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HEROINES OF CRUSADES.




  HEROINES
  OF THE
  CRUSADES

  _Adela Countess of Blois.
  Eleanor of Aquitaine.
  Berengaria of Navarre.
  Isabella of Angouleme.
  Violante of Jerusalem.
  Eleanor of Castile._

  BY C. A. BLOSS.

  "Old Historic rolls I opened."

  Engraved by J. C. Buttre.




  HEROINES OF THE CRUSADES.


  BY C. A. BLOSS.
  AUTHOR OF "BLOSS'S ANCIENT HISTORY," ETC.


  "Old historic rolls I opened."


  AUBURN:
  ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & CO.
  ROCHESTER:
  WANZER, BEARDSLEY & CO.
  1853.




Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1853, BY ALDEN,
BEARDSLEY & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Northern District of New York.




  TO MY PUPILS,
  The "Heroines of the Crusades"
  IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
  BY THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


To those whom it has been my privilege and pleasure to lead through the
devious and darkened paths of the Past, to all who cordially receive the
doctrine that _actions_ and not faint desires for Excellence form the
character, I address a few words by way of explanation and Preface.

Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, whether glorious in the beauty of her
first temple, and the excellent wisdom of her philosopher king, or veiled
in the darkness of that fatal eclipse in which the solemn scenes of
Calvary consummated her glory and shame, has occupied a position in the
great drama of human events, more interesting and important than any other
city on the globe.

But Jerusalem, in the gloom of that moral night which gathered over the
nations after the fall of the Western Empire of the Romans, exerted a
greater influence upon the minds of men than at any former period. The
insulting Moslem felt a degree of veneration for the splendid ruins over
which he walked with all a conqueror's pride--the African anchorite left
his solitary hermitage to weep upon Mount Olivet--the European adventurer
wreathed his staff with the branching palm from her holy hills--the
despairing Jew sat in sackcloth at her fallen gates, and even the mingled
barbarians of the East united with the Christian to revere the spot where
art achieved its proudest monument, and poetry found the theme of its
sublimest song.

This natural reverence, exalted into piety by the decrees of the church,
resulted necessarily in the practice of pilgrimage. Anxious, restless
guilt, fled from the scene of its enormities to the sweet valleys where
the Saviour whispered peace to his disciples; poetry sought inspiring
visions on the Mount of Transfiguration; penitence lingered in the garden
of Passion, and remorse expiated its crimes in weary vigils at the Holy
Sepulchre.

At the dawn of the eleventh century, one sublime idea pervaded
Christendom. The thousand years of the Apocalypse were supposed to be
accomplished, and a general belief prevailed that on the Mount of Olives,
whence the Son of God ascended in his chariot of cloud to heaven, he would
reappear in all the pomp of his Second Advent. From every quarter of the
Latin world the affrighted Christians, deserting their homes and kindred,
crowded to the Holy Land--terror quickened devotion, curiosity stimulated
enthusiasm. But insult and outrage awaited the pilgrims in Palestine, and
in Jerusalem itself they encountered the scoffing taunts of idolatry and
infidelity.

To free those holy courts from the polluting tread of the sandalled
Paynim, to prepare a pure resting-place for the Son of Man, Superstition
roused the martial spirit of the age, and enlisted chivalry under the
banners of the cross.

Thus began the CRUSADES, those romantic expeditions which, combining
religious fervor with military ardor, united the various nations of Europe
from the shores of the Baltic to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from the
banks of the Danube to the Bay of Biscay, in one common cause, and poured
the mingled tide of fanatics, warriors and adventurers, upon the plains of
Asia. For nearly two centuries the mightiest efforts and best blood of
Christendom were wasted in the useless struggle, and it is computed that
not less than six millions of people devoted their lives and fortunes to
this desperate undertaking.

But though the Crusades are so important to the historian as involving the
politics of all nations; to the philosopher as fraught with consequences
affecting the happiness of succeeding generations; and to the scholar as
commencing the era when Genius, brooding over the ruins of the Past, rose
Phoenix