Disregarding any dim
and lingering legends among the natives, he may then have the honour
of calling Sinai by the name of Mount Higgins, or marking on
a new map the site of Bethlehem with the name of Brownsville.
But King Richard, adventurous as he was, could not experience the full
freshness of this sort of adventure. He was not riding into Asia thus
romantically and at random; indeed he was not riding into Asia at all.
He was riding into Europa Irredenta.
But that is to anticipate what happened later and must be
considered later. I am primarily speaking of the Empire as a pagan
and political matter; and it is easy to see what was the meaning of
the Crusade on the merely pagan and political side. In one sentence,
it meant that Rome had to recover what Byzantium could not keep.
But something further had happened as affecting Rome than anything
that could be understood by a man standing as I have imagined
myself standing, in the official area of Byzantium. When I have
said that the Byzantian civilisation seemed still to be reigning,
I meant a curious impression that, in these Eastern provinces,
though the Empire had been more defeated it has been less disturbed.
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