XII. PARTI. lenting and merciless fury [e]. It is true, the CENT. Christian kings and princes, who lived in the neighbourhood of these perfecuting barbarians, checked by degrees their impetuous rage, and never ceased to harass and weaken them by hoftilities and incurfions, until at length they fubdued them entirely, and deprived them, by force, both of their independence and their fuperftitions. eaft. II. The writers of this century complain grie- Its fuftervously of the inhuman rage with which the Saracens ings in the perfecuted the Chriftians in the east; nor can we queftion the truth of what they relate on the fubject of this dreadful perfecution. But they pafs over in filence the principal reasons that inflamed the refentment of this fierce people, and voluntarily forget that the Chriftians were the aggreffors in this dreadful war. If we confider the matter with impartiality and candour, the conduct of the Saracens, however barbarous it may have been, will not appear fo furprifing, particularly when we reflect on the provocations they received. In the first place, they had a right, by the laws of war, to repel by force the violent invafion of their country; and the Chriftians could not expect, without being chargeable with the most audacious impudence, that a people whom they attacked with a formidable army, and whom, in the fury of their mifguided zeal, they maffacred without mercy, fhould receive infults with a tame fubmiffion, and give up their lives and poffeffions without refiftance. It muft alfo be confeffed, though with forrow, that the Christians did not content themselves with mak 88. p. cap. [e] Helmold, Chronic. Sclavor. lib. i. xxxiv. cap. xxxv. p. 89. cap. xl. p. 99.-Lindenbrogii Scriptor. Septentrional. p. 195, 196. 201.-Petri Lambecii Res Hamburg. lib. i. P. 23. C 4 ing CENT ing war upon the Mohammedans in order to rescue Jerufalem and the holy fepulchre out of their hands, but carried their brutal fury to the greateft length, difgraced their caufe by the most deteftable crimes, flied the eaftern provinces through which they paffed with fcenes of horror, and made the Saracens feel the terrible effects of their violence and barbarity wherever their arms were fuccefsful. Is it then fo furprising to fee the infidel Saracens committing, by way of reprisal, the fame barbarities that the holy warriors had perpetrated without the leaft provocation? Is there any thing to new and fo extraordinary in this, that a people turally fierce, and exafperated, inorcover, by the calamities of a religious war, carried on against them in contradiction to all the dictates of juftice and humanity, should avenge themfelves upon the Chriftians who refided in Palestine, as profeiling the religion which gave occafion to the war, and attached, of conience, to the caufe of their enemies and invadors? II. The rapid and amazing victories of the Chiz-Khan, emperor of the Tartars, gave hoppy turn to the affairs of the Chriftians northern parts of Afia, near the close of his century. This warlike prince, who was by birth a Mogul, and whofe military exploits rife him in the lift of fame above almost all the commanders either of ancient or modern times, rendered his name formidable throughout ail Afia, whose most flourishing dynasties fell fucceffively before his victorious arms. David, or Ungchan, who according to fome, was the fon, or, as others will have it, the brother, but who was certainly the fucceffor, of the famous Prefter John, and was himself fo called in common difcourfe, was the firft victim that Gen XII. PART 1. ghiz facrificed to his boundless ambition. He in- CENT. vaded his territory, and put to flight his troops in a bloody battle, where David loft, at the fame time, his kingdom and his life [f]. The princes, who governed the Turks, Indians, and the. province of Cathay, fell, in their turn, before the victorious Tartar, and were all either put to death, or rendered tributary; nor did Genghiz ftop here, but proceeding into Perfia, India, and Arabia, he overturned the Saracen dominion in those regions, and fubftituted that of the Tartars in its place [g] From this period the Christian cause loft much of its authority and credit in the provinces that had been ruled by Prefter John and his fucceffor David, and continued to decline and lofe ground until it funk entirely under the weight of oppreffion, and was fucceeded in fome places by the errors of the Mohammedan faith, and in others by the fuperftitions of paganism. We must except, however, in this general account, the kingdom of Tangut, the chief refidence of [f] The Greek, Latin, and Oriental writers are far from being agreed concerning the year in which the emperor of the Tartars attacked and defeated Prefter John. The greater part of the Latin writers place this event in the year 1202, and confequently in the thirteenth century. But Marcus Paulus Venetus (in his book de Regionibus Orientalibus, lib. i. cap. li. lii. liii.) and other hiftorians whofe accounts I have followed as the most probable, place the defeat of this fecond Prefter John in the year 1187. The learned and illuftrious Demetrius Cantemir (in his Pref. ad Hiftor. imperii Ottomanici, p. 45. tom. i. of the French edition) gives an account of this matter different from the two now mentioned, and affirms, upon the authority of the Arabian writers, that Genghiz did not invade the territories of his neighbours before the year 1214. [g] See Petit de la Croix, Hiftoire de Genghiz-Can, p. 12, 121. published in 12mo at Paris in the year 1711.Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. at the article Genghiz-Khan, P. 378.-Affemani Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. iii. part I. p. 101. and 295.-Jean du Plan Carpin, Voyage en Tartarie, ch. v. in the Recueil des Voyages au Nord, tome vii. P. 350. Prefter CENT. Prefter John, in which his pofterity, who perfevered XII. in the profeffion of Christianity, maintained, for a PART I. long time, a certain fort of tributary dominion, which exhibited, indeed, but a faint fhadow of their former grandeur [b]. [b] Affemani Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. iii. part II. P. 500. PART PART II. The INTERNAL HISTORY of the CHURCH, I. CHAPTER I. Concerning the state of letters and philofophy during this century. N CENT. PART II. among the OTWITHSTANDING the decline of the Grecian empire, the calamities in which it was repeatedly, involved, and the frequent revolutions and civil wars that confumed its ftrength, The fate of and were precipitating its ruin, the arts and sciences learning ftill flourished in Greece, and covered with glory. Greeks. fuch as cultivated them with affiduity and fuccefs. This may be ascribed, not only to the liberality of the emperors, and to the extraordinary zeal which the family of the Comneni difcovered for the advancement of learning, but alfo to the provident vigilance of the patriarchs of Conftantinople, who took all poffible measures to prevent the clergy from falling into ignorance and floth, left the Greek church fhould thus be deprived of able champions to defend its cause against the Latins. The learned and ingenious commentaries of Euftathius, bishop of Theffalonica, upon Homer and Dionyfius the Geographer, are fufficient to fhew the diligence and labour that were employed by men of the firft genius in the improvement of claffical erudition, and in the study of antiquity. And if we turn our view towards the various writers who compofed in this century the hiftory of their own times, fuch as Cinnamus, Glycas, Zonaras, Nicephorus, Briennius and others, we fhall find in their productions un doubted |