Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1819 edition. Excerpt: ... of St. John of Jerusalem, took its name from an hospital built at Jerusalem, for the use of pilgrims visiting the Holy Sepulchre; some merchants of the city of Melphi, in the kingdom of Naples, who traded into the east, having obtained the permission of the califf of Egypt for its erection. It was dedicated to St. John. The community afterwards increasing, by the foundation of two new churches, they took upon themselves the protection of pilgrims. - The order was instituted about the year 1092; and was particularly favoured by Godfrey of Bonllogne, on account of their assistance in taking* the Holy City; and also by his successor Baldwin. * None of the sovereigns of Europe took a part in the first Crusade, but many of their chief vassals, great part of the inferior nobility, and a countless multitude of the common people. The priests left their parishes, and the monks their cells; and though the peasantry were then in general bound to the soil, we find no check given to their emigration for this cause. Numbers of women and children swelled the crowd; it appeared a sort of sacrilege to repel any one from a work which was considered as the manifest design of Providence. But if it were lawful to interpret the will of Providence by events, few undertakings have been more branded by its disapprobation than the Crusades. So many crimes, and so much misery, have seldom been accumulated in so short a space as in the three years of the first expedition. We should be warranted by contemporary writers in stating the loss of the Christians alone, during this period, at nearly a million; but at the least computation it must have exceeded half that number. To engage in the Crusade, and to perish in it, were almost synonymous. Few of those myriads that...
