=Results of the Crusades.=--This, in brief, is a historical account of the crusades.[44] It remains for us to note their educational value. 1. They drew various nations together by one common purpose. 2. They increased the knowledge of the manners, customs, culture, products, and civilization of the East. 3. They stirred up commerce, especially that of the Mediterranean, making Venice and Genoa great commercial centers. 4. They broke up the power of feudalism. Lord and vassal together entered upon enterprises of danger and suffering, which were great levelers of class distinction. In the enthusiasm of the holy cause, many feudal lords disposed of all their worldly possessions, and became as poor as their vassals. This broke up the feudal estates. 5. They widened the horizon of thought, made Europeans more liberal, and prepared the way for an intellectual and religious revival. 6. They emancipated philosophy from theology. As a result of movements inaugurated by the crusades, the university of Paris established the faculty of philosophy separate from that of theology. 7. G. W. Cox says, "By rolling back the tide of Mohammedan conquest from Constantinople for upward of four centuries they probably saved Europe from horrors the recital of which might even now make one's ears tingle." FOOTNOTES: [43] See Lessing's "Nathan der Weise." [44] It would be impossible to give a full historical account of the crusades in a work of this kind. The reader is referred to any standard work on that subject. CHAPTER XXIV THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES =Literature.=--_Laurie_, Rise of the Universities; _Hallam_, Middle Ages; _Guizot_, History of Civilization; _Paulsen_, The German Universities; _Hurst_, Life and Literature in the Fatherland; _Brother Azarias_, Essays Educational. We have seen that the Church had almost entire control of education during the Middle Ages. Through her influence schools were established and maintained, learning was preserved, and the interests of civilization were promoted. She was also influential in the founding of universities, though not to her alone were these institutions due. Laurie says:-- "Now looking first to the germ out of which the universities grew, I think we must say that the universities may be regarded as a natural development of the cathedral[45] and monastery schools; but if we seek for an external motive force urging men to undertake the more profound and independent study of the liberal arts, we can find it only in the Saracenic schools of Bagdad, Babylon, Alexandria, and Cordova. The Saracens were necessarily brought into contact with Greek literature, just when the western Church was drifting away from it; and by their translations of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and other Greek classics, they restored what may be quite accurately called the 'university life' of the Greeks."