volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 263
and the excess of feudal anarchy. The holy wars beyond
the seas finished that which chivalry had begun, they perfected
chivalry itself. The council of Clermont and the
crusade that followed it only developed and consohdated all
which preceding councils, all that the wisest lords and
princes, had done for the cause of humanity.
Many of the princes of the crusades, such as the duke of
Brittany and Robert count of Flanders, signalized their
return by establishing wise regulations. A few salutary in-
stitutions began to displace the violent abuses of feudalism,
and there might be seen, at least in some provinces, what a
regime founded by the sword could exhibit of a moderate
kind in its legislation.
It was in France that these changes were most obvious,
because France had taken the greatest part in the crusade.
jNIany nobles emancipated their serfs upon their following
them in this expedition. Giraud and Griraudet Adhemar de
]Monthiel, who followed their brother, the bishop of Puy, to
the holy war, to encourage and reward some of their vassals,
by whom they were accompanied, granted them several fiefs
by an act drawn up in the same year as the taking of Jerusalem.
We might quote many similar acts made during
the crusade and in the first year that followed it. Liberty
awaited in the West the small number that returned from
the holy war, who seemed to acknowledge no other master
but Jesus Christ.
In this crusade the nobility lost some portion of a power
which they had abused, but they had more splendour and were
held in greater honour. The king of France, although for a
long time obnoxious to the censures of the Church, and
although he did not distinguish himself by any great personal
quaUties, had a more tranquil and prosperous reign than
his predecessors; he began to shake ofi" the yoke of the great
vassals of the crown, of whom several were ruined or perished
in the holy war. "We have often repeated that the crusade
placed great wealth in the hands of the clergy ; but we must
likewise add, that the clergy composed the most enlightened
placed under the safeguard of i-eligion.— Seethe Collection of the Councils
by le P. Labbe. It is not useless to remark that these regulations were
at first received in Aquitaine. The council of Clermont caused them to 1^
adopted throughout the greater part of Europe.