THE SIXTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XLI.
FREDERICK II. AND POPE GREGORY IX.
Seven years elapsed before another attempt worthy of record was made for the recapture of Palestine. Frederick II. (Hohenstaufen) of Germany was its leader; hero it had none.
Frederick was one of the ablest men of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though not meriting the title given him by an English chronicler, “the Wonder of the World.” The grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, son of Henry IV. and Constance of Sicily, he united in his person the strongest traits of German and Italian stock. Born in 1194, at two years of age he was elected king of the Romans, and in his fourth year was crowned King of Sicily. Pope Innocent III. was the guardian of his childhood, and well discharged his duty, if the rare education of Frederick may be taken as evidence. The royal youth mastered Latin, Greek, French, German, and knew something of Arabic and Hebrew; he was creditably versed in Saracenic science and arts, as well as in Christian philosophy and scholasticism; he wrote well on the habits of birds, and shared with the Troubadours the joys of the poet’s art; he endowed universities, patronized painters, and encouraged architects. In government he deserves to rank among the empire-builders, for in a narrow age he extended the scope of law for the toleration of Jews and Mohammedans, for the emancipation of peasants from undue oppression at the hands of the upper classes, and for the enlargement of international commerce almost to the line of the modern theory of free trade. His liberality towards Moslems brought him the accusation of harboring in his heart a secret infidelity, which his severity with the Christian schismatics could not entirely dispel.
At the age of eighteen Frederick entered into contest for the imperial throne of Germany, and in 1215, at the age of twenty-one, won the crown of Charlemagne. In order to accomplish this grand object, he had, as a first step, secured the alliance of the Pope. This he did by pledging, among other things, to lead a crusade; but the pressing emergencies of his new crown caused delay from year to year. In 1225 he married Iolante, the daughter of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem. He at once asserted that John held his crown only in virtue of being the husband of Queen Mary, and this lady having died, her daughter, Iolante, was lawful sovereign. Thus by marriage he annexed to his German title that of King of Jerusalem, and was looked to by all for the defence of his new dominion. But two years later (1227) he was still too busy unravelling European complications to absent himself in the distant East.
In this year Gregory IX. ascended the papal throne. While this Pope still retained the faculties and ambition of youth, he had developed also the obstinacy and petulance of old age. By his unwise dealing with the German emperor, and the impolitic assertion of his own capricious will as of divine authority, he may be said to have started the decadence of the papal throne, which in another generation was destined to lose the prestige of the Hildebrandian policy and all prospect of becoming the world monarchy.
On the day of his accession to power Gregory IX. issued a proclamation for all the sovereigns of Christendom to unite in a new crusade, and openly threatened Frederick with his ecclesiastical vengeance if he longer postponed the fulfilment of his vow. He accused the emperor’s delay with being due to luxury, if not sensuality, in living. The former charge probably had in it a measure of truth, for Frederick’s court at Palermo, where he spent more time than in his northern capital, was the centre of gayety, not only among the Christians, but to a certain extent for Mohammedans. Many of the fairest women of Asia and North Africa graced his salons. It might also be imagined of Frederick that his faith was not of that intense and credulous nature which foresaw a heavenly crown awaiting his exploits in the Holy Land. Equally detrimental to his repute for crusading zeal were the courtesies he was exchanging with Malek-Kamel, Sultan of Egypt. It was even rumored that he had made alliance with this sultan, pledging help against the rival Sultan of Damascus, on condition of the restoration of Jerusalem.
But the sincerity of Frederick was proved by the gathering of his fleets and the massing of his armaments at Otranto. The fame of his leadership attracted the noblest of Germany. Among them was Ludwig, Landgrave of Thuringia, noted for having won the hand of Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary, who in her girlhood had attained renown for her asceticism and charities, and died (1231) at the age of twenty-four, to be canonized as the fairest saint of the middle ages. From distant England many came at Frederick’s call, and further impelled by visions of the Saviour on the cross of fire which appeared in that northern sky.
The season was intensely hot, and gendered a fever fatal to the crusaders who were gathered in southern Italy. Among its victims was Ludwig, leaving his faithful spouse to keep his memory revered by her refusal to marry any one of the numerous kings who were attracted to her feet. Many bishops and thousands of pilgrims succumbed to this plague. Frederick sailed, but only to return in three days, seeking hospital in Otranto.
Pope Gregory IX. fulminated against Frederick all the terrors of his personal scorn and ecclesiastical vengeance. From his pulpit he pictured him “breaking all his promises, bursting every bond, trampling underfoot the fear of God, despising all reverence for Jesus Christ, scorning the censures of the church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning the Holy Land to unbelievers, to his own disgrace and that of all Christendom withdrawing to the luxury and wonted delights of his kingdom, and seeking to palliate his offence by frivolous excuses of simulated sickness.” Then, while the cathedral bells were clanging a demoniacal accompaniment to what was transpiring beneath them, the clergy stood with lighted torches around the altar. Gregory invoked the eternal curse of God upon his imperial victim. The clergy dashed their torches and extinguished them upon the floor, in token of the “blackness of darkness forever” which should settle upon the emperor’s soul.
The news of this anathema excited the minds of the common people to such a degree that they saw all sorts of signs of Heaven’s disapproval of the crowned Judas; such as bloody crosses, on which the Saviour was dying afresh, “as if laying a complaint before each and every Christian.” Frederick made a quick retort to the papal fulmination, in which he advised all temporal princes to beware of the unscrupulous domination of the Roman hierarchy. He closed a letter to the princes of Europe with these words of an old couplet:
“Give heed when neighboring houses burn,
For next, perhaps, may be your turn.”
The Pope, having generated a fresh supply of gall, discharged it in an interdict by which all subjects of Frederick should be deprived of the ministrations of religion.
The emperor, in order to prove the injustice of the Pope’s assault upon him and the falsity of the accusation that he had feigned sickness, prepared to resume the crusade, taking, however, his own time and way. His armaments were repaired. He summoned all the dignitaries of his kingdom to meet him at Baroli (April, 1228). There, in the presence of a vast multitude, he declared his will regarding the succession in the event of his not returning alive, and exhorted his people to live in peace during his absence. The Pope now became not less violent in denouncing the crusade than he had been previously in urging it, on the ground that its leader was excommunicate. He refused to recognize it as a holy war, and stigmatized it as an expedition of piracy.
With a small army of six hundred knights Frederick sailed for Acre (September, 1228). Two Franciscan monks in a swift bark outsped him, and aroused Palestine against the coming of such a champion. The partisans of John of Brienne refused to recognize the kingship of his son-in-law. Templars and Hospitallers were jealous of the new hand in affairs, and refused to serve under him.
Frederick then pursued his old friendship with Malek-Kamel. Speaking Arabic, he discussed with the emirs philosophy and astrology, and sent difficult questions to the sultan, reminding the chroniclers of the converse of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The ladies of the Christian and Moslem courts mingled, say the papal apologists, to the mutual disadvantage of the morals of both. The emperor desired to make a pious pilgrimage to the Jordan. The Templars sent a letter to the sultan, suggesting his capture. The sultan delivered the missive into the hands of Frederick.
Such exchange of courtesies was only preliminary to a treaty by which the astuteness of the emperor won the kingdom of Jerusalem without drawing his sword. It was stipulated that Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the Holy City, with the exception of the Temple Mount, which was occupied by the mosque of Omar, should be given to the Christians for ten years. In a letter to the King of England Frederick wrote how, “in a few days, by a miracle rather than by strength, that business hath been brought to a conclusion which for a length of time past many chiefs and rulers of the world, among the multitude of nations, have never been able till now to accomplish by force, however great, nor by fear.”
The fury of the papal party knew no bounds. That the Infidel should retain a spot for worship was in their eyes a sacrilege; that a man under papal displeasure should be recognized as king in Jerusalem was an impiety which Heaven should punish. The city of Jerusalem was put under the ban. Pilgrims were forbidden by the Holy Father to pray at the sepulchre of our Lord, for which purpose, with the Pope’s encouragement, they had left their homes, and in many cases sacrificed their earthly all.
Frederick repaired in great state to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for his coronation (March 18, 1229). No priest ventured to celebrate the mass or pronounce a blessing upon the accursed of the church; the silence was unbroken except by the clang of armor; the images of the apostles were veiled that they might not look upon the reprobate. Frederick took the crown from the altar with his own hands and placed it upon his head; then was read in his name a formal exculpation of the Pope for his persecution, on the ground of the Holy Father’s ignorance of his motives and conduct; he also announced his humiliation before God and His vicar for his crown. With more catholicity he visited the same day the mosque of Omar. A muezzin, whose station was near the emperor’s house, by order of the kadi omitted the usual call to prayer, lest it should give offence to his Christian Majesty. Frederick gently rebuked the Moslem official: “You are wrong to neglect, on my account, your duty, your law, and your religion. If you should visit my realm, you would find no such respectful deference.” A priest had brought into the mosque a copy of the Gospels. Frederick rebuked this as an insult to his allies, saying, “Here we are all the servants of the sultan; it is he that has restored to us our churches.” The emperor then retired to Acre. The papal interdict upon all people among whom he should find abode followed him. The churches of Acre were unopened; the sick were refused consolation in their homes, and the dead were buried, without funeral service, in the fields.
At this juncture news from Europe urged the emperor’s return home. John of Brienne, his father-in-law, was ravaging the kingdom of Naples. The Pope was filling all Christendom with denunciations, and plotting that the imperial crown itself might be taken from the head of the man who, by the treaty with the Moslems, had effected “reconciliation of Christ and Belial.” The Moslem world simultaneously rang with as bitter denunciation of the act of Malek-Kamel in surrendering the sacred city.
Thus, amid the universal confusion produced by his aim to establish peace, Frederick returned to the West. With a popularity which the ban of Rome could not destroy, after crushing his enemies in the field he engaged in the work of giving to his people better laws, and stimulating the new civilization which was everywhere appearing as the Dark Ages were wearing away.
With the retirement of Frederick from Palestine the Christians were reduced to utmost extremity. Notwithstanding the treaty, constant collisions occurred between the Moslem and Christian bigots. The great bell of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre often rang its alarm. The pilgrims generally sought safety in the fortress of David, or in more obscure retreats in the neighborhood of Jerusalem; their cries again afflicted their brethren in Europe.
The Pope convoked an assembly at Spoleto, at which it was determined to ignore Frederick’s truce with the Sultan of Cairo, and renew the war. Special agents of the holy see visited the various courts; monks and orators went everywhere, preaching the necessity of dyeing the cross anew in the blood of unbelievers. The followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic were diverted from their legitimate and honorable work of charity to act as the collectors of a war fund. Troubadours, headed by Thibaut V., King of Navarre, sang:
“Heaven is closed to those who will not cross the sea,”
and urged in rhythmic piety the exchange of earthly amours for the service of the Virgin:
“My Lady lost, Lady, be thou my aid.”
The war upon the helpless Albigenses having come to an end from the extermination of its victims, many soldiers were impatient of new service to appease their sharply whetted appetite for blood. Thus a multitude was enrolled for a new crusade.
But a diverting cry came from a different direction. The Latin empire at Constantinople was falling. First Lascaris and then Vataces had for years kept the Greeks well in hand, and they now assailed the walls of the capital. John of Brienne was called to the tottering throne. As everywhere during his long career, so now at the age of eighty years this man showed splendid qualities on the field, but died without effectually driving away the foe. His son-in-law, Baldwin, succeeded him to a barren sceptre, and visited Europe in piteous entreaty for help.
This call would have been sufficient in itself to divert much of the energy of the crusaders; but the Pope, now far gone in senility, further embarrassed affairs by commanding the warriors to return to their homes. This order went far towards depreciating the Pope in popular reverence. Those assembled at Lyons replied to the papal message: “Whence arises this fickleness in the Roman court? According to the promises of the preachers we have prepared ourselves in God’s behalf; we have sold or pledged our lands, taken leave of friends, sent our money to the Holy Land in advance. Why do our pastors change their tone and rise against us?” With difficulty were they restrained from doing violence to the papal agents. The Pope, however, remained inexorable, and threatened all who proceeded with the crusade that “they should not enjoy the indulgence for their sins which had been granted them.” Some urged the sacredness of their crusaders’ vow. This scruple the Pope readily turned to the account of his treasury by absolving such from their pledge upon payment of a sum of money equal to that required to provision themselves for the voyage, whence “great scandal and schism arose among the people.”
The Emperor Frederick also proposed that the expedition should be postponed until, with the rallied forces of his empire, he might give it better assurance of success. Pope and emperor revived their strifes, and Italy was turned into pandemonium. A few of the more ardent managed to escape the entanglements at home for more honorable adventures in the East. The King of Navarre, the dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, reached Syria (August, 1239) and performed exploits sufficient to more thoroughly enrage, but not to awe, the Moslems. In 1240 Richard of Cornwall, with a band of English, sailing in spite of the Pope’s prohibition, landed at Acre, made several raids through Turkish territory, and returned, having gained nothing but a continuance of the truce with the sultan.
CHAPTER XLII.
BETWEEN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CRUSADES—THE TARTARS—THE CARISMIAN INVASION.
By a strange providence the sacred places of Palestine were destined to fall for a while into other hands than any of the former great contestants, Christian, Saracen, or Turk.
The most astounding events of the thirteenth century were in connection with the great Tartar irruption. The Mogul hosts under Genghis Khan, or “king of kings,” had broken eastward across the Great Wall of China, and poured a tide of desolation over that ancient empire. As the bloody waves returned, they moved with undiminished force westward and southward, flooding all Turkestan, and all lands to the borders of India and the Persian Gulf. These armies, numbering seven hundred thousand warriors, courageous, remorseless, and cruel as tigers, were met by five hundred thousand under Mohammed, Sultan of Carismia. But even this latter tremendous host could not withstand the impact of the Tartars. Under Octai, son of Genghis Khan, they crossed the Volga and conquered vast sections of Russia, laying Moscow and Kiew in ashes. Poland fell next. Even the Baltic monumented the fury of the Tartars with a circle of ruined towers and devastated country which marked its shores.
Matthew Paris describes the terror these Tartars inspired even in England, where they were thought to be “a people of monstrous shape, drinking blood warm from the veins of their victims, eating raw flesh, even of human beings, mounted upon enormous horses, which fed upon leaves and trees.” Their home was presumed to be the Caspian Mountains, the tops of which God had united and thus shut them in, until now they were let loose to be the scourge of mankind. The extreme terror spread by the rumor of their coming was such that the herring fisheries off Yarmouth were abandoned, lest the sailors should be caught by these monsters, who could sweep the waves with their ox-hide boats. Their skill in swimming was of such renown that the lone fisherman of Friesland was alert lest he should “catch a Tartar.”
At the battle of Liegnitz the prowess of Europe proved impotent against the Tartar invasion which swept Hungary. Settled communities were annihilated; nomadic peoples sought safety in migrating.
The Carismians, beaten back by the Tartars, spread themselves through Asia Minor and Syria; but these fugitives were almost as terrible a menace as their pursuers had been. They carried with them the spoil of the lands they traversed. Dreading death less than the disgrace of retreat, trained to neither give nor take quarter, waving from their spear-heads the hair of the slaughtered, they assaulted all peoples, Mussulmans and Christians alike. These nations were forced by the new menace to lay aside their ancient animosities and unite in a struggle for existence against the common foe.
The Sultan of Cairo, however, deemed that his policy lay in a different direction, and made alliance with the invaders, promising to them the free spoil of Palestine in exchange for the immunity of his Egyptian possessions. Twenty thousand Carismian horsemen ravaged Tripoli and Galilee and appeared suddenly before Jerusalem. The inhabitants fled; the few who remained were indiscriminately massacred. Finding nothing left to appease the appetite of their swords, the conquerors unfurled the banner of the cross from the walls and rang the bells of the churches, thus luring back to the city a multitude of the fugitives, upon whom they satiated their cruelty. Seven thousand of these helpless creatures perished at the gates. Not satisfied with the spoil of the living, the Carismians rifled the abodes of the dead. Sepulchres which had been respected by the Moslem occupants for a century were ruthlessly despoiled. The contents of the alleged tomb of Christ, together with those of the kings of Jerusalem from the days of Godfrey, were given to the flames.
The Christian and Moslem armies massed against this remorseless foe in the neighborhood of Gaza. For two days there raged as fearful carnage as has ever dyed the pages of history; but nothing could stay this host of fiends. Thirty thousand men, who had entered the battle with prayers in the name of Jesus or Mohammed, perished or were taken prisoners. But four Templars, twenty-six Hospitallers, and three Teutonic Knights remained to tell the story of their useless valor. The heroism of Gautier of Brienne, Lord of Jaffa, deserves to be chronicled. Captured by the enemy, he was fastened upon a cross and brought close to the walls of the town which the Carismians were besieging. He was offered his life on condition of his counselling the place to surrender. To the people who thronged the walls he cried with a loud voice, “Your duty is to fight; mine is to die for you and Jesus Christ.”
But the Carismians, though they were able to conquer, had no ability to hold their conquests. Like most semicivilized hordes, they reaped what they found, but had no enterprise to sow again for other harvests. They quickly quarrelled with their ally, the Sultan of Cairo. New combinations were made against them, and in a few years they disappeared from history, merged, doubtless, with other peoples whose home lands they shared.