The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1945]
[Footnote 17: Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom, it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron. Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100, very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont, (p. 15, 16.)]
[Footnote 18: Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk, or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our military ensigns and uniforms.]
[Footnote 19: Bongarsius, who has published the original writers of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.
I. Gesta Francorum.
II. Robertus Monachus.
III. Baldricus.
IV. Raimundus de Agiles.
V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.
VII. Guibertus.
VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,
IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,
(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285 - 333,)
X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,
(tom. vii. p. 664 - 848.)
The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13 - 141,) and most of whose judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773 - 815,) has been transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p. 890 - 912,) is of small value or account.
Note: Several new documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and Wilken. - M.]
So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction, unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both of the East and West, were persuaded of their lawfulness and merit; their arguments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of natural and religious defence, their peculiar title to the Holy Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. ^20
I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has been imputed to the Mahometans,