volume one

HISTORY OF THE CIU'SADES. 271
vrhicli had conducted the Latin princes to Jerusalem. After
ha-sdng accompanied them as far as Jericho, to celebrate with
them the festival of the Epiphany, he returned to his capital,
where he assembled the enlightened and pious men of the
city, of whom he formed the states, or the assizes, of his
kingdom. In this solemn assembly the first care was to
regulate and determine the duties of the barons, the lords,
and the common subjects, towards the king, and the duties
of the king towards the lords and subjects. The king was
to undertake to maintain the laws, to defend the Church, to
protect widows and orphans, to watch over the safety of both
people and lords, and to lead in war. The lord, who was the
lieutenant of the prince, as regarded his vassals, was to
guarantee them from insult, and to protect their property,
their honour, and their rights. The first duty of the counts
and barons towards the king was to serve him in council and
fight. The first obligation of a subject or a vassal towards
his prince or his lord, was to defend him or avenge him in
every case of outrage, and to protect the honour of his wife,
his daughter, or his sister ; to follow him in all perils, and to
surrender himself as hostage for him, if he fell into the
hands of his enemies.*
The king and his subjects, the great and the small vassals,
mutually engaged their faith to each other. In the feudal
hierarchy, every class had its privileges maintained by
honour. Honour, that grand principle among knights, commanded
all to repulse an injury inflicted upon a single one,
and thus became, restrained within just limits, the secui'ity
of public liberty.
AVar was the great affair in a kingdom founded by knights
and barons ;
every one capable of bearing arms was reckoned
as something in the state, and protected by the new legislation
; all the rest, with the exception of the clergy, whose
existence and privileges were held by divine right, were
* The Assizes of Jerusalem, transported into the kingdom of Cypru.^,
were collected in the thirteenth century, by John d'Ibelin, count of Jaffa
and Ascalon. They were printed by Baumancir, and commented upon
by Thomas de la Thauraasiere. It is to be lamented that the French
publicists, and Montesquieu himself, have studied so superticially this
monument of modern legislation, which is able to throw great light upon
the history, laws, and manners of the middle ages.