[The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire CHAPTER LX: The Fourth Crusade 12/42
31--33) represents the abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII., the popes and the Latin communion.
The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas is still more vehement.
Yet how calm is the voice of history compared with that of polemics!] The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in the three first expeditions to the Holy Land.
Alexius Comnenus contrived the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel and Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the greatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy was seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of their subjects.
Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which severs and alienates the nations of the globe.
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