Part 28

Of all these devices for raising money, that of selling charters to towns had the most important results. From the time of the Norman Conquest the large towns of England, with few exceptions, were considered part of the King's property; the smaller places generally belonged to the great barons.

The citizens of these towns were obliged to pay rent and taxes of various kinds to the King or lord who owned them. These dues were collected by an officer appointed by the King or lord (usually the sheriff), who was bound to obtain a certain sum, whatever more he could get being his own profit. For this reason it was for his interest to exact from every citizen the uttermost penny. London, as we have seen, had secured a considerable degree of liberty through the charter granted to it by William the Conqueror (S107). Every town was now anxious to obtain a similar charter.

The three great objects which the citizens of the towns sought were:

(1) To get the right of paying their taxes directly to the King. (2) To elect their own magistrates. (3) To administer justice in their own courts in accordance with laws made by themselves.

The only way to gain these privileges was to pay for them. Many of the towns were rich, and, if the King or lord needed money, they bargained with him for the favors they desired. When the agreement was made, it was drawn up in Latin and stamped with the King's seal (S154). Then the citizens took it home in triumph and locked it up as the safeguard of their liberties, or at least of some part of them.

Thus, the people of Leicester, in the next reign, purchased from the Earl of Leicester, their feudal lord, the right to decide their own disputes. For this they payed a yearly tax of threepence on every house having a gable on the main street. These concessions may seem small, but they prepared the way for greater ones.

What was still more important, these charters educated the citizens of the day in a knowledge of self-government. The tradesmen and shopkeepers of these towns did much to preserve free speech and equal justice. Richard granted a large number of these town charters, and thus unintentionally made himself a benefactor to the nation.

Rise of Free Towns: By 1216 the most advanced of the English towns had become to a very considerable extent self-governing. See W. Stubbs's "Constitutional History of England."

184. Failure of the Third Crusade.

The object of the Third Crusade (S182) was to drive the Mohammedans from Jerusalem. In this it failed. Richard got as near Jerusalem as the Mount of Olives. When he had climbed to the top, he was told that he could have a full view of the place; but he covered his face with his mantle, saying, "Blessed Lord, let me not see thy holy city, since I may not deliver it from the hands of thine enemies!"

185. Richard taken Prisoner; his Ransom (1194).

On his way home the King fell into the hands of the German Emperor, who held him captive. His brother John (S177), who had remained in England, plotted with Philip of France to keep Richard in prison while he got possession of the throne. It is not certainly known how the news of Richard's captivity reached England. One account relates that it was carried by Blondel, a minstrel who had accompanied the King to Palestine. He, it is said, wandered through Germany in search of his master, singing a song, which he and Richard had composed together, at every castle he came to. One day, as he was thus singing at the foot of a tower, he heard the well-known voice of the King take up the next verse in reply.

Finally, Richard regained his liberty (1194), but to do it he had to raise an enormous ransom. Every Englishman, it was said, was obliged to give a fourth of his personal property, and the priests were forced to strip the churches of their jewels and silver plate.

When the King of France heard that the ransom money had at length been raised, he wrote to John, telling him that his brother was free. "Look out for yourself," said he; "the devil has broken loose." Richard generously pardoned his treacherous brother; and when the King was killed in a war in France (1199) John gained the throne he coveted, but gained it only to disgrace it.

186. Purpose of the Crusades.

Up to the time of the Crusades, the English, when they entered upon Continental wars, had been actuated either by ambition for military glory or desire for conquest. But they undertook the Crusades from motives of religious enthusiasm.

Those who engaged in them fought for an idea. They considered themselves soldiers of the cross. Moved by this feeling, "all Christian believers seemed redy to precipitate themselves in one united body upon Asia" (S182). Thus the Crusades were "the first European event." They gave men something noble to battle for, not only outside their country, but outside their own selfish interests.

Guizot's "History of Civilization."

Richard, as we have seen, was the first English King who took part in them. Before that period England had stood aloof,--"a world by itself." The country was engaged in its own affairs or in its contests with France. Richard's expedition to the Holy Land brought England into the main current of history, so that it was now moved by the same feeling which animated the Continent.

187. The Results of the Crusades: Educational, Social, Political.

From a purely military point of view, the Crusades ended in disastrous failure, for they left the Mohammedans in absolute possession of the Holy Land. Although this is the twentieth century since the birth of Christ, the Mohammedans still continue in that possession. But in spite of their failure these wars brought great good to England. In many respects the civilization of the East was far in advance of the West. One result of the Crusades was to open the eyes of Europe to this fact. When Richard and his followers set out, they looked upon the Mohammedans as barbarians; before they returned, many were ready to acknowledge that the barbarians were chiefly among themselves.

At that time England had few Latin and no Greek scholars. The Saracens or Mohammedans, however, had long been familiar with the classics, and had translated them into their own tongue. Not only did England gain its first knowledge of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle from Mohammedan teachers, but it also received from them the elements of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and astronomy.

This new knowledge gave a great impulse to education, and had a most important influence on the growth of the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, though these institutions did not become prominent until more than a century later.

Had these been the only results, they would still, perhaps, have been worth all the blood and treasure spent by the crusaders in their vain attempts to recover the permanent possession of the sepulcher of Christ; but these were by no means all. The Crusades brought about a social and political revolution. They conferred benefits and removed evils. When they began, the greater part of the inhabitants of western Europe, including England, were chained to the soil (S150). They had neither freedom, property, nor knowledge.

There were in fact but three classes, who really deserved the name of citizens and freemen; these were the churchmen (comprising the clergy, monks, and other ecclesiastics), the nobles, and the inhabitants of certain favored towns. The effect of the Crusades was to increase the number of this last class. We have seen that Richard was compelled, by his need of money, to grant charters conferring local self-government on many towns (SS182, 183). For a similar reason the great nobles often granted the same powers to towns which they controlled. The result was that their immense estates were broken up in some measure. It was from this period, says the historian Gibbon, that the common people (living in these chartered towns) began to acquire political rights, and, what is more, to defend them.

188. Summary.

We may say in closing that the central fact in Richard's reign was his embarking in the Crusades. From them, directly or indirectly, England gained two important advantages: first, a greater degree of political liberty, especially in the case of the towns; secondly, a new intellectual and educational impulse.

John--1199-1216