Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II

Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I
will dare to affirm, that all were prompted by the spirit of
enthusiasm; the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the
assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded, that in many
it was not the sole, that in some it was not the leading,
principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to
stem, they are strong and irresistible to impel, the stream of
national manners. Against the private wars of the Barbarians,
their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels,
the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more
easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to
drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to
sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the
merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War
and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins;
they were enjoined, as a penance, to gratify those passions, to
visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation
of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would
immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross; and
the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid
prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe, they
shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the
acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march
with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were
devoted to their arms; their fancy already grasped the golden
sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the
Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private
adventurer. Christendom, in her rudest state, must have yielded
to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and
their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the
tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The
vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every
wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and
treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper,
and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this
earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a
plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by
the extent of his wishes. 30 Their vassals and soldiers trusted
their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish
emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the
flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, 31 were
temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession,
of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful
incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or
ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and
burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might
escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their
families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself
from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the
accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and
outlaws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the
laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. 32

30 (return) [ The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the
adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de
Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and
ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he
should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo,
(Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]

31 (return) [ In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of
Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the
relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum
foeminarum voluptas, (p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert,
the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]

32 (return) [ See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom
from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their
perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]

These motives were potent and numerous: when we have singly
computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add
the infinite series, the multiplying powers, of example and
fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most
effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and
countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense,
of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly
drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The
martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of
cowardice; the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre
of Christ was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and
children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength;
and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their
companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in
their footsteps. The ignorance, which magnified the hopes,
diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish
conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs
themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and
the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the
people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the
limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that
was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors. Yet
the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they
should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna,
provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every
country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray,
according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes
alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles,
peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value
of property was depreciated by the eager competition of
multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an
exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. 33
Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched
by the epidemical disease: the sovereigns acquired at a cheap
rate the domains of their vassals; and the ecclesiastical
purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their
prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in
cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot
iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark;
and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his
breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest
benefices of Palestine. 34

33 (return) [ Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this
general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had
genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing
before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes
emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]

34 (return) [ Some instances of these stigmata are given in the
Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I
have not seen]

The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont
for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by
the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly
despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before
I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the
chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and
Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes
flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed
him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy
sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the
talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the
forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and
Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate,
and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy
soldier, conducted a van guard of pilgrims, whose condition may
be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen
thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely
pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had
swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages
of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred
thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who
mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine,
prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the
head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the
multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may
we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried
in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an
infusion of the divine spirit. 35 Of these, and of other bands of
enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the
Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of
the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich;
and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the
bishops, the free exercise of their religion. 36 At Verdun,
Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy
people were pillaged and massacred: 37 nor had they felt a more
bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was
saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned
and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed
their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed
their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and
their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the
malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

35 (return) [ Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac
congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis,
anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam
non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae
fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these
peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in
Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend
ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile
allegory. * Note: A singular “allegoric” explanation of this
strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the
charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently
made against the Templars. “We have no doubt that they were
Manichee or Gnostic standards.” (The author says the animals
themselves were carried before the army.—M.) “The goose, in
Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant ‘divine
Son,’ or ‘Son of God.’ The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we
have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as
standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders.
Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have
been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?” Account of
the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is,
at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in
connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician
opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so
inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any
explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]

36 (return) [ Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his
Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich,
generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the
Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy
years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these
massacres.]

37 (return) [ These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which
were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true,
that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the
Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt
trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival
monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He
stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]

Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine
monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of
six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary 38
and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers;
but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread
to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his
dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments
of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native
princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor;
but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was
rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of
the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and
languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and
timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of
hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely
demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the
first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and
revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of
discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of
Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 381 at the trumpet of the
Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects
bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was
insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was
unrelenting and bloody. 39 About a third of the naked fugitives
(and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian
mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and
succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys
to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their
brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses;
but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment,
than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor,
and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from
their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to
pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind
impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had
assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied
the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had
withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant,
Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command,
attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence
among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and
themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a
rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils
of his capital, Soliman 391 tempted the main body to descend into
the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows;
and a pyramid of bones 40 informed their companions of the place
of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand
had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the
infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had
completed the preparations of their enterprise. 41

38 (return) [ See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho
of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]

381 (return) [ The narrative of the first march is very
incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and
Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the
kingdom of Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed
with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes
of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of
Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to
Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an
accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat.
Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86—M.]

39 (return) [ The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius,
are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a
single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the
writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient
and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson;
Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith;
Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de
Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19-53.)]

391 (return) [ Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle
against Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and
Antioch. It was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David,
surnamed Kilidje Arslan, the “Sword of the Lion,” who reigned in
Nice. Almost all the occidental authors have fallen into this
mistake, which was detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th
edit. and Extraits des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M.
Reinaud Paris, 1829, p. 3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes
to the Euphra tes, and as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan
must uniformly be substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le
Beau, tom. xv. p. 311.—M.]

40 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this
as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks
themselves as the materials of a wall.]

41 (return) [ See table on following page.]

“To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the
particular references to the great events of the first crusade.”

[See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]

None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in
the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed
to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was
occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent
conquest; the kin`gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic war
against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland,
Denmark, 42 Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the
passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was more
strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an
important place in the feudal system. Their situation will
naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their
names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition,
by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are
the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first
rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of
Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they
had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished
hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was
descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of
the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine,
43 was the inheritance of his mother; and by the emperor’s bounty
he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been
improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the
Ardennes. 44 In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the
great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the
breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who
ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps
his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early
resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but
a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation;
his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a
camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent.
Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his
enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom
by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged
by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon 45 was accompanied by his two
brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county
of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more
ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine, was alike celebrated on
either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education, he was
equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the
barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine, assembled their vassals;
and the confederate force that marched under his banner was
composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse.
II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king’s
presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh,
count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who
assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied,
not so much to his merit or possessions, (though neither were
contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king
of France. 46 Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of
William the Conqueror; but on his father’s death he was deprived
of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity
of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an
excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced
him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality
impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency
multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of
a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For
the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy
during his absence to the English usurper; 47 but his engagement
and behavior in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of
manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.
Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in
this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France,
England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the
Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot
the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois,
and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the
number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and
sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature;
and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen 48 was
chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four
were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the
pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who
were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a
contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war. 49 III. In the
south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of
Puy, the pope egate, and by Raymond count of St. Giles and
Thoulouse who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and
marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike
qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran
warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who
consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but
to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience
and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp,
whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to
relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the
Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and
associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper
haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample
patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion,
was not exempt from avarice and ambition. 50 A mercantile, rather
than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, 51 a
common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and
Languedoc, 52 the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.
From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hardy
adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians
flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one
hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to
enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the
greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting
farewell. IV. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard,
was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor;
but his father’s will had reduced him to the principality of
Tarentum, and the remembrance of his Eastern trophies, till he
was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It
is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the
coolest policy and ambition, with a small allay of religious
fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly
directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with
astonishment and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, his example and
discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he
instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous
candidates, and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the
head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several
princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and
his cousin Tancred 53 was the partner, rather than the servant,
of the war.

In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the
virtues of a perfect knight, 54 the true spirit of chivalry,
which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man
far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of
the times.

42 (return) [ The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted,
and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of
Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by
Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of
Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111-115.)]

43 (return) [ The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or
Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of
the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter
has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p.
283-288.)]

44 (return) [ See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de
Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part
ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold
or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]

45 (return) [ See the family character of Godfrey, in William of
Tyre, l. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;)
his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]

46 (return) [ Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his
nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last
articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred
years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the
ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]

47 (return) [ Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in
Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part
of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to
five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields
fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]

48 (return) [ His original letter to his wife is inserted in the
Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d’Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the
Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]

49 (return) [ Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum
dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem
Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and
interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]

50 (return) [ It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a
second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should
shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna
Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p.
129.)]

51 (return) [ Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et
Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero
Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci
dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]

52 (return) [ The town of his birth, or first appanage, was
consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first
crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St.
Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and
the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation
of Raymond, (Melanges tires d’une Grande Bibliotheque, tom.
xxxvii. p 51.)]

53 (return) [ The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great
Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is
singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a
person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures
that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises
of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]

54 (return) [ To gratify the childish vanity of the house of
Este. Tasso has inserted in his poem, and in the first crusade, a
fabulous hero, the brave and amorous Rinaldo, (x. 75, xvii.
66-94.) He might borrow his name from a Rinaldo, with the Aquila
bianca Estense, who vanquished, as the standard-bearer of the
Roman church, the emperor Frederic I., (Storia Imperiale di
Ricobaldo, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. ix. p. 360. Ariosto,
Orlando Furioso, iii. 30.) But, 1. The distance of sixty years
between the youth of the two Rinaldos destroys their identity. 2.
The Storia Imperiale is a forgery of the Conte Boyardo, at the
end of the xvth century, (Muratori, p. 281-289.) 3. This Rinaldo,
and his exploits, are not less chimerical than the hero of Tasso,
(Muratori, Antichita Estense, tom. i. p. 350.)]