pment_.--The intense
activity of Europe in a common cause could not do otherwise than
stimulate intellectual life. In a measure, it was an emancipation of
mind, the establishment of large and liberal ideas. This freedom of
the mind arose, not so much from any product of thought contributed by
the Orientals to the Christians, although in truth the former were in
many ways far more cultured than the latter, but rather from the
development which comes from observation and travel. A habit of
observing the manners and customs, the government, the laws, the life
of different nations, and the action and reaction of the different
elements of human life, tended to develop intellectual activity. Both
Greek and Mohammedan had their influence on the minds of those with
whom they came in contact, and Christians returned to their former
homes possessed of new information and new ideas, and quickened with
new impulses.

The crusades also furnished material for poetic imagination and for
literary products. It was the development of the old saga hero under
new conditions, those of Christianity and humanity, and this led to
greater and more profound sentiments concerning life. The crusades
also took men out from their narrow surroundings and the belief that
the Christian religion, supported by the monasteries, or cloisters,
embodied all that was worth living in this life and a preparation for a
passage into a newer, happier future life beyond. Humanity, according
to the doctrine of the church, had not been worth the attention of the
thoughtful. Life, as life, was not worth living. But the mingling of
humanity on a broader basis and under new circumstances quickened the
thoughts and sentiments of man in favor of his fellows. It gave an
enlarged view of the life of man as a human creature. There was a
thought engendered, feeble though it was at first, that the life on
earth was really important and that it could be enlarged and broadened
in many ways, and hence it was worth saving here for its own sake. The
culmination of this idea appeared in the period of the Renaissance, a
century later.

{326}

_The Commercial Effects of the Crusades_.--A new opportunity for trade
was offered, luxuries were imported from the East in exchange for money
or for minerals and fish of the West. Cotton, wine, dyestuffs,
glassware, grain, spice, fruits, silk, and jewelry, as well as weapons
and horses, came pouring in from the Orient to enlarg