CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE CALAMITOUS EVENTS THAT HAPPENED TO THE of the church minion and u CENT. XL 1. THE greatest opposition the christians met PARTI with in this century was from the Saracens and The sufferings Turks. To the latter the christians and Saracens under the do- were equally odious, and felt equally the fatal consurpations of sequences of their increasing dominion. The Sarand Turks, acens, notwithstanding their bloody contests with the Turks, which gave them constant occupation, and the vigorous, though ineffectual efforts they were continually making to set limits to the power the Saracens from Palestine a white stone, in which Jesus Christ had left the print of his feet. The Genoese pretend to have received from Baldwin, second king of Jerusalem, the very dish in which the paschal lamb was served up to Christ and his disciples at the last supper; though this famous dish excites the laughter of even father Labat, in his Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. ii. p. 63. For an account of the prodigious quantity of relics which St. Louis brought from Palestine into France, we refer the reader to the life of that prince composed by Joinville, and published by Du Fresne; as also to Plessis, Histoire de l'Eglise de Meaux, tom. i. p. 120, and Lancelot, Memoires pour la vie de l'Abbe de St. Cyran, tom. ii. p. 175. Christ's handkerchief which is worshipped at Benzancon, was brought there from the holy land. See Jo Jae- Chiflet, Visontio, part ii, p. 108, and De Linteis Christi Sepulchralibus, c. ix. p. 50. Many other examples of this miserable superstition may be seen in Anton. Matthæi Analecta veteris ævi, tom. ii. p. 677. Jo. Mabillon, Annal. Bened. tom. vi. p. 52, and principally Chiflet's Crisis Historica de Lintels Christi Sepulchralibus, c. ix. x. p. 50, and also 59, where we find the following passage. "Sciendum est, vigenti, immani, et barbara Turcarum persecutione, et imminente Christianæ religionis in oriente naufragio, educta e Sacrariis et per Christianos quovis modo recondita Ecclesiæ pignora... Hisce plane divinis opibus illecti præ aliis, Sacra Auroura qua vi, quo pretio, a detinentibus hac illac extorserunt." PART I. of that fierce nation, which was daily extending CENT. XI. the bounds of its empire, persisted still in their cruelty toward their christian subjects, whom they robbed, plundered, maimed, or murdered in the most barbarous manner, and loaded with all sorts of injuries and calamities. The Turks, on the other hand, not only reduced the Saracen dominion to very narrow bounds, but also seized upon the richest provinces of the Grecian empire, those fertile countries that lay upon the coasts of the Euxine sea, and subjected them to their yoke, while they impoverished and exhausted the rest by perpetual incursions, and by the most severe and unmerciful exactions. The Greeks were not able to oppose this impetuous torrent of prosperous ambition. Their force was weakened by intestine discords, and their treasures were exhausted to such a degree as rendered them incapable of raising new troops, or of paying the armies they had already in their service, II. The Saracens in Spain opposed the progress of and in the wes the gospel in a different, yet still more pernicious es. way. They used all sorts of methods to allure the christians into the profession of mahometanism; alliances of marriage, advantageous contracts, flattering rewards, were employed to seduce them with too much success; for great numbers fell into these fatal snares and apostatized from the truth," And these allurements would have undoubtedly still continued to seduce multitudes of christians from the bosom of the church, had not the face of affairs been changed in Spain by the victorious arms of the kings of Arragon and Castile, and more especially Ferdinand I. for these princes, whose zeal for Christianity was equal to their military courage, defeated the Saracens in several battles, 'b Jo. Henr. Hottingeri Histor. Ecclesiast. Sæc. xi. § ii. p. 452. Michael Geddes's History of the Expulsion of the Moriscoes out of Spain, which is to be found in the Miscellaneous Tracts of that Author, tom. i. p. 104. tern provinc CENT. XL and deprived them of a great part of their territories and possessions. PART I. The number of those among the Danes, Hungarians, and other European nations, who retained their prejudices in favour of the idolatrous religion of their ancestors, was as yet very considerable; and they persecuted, with the utmost cruelty, the neighbouring nations, and also such of their fellowcitizens as had embraced the gospel. To put a stop to this barbarous persecution, christian princes exerted their zeal in a terrible manner, proclaiming capital punishment against all who persisted in the worship of the pagan deities. This dreadful severity contributed much more toward the extirpation of paganism, than the exhortations and instructions of ignorant missionaries, who were unacquainted with the true nature of the gospel, and dishonoured its pure and holy doctrines by their licentious lives, and their superstitious practices. The Prussians, Lithuanians, Sclavonians, Obotriti, and several other nations, who dwelt in the lower parts of Germany, and lay still groveling in the darkness of paganism, continued to vex the christians, who lived in their neighbourhood, by perpetual acts of hostility and violence, by frequent incursions into their territories, and by putting numbers of them to death in the most inhuman manner.k i For an account of these wars between the first christian kings of Spain and the Mahometans or Moors, see the Spanish histories of Jo. Mariana and Jo. Ferrera. * Helmoldi Chron. Slavorum, lib.i. cap. xvi. p. 52. Adam. Bremens. Histor. lib. ii. cap. xxvii. PART II. INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHU CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE STATE OF LETTERS AND PHILOSOPHY DURING 446 PART II. The state THE declining condition of the Grecian empire CENT. XI. was fatal to the progress of letters and philosophy. Its glory and power diminished from day to day under the insults and usurpations of the Turks and mong the 5Saracens; and while the empire suffered by these Greeks. attacks from without, it was consumed gradually by the internal pestilence of civil discord, by frequent seditions and conspiracies, and by those violent revolutions which shook from time to time the imperial throne, and were attended with the sudden fall and elevation of those that held the reins of government. So many foreign invasions, so many internal troubles, so many emperors dethroned, deprived the political body of its strength and consistence, broke in upon the public order, rendered all things precarious, and dejecting the spirits of the nation, damped the fire of genius, and discouraged the efforts of literary ambition. The sentence which begins with the words so many foreign, and ends with the words literary ambition, is added by the translator to render the connection with what follows more evident. 447 ENT. XI. II. CENT. XI. PART There were however some emperors, such as Alexius Comnenus, who seemed to cherish and encourage the drooping sciences, and whose zeal was seconded by several prelates who were willing to lend a supporting hand to the cause of letters. The controversies also that subsisted between the Greeks and Latins, obliged the former, amidst all their disadvantages, to a certain degree of application to study, and prevented them from abandoning entirely the culture of the sciences. And hence it is, that we find among the Greeks of this century some writers, at least, who have deserved well of the republic of letters. II. We pass in silence the poets, rhetoricians, and philologists of this century, who were neither highly eminent, nor absolutely contemptible. Among the writers of history, Leo the Grammarian, John Scylizes, Cedrenus, and a few others deserve to be mentioned with a certain degree of approbation; notwithstanding the partiality with which they are chargeable, and the zeal they discover for many of the fabulous records of their nation. But the greatest ornament of the republic of letters at this time, was Michael Psellus, a man illustrious in every respect, and deeply versed in all the various kinds of erudition that were known in this age. This great man recommended warmly to his countrymen the study of philosophy, and particularly the system of Aristotle, which he embellished and illustrated in several learned and ingenious productions. If we turn our eyes toward the Arabians, we shall find that they still retained a high degree of zeal for the culture of the sciences; as appears evidently from the number of physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers, who flourished among them in this century. b Leo Allatius, Diatriba De Psellis, p. 14, edit. Fabricii. c Elmacini Historia Saracen. p. 281. Jo. Henr. Hottingeri Histor. Eccles. Sec. xi. p. 449. |