The Philosophy of History, Vol. 2 of 2Schlegel, Friedrich von
Philosophy
The Philosophy of History, Vol. 2 of 2
Schlegel, Friedrich von
History; History -- Philosophy
In this holy city the first two spiritual orders of chivalry sprang
up; the knights of St. John, who took up arms for the defence of
pilgrimage, and in their vows combined the care of the sick pilgrims
with the management of the sword; and the Templars, so called after
the temple of Solomon, and from a recollection of the remarkable
secrets connected with that edifice. Chivalrous institutions of this
kind, wherein Christianity contrived to blend the most opposite
qualities and inclinations of human nature, could not have sprung up
under a mathematical government of reason, or in a state where every
thing is reduced to the level of a dead uniformity, and general
equality, and where all feeling and personality are effaced. But the
voice of ages has decided completely in favour of these marvellous
institutes, and even in our own times, amid all the changes and
fluctuations of opinion, they have preserved the respect, and
obtained the forbearance, of mankind.
Even in the second Crusade which took place about fifty years later,
when the new progress of the Saracen arms appeared to threaten the
safety of the holy city, it was far more the pious eloquence of St.
Bernard than any scheme or calculation of policy, which set the whole
European world in motion. The number of warriors and armed pilgrims
who, under the guidance of the Emperor Conrad, and the King of France,
poured in upon the Holy Land, is computed at more than half a million.
The religious enthusiasm and chivalric heroism which formed the sole
and animating principle of the whole enterprise, were not always
accompanied with sufficient prudence, wisdom and circumspection. The
want of these qualities at least, as regarded the influences of
climate, the physical wants of so vast an army, and a geographical
knowledge of localities, is too often apparent; and in default of this
necessary foresight and preparatory information, many thousands
perished in the second as well as in the first Crusade; a fate which
indeed is not unfrequent in wars, where great bodies of people are
exposed to toil and hardship in a foreign climate. These expeditions
were indeed like new migrations of nations, which took an opposite
direction from the first, and rolled backward from Europe towards
ancient Asia. The great multitude of men engaged, would sufficiently
account for these memorable expeditions, as it proves the redundance
of population in Europe, which sought on this occasion, and by means
of this kind, to disburden itself of its surplus numbers. And if this
numerous population may have given rise to, or afforded materials for,
turbulence and anarchy, still on the other hand, it furnishes a proof
that that anarchy was not of so destructive and depopulating a nature,
as the descriptions of modern historians would sometimes lead us to
suppose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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