Hermann Sudermann - "Dame Care"

G. A. Henty - "With Buller in Natal"

Laura Lee Hope - "The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch"

Juliana Horatia Ewing - "The Peace Egg and Other tales"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5




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.

[Footnote 42: 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.)]

[Footnote 43: 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.)]

[Footnote 44: 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.]

[Footnote 45: 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.)]

[Footnote 46: 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.]

[Footnote 47: 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.)]

[Footnote 48: 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.]

[Footnote 49: 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.)]

[Footnote 50: 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.)]

[Footnote 51: 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.]

[Footnote 52: 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.)]

[Footnote 53: 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.)]

[Footnote 54: 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.)]



Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.

Part III.

Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the crusades, a
revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and
the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe.
The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians; the
cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honorable name
of miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen ^55 who
served on horseback, and were invested with the character of
knighthood. The dukes and counts, who had usurped the rights of
sovereignty, divided the provinces among their faithful barons:
the barons distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices
of their jurisdiction; and these military tenants, the peers of
each other and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian
order, which disdained to conceive the peasant or burgher as of
the same species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was
preserved by pure and equal alliances; their sons alone, who
could produce four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or
reproach, might legally pretend to the honor of knighthood; but a
valiant plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the
sword, and became the father of a new race. A single knight
could impart, according to his judgment, the character which he
received; and the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory
from this personal distinction than from the lustre of their
diadem. This ceremony, of which some traces may be found in
Tacitus and the woods of Germany, ^56 was in its origin simple
and profane; the candidate, after some previous trial, was
invested with the sword and spurs; and his cheek or shoulder was
touched with a slight blow, as an emblem of the last affront
which it was lawful for him to endure. But superstition mingled
in every public and private action of life: in the holy wars, it
sanctified the profession of arms; and the order of chivalry was
assimilated in its rights and privileges to the sacred orders of
priesthood. The bath and white garment of the novice were an
indecent copy of the regeneration of baptism: his sword, which he
offered on the altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion:
his solemn reception was preceded by fasts and vigils; and he was
created a knight in the name of God, of St. George, and of St.
Michael the archangel. He swore to accomplish the duties of his
profession; and education, example, and the public opinion, were
the inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champion of God and
the ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted
himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the
distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the
ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of
ease and safety; and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the
honor of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked
the illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace;
to esteem himself the sole judge and avenger of his own injuries;
and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military
discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution, to refine the
temper of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith,
justice, and humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often
observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened; and
the community of religion and arms spread a similar color and
generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad in
enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the
warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and
impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic
games of classic antiquity. ^57 Instead of the naked spectacles
which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the
stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the
lists was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born
beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his
dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted
in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to
the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were
invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the East and
West, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The
single combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass, or
castle, were rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest,
both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior
management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and
peculiar weapon of the knight: his horse was of a large and heavy
breed; but this charger, till he was roused by the approaching
danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a
pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his
greaves and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I
may remark, that, at the period of the crusades, the armor was
less ponderous than in later times; and that, instead of a massy
cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk or coat of mail.
When their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors
furiously spurred their horses against the foe; and the light
cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the
direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was
attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal
birth and similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men
at arms, and four, or five, or six soldiers were computed as the
furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the
neighboring kingdoms or the Holy Land, the duties of the feudal
tenure no longer subsisted; the voluntary service of the knights
and their followers were either prompted by zeal or attachment,
or purchased with rewards and promises; and the numbers of each
squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame, of
each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his
banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war; and the most
ancient families of Europe must seek in these achievements the
origin and proof of their nobility. In this rapid portrait of
chivalry I have been urged to anticipate on the story of the
crusades, at once an effect and a cause, of this memorable
institution. ^58

[Footnote 55: Of the words gentilis, gentilhomme, gentleman, two
etymologies are produced: 1. From the Barbarians of the fifth
century, the soldiers, and at length the conquerors of the Roman
empire, who were vain of their foreign nobility; and 2. From the
sense of the civilians, who consider gentilis as synonymous with
ingenuus. Selden inclines to the first but the latter is more
pure, as well as probable.]

[Footnote 56: Framea scutoque juvenem ornant. Tacitus, Germania.
c. 13.]

[Footnote 57: The athletic exercises, particularly the caestus
and pancratium, were condemned by Lycurgus, Philopoemen, and
Galen, a lawgiver, a general, and a physician. Against their
authority and reasons, the reader may weigh the apology of
Lucian, in the character of Solon. See West on the Olympic
Games, in his Pindar, vol. ii. p. 86 - 96 243 - 248]

[Footnote 58: On the curious subjects of knighthood,
knights-service, nobility, arms, cry of war, banners, and
tournaments, an ample fund of information may be sought in
Selden, (Opera, tom. iii. part i. Titles of Honor, part ii. c.
1, 3, 5, 8,) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 398 - 412, &c.,)
Dissertations sur Joinville, (i. vi. - xii. p. 127 - 142, p. 161
- 222,) and M. de St. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie.)]

Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the
cross for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. As soon as they
were relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they
encouraged each other, by interviews and messages, to accomplish
their vow, and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters
were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the
pilgrimage: their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of
silver and gold; and the princes and barons were attended by
their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to
supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for
so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their
forces: their choice or situation determined the road; and it was
agreed to meet in the neighborhood of Constantinople, and from
thence to begin their operations against the Turks. From the
banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bouillon followed
the direct way of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; and, as long as
he exercised the sole command every step afforded some proof of
his prudence and virtue. On the confines of Hungary he was
stopped three weeks by a Christian people, to whom the name, or
at least the abuse, of the cross was justly odious. The
Hungarians still smarted with the wounds which they had received
from the first pilgrims: in their turn they had abused the right
of defence and retaliation; and they had reason to apprehend a
severe revenge from a hero of the same nation, and who was
engaged in the same cause. But, after weighing the motives and
the events, the virtuous duke was content to pity the crimes and
misfortunes of his worthless brethren; and his twelve deputies,
the messengers of peace, requested in his name a free passage and
an equal market. To remove their suspicions, Godfrey trusted
himself, and afterwards his brother, to the faith of Carloman, ^*
king of Hungary, who treated them with a simple but hospitable
entertainment: the treaty was sanctified by their common gospel;
and a proclamation, under pain of death, restrained the animosity
and license of the Latin soldiers. From Austria to Belgrade,
they traversed the plains of Hungary, without enduring or
offering an injury; and the proximity of Carloman, who hovered on
their flanks with his numerous cavalry, was a precaution not less
useful for their safety than for his own. They reached the banks
of the Save; and no sooner had they passed the river, than the
king of Hungary restored the hostages, and saluted their
departure with the fairest wishes for the success of their
enterprise. With the same conduct and discipline, Godfrey
pervaded the woods of Bulgaria and the frontiers of Thrace; and
might congratulate himself that he had almost reached the first
term of his pilgrimage, without drawing his sword against a
Christian adversary. After an easy and pleasant journey through
Lombardy, from Turin to Aquileia, Raymond and his provincials
marched forty days through the savage country of Dalmatia ^59 and
Sclavonia. The weather was a perpetual fog; the land was
mountainous and desolate; the natives were either fugitive or
hostile: loose in their religion and government, they refused to
furnish provisions or guides; murdered the stragglers; and
exercised by night and day the vigilance of the count, who
derived more security from the punishment of some captive robbers
than from his interview and treaty with the prince of Scodra. ^60
His march between Durazzo and Constantinople was harassed,
without being stopped, by the peasants and soldiers of the Greek
emperor; and the same faint and ambiguous hostility was prepared
for the remaining chiefs, who passed the Adriatic from the coast
of Italy. Bohemond had arms and vessels, and foresight and
discipline; and his name was not forgotten in the provinces of
Epirus and Thessaly. Whatever obstacles he encountered were
surmounted by his military conduct and the valor of Tancred; and
if the Norman prince affected to spare the Greeks, he gorged his
soldiers with the full plunder of an heretical castle. ^61 The
nobles of France pressed forwards with the vain and thoughtless
ardor of which their nation has been sometimes accused. From the
Alps to Apulia the march of Hugh the Great, of the two Roberts,
and of Stephen of Chartres, through a wealthy country, and amidst
the applauding Catholics, was a devout or triumphant progress:
they kissed the feet of the Roman pontiff; and the golden
standard of St. Peter was delivered to the brother of the French
monarch. ^62 But in this visit of piety and pleasure, they
neglected to secure the season, and the means of their
embarkation: the winter was insensibly lost: their troops were
scattered and corrupted in the towns of Italy. They separately
accomplished their passage, regardless of safety or dignity; and
within nine months from the feast of the Assumption, the day
appointed by Urban, all the Latin princes had reached
Constantinople. But the count of Vermandois was produced as a
captive; his foremost vessels were scattered by a tempest; and
his person, against the law of nations, was detained by the
lieutenants of Alexius. Yet the arrival of Hugh had been
announced by four-and-twenty knights in golden armor, who
commanded the emperor to revere the general of the Latin
Christians, the brother of the king of kings. ^63 ^*

[Footnote *: Carloman (or Calmany) demanded the brother of
Godfrey as hostage but Count Baldwin refused the humiliating
submission. Godfrey shamed him into this sacrifice for the
common good by offering to surrender himself Wilken, vol. i. p.
104. - M.]

[Footnote 59: The Familiae Dalmaticae of Ducange are meagre and
imperfect; the national historians are recent and fabulous, the
Greeks remote and careless. In the year 1104 Coloman reduced the
maritine country as far as Trau and Saloma, (Katona, Hist. Crit.
tom. iii. p. 195 - 207.)]

[Footnote 60: Scodras appears in Livy as the capital and fortress
of Gentius, king of the Illyrians, arx munitissima, afterwards a
Roman colony, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 393, 394.) It is now called
Iscodar, or Scutari, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
164.) The sanjiak (now a pacha) of Scutari, or Schendeire, was
the viiith under the Beglerbeg of Romania, and furnished 600
soldiers on a revenue of 78,787 rix dollars, (Marsigli, Stato
Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 128.)]

[Footnote 61: In Pelagonia castrum haereticum ..... spoliatum cum
suis habi tatoribus igne combussere. Nec id eis injuria
contigit: quia illorum detestabilis sermo et cancer serpebat,
jamque circumjacentes regiones suo pravo dogmate foedaverat,
(Robert. Mon. p. 36, 37.) After cooly relating the fact, the
Archbishop Baldric adds, as a praise, Omnes siquidem illi
viatores, Judeos, haereticos, Saracenos aequaliter habent exosos;
quos omnes appellant inimicos Dei, (p. 92.)]

[Footnote 62: (Alexiad. l. x. p. 288.)]

[Footnote 63: This Oriental pomp is extravagant in a count of
Vermandois; but the patriot Ducange repeats with much complacency
(Not. ad Alexiad. p. 352, 353. Dissert. xxvii. sur Joinville, p.
315) the passages of Matthew Paris (A.D. 1254) and Froissard,
(vol. iv. p. 201,) which style the king of France rex regum, and
chef de tous les rois Chretiens.]

[Footnote *: Hugh was taken at Durazzo, and sent by land to
Constantinople Wilken - M.]

In some oriental tale I have read the fable of a shepherd,
who was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes: he had
prayed for water; the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his
flock and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was
the fortune, or at least the apprehension of the Greek emperor
Alexius Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this
history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his
daughter Anne, ^64 and by the Latin writers. ^65 In the council
of Placentia, his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succor,
perhaps of ten thousand soldiers, but he was astonished by the
approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The
emperor fluctuated between hope and fear, between timidity and
courage; but in the crooked policy which he mistook for wisdom, I
cannot believe, I cannot discern, that he maliciously conspired
against the life or honor of the French heroes. The promiscuous
multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike
destitute of humanity and reason: nor was it possible for Alexius
to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey
and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious, to
the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious: but he
was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond,
^* and his ignorance of the Transalpine chiefs: the courage of
the French was blind and headstrong; they might be tempted by the
luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion
of their invincible strength: and Jerusalem might be forgotten in
the prospect of Constantinople. After a long march and painful
abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of
Thrace; they heard with indignation, that their brother, the
count of Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their
reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of
retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of
Alexius: he promised to supply their camp; and as they refused,
in the midst of winter, to pass the Bosphorus, their quarters
were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that
narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds
of the two nations, who despised each other as slaves and
Barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion
was inflamed into daily provocations: prejudice is blind, hunger
is deaf; and Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault
the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the
waters. ^66 Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net,
overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs; but the gates of
Constantinople were strongly fortified; the ramparts were lined
with archers; and, after a doubtful conflict, both parties
listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and
promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the fierce spirit of
the western strangers; as a Christian warrior, he rekindled their
zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise, which he
engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return
of spring, Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and
plentiful camp in Asia; and no sooner had he passed the
Bosphorus, than the Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the
opposite shore. The same policy was repeated with the succeeding
chiefs, who were swayed by the example, and weakened by the
departure, of their foremost companions. By his skill and
diligence, Alexius prevented the union of any two of the
confederate armies at the same moment under the walls of
Constantinople; and before the feast of the Pentecost not a Latin
pilgrim was left on the coast of Europe.

[Footnote 64: Anna Comnena was born the 1st of December, A.D.
1083, indiction vii., (Alexiad. l. vi. p. 166, 167.) At thirteen,
the time of the first crusade, she was nubile, and perhaps
married to the younger Nicephorus Bryennius, whom she fondly
styles, (l. x. p. 295, 296.) Some moderns have imagined, that her
enmity to Bohemond was the fruit of disappointed love. In the
transactions of Constantinople and Nice, her partial accounts
(Alex. l. x. xi. p. 283 - 317) may be opposed to the partiality
of the Latins, but in their subsequent exploits she is brief and
ignorant.]

[Footnote 65: In their views of the character and conduct of
Alexius, Maimbourg has favored the Catholic Franks, and Voltaire
has been partial to the schismatic Greeks. The prejudice of a
philosopher is less excusable than that of a Jesuit.]

[Footnote *: Wilken quotes a remarkable passage of William of
Malmsbury as to the secret motives of Urban and of Bohemond in
urging the crusade. Illud repositius propositum non ita
vulgabatur, quod Boemundi consilio, pene totam Europam in
Asiaticam expeditionem moveret, ut in tanto tumultu omnium
provinciarum facile obaeratis auxiliaribus, et Urbanus Romam et
Boemundus Illyricum et Macedoniam pervaderent. Nam eas terras et
quidquid praeterea a Dyrrachio usque ad Thessalonicam
protenditur, Guiscardus pater, super Alexium acquisierat; ideirco
illas Boemundus suo juri competere clamitabat: inops haereditatis
Apuliae, quam genitor Rogerio, minori filio delegaverat. Wilken,
vol. ii. p. 313. - M]

[Footnote 66: Between the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the River
Barbyses, which is deep in summer, and runs fifteen miles through
a flat meadow. Its communication with Europe and Constantinople
is by the stone bridge of the Blachernoe, which in successive
ages was restored by Justinian and Basil, (Gyllius de Bosphoro
Thracio, l. ii. c. 3. Ducange O. P. Christiana, l. v. c. 2, p,
179.)]

The same arms which threatened Europe might deliver Asia,
and repel the Turks from the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus
and Hellespont. The fair provinces from Nice to Antioch were the
recent patrimony of the Roman emperor; and his ancient and
perpetual claim still embraced the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt.
In his enthusiasm, Alexius indulged, or affected, the ambitious
hope of leading his new allies to subvert the thrones of the
East; but the calmer dictates of reason and temper dissuaded him
from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and
lawless Barbarians. His prudence, or his pride, was content with
extorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity,
and a solemn promise, that they

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