ABEY. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

11

a steamer, and from Ravenna you can go in less thantwo hours; so from Syria to Ferrara in seventeen daysis not incredible. What had been deferred too long,was undertaken at once. The aged hero, FrederickI. (Barbarossa), of forty pitched battles, was theearliest of that third crusade . 1 It is probable thatso excellent an army never left Europe. Some ofthe Moslems make his army six hundred thousand,and his waggons carrying arms and provisionstwenty-five thousand . 2 Much exaggeration cer-tainly; but it shows the opinion. Christian chroni-clers have eighty thousand horse, from every part ofGermany, and fifty thousand foot . 3 Of his cavalry offifty thousand, not one single man but was a com-plete soldier, and either a gentleman, or a healthy,well-built citizen, of good conduct, and indepen-dent. Every private had to furnish a writtendocument, that he had conducted himself well intwo campaigns, and fought at least in one greatbattle.—A letter of recommendation from hisbishop. Recruits to be examined naked by a phy-sician and surgeon; and each, for wealthy, to payone whole year’s revenue, for the poorest of them,three hundred francs to the imperial treasury, as

1 Anspert: 9.—Bib. Crois., iii. 260.

2 Arab. Cbron., 281.

3 Ricobaldus apud Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., vol. ix.—Bib.Crois., ii. 612.