy Land—the preceptor of one of its kings—frequently employed in embassies to Europe, and ultimately Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem, William possessed the most extensive means of gathering materials for the great work he has left to posterity. He brought to his task, also, a powerful mind, as well as considerable discrimination; and was infinitely superior in education and every intellectual quality to the general chroniclers of his age. He was not born, however, at the time of the first crusade; and consequently, where he speaks of the events of that enterprise, we may look upon him as an historian, clear, talented, elegant, and not extremely credulous; but we must not expect to find the vivid identity of contemporaneous writing. In regard to the history of his own days he is invaluable, and in respect to that of the times which preceded them, his work is certainly superior, as a whole, to any thing that has since been written on the subject.
A much more vivid and enthusiastic picture of the first crusade is to be found in Albert of Aix, from whom William of Tyre borrowed many of his details; but the Syrian Archbishop, living long after, saw the events he recounted as a whole, rejected much as false that Albert embraced as true, and softened the zealous fire which the passions and feelings of the moment had lighted up in the bosom of the other. Albert himself was not one of the crusaders; but living at the time, and conversing continually with those who returned from the Holy Land, he caught, to an extraordinary extent, the spirit of the enterprise, and has left behind him a brilliant transcript of all the passed-by dreams and long-extinguished enthusiasms of his day.
Thus, as a painting of manners and customs, the Chronicon Hierosolymitanum is one of the most valuable records we possess, and the account there given of Peter the Hermit and Gautier sans avoir is in many points more full and comprehensive than any other.
Fulcher of Chartres set out for the Holy Land with Stephen, Count of Blois, one of the first crusaders. He soon after became chaplain to Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, and ended his days a canon of the Holy Sepulchre. His relation is useful in many respects, especially in regard to the march of the crusaders through Italy—the proceedings of Baldwin at Edessa, and the history of Jerusalem for several years after its conquest. His style, however, is tumid and circumlocutory, and his credulity equal to that of Raimond d’Agiles.
Raimond d’Agiles accompanied the Count of Toulouse on the first crusade, in quality of chaplain. Superstitious to the most lamentable degree, and as bigoted in party politics as in religion, he wrote as he lived, like a weak and ignorant man. Nevertheless there is, in his account, much excellent information, detailed with simplicity; and very often, through the folly of the historian, we arrive at truths which his prejudices concealed from himself.
Guibert of Nogent did not visit the Holy Land; but he lived during the first crusade, and, in common with all Europe, felt deeply interested in the fate of that expedition. He examined and noted with accuracy all the anecdotes which reached Europe, and painted, with great vivacity, scenes that he had not himself witnessed. In his account of the crusade many circumstances, evincing