nish only one horseman with his armour and accoutrements. The engines for the attack and defence of towns were, as in former times, the ram, the balista, catapulta, testudo, &c.

3. Commerce and navigation gradually increased in this age. Charlemagne had his ships of war stationed in the mouths of all the larger rivers. He bestowed great attention on commerce. The merchants of Italy and the south of France traded to the Levant, and exchanged the commodities of Europe and Asia. Venice and Genoa were rising into commercial opulence.

Manufactures were then not unknown. Those of wool, glass, and iron, were cultivated with considerable success in many of the principal towns in the south of Europe.

4. In the laws and manners of the Northern nations, there were some striking peculiarities, as, for instance, the pecuniary fines for homicide, the ordeal or judg. ment of God, and judicial combat

The magistrate interfered not to punish, but to re concile contending parties, and was satisfied, if he could persuade the aggressor to pay, and the injured to accept, the moderate fine which was imposed as the price of blood, and the measure of which was regulated according to the rank, the sex, and the country of the person slain.

In the ordeal or judgment of God, the criminal was ordered, at the option of the judge, to prove his innocence, by the trial of cold water, or boiling water, or red hot iron. He was exposed to drowning, scalding, and burning, in a manner which we should necessarily suppose would be fatal to him; and yet if we were to credit accounts of the experiments made, we should believe that the supposed culprit often escaped without hurt or suffering.

The judicial combat, though sanctioned by high authority, even so late as the last century, in France and England, was a bloody and iniquitous custom, which to this day may be traced in the practice of duelling.

5. For the most part, the state of the Church wa extremely low kuring his period Te darkness and

corruption of the times were so great, that but few enlightened and consistent believers could be found. Christianity was dishonoured both by the principles and practices of its teachers.

All ranks of the clergy were characterized by ambition, voluptuousness and ignorance. Benefices were publicly exposed for sale,o that the lowest and most profligate men often obtained them.

The popes generally extended their temporal authority, and, together with the rest of the clergy, engrossed a share of influence in the administration of civil government, altogether inconsistent with their sacred functions. Ecclesiastics became temporal rulers; and kings, and princes, and nobles, shut themselves up in cloisters, and spent their lives in penances.

The separation of the Greek from the Latin Church took place at this era, a circumstance which severely wounded the popedom, when it seemed to have reached its greatest height. This event was brought about in consequence of a long-standing difference between the Greek and Latin bishops, relating to several points of practice and discipline, but more especially in consequence of the ambition of rival pontiffs.

Apostacies to the Saracen religion took place in considerable numbers, and yet during this period the Gospel was disseminated, and in some instances by very pious missionaries, among the Moesians, Bulgarians, Sclavonians, Russians, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and several other nations and tribes.

PERIOD VI,

THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES

EXTENDS FROM

THE FIRST CRUSADE,

1095 YEARS A. C.

ΤΟ

THE FOUNDING OF THE TURKISH
EMPIRE,

1299 YEARS A. C.

The length of this period is 204 years.

Important Events in Period VX.

This period presents to us six principa

events.

First, the Commencement of the Crusades t the Holy Land:

Second, the Signing of Magna Charta b John, king of England:

Third, the Termination of the Saracen Em pire:

Fourth, the Recovery of Constantinople, by the Greeks:

Fifth, the Conquest of China, under the Mogul Tartars:

Sixth, the Expulsion of the English from Scotland, under William Wallace.

This period, in addition to the general darkness of the middle ages, was marked by some peculiar characteristics, as the passion for pilgrimages, the exploits of chivalry, and the production of romances. The lights of science were very rare, and barbarism and turbu lence reigned over most of the nations.

1. The Commencement of the Crusades to the Holy Land is dated 1095 years A. C. The Crusades were religious wars, waged by Christian Europe, chiefly against the Turks or Mahometans, with a view to recover Palestine from their hands. There were five expeditions of the kind, which, during two centuries, drained from Europe most of its life-blood, and treasures. They failed entirely as to their ultimate object, though some of their results were important.

The Turks, or Turcomans, a race of Tartars, having, in 1055, taken Bagdat, and thus overturned the empire of the caliphs, came into possession of the countries which these caliphs had governed, and the caliphs them selves, instead of temporal monarchs, became sovereign pontiffs of the mahometan faith. Palestine and Jerusalem were, of course, under the sway of the Turks and their religion.

In this situation of things, the resort of pilgrims, to the tomb of our Saviour, was necessarily rendere! vexatious to them-a circumstance, in those superst tious times, of sufficient magnitude to arouse all Eu rc pe for the deliverance of Jerusalem fro n the infidels

The Roman pontiffs were principal instigators of these desperate adventures.

In the first crusade, an army of 80,000 men, led by Peter the hermit, was destroyed; but the army that followed, consisting of several hundred thousands, under Godfrey, had the good fortune to conquer Syria and Palestine, which they held for several years. The crusaders, however, weakened their power by dividing their conquests into four separate states.

In this situation, they found it necessary to solicit aid from Europe, and accordingly another crusade, in 1146, set out from the West, amounting to 200,000 men, under Hugh, brother of the French king. But these met with the same fate which attended the army of Peter. Another army of 300,000 soon followed, and was soon dissipated and destroyed.

In the mean time, the infidels, under Saladin, had recovered Palestine from the christians. Europe felt the indignity, and France, England, and Germany, each sent forth an army, headed by its own sovereign. On the lion-hearted Richard I. of England, the weigh of the contest at length rested, and he defeated the illustrious Saladin, on the plains of Ascalon.

Richard, however, was at length obliged to escape from the East, since hunger and fatigue had so greatly reduced his army, that he was unable to retain his conquests. The fourth crusade, in 1202, was directed not against the infidels, but against the Greek empire. Constantinople was taken, and held by the crusaders, consisting of the French and Venetians, for a number of years. The result we shall soon learn.

The object of the fifth crusade, was to lay waste Egypt, in revenge for an attack on Palestine by its sultan. This expedition was, like the rest, ruinous in the end. The crusades are, by some, thought to have benefited Europe on the whole. But neither their benefits nor their disadvantages can here be mentioned.

2. The Signing of Magna Charta, by John, king of England, took place on the 19th of June, 1215 This Charter is the foundation and