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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-like from the ashes of Arabian splendor, and soaring in the
clearer light of Christianity, scattered from her wing the dew of
refinement upon the barbarians of the North; yet the general reader feels
that his knowledge of them is so vague as to detract materially from his
pleasure in allusions to them, and continually to force upon his mind a
painful sense of ignorance upon points where he ought to be informed.

In some measure to supply a deficiency which common history cannot
obviate, to make the period of the Crusades interesting, by giving to it
the tangible thread of authentic narrative, these biographies of the
"Heroines" who inspired the troubadour, animated the warrior, or in person
"took the cross," have, with much care and labor, been selected and
compiled.

The era opens about the time of the Conquest, when William I.,
unquestionably the greatest ruler of his time, returns in triumph to
Normandy. No two writers agreeing as to the age of his children, I have
arranged them as best suited my purpose, making Cicely the eldest, the
betrothed of Harold; and the second daughter, Agatha, the bride of Earl
Edwin; and Adela, whose ambitious character is well authenticated, the
Heroine of the First Crusade.

The character and superstitions of the Saxons, with their love of
"legendary lore," I have endeavored to embody in the early life of Maude,
while I have endeavored to make her riper years illustrate the principles
and piety of a teacher to whom you are all much attached.

The half-infidel Hardrager, who was necessary to show both the plan of
Battle Abbey and the causes and character of pilgrimage, might really have
been the leader of the Assassins, since they established themselves in
Mount Lebanon, and incorporated in their belief some of the doctrines of
the New Testament about that period.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the few women whose mature years in some
measure atoned for a youth of folly. Agnes Strickland cites authorities to
show that Fair Rosamond passed nineteen years in a convent, and died with
the reputation of a