356 MUNRO— THE POPES AND THE CRUSADES. 



"Little, methinks, of all this silver in God's cause is spent: 

 To part with a great treasure priests are ill-content." 



As Walter was a partisan of the Hohenstaufens and opposed to the 

 papacy he might be considered prejudiced. But the same idea was 

 common ; e. g., Matthew Paris, the historiographer of the monastery 

 of St. Albans writes : 



" By divers wiles the Roman curia strove to take their property from the 

 simple people of God, seeking nothing but their gold and silver." 



Thomas Fuller, later, put it bluntly, the pope "got a bag of money 

 by it." All reformers in the Church felt that this wealth had 

 brought corruption in its train and while few realized the part that 

 the crusades had played in bringing in this wealth, many denounced 

 the corruption of the papal curia and its greed for gold. 



Church unity was attained for only a short time. The Greek 

 Empire, for whose aid the First Crusade had been preached, had 

 been brought under the Latin Church, but had been so weakened by 

 the attacks of the crusaders that it could not much longer be " the 

 bulwark of Europe " against Islam. The fall of the Latin Empire 

 of Constantinople led to the return of the Greek patriarch. Heresy 

 and opposition to the Church spread in the West. There was a 

 marked decline in religious fervor ; interest in the next world 

 dwindled as the zest in living the present life increased, because it 

 seemed better worth living. There was a great growth in the use 

 of indulgences and it would be especially interesting to trace out 

 their connection with the privileges of the crusaders. It is not feas- 

 ible here, however, to follow the whole course of events. The facts 

 which have been given are sufficient to show how completely the 

 hopes of the Popes had been frustrated. If we weigh all the evi- 

 dence we see the manifold ways in which the crusades affected the 

 power of the Popes and we may well conclude that some roots of 

 the reformation are to be found in them and the Popes' connection 

 with them. 



Princeton University, 

 April, 1916. 



