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Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML Modern Guide
and Reference 1st Edition David Schultz Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): David Schultz, Craig Cook
ISBN(s): 9781590597477, 1590597478
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 11.47 MB
Year: 2007
Language: english
Beginning HTML with
CSS and XHTML
Modern Guide and Reference

■■■

David Schultz and Craig Cook

Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML: Modern Guide and Reference
Copyright © 2007 by David Schultz, Craig Cook
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-747-7
ISBN-10 (pbk): 1-59059-747-8
Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence
of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark
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Contents at a Glance

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

■CHAPTER 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

■CHAPTER 2 XHTML and CSS Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
■CHAPTER 3 Moving A<head> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
■CHAPTER 4 Adding Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
■CHAPTER 5 Using Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
■CHAPTER 6 Linking to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
■CHAPTER 7 Using Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
■CHAPTER 8 Building Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
■CHAPTER 9 Adding Style to Your Documents: CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
■CHAPTER 10 Client-Side Scripting Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
■CHAPTER 11 Putting It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
■APPENDIX A XHTML 1.0 Strict Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
■APPENDIX B Color Names and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
■APPENDIX C Special Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
■APPENDIX D CSS Browser Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

iii
Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

■CHAPTER 1 Getting Started .............................................1

Introducing the Internet and the World Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What Is HTML? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Evolution of HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
One Language, Many Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
One Version, Three Flavors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Validating Your Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Separating Content from Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Working with XHTML and CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Choosing an HTML Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Choosing a Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Hosting Your Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Introducing the URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Components of a URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Absolute and Relative URLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

■CHAPTER 2 XHTML and CSS Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The Parts of Markup: Tags, Elements, and Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Block-Level and Inline Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Nesting Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
White Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Standard Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Adding Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

v
vi ■C O N T E N T S

The XHTML Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

The Doctype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The html Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
And the Rest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Document Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CSS Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Anatomy of a CSS Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CSS Selectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Specificity and the Cascade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Attaching Style Sheets to Your Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Cascade Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
!important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Formatting CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
CSS Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

■CHAPTER 3 Moving A<head> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The head Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

<head> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Supporting Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
<base> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
<link> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
<meta> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
<script> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
<style> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
<title> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

■CHAPTER 4 Adding Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Content and Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

A beautiful <body> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Meaningful Portions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Headings: h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
blockquote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
pre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
 ■C O N T E N T S vii

Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
ul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
ol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
li . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Definition Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
dl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
dt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
dd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Phrase Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
em . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
cite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
dfn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Abbreviations: abbr and acronym . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Revising Documents: del and ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
bdo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Programming: code, kbd, samp, and var . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
br . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
hr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Multipurpose Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
div . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Embedding External Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
param . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Presentational Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
i and b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
big and small . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
tt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
sup and sub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Special Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Styling Content with CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Declaring Base Font Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Styling Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
viii ■C O N T E N T S

■CHAPTER 5 Using Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

How Digital Images Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Web-Friendly Image Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Including Images in Your Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
img . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Images in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Wrapping Text Around an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Background Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Positioning a Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

■CHAPTER 6 Linking to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

The Anchor Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

<a> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Using the <a> Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Linking to Other Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Linking to Non-XHTML Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Linking to E-Mail Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Using an Image As a Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Using IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Adding CSS to the Anchor Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Creating Image Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
<map> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
<area> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

■CHAPTER 7 Using Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

The Basics of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

<table> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
<tr> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
<td> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Coding a Basic Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
<caption> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
<th> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
 ■C O N T E N T S ix

Advanced Use of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

<tbody> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
<thead> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
<tfoot> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
<colgroup> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
<col> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Using CSS to Add Style to Your Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Adding Borders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Aligning Text in a Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Adding Padding to Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Adding Backgrounds to Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

■CHAPTER 8 Building Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

How Forms Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
The Components of a Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
select . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
optgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
textarea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Structuring Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
fieldset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Styling Forms with CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Removing the Border from Field Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Aligning Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Changing the Typeface in Form Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

■CHAPTER 9 Adding Style to Your Documents: CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Using External Style Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Units of Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
x ■C O N T E N T S

Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Container Sizing and Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Positioning a Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Backgrounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Styling Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Media Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

■CHAPTER 10 Client-Side Scripting Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

What Is Scripting? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Placement of JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
JavaScript, the Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
JavaScript Syntax Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Operators and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Looping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Advanced Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Handling Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
The DOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Form Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

■CHAPTER 11 Putting It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Introducing Our Case Study: Spaghetti & Cruft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
The Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Step 1: Defining Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Step 2: Contemplating Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Step 3: Arranging the Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Step 4: Creating the Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Step 5: Assembling the Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Step 6: Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
 ■C O N T E N T S xi

Building Spaghetti & Cruft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Setting Up the Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Marking Up the Masthead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Marking Up the Main Content Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Marking Up the Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Marking Up the Tag Line and Footer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
The Completed Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Designing Spaghetti & Cruft with CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Styling the Page Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Styling the Masthead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Laying Out the Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Styling the Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Styling the Footer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Assembling the Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
The Menu Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
The Reviews Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
The Contact Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

■APPENDIX A XHTML 1.0 Strict Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

■APPENDIX B Color Names and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

■APPENDIX C Special Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

■APPENDIX D CSS Browser Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Foreword

I n 1999, I bought a book about the web. This brave and still relatively new world had
caught my interest, and the pocket-sized Rough Guide to the Internet featured four or so
pages of rudimentary HTML. After about three hours I had built a web page and linked to
another one. This first web page looked awful, but I was excited. Later that day I somehow
managed to upload it to a domain, and I realized I had created a website—an actual website.
So naïve was I back then that I assumed I’d need to leave my home computer on in
order for other web users to see my pages! How amazed I was at work the next day when I
successfully called my little website up in front of the boss.
So, I decided to buy another book, called Learn HTML in a Weekend. It was a very long
weekend. This and other preliminary books taught me a lot, but much of it badly; my code was
littered with font tags, frames, and tables for layout. CSS had not really taken hold back then.
In the beginning, we used HTML to do all the hard work because we didn’t know any
better. This difficult, limiting, and weighty approach to building websites was born out of
HTML’s generosity, it being a rich language with early specifications offering rather too
much scope for abuse. I can accept that now, but I’m unsure why so many recent books
still preoccupy the reader with ill-advised and outdated techniques that can be achieved
much better and more easily with web standards.
I care about how people learn to build websites, and I know it can be impenetrable for
beginners. Equally, I worry that many professionals are still ripping off clients with shoddy
workmanship. This is why I’m so happy to introduce this book. David Schultz and Craig Cook
understand that building websites is a craft, and with Beginning HTML with CSS and
XHTML: Modern Guide and Reference they bring you years of experience condensed into
an enjoyable, carefully structured reference focused on responsible, powerful HTML,
CSS, XHTML and even JavaScript—the perfect introductory package.
You’ll find a wealth of practical examples that you can actually use. As a stickler for
top-notch code, I’m especially impressed that everything within validates as HTML Strict
(which you’ll learn more about soon) and that David and Craig have ensured all methods
work cross-browser and will stand up to whatever twists and turns the Internet takes next.
You are embarking upon a great adventure, but you have in your hands the best possible
map and two expert guides to hold your hand. Soon you’ll reach your destination and will
be waxing lyrical to anyone who’ll listen about your grasp of web standards, wondering
why the old boys still work with their outdated methods. Mighty explorers, this book will
tell you all you need to know.
Simon Collison
Author of Beginning CSS Web Development, Apress 2006
xiii
About the Authors

■DAVID SCHULTZ is an IT team leader for a major national retailer. He

has more than 15 years of IT experience in various positions using
several different platforms and computer languages. He has a
bachelor of science degree in management information systems
from Oakland University located in Rochester, Michigan. His
interest in computers started when he received his first computer,
a Commodore 64, back in the 1980s. Today, his preference is to
work with Microsoft’s ASP.NET platform. David has been a technical reviewer on many
books from several publishers. He is also an author, reviewer, and editor for the www.
ASPToday.com website. In his spare time, he enjoys family time, video games, pinball,
and movies.

■CRAIG COOK has been designing and building websites since 1998,
though he still silently harbors the aspiration to draw comic books.
His background is in traditional graphic design, and he has a degree
in commercial graphics from Pittsburg State University (Kansas).
Although he spent years learning how to make ink stick to paper, he
soon fell in love with the web, and the affair continues to this day.
In addition to his passions for design and technology, Craig has an
affinity for science-fiction novels, zombie movies, and black T-shirts. He occasionally
muses on these subjects and others at his personal website, www.focalcurve.com. Craig
lives and works near San Francisco.

xv
About the Technical Reviewer

■GEZ LEMON works as an accessibility consultant for TPG. A keen accessibility advocate, Gez
participates in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and is a member
of the Web Standards Project’s Accessibility Task Force. In his spare time, Gez talks about
accessibility issues on his blog, Juicy Studio.

xvii
Acknowledgments

W riting a book is no small task. Although the authors’ names go on the cover and they
get most of the credit, tons of people behind the scenes at Apress really make it happen. In
particular, I want to thank Chris Mills for approaching me and keeping me enthused about
the project throughout the life cycle. A ton of thanks goes to the technical editor, Gez Lemon,
for keeping me to the standards and providing really great feedback. Elizabeth Seymour
and Richard Dal Porto did a great job of keeping me on track and getting me through the
tedious process. Thanks to the Apress production team for making all those last-minute
changes and doing the magic that brings a manuscript to print. I also want to thank my
coauthor, Craig Cook, for the ideas and contributions he made to the book, which are all
much appreciated.
Finally, I would have never been able to complete this long journey without the under-
standing and support of my family—my wife, Kim, and my children, Justin, Jessica, and
Crystal.
David Schultz

I must first thank all of the authors, artists, designers, coders, bloggers, evangelists, and
gurus on whose shoulders I stand. I’ve been inspired and guided by the work and teachings of
John Allsopp, Douglas Bowman, Andy Budd, Dan Cederholm, Tantek Çelik, Joe Clark,
Andy Clarke, Simon Collison, Derek Featherstone, Aaron Gustafson, Christian Heilmann,
Jon Hicks, Molly Holzschlag, Shaun Inman, Roger Johansson, Jeremy Keith, Ian Lloyd,
Scott McCloud, Eric Meyer, Cameron Moll, Keith Robinson, Richard Rutter, Dave Shea,
Jeffrey Zeldman . . . and many others equally deserving of being name dropped, but I’m
trying to keep this to one page.
I should also extend gratitude to all the daily-grinders and cubicle-dwellers who strive
to build a better web—not for riches and adoration but simply because they love what they
do and care about doing it right. To everyone who has embraced web standards and accessi-
bility, furthering the cause in your own subtle ways and reclaiming the earth that was
scorched by the dark Browser Wars: you’re making the web a better place to live. Take a bow.
Many kind thanks to everyone who contributed to making this book an eventual reality:
to Chris Mills, for sharing barbecued brisket and asking me to participate in this project; to
Gez Lemon, for pointing out my mistakes and oversights with gently brutal honesty; to
David Schultz, my coauthor, for doing so much of the hard work; to Elizabeth Seymour,
Richard Dal Porto, Grace Wong, Nicole Abramowitz, Kim Wimpsett, Laura Esterman, and

xix
xx ■A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

everyone else at Apress, for their patience with my often-sluggish pace throughout this
entire process.
Special thanks must be given to my friends Jolene, Jannyce, and Bill. They were the
readers I imagined I was writing for whenever I struggled to find the right words. I hope I
succeeded.
I’m endlessly grateful of my parents, R.L. and Beverly, for instilling me with a desire to
learn, a passion to create, and a compulsion to instruct.

Craig Cook
Introduction

T he World Wide Web has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. Since its
debut in the early 1990s, the web has quickly evolved from an esoteric collection of academic
papers into a fully fledged and pervasive medium, an equal to print, radio, and television.
The web is a vast repository of information on every subject imaginable, from astrophysics
and ancient philosophy to the care and feeding of hermit crabs. It has become an integral
part of many people’s daily lives and is the platform for many aspects of modern business
and commerce. But at its heart, the web is still just a way to share documents.
This book will show you how to create documents of your own so you can share them
on the web. You’ll become intimately familiar with the rules and constructs of HyperText
Markup Language (HTML), the computer language the web is built on. It’s a simple language,
and the basic rules are easy to pick up and put to use. HTML is a tool, and once you know
how to use it, you’re limited only by your imagination.
Not very long ago, parts of HTML were frequently misused, and the rules were largely
ignored—because we had no other choice or simply didn’t know any better. But the web
has matured a lot in the last few years, and we’ve since learned that sometimes following
the rules really is the best approach. Unfortunately, many of the outdated methods that
came about during the web’s unruly, rebellious youth are still in common practice today.
This book will help you avoid the mistakes of the past and build a better web for the future.
You’ll learn how to use HTML effectively and responsibly and to make your web documents
clean, meaningful, and accessible to as many people and devices as possible.
If you’ve been around the web for a little while, you’ve likely heard about Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS), and you may be curious about just what they are. In a nutshell, CSS is a
language that describes how web documents should be visually presented. It’s very powerful
and flexible and is also pretty dang cool. However, CSS is a rich, complex language in its
own right, and we can’t possibly cover every facet of it in these pages. But as you’ll soon
see, CSS is directly connected to HTML, and you’ll first need to understand markup before
you can put CSS to good use. This book will introduce you to CSS and offer many practical
examples of how you can use it. We’ll give you the solid grounding in HTML you’ll need as
a starting point to delve deeper into the art and craft of designing web pages with CSS.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for anyone interested in learning how to build web pages from the ground up
using modern best practices. We assume you’re familiar with the Internet and the World
xxi
xxii ■I N T R O D U C T I O N

Wide Web, and you probably wouldn’t pick up a book with “HTML” in the title unless
you’d at least heard of it. Beyond that, we don’t assume any prior knowledge of web design
or computer programming. As you advance through this book, the topics get a little more
advanced as well. But fear not: this is a book for beginners, and we’ll walk you through the
tough parts.
Even if you’re not a beginner, this may be well worth a read. Only a few short years ago,
the common approach to building web pages was very different from how things are done
today. A lot has changed in recent times, so if you’re a more experienced web developer
looking to get back to basics and see what all this “semantic XHTML and CSS” mumbo-
jumbo is about, this is the book for you.

How This Book Is Structured

Here we present a brief road map of where this book is going to take you. The first two
chapters lead you through the bare essentials you’ll need to start creating your own web
documents. Throughout the bulk of this book, Chapters 3 through 10, you’ll dig into different
subject areas within HTML and XHTML, becoming familiar with all of the different elements
at your disposal. Along the way, you’ll also see examples of some of the many CSS tech-
niques you might use to visually design your pages. We finish up with Chapter 11, where
you’ll see a case study that takes much of what you’ve learned throughout the previous
chapters and puts it together into a functional website, built from scratch with XHTML
and CSS.

• Chapter 1, “Getting Started,” takes a high-level view of how the web works and what
you’ll need in order to create your own XHTML documents.

• Chapter 2, “XHTML and CSS Basics,” presents the basic syntax and rules to follow
when you assemble web documents and style sheets, laying the foundation for the
rest of the book.

• Chapter 3, “Moving A<head>,” introduces the document’s head element, explaining

why it’s so important and showing you the different components you can place
within it.

• Chapter 4, “Adding Content,” explores how you’ll add content to your documents
and give your text a stable, meaningful structure.

• Chapter 5, “Using Images,” describes how you can add pictures to your web pages
for meaningful communication as well as decoration.
 ■I N T R O D U C T I O N xxiii

• Chapter 6, “Linking to the Web,” looks at how you can include links in your docu-
ments that point to other documents, either within your own site or elsewhere on
the Internet.

• Chapter 7, “Using Tables,” shows you how to structure complex data in tables,
organizing related information in sets of connected rows and columns.

• Chapter 8, “Building Forms,” will show you how to create forms that allow your
visitors to input their own information and interact with your website.

• Chapter 9, “Adding Style to Your Documents: CSS,” dives deeper into the use of CSS,
covering a few of the more advanced topics you’ll need to understand when you
visually style your web pages.

• Chapter 10, “Client-Side Scripting Basics,” outlines the basics of the JavaScript
language, which you can use to make your web pages more dynamic and interactive.

• Chapter 11, “Putting It All Together,” puts the topics discussed throughout the book
to use, taking you step-by-step through the creation of a functioning website.

At the back of the book, you’ll find four appendixes for your reference. In order, they
cover XHTML 1.0 Strict, color names and values, special characters, and CSS browser
support.

Conventions Used in This Book

Throughout this book, we’ll provide numerous examples of XHTML and CSS coding. Most
of these examples appear in numbered listings, separated from the regular text. They look
something like Listing 1.

Listing 1. An Example Code Listing

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<title>Just an Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, world!</p>
</body>
</html>
xxiv ■I N T R O D U C T I O N

Sometimes a line of code is too long to fit within the limited width of a printed page, and
we’re forced to wrap it to a second line. When that happens, we’ll use the symbol ➥ to let
you know a line is wrapped only to fit the page layout; the real code would appear on a
single line.
We’ll occasionally add notes, tips, and cautions that relate to the section you’ve just
read. They appear distinct from the main text, like so:

■Tip Don’t overlook these extra tidbits. They’re relevant to the current topic and deserve some special attention.

We may also sometimes wander off on a slight tangent that isn’t really part of the topic
at hand but is still important information you should know. To keep things flowing
smoothly, we’ll place such supplemental information in sidebars, which look like this:

SIDEBARS

Sidebars offer extra information, exploring a related topic in more depth without derailing the main
topic. The term sidebar comes from magazine and newspaper publishing, where these sorts of
accompanying stories are often printed in another column alongside the main article.

Downloading the Code

All the markup and CSS you’ll see in this book is available for download in the Source
Code/Download section of the Apress website (http://www.apress.com). Once you’ve
downloaded and unzipped the file, you’ll find each chapter’s source code in a separate
folder; you can pick it apart and refer to it at your leisure. You can also find the source code
at this book’s companion website, http://www.beginninghtmlbook.com.

Contacting the Authors

You can contact David Schultz through e-mail at david.schultz@apress.com.
You can reach Craig Cook through his website at http://www.focalcurve.com.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
the realm. In 1230 a Polish prince made use of their zeal and arms,
which could no longer be employed in the Holy Land, by despatching
them on a mission to subjugate and convert the Prussians, a people
who have since become so closely identified with the Germans
settled in the country as to be no longer distinguishable from them.
It was this idolatrous people, established between the Niemen and
the Vistula, whose language, history, and religion have now
completely disappeared, that gave its name to one of the largest and
most prosperous states of modern Europe.
The Teutonic order took up its station first at Kulm, whence it
proceeded to conquer the Prussians by the use of the means
employed by Charlemagne against the Saxons; that is, by destroying
one portion of the population and then building fortresses to contain
the rest. It was this purpose that Königsberg and Marienburg were
intended to serve.
Several years earlier a prelate of Livonia had founded the order of
the Brothers of the Sword, known still as the knights of Christ, and
the body of the sword-bearers, which subdued Livonia and Esthonia.
Disputes with the bishops of Riga caused these organisations to
unite in 1237 with the Teutonic order, whose forces were thus
doubled. Marienburg became the capital of the order in 1309, and its
grand-masters, who reigned over Prussia, Esthonia, Livonia, and
Courland, caused these countries to hold communion with the rest of
Europe, and planted in them the germs of civilisation. They remain
to-day the richest and most progressive of the Russian provinces. As
late as the fifteenth century the Teutonic knights retained the
preponderance of power in northern Europe, all the countries
between the lower Vistula and Lake Peipus being subject to them
except Samogitia, a Lithuanian province which separated the original
possessions of the two orders.

THE ATTACK ON THE ALBIGENSES

The crusade directed by Simon de Montfort against the

populations of the south of France was at first most disastrous in its
 effects. During all the time that Christian
[1167-1208 a.d.] warriors were being sent out to do battle with
miscreants at the opposite end of the
Mediterranean Sea, many infidels were awaiting conversion in the
very heart of Europe. Not the Jews, who had furnished the first
cause for the Crusades in the fury with which they inspired their
early persecutors, but the mixed populations in the south of France,
composed of Iberians, Gauls, Romans, Goths, and Moors, whose
religious beliefs were far removed from orthodoxy. Just what name
to give to their heresy it is hard to decide; even contemporaries
were at a loss in this respect since they called the people simply
Albigenses, from the town Albi, which was their common centre.
One thing only is certain—that in 1167 a council was held near
Toulouse, presided over by Nicetas, a Greek from Constantinople, at
which many oriental ideas were adopted; it has also been asserted
that ecclesiastics were treated with scorn in every part of the land,
and even St. Bernard himself was received there with derision. From
this centre of heresy missionaries were sent out in every direction,
and already unseemly doctrines were making themselves known in
Flanders, Germany, England, and even in Italy, while recently bands
of marauders had spread out in the direction of Auvergne, pillaging
churches and profaning sacred objects.
Among the rich and brilliant cities of the south the most important
was Toulouse, where resided Count Raymond VI, one of the greatest
nobles of the south. Another prominent house was that of
Barcelona, which had lately obtained rule over Aragon and
possessed Roussillon and Provence; there were further the proud
and adventurous nobles of the Pyrenees, who lived free and
independent lives, and owed not the least allegiance to either church
or king.
The south of France had long been separated from the north.
Having other customs and speaking a different tongue, it had made
serious efforts under Dagobert, Charles Martel, Pepin, Charlemagne,
Charles the Bald, and Hugh Capet, to constitute itself an
independent state. Increase in commerce had brought ease to its
citizens and affluence to its nobles, and the two classes united in
peace and harmony to discharge municipal duties, thus assuring the
peace of the whole community. But in those wealthy cities and
brilliant courts, made gay by the songs of troubadours, religious
doctrines were accorded scant attention, and heresy leaked in from
every side.
The all-powerful Innocent III resolved to stamp out this hotbed of
impiety that threatened to spread contagion far and wide. He began
by organising the Inquisition, which was to seek out and judge
heretics, and countless victims were immolated without in any way
lessening the number of unbelievers, the rack and the stake being
but indifferent demonstrators of the truth. The pope next sent to
Raymond VI his legate, the monk Peter of Castelnau, with the
demand that the heretics be immediately expulsed. But the heretics
formed the main body of the population, and Castelnau
accomplished nothing. Raymond was excommunicated and
threatened with eternal fires, and the legate was murdered during
his passage back over the Rhone (1208).
“Anathema on the count of Toulouse,” cried
[1208-1228 a.d.] the pope, “and remission of sins to all who will
take up arms against these pestilent inhabitants
of Provence! Forward, soldiers of Christ! let the heretics be wiped
out, and colonies of Catholics spring up where their cities now
stand!”
The doctrine of extermination was preached by all the organs of
the pope: and the duke of Burgundy, the counts of Nevers, Auxerre,
Geneva, the bishops of Rheims, Sens, Rouen, Autun, with many
Germans and inhabitants of Lorraine, massed forces, and set out on
the crusade. Three armies made irruption into the south of France,
headed by Simon de Montfort, a feudal lord of the environs of Paris,
ambitious, fanatical, and cruel. The count of Toulouse was not
immediately attacked, the pope hoping to weaken his resistance by
appearing ready to extend a pardon, and hostilities were all directed
against the viscount of Béziers. When the latter’s town was taken,
the victors, not being able to distinguish the heretics, hesitated
whom to strike. “Kill all,” said the legate, “God will easily recognise
his own.” Thirty thousand are said to have perished. Carcassonne
also succumbed, and the knights of the Ile de France divided up the
country under Simon de Montfort, who was made suzerain over all.
Raymond hoped to be spared, now that so sanguinary a sacrifice
had been offered up on the altar of orthodoxy, and Innocent himself
was inclined to clemency, but the legates were without pity; they
would extend mercy to the count only on condition that he should
cause all his subjects to don the garb of penitents, degrade his
nobles to the state of villeins, discharge his hired troops, raze his
castles to the ground, and himself start on a crusade.
The count laughed at these proposals, and again the legates gave
the signal for attack. There flocked to the banner of Simon de
Montfort a multitude from the north, rejoicing that the highly
profitable campaign in the south was not yet at an end. Raymond VI
was vanquished at Castelnaudry, and the victors divided up his
domains among themselves: to the prelates fell the bishoprics, and
to the soldiers the fiefs. The defeated noble had no resource but to
seek the protection of Pedro II, king of Aragon, who at once
advanced to the rescue, and was joined by all the petty nobles of
the Pyrenees, being looked upon by them as their chief.
The battle of Muret, in which the king perished, decided the fate
of the south of France (1213). Two years afterward the Council of
Lateran ratified the dispossession of Raymond and of most of the
other nobles; the legates of the holy see offered their fiefs to the
powerful barons who had participated in the crusade; but all save
Simon de Montfort refused to accept gifts bought at the price of so
much bloodshed. A harsh measure was passed, forbidding widows of
heretics who possessed noble fiefs to marry any but Frenchmen
during the next ten years. In the grasp of hands so ruthless the
civilisation of southern France perished, and all gaiety and poesy
disappeared. Innocent III, meanwhile, began to be troubled, fearing
to have committed a great iniquity. “Give me back my lands,” the
count de Foix said to him, “or I shall claim all of you—property,
rights, and heritage, on the Day of Judgment.” “I acknowledge,”
answered the pope, “that great wrong has been done you; but it
was not done by my order, and I owe no thanks to those who are
responsible.”
In their extremity the people of Languedoc bethought themselves
of the king of France. Montpellier gave itself up to him, and Philip
Augustus sent his son Louis to plant the national standard in the
south of France. Louis returned thither at the death of Simon de
Montfort, who was killed before Toulouse—whither Raymond VII,
son of the old count, had also returned; and Montfort’s successor,
Amaury, offered to cede to the king his father’s conquered
possessions, which he could no longer defend against the
reprobation of the people. Philip, at that time on the brink of the
grave, refused the offer, but five years later it was accepted.

WESTERN ASSAULTS ON THE ARABS

Before, during, and after the great Crusades

[732-1096 a.d.] which had the Orient for their scene of action
and all the peoples of Europe for their
personages, there was being carried on in the West another and
smaller undertaking of a similar nature, which won nothing like the
renown attending the greater expeditions, but which displayed a
tenacity of purpose that kept it in operation during at least eight
centuries. When Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref expelled the Arabs
from France they simply drove them to the other side of the
Pyrenees, seeming to look upon that strong mountain barrier as the
confine of Europe and Christianity. Spain was a country to be
sacrificed, to be delivered over with Africa to the Moslem races by
which it had been invaded. Spain had been Christian, however,
before the invasion, and the mass of the people remained so after,
by no means all having been subjected. Outside the conquered
districts there remained a point where the sacred thought of
independence could find safe harbour, and this point was gradually
to expand until it formed the nucleus of a new Christian domination.
The weakening of the power of the Cordovan caliphate in its
northern provinces, as a result of the revolt of the Beni Hassan in
864, was singularly favourable to the development of the small
Christian states. The tenth century, however, did not continue to
bring uninterrupted good fortune to the Christian states. While
discords were beginning to creep in among their own number, the
caliphate was restored by Abd ar-Rahman III, and the adroit Al-
Mansur under Hisham II. The terrible defeat suffered by the
Christians at Simancas in 940, the overthrow of Sancho the Great by
the count of Castile who declared himself independent, and the
subsequent reinstatement of Sancho by Abd ar-Rahman, reveal the
kingdom of Leon as having fallen into a state of demoralisation so
deep that even its enemies had power to dispose of the throne. Al-
Mansur also weighed upon the Christians with a ruthless hand. In
997 he found himself master of all the lands the Christians had
conquered south of the Douro and the Ebro. When he came to be
defeated himself, however, at Calatanazar, near the source of the
Douro, his chagrin was so great that he allowed himself to die by
starvation, and in him perished the mainstay of the caliphate (998).
We have seen at another point in this history that during the
eleventh century the Spanish Arabs fell into complete dissolution;
the Christian states, on the other hand, grew into closer and closer
union by means of frequent intermarriages and increased trade
relations. This process of unification and internal adjustment, as well
as the necessity of closing all the gaps left open by the sword of Al-
Mansur, held in check the holy war for a period of nearly a century.
At the end of that time it was resumed with greater brilliancy and
success than before.
Not alone by reason of the fortunate alliances he was able to
make did Sancho II merit the title of Great; greatness was to be
achieved in Spain mainly by warring upon infidels, and many were
the engagements during which the Moors were made to feel the
might of his sword. Not content to rest here, he carried his victorious
arms, in the intervals of preparing the substitution of the Christian
dynasty of Aznar for that of Pelayo, into the heart of the Moslem
country to the very walls of Cordova.
At Sancho’s death Spain was divided into four
[1072-1146 a.d.] kingdoms. But Alfonso VI reunited Castile and
Leon in 1072, and resumed in Spain the holy
war which had been made extremely popular in Europe by the
preparations for the First Crusade. The news of the Christian
reverses in Jerusalem, and also the growing influence of the holy
see, had a powerful effect on Spain. It was the desire of Gregory VII
to bring under his domination the Spanish Christian states which had
hitherto enjoyed complete religious independence, and in case of
their failure to yield it was feared that some day he would arm all
Christianity against them.
Always characterised by boundless presumption, Gregory VII
demanded of Alfonso VI that he pay him tribute, on the pretext that
all lands taken from the infidels were by right the property of the
church. Alfonso refused. Then Gregory fell back on another point,
the adoption by the Spanish Christians of the Roman instead of the
Gothic or Muzarabic ritual to which they had been used. Eventually
Alfonso adopted the Roman ritual. Henceforth complete communion
was held with Rome by the Spanish people which eventually became
the most pronouncedly Catholic, if not always the most submissive
to the holy see, of all the races of the earth.
Ferdinand I had profited by the divisions existing among the petty
Arab sovereigns to wrest from them many of their possessions. He
took Viseu, Lamego, Coimbra, and made the king of Toledo pay him
tribute. In 1085 Alfonso VI was even more successful, gaining
possession of the entire kingdom. Toledo, formerly the capital and
metropolis of the Goths, became once more an important centre;
and its restoration marks the fourth stage of the progress of the
Christians from the Asturias, where they began their onward march,
to the heart of the peninsula, where they were to take up a firm
position behind the barrier of the Tagus.
Five years later the Capetian, Henri de Bourgogne, great-grandson
of Robert king of France, who had distinguished himself at the
conquest of Toledo, took at the mouth of the Douro, Porto Cale,
which Alfonso raised to importance by making it the countship of
Portugal. Simultaneously with this the famous Cid, Rodrigo de Bivar,
the hero of Spanish chivalry and romance, achieved victory after
victory along the coast of the Mediterranean, the most important of
which was the conquest of Valencia (1094). Finally in 1118 Alfonso I,
king of Aragon, won for himself a capital after the manner of the
king of Castile, by taking possession of Saragossa, where a Moslem
dynasty had long been in power. Thus the Christian invasion, divided
like an army into three columns, was steadily advancing across the
peninsula, one column in the centre, one in the east and one in the
west.
In the centre progress was suddenly arrested, and was later
checked along all the lines by unforeseen obstacles which the
Christians were unable to surmount until after the lapse of nearly a
century. Two new Moslem hordes poured in upon the land, surprising
the Spanish conquerors in the midst of their belief that the sources
of these invading tides had long since been exhausted. The
Almoravids, and after them the Almohads, swarmed out of Africa
and revived in the Moslem provinces of Spain the ancient faith of
Islam. The names of these two sects signify, respectively, “close
alliance with the faith,” and “Unitarians.” The Almoravids steadily
increased their power and the extent of their dominion. At the death
of the Cid (1099) they retook Valencia, gained possession of the
Balearic Isles, and in 1108 won, in a battle as sanguinary and hard-
fought as that of Zallaka, a signal victory over Alfonso VI. The
Christians asked themselves in alarm if Spain, but half reconquered,
was about to be wrested from them again.
As the result showed, their fears were groundless. Toledo,
repeatedly besieged, defended itself with victorious energy; and the
little earldom of Portugal not only successfully resisted attack, but
itself took several towns and drove the invaders back whence they
had come.
The invasion of the Almohads was similar in
[1146-1270 a.d.] its effects to that of the Almoravids, which it
immediately succeeded. The leader, Abdul-
Mumin, began hostilities by laying siege to Fez, which he took in
1146; the same year he led his followers into Spain. As before, it
was Castile that had to bear the heaviest shock of the invasion, and
at the battle of Alarcon (1195) Alfonso VIII was badly defeated.
Portugal, on the other hand, maintained its superiority and placed a
decided check upon the invaders at Santerem (1184). The
advancement made by Aragon and Portugal caused the thirteenth
century to open gloriously for Spain in its struggles against the
Moslems. It had, moreover, been given a second powerful
instrument with which to achieve victory in the four military bodies
organised in the twelfth century expressly for the Spanish Crusade,
without prejudice to the great Holy Land crusaders who also took
part—the orders of Alcantara, of Calatrava, and of St. James in
Castile, and of Evora in Portugal.
In the year 1210 the news was spread throughout all Christendom
that four hundred thousand Almohads had crossed the Strait of
Gibraltar. Though deeply engaged in the war against the Albigenses,
Pope Innocent III could not contemplate the danger thus announced
without calling upon all Europe to succour Spain. Public prayers were
ordered and indulgence promised to all who would volunteer to fight
in the peninsula. The five Christian kings of Leon and Castile,
temporarily separated at the time, joined their forces and marched
against Muhammed, the fanatical leader of the Almohads. The
encounter took place at Alacab, on the plateau of the Sierra Morena,
according to the Arabs; at Las Navas de Tolosa, according to the
Christians. After an obstinately contested battle the flight of the
Andalusians decided the day in favour of the Christians. Muhammed,
who had stationed himself on a height amid the serried ranks of his
African guard, holding the Koran in one hand and his sword in the
other, looked on in undisturbed passivity while his followers suffered
the most terrible defeat. “God alone,” he said, “is just and powerful,
the demon is without truth or greatness.” Muhammed was at last
compelled to take flight on a swift courser of the desert, which
carried him far from his enemies. This battle was decisive in the
struggles between the Christians and the infidels. The Almoravids
and Almohads once definitely repulsed, there rose up in Africa no
more defenders of the Moslem faith sufficiently powerful to restore
its dominion in Spain.
During the whole of the thirteenth century the Christians reaped
the fruits of their victory, which was rendered the more complete by
the anarchy that prevailed among all ranks of the Almohads.
Cordova (1236), Seville (1266), and many other places fell into the
hands of the king of Castile, while James I, king of Aragon, brought
the Balearic Isles under subjection, and at the head of eighty
thousand French and Spanish troops retook Valencia (1238).
Portugal reached its limit of expansion when in 1270 it united the
provinces of Algarve, and the outlines it then assumed have never
since been changed. The Moors now possessed only the little
kingdom of Granada, that was hemmed in on all sides by the sea
and the domains of the king of Castile. Yet even in this confined
space, their numbers swelled by the refugees that fled to them from
the cities captured by the Christians, they contrived to maintain a
power that staved off their ultimate downfall for a period of two
hundred years. Save to repel certain incursions on the part of the
Merinids of Maghreb which never seriously endangered their
conquered possessions, the Christians had now no military
operations to carry on; hence the crusade in Spain was practically
suspended until a later date, 1492.

COMPARISON OF THE TWO CRUSADES

The crusade to Jerusalem had undoubtedly brought forth general

results to civilisation, but its particular aim had not been
accomplished. It founded no important institutions in the Orient; it
did not even succeed in delivering the Holy Sepulchre, and millions
of men had left their bones along its route. The crusade in Spain, on
the other hand, while it bore no consequences to the social
conditions of Europe in the Middle Ages, changed the whole face of
Spain and reacted powerfully upon the Europe of modern times. It
took the peninsula away from the Moors and gave it to the
Christians; it brought into being the little kingdom of Portugal which,
carrying on a crusade of its own beyond seas, discovered the Cape
of Good Hope; and it made great states of Aragon and Castile,
whose kings were inspired with European ambitions by their victories
in Spain, and whose inhabitants gained, in the eight centuries of
warfare, military customs and knowledge which made of them the
condottieri of Charles V and Philip II, not the peaceful and
industrious heirs of the commerce and brilliant civilisation of the
Moors.
There was still another point. What was the cause of this
difference between the two crusades? Jerusalem, situated far from
the centre of Catholic denomination, remained in the hands of the
Moslems, by whom it was surrounded, for precisely the same reason
that Toledo, situated at the limit of their zone of occupation, escaped
them to become the possession of the nearby Christians. The whole
matter was simply a question of distance. Palestine bordered on the
territory of Mecca, as Spain lay in full view of Rome. Geographical
relationship is a powerful factor, even in matters that seem to come
the least under its influence—the theories and doctrines of religion.e

FOOTNOTES

[73] It was very seldom that the Christians thought of

converting the Mussulmans. When the sword failed, then they
resorted to arguments. The occasion will excuse us from
departing from chronological order, and saying, that in the year
1285, Pope Honorius IV in his design to convert the Saracens to
Christianity, wished to establish schools at Paris for the tuition of
people in the Arabic and other oriental languages, agreeably to
the intentions of his predecessors. In every subsequent project
for a crusade, it was always proposed to instruct the Saracens
sword in hand. The Council of Vienne in 1312 recommended the
conversion of the infidels, and the re-establishment of schools, as
the way to recover the Holy Land. It was accordingly ordered that
there should be professors of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic
tongues in Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca; and
that the learned should translate into Latin the best Arabic books.
It was not till the time of Francis I that this decree was acted
upon. He founded the royal college, and sent even into the East
for books.
[74] The oriental chronicle says that the French lost in this
defeat, besides the brother of the king, fourteen hundred knights.

[75] De Joinvillef quotes the Saracens as saying that “if

Mohammed had allowed them to suffer the manifold evils that
God had caused the king to undergo, they would never have had
any confidence in him, nor paid him their adorations.”
[76] “Pure paganism and native infidelity, like white cloth, will
take the tincture of Christianity; whereas the Turks are soiled and
stained with the irreligious religion of Mohammedanism, which
first must with great pains be scoured out of them.”—Fuller.d
[77] Le Blanc makes the ransom of St. Louis equivalent to
seven millions of livres modern French money [£280,000 or
$1,400,000].

[78] See Matthew of Parisc and also Fuller.d “About this time
(1250) many thousands of the English were resolved for the holy
war, and would needs have been gone, had not the king strictly
guarded his ports, and kept his kingdom from running away out
of doors. The king promised he would go with them; and
hereupon got a mass of money from them for this journey. Some
say that he never intended it, and that this only was a trick to
stroke the skittish cow to get down her milk. His stubborn
subjects said that they would tarry for his company till
midsummer, and no longer. Thus they weighed out their
obedience with their own scales; and the king stood to their
allowance. But hearing of the ill success of the French, both
prince and people altered their resolution, who had come too late
to help the French in their distress, and too soon to bring
themselves into the same misery.”
 [79] “It is storied,” says Fuller,d “how Eleanor, his lady, sucked
all the poison out of his wounds without doing any harm to
herself. So sovereign a remedy is a woman’s tongue, anointed
with the virtue of loving affection. Pity it is that so pretty a story
should not be true (with all the miracles in love’s legends), and
sure he shall get himself no credit, who undertaketh to confute a
passage so sounding to the honour of the sex. Yet can it not
stand with what others have written.”
[80] Henry when young had endeavoured to implant
Christianity in Lithuania vi et armis. When king he gained the
friendship of the clergy by aiding them to put down the followers
of Wycliffe.
[81] [See also the History of the Papacy for a full account of
this tragedy.]
 CHAPTER VII. CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRUSADES

No religious wars have ever been so long, so

[1096-1291 a.d.] sanguinary, and so destructive as the Crusades.
Countless hosts of holy warriors fell the victims
of their own vindictive enthusiasm and military ardour. Fierceness
and intolerance were the strongest features in the character of the
dark ages, and it is, perhaps, not so much in the conduct, as in the
object, of the Crusades, that anything distinct and peculiar can be
marked. It was not for the conversion of people, nor the propagation
of opinions, but for the redemption of the sepulchre of Christ, and
the destruction of the enemies of God, that the crimson standard
was unfurled. The western world did not cast itself into Asia from
any view of expediency, or in consequence of any abstract
theoretical principle of a right of hostility; men did not arm
themselves from any conviction that the co-existence of Christendom
and Islamism was compatible with the doctrines of the Koran, or
that the countries of the West would be precipitated into the gulf of
destruction, if Asia Minor were not torn from the Seljuk Turks, and
restored to the emperor of Constantinople. But the flame of war
spread from one end of Europe to the other, for the deliverance of
the Holy Land from a state which was called pollution; and the
floodgates of fanaticism were unlocked for the savage and iniquitous
purpose of extermination. But popular madness would not listen to
the calls of generous policy and lofty ambition. The wish for the
redemption of the Holy Land was the feeling which influenced both
Godfrey de Bouillon and St. Louis, the first and last great champions
of the cross; it was that wild desire which moved Europe for two
centuries, and without it the Crusades would never have been
undertaken.
The question of the justice of the holy wars is one of easy
solution. The crusaders were not called upon by heaven to carry on
hostilities against the Mussulmans. Palestine did not, of right, belong
to the Christians in consequence of any gift of God; and it was
evident, from the fact of the destruction of the second temple, that
there was no longer any peculiar sanctity in the ground of
Jerusalem. There is no command in the Scriptures for Christians to
build the walls of the Holy City, and no promise of an earthly Canaan
as the reward of virtue. If the Christians had been animated by the
conviction that war with all the world was the vital principle of the
Mohammedan religion, then also a right of hostility would have been
raised.
As Lord Bacon said in his War with Spain: “Forasmuch as it is a
fundamental law in the Turkish empire, that they may, without any
other provocation, make war upon Christendom for the propagation
of their law; so that there lieth upon Christians a perpetual fear of
war, hanging over their heads, from them; and therefore, they may
at all times, as they think good, be upon the preventive.” But before
they could have been justified on this last-mentioned argument,
proof was necessary that the danger was imminent, and that time
and circumstances had not reduced the principle to a mere dry,
inoperative letter of the law. In the first hundred and fifty years of
Mohammedan history, the Mussulmans made continued and
successful attacks on the Christians; and the invasion of France by
the Spanish and African Moors, seemed to endanger Christendom as
a world independent of and not tributary to the Saracens. In all that
long period the people of the West might have instituted crusades
on principles of self-defence. But as they had acquiesced for ages in
the existence of Islam, they could not afterwards draw the sword,
except for the purpose of preventing or repelling new aggressions.
No dangers hung over Christendom at the time when the Crusades
commenced.

MORAL EFFECTS

On principles of morals and politics the holy wars cannot be

justified. Yet war became a sacred duty, and obligatory on every
class of mankind. The fair face of religion was besmeared with
blood, and heavenly attraction was changed for demoniacal
repulsiveness. The Crusades encouraged the most horrible violences
of fanaticism. They were the precedent for the military contentions
of the church with the Prussians and Albigenses; and as the
execrable Inquisition arose out of the spirit of clerical dragooning,
the wars in Palestine brought a frightful calamity on the world.
Universal dominion was the ambition of the Roman pontiffs; and the
iniquity of the means was in dreadful accordance with the audacity
of the project. The pastors of the church used anathemas,
excommunications, interdicts, and every weapon in the storehouse
of spiritual artillery; and when the world was in arms for the purpose
of destroying infidels, it was natural that the soldiers of God should
turn aside and chastise other foes to the true religion. Crusades with
idolaters and erring Christians were considered as virtuous and as
necessary as crusades with Saracens; the south of France was
saturated with heretical blood; and those booted apostles, the
Teutonic knights, converted, sword in hand, the Prussians and
Lithuanians from idolatry to Christianity.
The sword of religious persecution was not directed against Turks
and heretics only. The reader remembers the sanguinary enormities
that disgraced the opening of the First Crusade. Not only was this
instance of persecution of the Jews the earliest one upon record in
the annals of the West since the fall of the Roman Empire, but it is
also true that that wretched people met with most of their dreadful
calamities during the time of the holy wars. It is highly probable that
the hatred which the Christians felt against them was embittered by
that fierce and mistaken zeal for religion which gave birth to the
Crusades; and as the chief object of those Crusades was the
recovery of the sepulchre at Jerusalem, it was natural that the
Christian belligerents should behold with equal detestation the
nation which had crucified the Saviour and the nation which
continued to profane his tomb. This conjecture is much confirmed by
the circumstance, that the prevailing prejudice in the Middle Ages
against the Jews was that they often crucified Christian children in
mockery of the great sacrifice. If it be objected to this reasoning that
the crusading Cœur de Lion befriended the Jews, we reply that the
crusading king Edward I expelled them from England.
 The penalties which the church inflicted on its members, as the
temporal punishments of sin, might have been unwarranted by
Scripture, and were doubtless often awarded by cruelty and caprice.
But the practice of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, was in itself
salubrious to the individual, and beneficial to society. It softened
pride; it subdued the sensual passions; it diffused charity. Instead of
these blessings, the slaughter of human beings was made the
propitiation of offence; and the Christian virtues of self-denial and
benevolence were considered an absurd and antiquated fashion. As
the discipline of the church had been broken in upon for one
purpose, it could be violated for another. The repentant sinner who
could not take the cross himself, might contribute to the charge of
the holy expedition. When offences were once commuted for money,
the religious application of the price of pardon soon ceased to be
necessary. Absolutions from penance became a matter of traffic, and
holy virtues were discountenanced. For this reason, and for many
others, the Crusades conferred no benefits on morals. The evils of a
life free from domestic restraints, formed a strong argument against
pilgrimages in very early ages of the church, and it does not appear
that when the wanderers became soldiers their morals improved.
The vices of the military colonists in Palestine are the burden of
many a page of the crusading annalists. Something must be
detracted from those representations in consequence of their
authors’ prejudice that the vices of the Christians in the Holy Land
effected the ruin of the kingdom. Yet enough remains to show that
the tone of morals was not at a higher pitch in Palestine than in
Europe. The decrees of the council at Nablus (Shechem or Neapolis)
prove that a difference of religion, although a barrier against the
dearest charities of life, was no impediment to a vicious sensual
intercourse between the Franks and the Moslems. The Latins lived in
a constant course of plunder on their Mussulman neighbours, and
therefore on their return to Europe could not spread around them
any rays of virtue.[82]

POLITICAL EFFECTS
 As the Crusades were carried on for holy objects, not for civil or
national ends, their connection with politics could only have been
collateral and indirect. The spirit of crusading, composed as it was of
superstition and military ardour, was hostile to the advancement of
knowledge and liberty; and consequently no improvement in the civil
condition of the kingdoms of the West could have been the
legitimate issue of the principles of the holy wars. The pope was the
only monarch who mixed politics with his piety. The other princes
seem to have been influenced by the spirit of religion or of chivalry;
and it was only in the attempts again to disorder the intellect of
Europe, that we find one monarch, Henry IV of England, acting the
part of a crafty politician.
Great changes in the political aspect of Europe were coeval with
but were not occasioned by the holy wars. The power of the French
crown was much higher at the end of the thirteenth, than it had
been at the same period of the eleventh century; but the influence
of the imperial throne was materially depressed. These opposite
effects could never have been the simple results of the same cause;
namely, the loss of the flower of the western aristocracy in Palestine.
The causes of the depression of imperial authority were the
aggrandisement of the nobles (a natural effect of the feudal
system); the improvident grants of lands which the Swabian family
made to the clergy; the contests between the popes and emperors
respecting their different jurisdictions, and, above all the rest, the
destructive wars which the emperors waged in the north of Italy for
the reannexation of that country to the throne of the descendants of
the imperial house of Charlemagne.
The political changes in England cannot with justice be attributed
to the Crusades. Until the days of Richard I holy wars had not
become a general or a national concern. The monarchy stood the
same at the close of his reign as at its commencement; and the only
favourable issue of Cœur de Lion’s armament was an increase of
military reputation. His renunciation of feudal sovereignty over
Scotland had no influence on politics. Edward I pressed his claim,
 although Richard had deprived him of his
strongest support. The pusillanimous John
assumed the cross; but that circumstance
did not occur until after he had surrendered
his crown to the papal see, and until the
barons had formed a confederacy against
him. His assumption of the cross neither
retarded nor accelerated the progress of
English liberty. The pope was not linked to
him by stronger ties than those which had
formerly bound them; and the barons were
not deceived by the religious hypocrisy of
the king. The transmarine expeditions of
the earls of Cornwall and Salisbury, and of
Prince Edward in the reign of Henry III,
were the ebullitions of religious and military
German Crusader of the ardour, but did not affect the general course
Early Crusades
of events.
The great political circumstance of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was important above all
others to civil liberty, was the appearance of free and corporate
towns. But the Crusades neither produced their establishment nor
affected their history. After various vicissitudes of fortune, the battle
of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance, established the
independence of the towns in the north of Italy. The Crusades did
not contribute to these events; for the two sacred expeditions which
had taken place were as disastrous to peasants as to princes, and
drained Europe of all ranks of society. Consequently it was not from
the holy wars that the people gained their liberties. We find that so
ill regulated was the liberty of the towns alluded to, that anarchy
soon succeeded. Men of personal importance and wealth aspired to
sovereign honours; an overwhelming aristocracy extinguished
freedom, and at the end of the thirteenth century there were as
many princes in Tuscany and Lombardy as there had been free
towns at the end of the twelfth.
 It is only in the maritime cities of Italy that any indisputable
influence of the Crusades can be marked. Trade with the Christian
states in Palestine, and the furnishing of transports to the pilgrims,
increased the wealth of the commercial cities. The capture of
Constantinople by the French and Venetians was important in its
issues. Venice regained maritime ascendency; but it was soon taken
from her by the Genoese, who aided the Greeks to recover their
capital. Genoa then became a leading power in the Mediterranean,
and she subdued Pisa. The rapid increase of the wealth and power
of Venice and Genoa, and the eventual destruction of Pisa seem,
then, to form the principal circumstances in commercial history
which the Crusades were instrumental in producing. But how
insignificant were these events, both locally and generally, both in
their relation to Italy and to the general history of Europe, when
compared with the discovery of a maritime passage to India!
A view of the heroic ages of Christianity, in regard to their grand
and general results, is a useful and important, though a melancholy
employment. The Crusades retarded the march of civilisation,
thickened the clouds of ignorance and superstition; and encouraged
intolerance, cruelty, and fierceness. Religion lost its mildness and
charity; and war its mitigating qualities of honour and courtesy. Such
were the bitter fruits of the holy wars!c

INFLUENCE UPON COMMERCE

Trade with the East, at that time, embraced many more articles of
commerce than at the present day. Sugar and several other
commodities sought for as luxuries or used as medicine, which now
come entirely from the new world, were brought from Egypt or the
Indies. Europeans looked to Asia for precious gems, especially
emeralds, whose worth equalled that of diamonds, until the
discovery of the rich mines in the mountains of America. Pearls were
then to be found only on the shores of oriental seas. The Crusades
gave the peoples of Europe a taste for delicacies and Asiatic
ornaments, which several of them had never before known. Vanity
and enervation made precious stones, silks, perfumes, and all the
products less useful than pleasant which nature has sown in
profusion throughout the Orient, necessary to them.
Accustomed by their intercourse with the Orientals to the burning
savour of spices, soon they were not able to get along without them.
They could not prepare famous dishes without plentiful use of spice;
wines even were perfumed with them. Romancers of the era of the
Crusades sang the praises, on nearly every page, of cinnamon,
musk, clove, and ginger. Did these writers praise some exquisite
odour, it was with spices they compared it. Did their fertile
imagination build some superb palace, the magic home of the most
powerful genii, they surrounded it with an odoriferous forest, planted
with spice-bearing trees. Several Italian towns, especially the
republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, got from this, almost entirely,
not only the benefits of a commerce which embraced so many
sought-for commodities, but the other advantages of a sea-trade
abandoned to the Franks, by the Greeks and Arabs.

ENRICHMENT OF CITIES

Venice, who nourished amid her waters an enormous population,

seems through her natural environment to have been peopled only
with merchants and followers of the sea. The Crusades helped the
proud city to the accomplishment of her brilliant destiny, to make the
Orient tremble at her fleets, to enrich the Occident by her industry,
and to command respect through many ages for her military power.
Genoa, less happily situated, and less rich than Venice, was,
however, powerful enough to have aroused the Sea-Republic’s
jealousy. Pisa had pushed herself too late into rivalry with Genoa,
and the destruction of her harbour was the work of implacable
Genoese hatred. Florence, never free from the throes of civil discord,
obtained nevertheless great wealth from her commerce, which she
generously consecrated to the culture of the fine arts.
The Crusades, therefore, enriched the great cities in giving the
opportunity to extend their trade, and also to raise to exorbitant
prices charges for their ships. The hardships and dangers which
were inseparable from the overland route made it less and less
frequented after the first expeditions. Crowds of pilgrims made their
way to the ports, and several Italian republics amassed, in the
transportation of human freight, a degree of wealth comparable for
that time to that which the merchandise of the new world had since
brought to the most flourishing cities of modern days.

COLONISATION

The establishment of colonies in the East gave more substantial

foundation to Italy’s prosperity. Several cities, whose own interest
was a constant stimulus, and whose industry grew with success,
founded trading colonies in Egypt, Africa, throughout the kingdom of
Jerusalem; at Tyre, where the Pisans had formed a celebrated
commercial group; at Antioch, at Acre, stronghold of the Christians;
at several other places which the Crusades had opened to them; and
as a result the principal cause of the decline of Venice and other
powerful Italian cities was not alone the discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope, but to some extent the conquests which made Selim I
master of Egypt.
Before the days of the holy wars, some of the Italian towns
already possessed trading stations in the Greek Empire, but
Constantinople having fallen into the hands of the Latins, the active
spirit of the Italians was no longer disturbed by the defiant policy of
the Eastern emperors. The Genoese founded the colony of Kaffa,
which became very prosperous; the Venetians and Pisans multiplied
their warehouses in many places. The subjects of the doge, always
mindful of their commerce, demanded the islands of the archipelago,
in dividing with the French the territory wrested from the Eastern
Empire; but at the moment of taking possession of their share they
feared to weaken themselves by occupying territory so remote and
widely separated. In the end, however, they could not bring
themselves to let go a maritime country so well adapted to trade,
and the senate invited by proclamation the rich citizens to take
possession of these isles, promising to give in fief those they
succeeded in making subject to themselves. Thus it happened that
the descendants of the Greeks once so jealous of their political
independence saw, so to speak, their freedom at the auction block in
the public squares of Venice.
And thus it was that the Crusades ruined the Greeks and the
Arabs, and that traffic between the East and the West had to pass
almost exclusively through the hands of the Italians, then called
Lombards, active, sharp merchants and pitiless usurers, who have
left their names as a monument to their thrift, upon the commercial
streets of many a great town; those localities where the money
lender, furnishing more often a passing aid to extravagance than real
assistance to misery, exhibits his insatiable greed. They tried, in the
twelfth century, to create merchant tribunals in several towns, to
decide commercial disputes and make treaties with strangers—the
first separation of commercial jurisprudence from common law. We
shall be forgiven doubtless for not entering into any minute
description of the Italian commercial establishments in Greece and
Asia; it has been sufficient to note the turn given by the Crusades to
trade in general.
The flourishing condition to which Venice, Genoa, and Pisa in the
south of Europe were raised by trade with the East was almost
equalled in the north by that of the Hanseatic towns. Necessary
commodities for use at sea, all the products of colder climes, offered
to the Teutonic Hansa large and assured profits. As the Lombards
brought into parts of Germany where money was scarce the
products of the south and east, there sprang up an exchange of
merchandise for merchandise. The Hanseatic League apparently
came into existence about the beginning of the thirteenth century,
and it is not hard to believe that the commercial activity stimulated
by the Crusades favoured the formation of the powerful federation
which breathed nothing but the love of gain, and which bartered for
all the wealth of the south with all the product of the north.
 In infusing into trade a new activity, the Crusades necessarily
perfected the art of navigation. We may well admit that the sea held
less of terror for one who confronted it to perform a religious duty,
and insensibly this fear-inspiring element became less regarded as
the inevitable tomb of all who confided to it their life or fortune.
Moreover vessels ceased to be guided by blind instinct or the
insufficient experience of pilots. The compass, whose origin it is so
difficult to establish (and indeed the instrument may not have been
invented before the time of the First Crusade), was in general use on
the ships that plied the Mediterranean. We must admire the
fortunate but rash industry of the Italians who overcame the
caprices and fury of the waves. These navigators gained experience
more and more in constantly transporting pilgrims, and proved that
it was not impossible to sail the seas in winter. Venice surpassed the
whole world in the brilliance of her maritime glory. She well deserved
that a pope of this period, zealous to show his gratitude to his
defenders, presented the doge, with solemn ceremony, the wedding
ring which was for long ages the unique emblem of the republic’s
naval power.
Other fleets than those of Italy found their way to the Holy Land.
One might see on the Southern Sea vessels carrying those pirates
and adventurers which set out every year in great numbers from the
countries in the north, the Flemings, the Dutch, the Swedes, the
Danes often rendered considerable assistance to the Christians in
the East. Norwegians fought under King Baldwin at the taking of
Sidon; the Flemings rescued Lisbon from the Saracens. These
northern people came in high-decked massive ships, while the
vessels in use on the Mediterranean were very light and shallow
affairs; a difference in structure which could not be noticed without a
comparison of advantages and disadvantages.
From the Crusades may be dated the establishment of the French
navy. Philip Augustus, on his return from the Holy Land, organised a
national fleet; before this the French fleets were composed of
foreign vessels hired for a certain time. The title of “admiral,” of
which the name and idea was borrowed from the Greeks or the
Arabs, came into constant use about the time of
the Second Crusade, whereas the rank was never
bestowed in former days except at the
commencement of a war, and went out of use at
its close.
Very soon the ocean and the Mediterranean
were covered with vessels manned by prudent
and intrepid sailors. The great overland route
from Antwerp to Genoa, which was expensive,
slow, and difficult, was thenceforth given up.
Naval architecture learned a lesson from
several abuses which the Crusades momentarily
had introduced into the art. Ships of excessive
capacity, too weak, and of faulty proportions had
been hastily built in order to accommodate the
crowd of pilgrims. Seamen who wished their
voyages to be more lucrative and passengers
desirous of travelling in companies began to
adopt these ungainly vessels. However, this Crusader of the Last
departure from the principles of shipbuilding Crusade
caused the loss of many fleets and brought about
a fortunate innovation in naval architecture.
Experience taught that a single mast was not sufficient in a vessel of
great size, and we may trace to this period the custom of furnishing
several masts to a single ship—a custom whose antiquity is well
proven, but whose origin is somewhat shadowed in doubt.
An increase in the number of sails must of necessity follow the
adoption of more than one mast; ships were no longer stopped in
their course for lack of a directly favourable wind,—by trimming the
sails with skill the seaman progressed nearly always towards his
destination. The art of sailing for a certain point with the wind nearly
dead ahead must certainly be counted as one of the most ingenious
and important discoveries ever made.
 INFLUENCE ON INDUSTRY

The same causes which gave a new activity to commerce served

to develop powerfully every resource of industry. At the time of the
first Crusades there were no manufactories of silken stuffs but those
of the Greeks, a species of industry they had taken from the
Persians, but which they themselves were soon forced to give over
to Sicily. Then artisans leaving the island taught the Italians the art
of making silk. The industry occupied principally the members of the
religious order of the Humilies, who invented, it is said, cloth of gold
and of silver.
In the cities of the Orient the Saracens, also, had manufactures of
goods, and from them the crusaders bought textile fabrics of camels’
hair. These industries and those of the Greeks, whether the latter
was transported to Palermo or remained in the Eastern Empire, were
able to serve as models or as incentive, in Europe, to many
establishments where wool was worked. There were some famous
glass manufactories at Tyre. The sand which covers the environs of
that town has the property of giving a high degree of transparence
to the vitrified matter from which beautiful shapes were fashioned.
These productions excited probably the emulation of Venice who
drew great profit from her glassware, particularly in the fifteenth
century when the use of metal vessels was abandoned for that of
glass. Here are some particulars about inventions, the only ones we
have been able to gather. Mills, whose motive power is wind, were
invented in Asia Minor where running water is very scarce. It has
been supposed that the crusaders introduced them into Europe in
the twelfth century—a conjecture which would seem to be confirmed
by the application of parts of windmills on a great number of old
armorial bearings, but which certain other evidence does not permit
us to adopt. Several writers have also presumed that the crusaders
spread a knowledge of the invention of paper, which they had
derived from the Greeks, throughout Europe.
The Arabs excelled at metal working and they knew how to chase
and encrust it. They invented the art of “damascening,” which gave
to steel the brilliance and splendour of gold and silver. Antiquaries
have observed that since the Crusades the stamping of coins and
the imprint of seals seem less incorrect and some attribute this
improvement to lessons learned from the Arabs. The crusaders,
however indignant at the profanation of the Temple of Jerusalem,
could not but admire the ornamentation of precious metals by which
the columns and walls had been artistically treated in honour of
Mohammed. They brought away with them more than five hundred
silver vessels consecrated to the service of the false prophet. The
process of enamelling metals and the use in painting of solid, bright
colours may have been brought to perfection by the sight of these
Arabian works of art. They also brought back from the Orient a
quantity of rubies, hyacinths, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds,
and they found out how to set them in gold and silver, so as to give
an undying charm through the taste of their mounting and their
setting.

THE MASONS ORGANISE

The Crusades contributed indirectly to the progress of art in that

they caused religious orders and devout establishments to be
multiplied. The number of sacred edifices which rose up at that time
throughout Europe is truly prodigious. Nobles and even those who
had little piety were ambitious for the title of “founder of a church.”
While they may have wrecked temples in one place, it was often
their pleasure to build them in others.
One extraordinary circumstance greatly favoured this eagerness to
erect edifices devoted to the religious cult. In France, in Italy
especially, it had been common rumour that the world was nearing
its end and it was thought unnecessary, in this event, to repair
churches, and even more useless to build new ones. But when the
predicted period arrived and there were no signs of the final
catastrophe, alarm diminished, and ashamed to have been misled by
pusillanimous fear, people were anxious to make amends for the
neglect of altars and sacred places of which they had been guilty.
They were not satisfied to pay their debt to religion by rebuilding
unsafe churches, but those of whose stability there was no question
were torn down on the specious pretext that they were not
sufficiently magnificent. To accomplish their aims a society was
formed composed of men of every degree, noble and humble, who
made themselves in their devotion into carpenters and masons; they
offered their services in every direction, hauling carts like beasts of
burden or binding themselves to certain religious devotions. The
cathedral of Chartres is a monument of the labour of these pious
workmen. These strange ideas having been developed towards the
end of the eleventh century, the Crusades found in men’s minds a
passion for this sort of construction, and they added to the general
enthusiasm.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

Several monuments of architecture which still excite our

admiration are the fruit of the artistic impulse received from contact
with people more devoted to its culture and from the growing
fervour of devotion. The sight of Greek and Arab monuments
introduced into the West a new taste by which that Syrian, Arab, or
Saracen type of architecture, improperly called Gothic, was brought
to its highest degree of perfection. Delicately pointed ogive arches
replaced the low and ugly openings which timid builders were afraid
to raise higher and which presented but narrow outlooks to view.
Architects were judged skilful as they were able to astonish by the
boldness and daring of their own work. As in the mosques, they
loaded upon light and graceful columns enormous masses which
seemed upheld by the support of an invisible arm. They cut stones
into a thousand different and often most fanciful forms, and set into
them painted glass whose brilliant colours were admirably brought
out by the rays of the sun. And as if they foresaw the indifference of
posterity to their work, they gave it a solidity which has enabled it to
go for great lengths of time without care and restoration.
 At that time appeared the most magnificent offsprings of Gothic
architecture. Then was built the leaning tower of Pisa, which has
become a marvel through the injury of time. A Greek architect built
at Venice the church of St. Mark, strongly impressed with the
degenerate taste of the Greeks. A German conceived the plan of the
tower of Strasburg, whose delicate structure seems unable to hold it
so high in the air. Suger did not disdain to study architecture; he
restored his own abbey church and left an account of his labours.
The foundations of Amiens, masterpiece of bold and delicate
construction, were laid. La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, less vast but
equally delicate in style, was the finest work of the favourite
architect whom St. Louis took with him to Asia. We should go on at
too great a length were we to enumerate all the superb edifices built
in the glorious age of Gothic architecture. Barbaric, perhaps, in
ornamentation, these artists have never been equalled in principle,
in general design, stone-cutting, in knowledge of arching, and in the
majesty of their edifices as a whole.

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

Sculpture made these temples alive with a host of statues. It has

preserved for us the images of many famous men, whose portraits,
drawn from nature, we often regret not to know.
Painting was cultivated with greater zeal. Cimabue developed his
happy faculties at Florence according to the teaching of some artists
from Constantinople. He was the first to show what wonders one
could expect from an almost forgotten art, and it is right that he
should be placed at the head of all the painters that have appeared
since his time.
From what has been said it is certain that the Crusades helped to
infuse into the West a taste for painting, sculpture, and architecture.
The spirit of conquest has always awakened that of the fine arts.
Though artists may flee from the clash of arms, their souls, inspired
by the commotion of great warlike movements and the general
emulation of courage and valour, exhibit at such time a noble
ambition for glory. The aspect of the theatre of desolation and
carnage, swept by the conqueror’s tread, kindles often the sacred
fire, which is extinguished in times of peace and tranquillity, and
marvellous productions, conceived and matured in deep thought,
quickly follow the imperfect and hastily finished sketch. Nations also
wish to celebrate, by public monuments, triumphs watered with their
blood and tears. For this reason painters display on heroes’ heads
the wings of victory, are lavish with palm and crown, and place on
every side the emblems of fame. Cities become filled with superb
buildings, and public squares peopled with folk of bronze and marble
who seem to live and breathe.e

HERDER’S OPINION OF THE CRUSADES

It has been customary to ascribe so many beneficial effects to the

Crusades, that, conformably to this opinion, our quarter of the globe
must require a similar fever, to agitate and excite its forces, once in
every five or six centuries; but a closer inspection will show that
most of these effects proceeded not from the Crusades, at least not
from them alone; and that among the various impulses Europe then
received, they were at most accelerating shocks, acting upon the
whole in collateral or oblique directions, with which the minds of
Europeans might well have dispensed. Indeed it is a mere phantom
of the brain to frame one prime source of events out of seven
distinct expeditions, undertaken in a period of two centuries, by
different nations, and from various motives, solely because they bore
one common name.
Trade the Europeans had already opened with the Arabian states,
before the Crusades: and they were at liberty to have profited by it,
and extended it, in a far more honourable way than by predatory
campaigns. By these, indeed, carriers, bankers, and purveyors were
gainers: but all their gain accrued from the Christians, against whose
property they were in fact the crusaders. What was torn from the
Greek Empire was a disgraceful traders’ booty, serving, by extremely
enfeebling this empire, to render Constantinople an easier prey at a
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