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  THE HISTORY OF CHIVALRY.


  BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,
  AUTHOR OF "DE L'ORME," "DARNLEY," "RICHELIEU," ETC.


  NEW YORK:
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
  82 CLIFF STREET.




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 Caen, 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