The history of the Crusades has carried us over nearly two centuries of the history of Europe. But Europe might be said, almost without exaggeration, to have been then in Asia. It was certainly not the scene of any transaction of importance during all that period. The numerous quarrels, both public and private, which had before agitated the several countries, and had constituted all their history, gave way, by mutual consent, as well as by the orders of the church, to the one idea which then reigned supreme among them. Society was thus unconsciously the means of permitting some of those powerful and pacific principles to come into play, which were soon to give it a new destiny. The absence of so many great barons during the time of the Crusades, was a means of enabling the common people, who have hitherto lived as their slaves, to raise themselves in public standing and estimation; while the possessions of many of these barons, by sale or the death of their owners without heirs, reverted to the sovereigns. In this way the power of the people and of royalty advanced together, and both at the expense of the class of nobility. The people were not unwilling to exchange the mastery of inferiors for that of a superior; and the kings, on their part, looked on this rising power of the people with pleasure, as it offered a shield to protect them from the insolence of the nobles. In these circumstances boroughs began to flourish. This was a new element in the progress of civilization. Men who had hitherto skulked in castles, and had sacrificed their liberties and their lives for bread and protection from isolated chiefs, now found that, by a union among themselves, they might secure bread by industry, and protection and liberty by mutual aid. Multitudes, therefore, forsook their feudal subservience to enjoy independent citizenship. Villeins, or laborers, joyfully escaped, to take their place on a footing of equality with freemen; and sovereigns found means to pass a law that if a slave should take refuge, in any of the new cities, and be allowed to remain there unclaimed for a twelvemonth, he had thereby become free, and was henceforth a member of the community. Another improvement which kings were able to introduce about this time was the gradual abolition of minor courts of justice, which barons had previously held in their several domains, and their getting public and universal law administered by judges of their own appointment. Even single combat, the practice most inveterately adhered to of any among the ancient nobles, became less frequent and less honorable. The more revolting and absurd features of it were wholly abolished, though the great absurdity, and indeed the great crime itself, cannot be said to have become totally extinct, even up to our own day, when we recollect that the barbarous practice of duelling is still permitted to exist.