Charles the Great surrounded himself with learned men. Alcuin of England was his adviser in all literary and educational matters. Guizot calls Alcuin the "intellectual prime-minister of Charles the Great." The final and complete cementing of papal and imperial interests took place under Charles the Great. In the midst of the magnificent Christmas festivities of the year 800 in the city of Rome, Leo III. advanced towards Charles and placed upon his head a golden crown with these words : "Life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor!" As com pensation for this important papal service Charles enlarged the papal territory which had been first given by his father Pepin, and placed the papacy itself, as a temporal sovereignty, on a plane en tirely new to history.
Charles' successors were a group of steadily dis solving lights. The extinction of the Carlovingians in 987 was simultaneous with the complete as cendency of the papacy. By the time the last de scendants of the great Charles were spending their closing days as mere weak functionaries in the palace of Laon, the Church had become proprietor of more than all its old prerogatives, and was holding its new territory with a grasp which re laxed only when its arm was stretched for more.
(5) The Crusades (A. D. 1096-1270). The origin of the Crusades is to be found in the occu pation of Palestine by its Mohammedan conquer ors. The pilgrims from Europe cherished the warmest attachment to the sacred places. The Mohammedans not only occupied them, but per secuted the pilgrims. The sanctuaries were pro faned, and the venerated patriarchs were thrown into prison. Christian merchants from Pisa, Amalfi,Genoaand other rich Italian ports were for tunate if they escaped with their lives. The evil reports came back to Europe, and then began a series of military expeditions against the Moham medans. These were called Crusades because of the cross (crux) worn by the warriors.
Pope Gregory VII. was the first, it is believed. who conceived the idea of sending from Europe an armed expedition. not only to punish the Mo hammedan rulers. but to occupy and rule the country. Flis successors, Victor III. and Urban II., indulged the same strong hope. All that was wanting were popular leaders who would fire the heart of Christian Europe. These appeared in Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit. The latter had been a soldier under the counts of Boulogne, but forsook his military career, made a journey to Palestine, and saw the indignities suf fered by the pilgrims. He returned to Europe,
traveled through Italy and France, and aroused the people to a frenzy of indignation against the Moslems. He was a dwarf, wore neither shoes nor hat, and rode an ass. His appeals were ir resistible. Multitudes regarded him as the repre sentative of a holy cause, and through him 40, 000 men joined the first Crusade.
The varied fortunes of the Crusaders furnish a striking picture. The best blood of Europe was boiling in sympathy with Christians in their as pirations to kneel beside the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem and rule over the land in which Jesus had lived. Six different armies constituted the first Crusade. They numbered six hundred thou sand people, who were led by Godfrey, Hugh the Great, Tancred, Raymond of Toulouse, and Rob :rt of Normandy. This Crusade, begun in to96, resulted in the capture of Jerusalem within two years, and in making Godfrey of Bouillon king of the sacred city.
In the next Crusade St. Bernard was the Apos tle. Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany led one million two hundred thousand men against the Saracens. The great object was to reduce Damascus, as a support to the kingdom of Jerusalem. It was a failure, and only the mere fragments of the armies reached Europe again. Saladin, the great Mohammedan chief, conquered Jerusalem in 1187, and this was the signal for the third Crusade to rescue the Holy City and the entire country. Germany under Frederic Bar barossa, France under Philip Augustus. and En gland under Richard Ccrur de Lion united their forces. Through division among the leaders this also failed.
The fourth Crusade led by the Knights of St. John, and the fifth inspired by the authority of Pope Innocent III. and the fervor of Fulk of Neuilly, but afterward diverted by the Venetian doge Dandolo to the conquest of Zara and the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantino ple, also ended in disaster.
The sixth Crusade (1228) under the direction and through the diplomacy of Frederick If of Germany proved a success. Palestine was ceded to the emperor, and became a Christian land; but was lost during the seventh, which followed in t248, under the leadership of Louis IX. of France. The eighth and last Crusade (127o) was also under the guidance of Louis IX. of France. It proved the final failure of the series. Europe was ex hausted and the cause was lost.