Michaud's History of the Crusades

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: How can it, in fact, be believed, that a warlike and religious order, which twenty years before had seen three hundred of its knights sacrifice themselves upon the ruins of Saphet, rather than embrace the Mussulman faith, that this order which had almost entirely buried itself under the ruins of Ptolemaia,...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: How can it, in fact, be believed, that a warlike and religious order, which twenty years before had seen three hundred of its knights sacrifice themselves upon the ruins of Saphet, rather than embrace the Mussulman faith, that this order which had almost entirely buried itself under the ruins of Ptolemaia, could possibly have contracted an alliance with infidels, outraged the Christian religion with horrible blasphemies, and given up to the Saracens that Holy Land filled with its military glory. And at what period were all these odious reproaches addressed to the Templars ? at a time when Christendom seemed to have forgotten Jerusalem, and in which the name of Christ was not sufficient to awaken the bravery of a Christian warrior. No doubt the order of the Templars had degenerated from the austerity of early times, and that it was no longer animated by that spirit of humility and religion of which St. Bernard so much boasted; no doubt some of the knights had brought with them that corruption which was then the reproach of all the Christians of the East, and of which Europe itself could offer them numerous examples; no doubt, in short, some among them might have wounded morality by their conduct, and offended the religion of Christ by their irregularities; but we do not hesitate to say that it was not the province of men to judge them, and that upon this occasion the merciful God of the Christians had not deputed his vengeance to human laws. The real error of the Templars was having quitted the East, and renounced the spirit of their institution, which was to receive and protect pilgrims, and to combat with the enemies of the Christian faith. This order, richer than the most powerful monarchs, and whose knights were as a regular army, always ready for fight, became, naturally...