volume one

n PEEFACE.
contriyed and executed by the policy of Eome. The suspi-
cion is not founded either in nature or in facts. The suc-
cessors of St. Peter appear to haye followed, rather than
guided, the impulse of manners and prejudices ; -w-ithout
much foresight of the seasons, or cultiyation of tlie soil, they
gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits, without much toU.
or danger."
" Now, with all due respect for the great historian, we
cannot agree with this ; and we feel assured that most
of the readers of this history will come to the conclu-
sion that the popes and other ambitious, wily, and greedy
churchmen were the prime movers and general supporters
of the Crusades ;
and that entirely for the sake of keeping
up, by means of fanatical, superstitious outbreaks, their
influence oyer men's minds. Peter the Hermit might sug-
gest the idea to the pope ;
but what could the humble ceno-
bite haye done without the sanction of the Holy See ? and
the eagerness with wliich the pontiff laid hold of the scheme
proyes what great advantages he hoped to derive from it.
The most ambitious, the most talented, and the most un-
scnipulous popes were always the greatest instigators of the
crusades.
Can we assert that Innocent III. followed the spirit
of his age, when he set such bloodhoimds as Simon de
Montfort on to gorge themselves ^vith slaughter in the most
civilized Christian cities of Europe, and to devastate the most
smiling and luxuriant plains of the world ? The crusade
against the Albigeois was executed under the same influence
that so earnestly promoted and preached fresh expeditions
to the Holy Land ; but the beautiful country of Langnedoc
presented a richer harvest, and much less danger in reaping
it, than the exhausted and burning plains of Syria ; and the
work was, in comparison, not half so thoroughly performed
in the East as in the West.