The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08

by Unknown

BOOK I. THE CRUSADES

PREFATORY ESSAY
THE VALUE OF THE CRUSADES IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN HISTORY

By the Rev. WILLIAM DENTON, M.A.[44]

The interest with which we continue to regard the Crusades is, in its way, as significant as the enthusiasm which led to their being undertaken. It is easy now to underrate the dangers which they averted, and to forget the obligations which the civilised world is under to Charles Martel, to the crusaders, to Don John of Austria, and to John Sobieski; yet to these men we owe it that Europe is not now Bulgaria; and that Italy, France, and England—that the whole of the countries from the Black Sea to the Atlantic, from Archangel to Sicily, are not trampled upon and desolated as Syria is at this moment. It is not easy for us to comprehend how recently the terror once inspired by the Turk has ceased. We need to be reminded that down to the time of the Stuarts the English and Irish channels were infested with Turkish corsairs, and our ports blockaded by Turkish ships of war in quest of slaves.

It is only indeed since the eighteenth century that collections of money to redeem English captives from the intolerable evils of Turkish slavery have ceased to be made in our churches. That such captivity is not national, and only occasional and individual, is one of the inestimable fruits of the Crusades. At the time when these were undertaken, the whole of Asia, from the borders of China to the Bosporus, was subject to the Turks; and had these people been able to cross into Europe, and to hold the countries on the south of the Danube as a basis for military operations four hundred years earlier than they succeeded in doing, or indeed at any time whilst the Moors of Spain and of Sicily were in their full career of victory, the whole of Europe would inevitably have fallen under the dominion of the Moslems, and industrial progress had been stayed and civilisation extinguished. So recently has this danger disappeared that, at the close of the seventeenth century, a statesman as calm and unenthusiastic as Richelieu seriously meditated the renewal of the Crusades, in order to avert the evil which even then threatened to overwhelm the civilised world. That he did so is sufficient to remove from the leaders and projectors of the Crusades the charge of being moved by blind, unreflecting fanaticism.

In the eighteenth century, indeed, the school of historians represented by Voltaire and Gibbon, which discredited all great efforts of past times when prompted by religious zeal, treated the Crusades with unphilosophical ridicule. It was an easy task to do this. We are arrested in every page of their history with the lamentable consequences of popular ignorance, with the selfishness of many of the leaders, with the record of personal ambition and unworthy jealousy which too frequently hindered the success of these expeditions. The whole, however, is not heard when we have listened to accounts of popular fanaticism, of royal insincerity, of military ambition, and of papal selfishness, which chequer the history of the crusaders, as these faults chequered the history of Europe at the time when the Crusades were undertaken. The great, the imminent danger of Turkish conquest inspired the minds of the people with fear before it induced the chieftains to combine in averting the danger. The anarchy which pervaded Europe in the ages of feudalism was, indeed, the chief source of danger in any advance of the Turkish forces, and this was in a great measure cured by the enthusiasm communicated from the people to the great landed proprietors, who, more jealous of their independence than careful of their obligations to their sovereign, yet felt the necessity of union and of submission to military discipline in the hour of peril.

The First Crusade was one undertaken without sufficient leaders, with but little preparation, and with smaller knowledge of the countries to be traversed and the difficulties to be overcome. It was a spontaneous effort of terror and of zeal, in which we can at least satisfy ourselves of the reality of the fear which pervaded all men, and which we know to have been warranted by the merciless character of the horde which, having subjugated Asia, was on its way to attempt the subjugation of Europe. Men have come to see that the Turk is now what he always has been; it is well to bear in mind the correlative truth that essentially he always was what he is now; and when we recall the massacres of the last century, the bloody scenes of Scio and Aleppo, of Jiddah and of Lebanon, of Bosnia and Bulgaria, we may without effort understand what he was when Asia lay at his feet, and Europe was terrified at the rumours of his attempt to cross the Bosporus.

It is too much the practice of those who would deprecate our obligation to those who strove to arrest the progress of the Turks, to dwell upon some instances of magnanimity or of mercy, of justice or chivalrous conduct which lighten up the pages of the history of the Saracens, and to insinuate from these instances that the Turks possess the same claim to our admiration. The Turks, however, are not Arabs, neither have they ever manifested any of that care for intellectual pursuits which has thrown a lustre on the career of the Saracens of Asia and the Moors of the Spanish peninsula. On the contrary, the career of the Osmanli has been marked by deeds of savage atrocity, by an indifference to the obligations of oaths, as well as by his brutal ignorance and hatred of all intellectual progress; and at the present day his inferiority to the Arab in statesmanship, in honesty, and in intelligence is acknowledged.

In estimating the effects of the Crusades the reader will do well to consider the calm judgment and weighty words of a modern historian, who thus expresses our obligation to the devotion and bravery of those men whose deeds are here briefly recorded. “By arresting the progress of the Turks,” says Mr. Sharon Turner, “by stunning them with blows which a less hardy, fanatic, and profuse population could not have survived, and by protracting their entry into Europe until its various states had grown up into compacted kingdoms—until the feudal system had been substantially overthrown; until free government and humanising law had blended and concentrated individual energy and self-will into national unity and co-operating strength; until polity had begun to be a science, and that order of men whom we both venerate and revile (statesmen and politicians) had everywhere arisen—the crusaders preserved Europe from Turkish desolation, if not from conquest. And when the Ottoman power, recovering from its alarms by their discontinuance, arose in renovated vigour to a new struggle for the sovereignty of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries—though it conquered Greece, overran Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, attempted Russia and Poland, and endangered Vienna—yet the rest of Europe had then become prepared to resist its further progress; and has hitherto successfully kept it at bay, notwithstanding its mighty population and desperate fanaticism, until its political infirmity has become decided, the period of its decrepitude arrived, and its political dissolution has commenced.”

Since these words were written the decrepitude of the Turks has increased, though their cruelty has not diminished; nay, in some instances, the periodical massacres of their Christian subjects, which have ever marked the rule of this race, have been carried out more systematically and with circumstances of greater horror than of old. We are, indeed, no longer alarmed at the progress of their arms, and have no fear for our own safety. We may gather, however, from the accounts of the suffering of the Christians dwelling in our own days among the Turks, how natural it was for Europe to be terrified at the prospect of their invasion; and from the generous indignation which thrilled the heart of England at the time of the Armenian massacres, we may faintly understand why it was that Europe was so moved at the rude eloquence of Peter the Hermit, as he detailed the sufferings of the Christians of Asia Minor when first subjected to the yoke of the Turk.

FOOTNOTES

[44] [Reprinted by permission from A History of the Crusades by W. E. Dutton, to which work it is an introduction.]

---

HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF THE CRUSADES

[1096-1291 A.D.]

Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which were in use from the earliest ages of Christianity, had become very frequent about the beginning of the eleventh century. The opinion which then very generally prevailed, that the end of the world was at hand, induced vast numbers of Christians to sell their possessions in Europe, in order that they might set out for the Holy Land, there to await the coming of the Lord. So long as the Arabs were masters of Palestine, they protected these pilgrimages, from which they derived no small emoluments. But when the Seljukian Turks, a barbarous and ferocious people, had conquered that country (1075), under the caliphs of Egypt, the pilgrims saw themselves exposed to every kind of insult and oppression. The lamentable accounts which they gave of these outrages on their return to Europe excited the general indignation, and gave birth to the romantic notion of expelling these infidels from the Holy Land.

Gregory VII was the projector of this grand scheme. He addressed circular letters to all the sovereigns of Europe, and invited them to make a general crusade against the Turks. Meantime, however, more pressing interests, and his quarrels with the emperor Henry IV, obliged him to defer the projected enterprise; but his attention was soon recalled to it by the representation of a pilgrim, called Peter the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy. Furnished with letters from the patriarch of Jerusalem to the pope and the princes of the West, this ardent fanatic traversed the whole of Italy, France, and Germany; preaching everywhere, and representing, in the liveliest colours, the profanation of the sacred places, and the miserable condition of the Christians and poor pilgrims in the Holy Land. It proved no difficult task for him to impart to others the fanaticism with which he was himself animated. His zeal was powerfully seconded by Pope Urban II, who repaired in person to France, where he convoked the council of Clermont (1095), and pronounced, in full assembly, a pathetic harangue, at the close of which they unanimously resolved on the Holy War. It was decreed that all who should enrol their names in this sacred militia should wear a red cross on their right shoulder; that they should enjoy plenary indulgence, and obtain remission of all their sins.

From that time the pulpits of Europe resounded with exhortations to the Crusades. People of every rank and condition were seen flocking in crowds to assume the signal of the cross; and, in the following year, innumerable bands of crusaders, from the different countries of Europe, set out, one after another, on this expedition to the East. The only exception was the Germans, who partook but feebly of this universal enthusiasm, on account of the disputes which then subsisted between the emperor and the court of Rome. The three or four first divisions of the crusaders [comprising about 273,000 men, under the leadership of Peter the Hermit, Walter de Pexejo, and Walter the Penniless] marched without order and without discipline; pillaging, burning, and wasting the countries through which they passed. Most of them perished from fatigue, hunger, or sickness, or by the sword of the exasperated nations whose territories they had laid desolate. [The four thousand that crossed the Bosporus were annihilated by Kilidj Arslan, the sultan of Rum, or Iconium.] To these unwarlike and undisciplined troops succeeded regular armies, commanded by experienced officers, and powerful princes: the Crusades proper were inaugurated.[45]

THE FIRST CRUSADE (1096-1099 A.D.)

1096 A well-organised military force of 200,000-300,000 men sets out by different routes. Its leaders are:

(1) Godfrey de Bouillon—Duke of Lower Lorraine, with his brothers (2) Baldwin, (3) Eustace.

(4) Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror.

(5) Robert, Count of Flanders.

(6) Stephen, Count of Chartres.

(7) Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse.

(8) Hugh of Vermandois.

(9) Bohemond, Duke of Tarentum.

(10) Tancred, his nephew.

Arriving at Constantinople, all except Raymond do homage to Alexius Comnenus, the emperor. Crossing the Bosporus they invade the territory of Kilidj Arslan, sultan of Rum, or Iconium.

1097 With the help of the crusaders, Alexius recovers Nicæa. Victory of the crusaders at Dorylæum. Siege of Antioch is begun. Baldwin and Tancred attempt a private war over question of precedence of their banners. Baldwin withdraws his troops from the army, and answering an appeal for help from the Greek or Armenian ruler of Edessa, marches thither, makes himself its master, and founds the Latin county Edessa (q.v.).

1098 Surrender of Antioch, betrayed to Bohemond by the Armenian, Firuz. Kerboga, emir of Mosul besieges the crusaders in Antioch but is defeated and driven off. The crusaders rest in Antioch and quarrel among themselves.

1099 Siege and capture of Jerusalem. Foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem (q.v.). The county of Antioch founded (q.v.) with Bohemond at its head.

THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM (1099-1291 A.D.)

1099 Godfrey de Bouillon elected king of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. He makes laws for its government. The military order of the Knights Hospitallers founded. He defeats the Fatimites at Askalon.

1100 Death of Godfrey. His brother, Baldwin I, summoned from Edessa and made king.

1101 A large body of crusaders, headed by Welf of Bavaria and William of Aquitaine arrives in Asia Minor, but is destroyed and dispersed by Kilidj Arslan before it can reach Jerusalem, together with another one that arrived the previous year. Death of Stephen of Chartres at Ramla.

1104 Baldwin captures Acre (Ptolemais) from the Turks. The Turks fail in an attempt to regain Jerusalem. Death of Raymond of Toulouse.

1109 Baldwin, with the assistance of a Venetian fleet, captures Tripolis. He afterwards takes Berytus and Sidon.

1118 Death of Baldwin. His cousin, Baldwin (II) de Bourg, of Edessa succeeds. The order of Knights Templar founded by Sir Hugh de Pagano.

1119 Baldwin defeats the Turks at Antioch. The Emperor Joannes Comnenus wins a victory over the Knights Hospitaller on the Mæander.

1122 The Saracens take Baldwin prisoner.

1124 Conquest of Tyre by the crusaders, assisted by the Venetians. The latter have a third of the city allotted them.

1127 Baldwin ransomed. He attacks Aleppo and is defeated.

1131 Death of Baldwin, after being defeated near Damascus. He bequeaths the kingdom to his son-in-law, Fulk of Anjou.

1144 Death of Fulk, by accident. His young son, Baldwin III, succeeds, under the regency of Queen Melusina.

1148 The Second Crusade besieges Damascus and Askalon, but is unable to take them.

1149 Defeat of the Christians by Nur ad-Din, near the Orontes.

1153 Capture of Askalon by Baldwin III. Nur ad-Din takes Jerusalem.

1162 Death of Baldwin. His brother, Almeric or Amaury I, succeeds.

1168 Almeric invades Egypt. Capture and sack of Heliopolis. He is defeated by the generals Shirkuh and Saladin.

1173 Death of Almeric. His young son, Baldwin IV, a leper, succeeds under the guardianship of Count Raymond III, of Tripolis.

1183 Baldwin IV is compelled by his disease to resign his crown in favour of his infant nephew, Baldwin V, still under regency of Raymond.

1186 Death of Baldwin V. His mother, Sybilla, sister of Baldwin IV, inherits the crown, which she shares with her husband, Guy de Lusignan.

1187 Saladin attacks the kingdom of Jerusalem. Great defeat and capture of Guy at Tiberias. Saladin takes Jerusalem and then besieges Tyre, whence he is repelled by Conrad of Montferrat.

1188 Liberation of Guy, who renounces his title to Saladin. Conrad defends Tripolis.

1189 The Third Crusade arrives. Guy besieges Acre, assisted by a fleet of Danes, Frisians, and Flemings.

1191 Conquest of Cyprus by Richard Cœur de Lion, on his way to the Holy Land. He adds it to the kingdom of Jerusalem. Surrender of Acre. Defeat of Saladin at Azotus. Joppa and Askalon surrender to the Christians. Murder of Conrad of Montferrat, who by marriage with Sybilla’s sister, Isabella, has acquired right of succession to the kingdom. Foundation of the order of Teutonic Knights.

1192 Isabella marries Henry of Champagne, to whom Guy relinquishes his title, retaining that of king of Cyprus.

1193 On death of Saladin, his sons give Acre to the Knights of St. John—hence called St. John d’Acre.

1194 Death of Guy de Lusignan. His brother, Almeric succeeds as king of Cyprus.

1196 Death of Henry. His widow marries Almeric (II) de Lusignan, who reunites the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem.

1206 Death of Almeric. His son, Hugo I, succeeds in Cyprus. Jerusalem falls to Mary, daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat.

1210 Mary marries Jean de Brienne, who becomes king of Jerusalem.

1217 The Turks take Jerusalem from the Saracens.

1218 Jean de Brienne leads the Christians into Egypt and

1219 captures Damietta.

1221 Destruction of the Christian army in Egypt. The Turks regain Damietta.

1225 The emperor Frederick II declares that Jean de Brienne has, since Mary’s death, no claim to his title, and that it belongs to himself, since he has married Yolande, the daughter of Mary.

1228 After many delays, Frederick starts for the Holy Land.

1229 Frederick II makes a treaty with the sultan Malik al-Kamil, by which he recovers Jerusalem and other cities. He is the recognised king of Jerusalem.

From this time on (see Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Crusades) the Christian kingdom in Palestine may be considered a part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1291, when the sultan Khalil takes Acre and drives the last of the Christians out of Syria.

THE COUNTY OF ANTIOCH (1099-1268 A.D.)

A vassal state of the kingdom of Jerusalem founded 1099 by the crusaders with Bohemond of Tarentum at its head. Bohemond is captured by the Turks (1105) and Tancred goes to Antioch to govern. Bohemond released the following year. The emperor Alexius claims Antioch, but Bohemond successfully resists him. He goes to Europe, and after various adventures dies there in 1111. Tancred dies the following year. For eight years the principality is united to the kingdom of Jerusalem, but in 1126 Baldwin II of Jerusalem gives it to Bohemond II. Bohemond III rules 1162 to 1201. Some of the princes of Antioch rule in virtue of their wives’ right to the throne. In 1268 Bibars, the sultan of Egypt, captures Antioch and the principality comes to an end.

THE COUNTY OF TRIPOLIS (1109-1289 A.D.)

A vassal state or county of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1109, when the city of Tripolis is captured by the crusaders and Raymond of Toulouse placed at its head. The Christians rule until 1289, when it falls into the hands of Kalaun, the sultan of Egypt, who destroys the city.

THE COUNTY OF EDESSA (1097-1146 A.D.)

In 1097 Baldwin I, brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, in consequence of a quarrel with Tancred, leaves the main body of the crusaders, conquers Edessa, and founds the vassal state of that name.

1100 Baldwin, made king of Jerusalem, gives Edessa to his cousin, Baldwin (II) de Bourg.

1118 Baldwin II is made king of Jerusalem and Jocelyn (I) de Courtenai takes his place in the county of Edessa. He wins many victories over the Saracens.

1131 Jocelyn II succeeds.

1144 Capture of Edessa by Zenki, emir of Mosul.

1146 Jocelyn regains Edessa, but the same year Nur ad-Din, Zenki’s son and successor, retakes and destroys it. End of the county of Edessa. On account of this event Bernard of Clairvaux preaches.

THE SECOND CRUSADE (1147-1149 A.D.)

1146 In the council of Vézelay, Louis VII of France assumes the cross; the emperor, Conrad III, follows his example some months later.

1147 The armies of Conrad and Louis start from Ratisbon and Metz respectively, marching through Hungary to Asia Minor. The German army in advance is nearly annihilated in Phrygia through the treachery of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel, by Masud I, the sultan of Rum. Conrad, with the remnant of his force, joins the French army along the seacoast.

1148 Unsuccessful attempt of the Second Crusade to capture Damascus and Askalon. Conrad, in ill health, returns to Constantinople and thence to Germany.

1149 Louis returns to France. Bernard is reproached for the failure of the crusade.

THE THIRD CRUSADE (1189-1192 A.D.)

The disastrous defeat and capture of Guy de Lusignan at Tiberias by Saladin, and the latter’s capture of Jerusalem (1187), reawakens the crusading spirit. Gregory VIII urges a new crusade.

1188 William, archbishop of Tyre, induces Henry II of England and Philip Augustus of France to assume the cross.

1189 Death of Henry. Richard (I) Cœur de Lion eagerly pursues his father’s project. The emperor, Frederick (I) Barbarossa, sets out with an army through Hungary. He spends the winter at Hadrianopolis.

1190 Frederick reaches Asia Minor with assistance of Isaac Angelus, and takes Iconium. Sudden death of Frederick. His son, Frederick of Swabia, leads the crusaders to Acre, which Guy de Lusignan, having regained his liberty, is besieging. Richard and Philip Augustus start by sea for the Holy Land. They spend the winter in Sicily, quarrel and are reconciled.

1191 Richard stops at and conquers Cyprus on his way to the Holy Land. Richard and Philip arrive at Acre. Death of Frederick of Swabia during the siege. Surrender of Acre. Compact with Saladin, binding him to surrender the true cross and pay a large sum. Philip quarrels with Richard and returns to France.

1192 Richard makes unsuccessful attempt to take Jerusalem. He relieves Joppa and makes truce with Saladin entitling pilgrims to visit Jerusalem unmolested, for a short time. Richard sails for England. Is shipwrecked near Aquileia. Seized near Vienna by Leopold, duke of Austria, who surrenders him (1193) to the emperor, Henry VI. Henry imprisons him, and he is released for a large ransom in 1194 and returns to England.

THE FOURTH CRUSADE (1195-1198 A.D.)

The Knights of St. John start in 1193 to organise a crusade. They are encouraged by Pope Celestine III, who hopes that the troublesome emperor Henry VI will be induced to take part in it. Henry also promotes the project, but has no idea of taking part in it.

1195 Henry makes use of one division of the crusaders to conquer the kingdom of Sicily. Two other divisions proceed to Syria.

1196 Defeat of the Turks between Tyre and Sidon.

1197 The crusaders besiege the fortress of Thoron, but make a disgraceful retreat on hearing of the approach of an army from Egypt.

1198 The Saracens capture Joppa. The count of Montfort concludes a three years’ truce with the Saracens. The crusade leaders return to Europe.

THE FIFTH CRUSADE (1201-1204 A.D.)

Pope Innocent III, on his elevation (1198), with the assistance of Fulk of Neuilly, preaches a new crusade.

1201 The company is organised by Simon de Montfort, Walter de Brienne, and Geoffrey de Villehardouin. Boniface of Montferrat chosen leader. The party proceeds to Venice. Treaty between Venice and the leaders for transportation. Unable to pay sum demanded, the doge, Dandolo, agrees to remit the sum lacking if the crusaders will capture for him the town of Zara, taken from Venice by the king of Hungary.

1202 Arrival at Venice of Alexius, son of the deposed emperor Isaac, with whom the crusaders agree to restore Isaac. In spite of Innocent’s protests the fleet sails for Zara, which is taken and handed over to Venice.

1203 The crusaders proceed to Constantinople. Alexius III, the reigning emperor, tries in vain to treat with them. Flight of Alexius. The crusaders enter Constantinople. Isaac II and Alexius IV restored. Constant friction between the emperor and crusaders leads

1204 to the second capture of Constantinople. The reigning family driven out. Foundation of the Latin Empire of Romania and other states. (See “History of the Eastern Empire.”)

THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (1212 A.D.)

Seems to have arisen from the idea that the main cause of the failure of the Crusades was the sinfulness of the pilgrims. None but the innocent and pure could accomplish the mission. In 1212, thirty thousand boys and girls set out under the boy, Stephen, and twenty thousand from Germany, under Nicholas, a peasant boy. Most of them perish on the way; and others are sold into slavery.

THE SIXTH CRUSADE (1217-1229 A.D.)

When Innocent III crowns Frederick II emperor, in 1215, he extracts a promise from Frederick to conduct a crusade, but the latter, seeing in the pope’s action a plan to outwit him in the then imminent struggle between emperor and pope, defers his departure.

1217 Andrew II of Hungary, incited by Honorius III, Innocent’s successor, sets out for Jerusalem. He is joined by the king of Cyprus. The crusaders visit Tyre, Sidon, Acre, and Tripolis, but the Saracens make such havoc in their numbers that Andrew returns to Hungary.

1218-1221 Jean de Brienne’s expedition to Damietta. (See “Kingdom of Jerusalem”).

1228 Frederick II, after many disputes with the pope, sets out for Jerusalem, the throne of which he claims through his marriage to Yolande.

1229 Frederick makes treaty with the sultan Kamil, receiving Jerusalem and other places. Frederick crowns himself king of Jerusalem, and returns to Europe.

THE SEVENTH CRUSADE (1239-1240 A.D.)

Gregory IX preaches a new crusade (1238). The sultan Kamil dies that year.

1239 King Thibaut of Navarre leads an army to Palestine to break the truce made between Kamil and the Templars. The sons of Kamil defeat him and capture Jerusalem.

1240 Richard, earl of Cornwall, proceeds to Acre, and receives offers of peace from the sultan of Egypt. Jerusalem, and other places in Palestine, are restored to the Christians. Richard returns to England.

THE EIGHTH CRUSADE (1248-1254 A.D.)

In 1244, Jerusalem is taken by the Khwarizmians, who have been driven from their own country by Jenghiz Khan. This leads to a new crusade. Louis IX of France, in a fit of illness, vows to lead an army against the Khwarizmians.

1248 Departure of Louis and his crusaders. He winters in Cyprus.

1249 Louis proceeds to Egypt, and takes Damietta. He then sets out for Cairo.

1250 Battle of Mansura. Defeat and capture of Louis by Turan Shah, sultan of Egypt. Louis is released by the restoration of Damietta, and the promise to abstain from further hostilities. The crusaders return to St. Jean d’Acre. Louis remains four years in Syria, fortifying Acre and other cities, and

1254 returns to France.

THE NINTH CRUSADE (1270-1272 A.D.)

In 1260, the mamelukes, on the death of their sultan, Ibeg, choose Bibars as his successor. This vigorous warrior at once drives the Khwarizmians out of Syria, and takes Damascus and Jerusalem from them. He then proceeds to exterminate the Christians in Syria; in consequence of which, by 1267, a new crusade has been planned. Louis IX of France, and Prince Edward of England, are among those who assume the cross.

1268 Antioch surrenders to Bibars without a siege.

1270 After many difficulties in raising an army, the crusaders sail for the Holy Land. Stopping at Sardinia, Louis changes his plans, and proceeds against the king of Tunis. Shortly after reaching there, the plague breaks out, and Louis dies. King Charles of Naples arrives and makes a truce with the Tunisians, who pay him tribute. The whole fleet returns to Europe, and is wrecked on the Sicilian coast. Charles plunders the French and Genoese vessels. Prince Edward leaves the French in Tunis, and proceeds to Acre.

1271 Edward besieged at Acre by Bibars. Edward drives the mamelukes away and seizes Nazareth. An attempt is made to assassinate Edward.

1272 Edward concludes a ten years’ truce with Bibars, and returns to Europe.

1274 Gregory X fails in an attempt to start a new crusade. Bibars and his successors, Kalaun and Khalil, continue the process of exterminating the Christians.

1289 Tripolis is taken. Acre is the last important possession of the Christians. The mamelukes make a treaty with the king of Cyprus.

1291 Capture of Acre by Khalil. Tyre, Berytus, and other towns, submit. The last possessions of the Christians in the Holy Land are abandoned. Other crusades are planned, but they are never carried to execution. The military orders are eventually suppressed.

FOOTNOTES

[45] [From The Revolutions of Europe: being an historical view of the European nations from the subversion of the Roman Empire in the West to the abdication of Napoleon. By Christopher W. Koch, formerly professor of Public Jurisprudence at Strasburg. Translated from the French by Andrew Crichton. Second edition, London, 1839.]

---

CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE CRUSADES

“God willeth it,” the whole assembly cry;

Shout which the enraptured multitude astounds!

The Council roof and Clermont’s towers reply;—

“God willeth it!” from hill to hill rebounds,

And, in awe-struck countries far and nigh,

Through “Nature’s hollow arch” that voice resounds.

—Wordsworth.

[306-1096 A.D.]

The history of the Middle Ages presents no spectacle more imposing than the Crusades, in which are to be seen the nations of Asia and of Europe armed against each other, two religions contending for superiority, and disputing the empire of the world. After having been several times threatened by the Moslems, and a long time exposed to their invasions, all at once the West arouses itself, and appears, according to the expression of a Greek historian (Anna Comnena), to tear itself from its foundation, in order to precipitate itself upon Asia. All nations abandon their interests and their rivalries, and see upon the face of the earth but one single country worthy of the ambition of conquerors. One would believe that there no longer exists in the universe any other city but Jerusalem, or any other habitable spot of earth but that which contains the tomb of Jesus Christ. All the roads which lead to the Holy City are deluged with blood, and present nothing but the scattered spoils and wrecks of empires.

In this general confusion we may contemplate the sublimest virtues mixed with all the disorders of the wildest passions. The Christian soldiers have at the same time to contend against famine, the influence of climate, and enemies the most formidable; in the greatest dangers, in the midst of their successes and their constant discords, nothing can exhaust either their perseverance or their resignation. After four years of fatigue, of miseries, and of victories, Jerusalem is taken by the crusaders; but as their conquests are not the work of wisdom and prudence, but the fruit of blind enthusiasm and ill-directed heroism, they create nothing but a transient power.

The banner of the cross soon passes from the hands of Godfrey de Bouillon into those of his weak and imbecile successors. Jerusalem, now a Christian city, is obliged again to apply for succour to the West. At the voice of St. Bernard, the Christians take arms. Conducted by an emperor of Germany and a king of France, they fly to the defence of the Holy Land; but they have no longer great captains among them, they have none of the magnanimity or heroic resignation of their fathers. Asia, which beholds their coming without terror, already presents a new spectacle. The disciples of Mohammed awaken from their apathy; they are at once seized with a frenzy equal to that which had armed their enemies; they oppose enthusiasm to enthusiasm, fanaticism to fanaticism, and in their turn burn with a desire to shed their blood in a religious war.

[1147-1532 A.D.]

The spirit of discord which had destroyed their power is no longer felt but among the Christians. Luxury and the manners of the East weaken the courage of the defenders of the cross, and make them forget the object even of the holy war. Jerusalem, which had cost the crusaders so much blood, falls again into the power of the infidels, and becomes the conquest of a wise and warlike prince, who had united under his banner the forces of Syria and Egypt.

The genius and fortune of Saladin inflict a mortal blow upon the ill-assured power of the Christians in the East. In vain an emperor of the West, and two kings celebrated for their bravery, place themselves at the head of the whole powers of their states to deliver Palestine; these new armies of crusaders meet everywhere with brave enemies and invincible barriers, and all their united efforts produce nothing but illustrious disasters. The kingdom of Jerusalem, for whose ruins they contend, is no longer anything but a vain name; soon even the captivity and the miseries of the Holy City cease to inspire the sentiments of piety and enthusiasm that they had given birth to among the Christians. The crusaders, who had taken up arms for its deliverance, suffer themselves to be seduced by the wealth of Greece, and stop short to undertake the conquest of Constantinople.

From that time the spirit of the crusaders begins to change; whilst a small number of Christians still shed their blood for the deliverance of the tomb of Jesus Christ, the princes and the knights are deaf to everything but the voice of ambition. The popes complete the corruption of the true spirit of the crusaders, by urging them on, by their preaching, against other Christian people, and against their own personal enemies. The holy wars then degenerate into civil wars, in which both religion and humanity are outraged.

These abuses of the Crusades, and the dire passions which had mixed themselves with them, plunge Europe in disorder and anarchy; when a pious king undertakes once more to arm the powers of the West against the infidels, and to revive among the crusaders the spirit which had animated the companions of Godfrey. The two wars directed by this pious chief are more unfortunate than all the others. In the first, the world is presented with the spectacle of a captive army and a king in fetters; in the second, that of a powerful monarch dying in its ashes. Then it is that the illusion disappears, and Jerusalem ceases to attract all the attention of the West.

Soon after, the face of Europe is changed; intelligence dissipates barbarism; the Crusades no longer excite the same degree of enthusiasm, and the first effect of the civilisation it begins to spread is to weaken the spirit of the fanaticism which had given them birth. Some few useless efforts are at times made to rekindle the fire which had burned so fiercely in Europe and Asia. The nations are so completely recovered from the pious delirium of the Crusades, that when Germany finds itself menaced by the Mussulmans who are masters of Constantinople the banner of the cross can with difficulty gather an army around it; and Europe, which had risen in a mass to attack the infidels in Asia, opposes but a feeble resistance to them on its own territories.

Such is, in a few words, the picture of the events and revolutions which the historian of the Crusades has to describe.

We do not now require much sagacity to discover in our ancient chronicles what is fabulous and what is not. A far more difficult thing is to reconcile, upon some points, the frequent contradictory assertions of the Latins, the Greeks, and the Saracens, and to separate, in the history of the Crusades, that which belongs to religious fanaticism, to policy, or to human passions.

In an age in which some value is set upon an opinion of the Crusades, it will be first asked if the wars of the Crusades were just. Upon this head we have but little to answer. Whilst the crusaders believed that they were obeying God himself by attacking the Saracens in the East, the latter, who had invaded a part of Asia possessed by Christian people, who had got possession of Spain, who threatened Constantinople, the coasts of Italy, and several countries of the West, did not reproach their enemies with making an unjust war, and left to fortune and victory the care of deciding a question almost always useless.

We shall think it of more importance here to examine what was the cause and the nature of these remote wars, and what has proved to be their influence on civilisation. The Crusades were produced by the religious and military spirit which prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages. The love of arms and religious fervour were two dominant passions which, mingling in some way, lent each other a mutual energy. These two great principles, united and acting together, gave birth to the holy war; and carried, among the crusaders, valour, resignation, and heroism of character to the highest degree of eminence. Some writers have seen nothing in these great expeditions but the most deplorable excesses, without any advantage to the ages that succeeded them; others, on the contrary, maintain that we owe to them all the benefits of civilisation. It is not, at present, our business to examine these two conflicting opinions. Without believing that the holy wars have done either all the good or all the harm that is attributed to them, it must be admitted that they were a source of bitter sorrow to the generations that saw them or took part in them; but, like the ills and tempests of human life, which render man better and often assist the progress of his reason, they have forwarded the experiences of nations; and it may be said that, after having for a time seriously agitated and shaken society, they have, in the end, much strengthened the foundations of it. This opinion, when stripped of all spirit of exaggeration or system, will perhaps appear the most reasonable.

EARLY CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGES

[306-335 A.D.]

From the earliest ages of the church, a custom had been practised of making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Judea, full of religious remembrances, was still the promised land of the faithful; the blessings of heaven appeared to be in store for those who visited Calvary, the tomb of Jesus Christ, and renewed their baptism in the waters of the Jordan. Under the reign of Constantine, the ardour for pilgrimages increased among the faithful; they flocked from all the provinces of the empire to worship Jesus Christ upon his own tomb, and to trace the steps of their God in that city which had but just resumed its name, and which the piety of an emperor had caused to issue from its ruins. The Holy Sepulchre presented itself to the eyes of the pilgrims surrounded by a magnificence which redoubled their veneration. An obscure cavern had become a marble temple, paved with precious stones and decorated with splendid colonnades. To the east of the Holy Sepulchre appeared the church of the Resurrection, in which they could admire the riches of Asia, mingled with the arts of Greece and Rome. Constantine celebrated the thirty-first year of his reign by the inauguration of this church, and thousands of Christians came, on occasion of this solemnity, to listen to the panegyric of Christ from the lips of the learned and holy bishop Eusebius.

[335-493 A.D.]

St. Helena, the mother of the emperor, repaired to Jerusalem, at a very advanced age, and caused churches and chapels to be built upon Mount Tabor, in the city of Nazareth, and in the greater part of the places which Christ had sanctified by his presence and his miracles. From this period, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became much more frequent. The pilgrims, no longer in dread of the persecutions of the pagans, could now give themselves up, without fear, to the fervour of their devotion; the Roman eagles, ornamented with the cross of Jesus Christ, protected them on their march; they everywhere trampled under foot the fragments of idols, and they travelled amidst the abodes of their fellow-Christians.

A French Crusader

When the emperor Julian, in order to weaken the authority of the prophecies, undertook to rebuild the temple of the Jews, numerous were the prodigies related by which God confounded his designs, and Jerusalem, for that attempt even, became more dear to the disciples of Jesus Christ. The Christians did not cease to visit Palestine. St. Jerome, who, towards the end of the fourth century, had retired to Bethlehem, informs us in one of his letters that pilgrims arrived in crowds in Judea, and that around the holy tomb the praises of the Son of God were to be heard, uttered in many languages. From this period, pilgrimages to the Holy Land were so numerous that several doctors and fathers of the church thought it their duty to point out the abuses and danger of the practice. They told Christians that long voyages might turn them aside from the path of salvation; that their God was not confined to one city; that Jesus Christ was everywhere where faith and good works were to be found; but such was the blind zeal which then drew the Christians towards Jerusalem that the voice of the holy doctors was scarcely heard. As soon as the people of the West became converted to Christianity, they turned their eyes to the East. From the depths of Gaul, from the forests of Germany, from all the countries of Europe, new Christians were to be seen hastening to visit the cradle of the faith they had embraced.

[493-750 A.D.]

When the world was ravaged by the Goths, the Huns, and the Vandals, pilgrimages to the Holy Land were not at all interrupted. Pious travellers were protected by the hospitable virtues of the barbarians, who began to respect the cross of Christ, and sometimes even followed the pilgrims to Jerusalem. In these times of trouble and desolation, a poor pilgrim who bore his scrip and staff often passed through fields of carnage, and travelled without fear amidst armies which threatened the empires of the East and the West.

Illustrious families of Rome came to seek an asylum at Jerusalem, and upon the tomb of Jesus Christ. Christians then found, on the banks of the Jordan, that peace which seemed to be banished from the rest of the world. This peace, which lasted several centuries, was not troubled before the reign of Heraclius. Under this reign, the armies of Chosroes, king of Persia, invaded Syria, Palestine, and Egypt; the Holy City fell into the hands of the worshippers of fire; the conquerors bore away into captivity vast numbers of Christians, and profaned the churches of Jesus Christ. All the faithful deplored the misfortunes of Jerusalem, and shed tears when they learned that the king of Persia had carried off, among the spoils of the vanquished, the cross of the Saviour, which had been preserved in the church of the Resurrection. Heraclius, after ten years of reverses, triumphed, and brought back to Jerusalem the Christians whose chains he had broken. Then was to be seen an emperor of the East, walking barefooted in the streets of the Holy City, carrying on his shoulders to the summit of Calvary the wood of the true cross, which he considered the most glorious trophy of his victories.

But the joy of the faithful was not of long duration. Towards the beginning of the seventh century there had arisen, in an obscure corner of Asia, a new religion, opposed to all others which preached dominion and war. Mohammed had promised the conquest of the world to his disciples, who had issued almost naked from the deserts of Arabia. By his passionate doctrine he was able to inflame the imagination of the Arabs, and on the field of battle knew how to inspire them with his own impetuous courage. His first successes, which must have greatly exceeded his hopes, were like so many miracles, increasing the confidence of his partisans and carrying conviction to the minds of the weak and wavering. After the death of the prophet of Mecca, his lieutenants and the companions of his first exploits carried on his great work.

JERUSALEM UNDER THE SARACENS

[750-860 A.D.]

Amidst the first conquests of the Saracens, they had turned their eyes towards Jerusalem. According to the faith of the Moslems, Mohammed had been in the city of David and Solomon; it was from Jerusalem that he set out to ascend into heaven in his nocturnal voyage. The Saracens considered Jerusalem as the house of God, as the city of saints and miracles. The Christians had the grief of seeing the church of the Holy Sepulchre profaned by the presence of the chief of the infidels. Although Omar had left them the exercise of their worship, they were obliged to conceal their crosses and their sacred books. The caliph ordered a mosque to be erected on the spot whereon the temple of Solomon had been built. In the meantime, the presence of Omar, of whose moderation the East boasts, restrained the jealous fanaticism of the Moslems. After his death the faithful had much more to suffer; they were driven from their houses, insulted in their churches; the tribute which they had to pay to the new masters of Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden to carry arms or to mount on horseback. A leathern girdle, which they were never allowed to be without, was the badge of their servitude; the conquerors would not permit the Christians to speak the Arab tongue, sacred to the disciples of the Koran; and the people who remained faithful to Jesus Christ had not liberty even to pronounce the name of the patriarch of Jerusalem, without the permission of the Saracens.

HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM

All these persecutions could not stop the crowd of Christians who repaired to Jerusalem, the sight of the Holy City sustaining their courage as it heightened their devotion. There were no evils, no outrages, that they could not support with resignation, when they remembered that Christ had been loaded with chains and had died upon the cross in the places they were about to visit. The Christians of Palestine, however, enjoyed some short intervals of security during the civil wars of the Mussulmans. The dynasty of the Omayyads, which had established the seat of the Moslem empire at Damascus, was always odious to the ever-formidable party of the Alids, and employed itself less in persecuting the Christians than in preserving its own precarious power. Merwan II, the last caliph of this house, was the most cruel towards the disciples of Christ; and when he, with all his family, sank under the power of his enemies, the Christians and the infidels united in thanks to heaven for having delivered the East from his tyranny.

The Abbasids, established in the city of Baghdad which they had founded, persecuted and tolerated the Christians by turns. The Christians, always living between the fear of persecution and the hope of a transient security, saw at last the prospect of happier days dawn upon them with the reign of Harun ar-Rashid, the greatest caliph of the race of Abbas. Under this reign the glory of Charlemagne, which had reached Asia, protected the churches of the East. His pious liberality relieved the indigence of the Christians of Alexandria, of Carthage, and Jerusalem. The two greatest princes of their age testified their mutual esteem by frequent embassies: they sent each other magnificent presents; and, in the friendly intercourse of two powerful monarchs, the East and the West exchanged the richest productions of their soil and their industry. There was no doubt policy in the marks of esteem which Harun lavished upon the most powerful of the princes of the West. He was making war against the emperors of Constantinople, and might justly fear that they would interest the bravest among Christian people in their cause. To take from the Franks every pretext for a religious war, which might make them embrace the cause of the Greeks, and draw them into Asia, the caliph neglected no opportunity of obtaining the friendship of Charlemagne; and caused the keys of the Holy City and of the Holy Sepulchre to be presented to him.

Whilst the Arabians of Africa were pursuing their conquests towards the West, whilst they took possession of Sicily, and Rome itself saw its suburbs and its churches of St. Peter and St. Paul invaded and pillaged by infidels, the servants of Jesus Christ prayed in peace within the walls of Jerusalem. To the desire of visiting the tomb of Jerusalem was joined the earnest wish to procure relics, which were then sought for with eagerness by the devotion of the faithful. All who returned from the East made it their glory to bring back to their country some precious remains of Christian antiquity, and above all the bones of holy martyrs, which constituted the ornament and the riches of their churches and upon which princes and kings swore to respect truth and justice. The productions of Asia likewise attracted the attention of the people of Europe.

[860-1050 A.D.]

In short, the Christians of Palestine and the Moslem provinces, the pilgrims and travellers who returned from the East, seemed no longer to have any persecutions to dread, when all at once new storms broke out in the East. The children of Harun soon shared the fate of the posterity of Charlemagne, and Asia, like the West, was plunged into the horrors of anarchy and civil war. The gigantic empire of the Abbasids crumbled away on all sides, and the world, according to the expression of an Arabian writer, was within the reach of him who would take possession of it. The Greeks then appeared to rouse themselves from their long supineness, and sought to take advantage of the divisions and the humiliation of the Saracens. Nicephorus Phocas took the field at the head of a powerful army, and recaptured Antioch from the Moslems. Deprived of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, Nicephorus found among the Greeks more panegyrists than soldiers, and could not pursue his advantages against the Saracens. His triumphs were confined to the taking of Antioch, and only served to create a persecution against the Christians of Palestine.

Zimisces resolved to avenge the outrage inflicted upon religion and the empire. On all sides preparations were set on foot for a fresh war against the Saracens. The nations of the West were no strangers to this enterprise, which preceded, by more than a year, the first of the Crusades. After having defeated the Mussulmans on the banks of the Tigris, and forced the caliph of Baghdad to pay a tribute, Zimisces penetrated, almost without resistance, into Judea, took possession of Cæsarea, of Ptolemais, of Tiberias, Nazareth, and several other cities of the Holy Land.

After this first campaign, the Holy Land appeared to be on the eve of being delivered entirely from the yoke of the infidels, when the emperor died poisoned. His death at once put a stop to the execution of an enterprise of which he was the soul and the leader. The Christian nations had scarcely time to rejoice at the delivery of Jerusalem, when they learned that the Holy City had again fallen into the hands of the Fatimite caliphs, who, after the death of Zimisces, had invaded Syria and Palestine. Hakim, the third of the Fatimite caliphs, signalised his reign by all the excesses of fanaticism and outrage. Unfixed in his own projects, and wavering between two religions, he by turns protected and persecuted Christianity.

The inconstancy of Hakim, in a degree, mitigated the misfortunes of Jerusalem, and he had just granted liberty to the Christians to rebuild their churches, when he died by the hand of the assassin. His successor, guided by a wiser policy, tolerated both pilgrimages and the exercise of the Christian religion. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was not entirely rebuilt till thirty years after its destruction; but the spectacle of its ruins still inflamed the zeal and the devotion of the Christians. In the eleventh century the Latin church allowed pilgrimages to suffice instead of canonical penitences; sinners were condemned to quit their country for a time, and to lead a wandering life, after the example of Cain. There existed no crime that might not be expiated by the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Even the weak and timid sex was not deterred by the perils of a long voyage.[b]

CHARACTER OF THE PILGRIMS

[1000-1050 A.D.]

Though pilgrimages were generally considered acts of virtue, yet some of the leaders of the church accounted them useless and criminal. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, in the fourth century, dissuades his flock from these journeys. They were not conscientious obligations, he said, for in the description of persons whom Christ had promised to acknowledge in the next world the name of pilgrim could not be found. A migratory life was dangerous to virtue, particularly to the modesty of women.

The necessity of making a pilgrimage to Rome and other places was often urged by ladies, who did not wish to be mewed in the solitary gloom of a cloister, “chaunting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.” In the ninth century, a foreign bishop wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury, requesting, in very earnest terms, that English women of every rank and degree might be prohibited from pilgrimising to Rome. Their gallantries were notorious over all the continent. “Perpaucæ enim sunt civitates in Longobardia, vel in Francia, aut in Gallia, in qua non sit adultera vel meretrix generis Anglorum: quod scandalum est, et turpitudo totius ecclesiæ.” Muratori, Antiquitates Italiæ Med. Ævi, Dissert. 58, vol. V., p. 58. “There are few cities in Lombardy, in France, or in Gaul, in which there is not an English adultress or harlot, to the scandal and disgrace of the whole church.” Morality did not improve as the world grew older. The prioress in Chaucer, demure as she is, wears a bracelet on which was inscribed the sentence, “Amor vincit omnia.” The gallant monk, in the same pilgrimage, ties his hood with a true-lover’s knot.

Horror at spectacles of vice would diminish with familiarity, and the moral principle would gradually be destroyed. Malice, idolatry, poisoning, and bloodshed disgraced Jerusalem itself; and so dreadfully polluted was the city that, if any man wished to have a more than ordinary spiritual communication with Christ, he had better quit his earthly tabernacle at once than endeavour to enjoy it in places originally sacred, but which had been since defiled. Some years after the time of Gregory, a similar description of the depravity at Jerusalem was given by St. Jerome, and the Latin father commends a monk who, though a resident in Palestine, had but on one occasion travelled to the city. The opinions of these two venerable spiritual guides could not stem the torrent of popular religion. The coffers of the church were enriched by the sale of relics, and the dominion of the clergy became powerful in proportion to the growth of religious abuses and corruptions. Pilgrims from India, Ethiopia, Britannia, and Hibernia went to Jerusalem; and the tomb of Christ resounded with hymns in various languages. Bishops and teachers would have thought it a disgrace to their piety and learning if they had not adored their Saviour on the very spot where his cross had first shed the light of his Gospel.

A Pilgrim and Shrine

The assertion, that “the coffers of the church were enriched by the sale of relics,” requires some observations; because the sale of one relic in particular encouraged the ardour of pilgrimages, and from the ardour the Crusades arose. During the fourth century, Christendom was duped into the belief that the very cross on which Christ had suffered had been discovered in Jerusalem. The city’s bishop was the keeper of the treasure, but the faithful never offered their money in vain for a fragment of the holy wood. They listened with credulity to the assurance of their priests that a living virtue pervaded an inanimate and insensible substance, and that the cross permitted itself every day to be divided into several parts, and yet remained uninjured and entire. Thus Erasmus says, in his entertaining dialogue on pilgrimages, that “if the fragments of the cross were collected, enough would be found for the building of a ship.” It was publicly exhibited during the religious festivities of Easter, and Jerusalem was crowded with pious strangers to witness the solemn spectacle. But after four ages of perpetual distribution, the world was filled with relics, and superstition craved for a novel object. Accordingly, the Latin clergy of Palestine pretended that on the vigil of Easter, after the great lamps in the church of the Resurrection had been extinguished, they were relighted by God himself. People flocked from the West to the East in order to behold this act of the Divinity, and to catch some portion of a flame which had the marvellous property of healing all diseases, mental as well as bodily, if those who received it had faith.[c]

[1050-1076 A.D.]

The inclination to acquire holiness by the journey to Jerusalem became at length so general that the troops of pilgrims alarmed by their numbers the countries through which they passed, and although they came not as soldiers they were designated “the armies of the Lord.” In the year 1054, Litbert, bishop of Cambray, set out for the Holy Land, followed by more than three thousand pilgrims from the provinces of Picardy and Flanders.

Ten years after, seven thousand Christians set out together from the banks of the Rhine. This numerous caravan, which was the forerunner of the Crusades, crossed Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Thrace, and was welcomed at Constantinople by the emperor Constantine Ducas. After having visited the churches of Byzantium, the pilgrims of the West traversed Asia Minor and Syria without danger; but when they approached Jerusalem, the sight of their riches aroused the cupidity of the Bedouin Arabs, undisciplined hordes, who had neither country nor settled abode, and who had rendered themselves formidable in the civil wars of the East. The Arabs attacked the pilgrims of the West, and compelled them to sustain a siege in an abandoned village; and this was on a Good Friday. The emir of Ramala, informed by some fugitives, came happily to their rescue, delivered them from the death with which they were threatened, and permitted them to continue their journey. After having lost more than three thousand of their companions, they returned to Europe, to relate their tragical adventures, and the dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

THE TURKS IN POWER

[1076-1088 A.D.]

New perils and the most violent persecutions at this period threatened both the pilgrims of the West and the Christians of Palestine. Asia was once again about to change masters, and tremble beneath a fresh tyranny. During several centuries the rich countries of the East had been subject to continual invasions from the wild hordes of Tatary. The Turks, issuing from countries situated beyond the Oxus, had rendered themselves masters of Persia. Palestine yielded to the power of the Turks. The conquerors spared neither the Christians nor the children of Ali, whom the caliph of Baghdad represented to be the enemies of God. The Egyptian garrison was massacred, and the mosques and the churches were delivered up to pillage. The Holy City was flooded with the blood of Christians and Mussulmans.

Other tribes of Turks, led by Suleiman, penetrated into Asia Minor. They took possession of all the provinces through which pilgrims were accustomed to pass on their way to Jerusalem. The standard of the prophet floated over the walls of Edessa, Iconium, Tarsus, and Antioch. Thousands of children had been circumcised. Everywhere the laws of the Koran took the place of those of the Evangelists and of Greece. The black or white tents of the Turks covered the plains and the mountains of Bithynia and Cappadocia, and their flocks pastured among the ruins of the monasteries and churches. The Greeks had never had to contend against more cruel and terrible enemies than the Turks. In the midst of revolutions and civil wars, the Greek Empire was hastening to its fall.

Whilst the empire of the East approached its fall and appeared sapped by time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy. The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had no relations with each other; and mistaking their political interests, made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and concluded peace without being at all aware whether it was advantageous or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that Europe was full of soldiers and covered with strong castles, the states themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an army to defend them.

Ten years before the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks, Michael Ducas, the successor of Romanus Diogenes, had implored the assistance of the pope and the princes of the West. He had promised to remove all the barriers which separated the Greek from the Roman church, if the Latins would take up arms against the infidels. Gregory VII then filled the chair of St. Peter. The hope of extending the religion and the empire of the holy see into the East made him receive kindly the humble supplications of Michael Ducas. Excited by his discourses, fifty thousand pilgrims agreed to follow Gregory to Constantinople, and thence to Syria; but the affairs of Europe suspended the execution of his projects.

Every day the power of the popes was augmented by the progress of Christianity, and by the ever-increasing influence of the Latin clergy. Rome was become a second time the capital of the world, and appeared to have resumed, under the monk Hildebrand, the empire it had enjoyed under the cæsars. Armed with the two-edged sword of Peter, Gregory loudly proclaimed that all the kingdoms of the earth were under the dominion of the holy see, and that his authority ought to be as universal as the church of which he was the head. These dangerous pretensions, fostered by the opinions of his age, engaged him immediately in violent disputes with the emperor of Germany. He desired also to dictate laws to France, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and England; and thinking of nothing but making himself acknowledged as the great arbiter of states, he launched his anathemas even against the throne of Constantinople, which he had undertaken to defend, and gave no more attention to the deliverance of Jerusalem.

After the death of Gregory, Victor III, although he pursued the policy of his predecessor and had to contend against the emperor of Germany and the party of the anti-pope Guibert (Clement III), did not neglect the opportunity of making war against the Mussulmans. The Saracens, inhabiting Africa, disturbed the navigation of the Mediterranean, and threatened the coast of Italy. Victor invited the Christians to take arms, and promised them the remission of all their sins if they went to fight against the infidels. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and several other cities, urged by their zeal for religion and their desire to defend their commerce, equipped fleets, levied troops, and made a descent upon the coasts of Africa, where, if we are to believe the chronicles of the time, they cut in pieces an army of one hundred thousand Saracens.[b]

PETER THE HERMIT

[1088-1095 A.D.]

The true story of the first Crusade is, as Kugler

d says, sufficiently marvellous. It was a vast awakening in which religion, adventure, and design forced the European peoples out of their narrow lines of life and brought the West and East again in contact, and it grows in strangeness as we trace the story in detail. But monkish, uncritical writings which record the vague traditions of that great uprising have not rested satisfied with the marvellous truth: they have added much that is legendary. Among the legends that have failed to stand the test of recent scholarship, is the famous one which made Peter the Hermit the originator of the first Crusade. We may now feel sure that it was not Peter but Urban II who set going the great impetus; but the legend of Peter the Hermit has grown into the story of the first Crusade, and won its place in history from the belief of centuries. The reader must, however, be aware, as he reads it, that we have no authentic account of Peter’s preaching before the Council of Clermont. He was probably one of the preachers who scattered the enthusiasm of that council in northeastern France. His preaching was likely limited to the land where he could be understood in the vernacular, and his real influence is rather to be estimated by the rabble that followed him and Walter the Penniless, to leave their bones by the Danube or Bosporus. So much prefaced, let us turn to the story.

As the legend runs, Peter, an obscure hermit, came from his retreat, and followed into Palestine the crowd of Christians who went to visit the holy places.[a] The sight of Jerusalem excited him much more than any of the other pilgrims, for it created in his ardent mind a thousand conflicting sentiments. In the city, which exhibited everywhere marks of the mercy and the anger of God, all objects inflamed his piety, irritated his devotion and his zeal, and filled him by turns with respect, terror, and indignation. After having followed his brethren to Calvary and the tomb of Christ he repaired to the patriarch of Jerusalem. The white hairs of Simeon, his venerable figure, and above all the persecution which he had undergone, bespoke the full confidence of Peter, and they wept together over the ills of the Christians. The patriarch resolved to implore, by his letters, the help of the pope and the princes of Europe, and the hermit swore to be the interpreter of the Christians of the East and to rouse the West to take arms for their deliverance.

A Hermit of the Middle Ages

After this interview, the enthusiasm of Peter knew no bounds; he was persuaded that heaven itself called upon him to avenge its cause. One day, whilst prostrated before the Holy Sepulchre, he believed that he heard the voice of Christ, which said to him: “Peter, arise! hasten to proclaim the tribulations of my people; it is time that my servants should receive help, and that the holy places should be delivered.” Full of the spirit of these words, which sounded unceasingly in his ears, and charged with letters from the patriarch, he quitted Palestine, crossed the seas, landed on the coast of Italy, and hastened to cast himself at the feet of the pope. The chair of St. Peter was then occupied by Urban II, who had been the disciple and confidant of both Gregory and Victor. Urban embraced with ardour a project which had been entertained by his predecessors; he received Peter as a prophet, applauded his design, and bade him go forth and announce the approaching deliverance of Jerusalem.

[1095-1096 A.D.]

Peter the Hermit traversed Italy, crossed the Alps, visited all parts of France, and the greatest portion of Europe, inflaming all hearts with the same zeal that consumed his own. He travelled mounted on a mule, with a crucifix in his hand, his feet bare, his head uncovered, his body girded with a thick cord, covered with a long frock, and a hermit’s hood of the coarsest stuff. The singularity of his appearance was a spectacle for the people, whilst the austerity of his manners, his charity, and the moral doctrines that he preached caused him to be revered as a saint wherever he went.

He went from city to city, from province to province, working upon the courage of some and upon the piety of others; sometimes haranguing from the pulpits of the churches, sometimes preaching in the high-roads or public places. His eloquence was animated and impressive, and filled with those vehement apostrophes which produce such effects upon an uncultivated multitude. He described the profanation of the holy places, and the blood of the Christians shed in torrents in the streets of Jerusalem. He invoked, by turns, heaven, the saints, the angels, whom he called upon to bear witness to the truth of what he told them. He apostrophised Mount Zion, the rock of Calvary, and the Mount of Olives, which he made to resound with sobs and groans. When he had exhausted speech in painting the miseries of the faithful, he showed the spectators the crucifix which he carried with him; sometimes striking his breast and wounding his flesh, sometimes shedding torrents of tears. The people followed the steps of Peter in crowds. The preacher of the holy war was received everywhere as a messenger from God.

THE APPEAL OF THE EMPEROR ALEXIUS

In the midst of this general excitement, Alexius Comnenus, who was threatened by the Turks, sent ambassadors to the pope, to solicit the assistance of the Latins. “Without the prompt assistance of all the Christian states,” he wrote, “Constantinople must fall under the most frightful domination of the Turks.” He reminded the princes of Christianity of the holy relics preserved in Constantinople, and conjured them to save so sacred an assemblage of venerated objects from the profanation of the infidels. After having set forth the splendour and the riches of his capital, he exhorted the knights and barons to come and defend them; he offered them his treasures as the reward of their valour, and painted in glowing colours the beauty of the Greek women, whose love would repay the exploits of his liberators. Thus, nothing was spared that could flatter the passions or arouse the enthusiasm of the warriors of the West.

COUNCILS OF PLACENTIA AND CLERMONT

In compliance with the prayers of Alexius and the wishes of the faithful, the sovereign pontiff convoked a council at Placentia, in order there to expose the dangers of the Greek and Latin churches in the East. The preachings of Peter had so prepared the minds and animated the zeal of the faithful, that more than two hundred bishops and archbishops, four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand of the laity obeyed the invitation of the holy see. The council was so numerous that it was obliged to be held in a plain in the neighbourhood of the city. The Council of Placentia, however, came to no determination upon the war against the infidels. The deliverance of the Holy Land was far from being the only object of this council: the declarations of the empress Adelaide, who came to reveal her own shame and that of her husband, anathemas against the emperor of Germany and the anti-pope Guibert, occupied, during several days, the attention of Urban and the assembled fathers.

A new council assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne. Before it gave up its attention to the holy war, the council at first considered the reform of the clergy and ecclesiastical discipline; and it then occupied itself in placing a restraint upon the license of wars among individuals. In these barbarous times even simple knights never thought of redressing their injuries by any other means than arms. It was not an uncommon thing to see families, for the slightest causes, commence a war against each other that would last during several generations; Europe was distracted with troubles occasioned by these hostilities. In the impotence of the laws and the governments, the church often exerted its salutary influence to restore tranquillity; several councils had placed their interdict upon private wars during four days of the week, and their decrees had invoked the vengeance of heaven against disturbers of the public peace. The Council of Clermont renewed the Truce of God, and threatened all who refused “to accept peace and justice” with the thunders of the church. One of its decrees placed widows, orphans, merchants, and labourers under the safeguard of religion. They declared, as they had already done in other councils, that the churches should be so many inviolable sanctuaries, and that crosses, even, placed upon the high-roads, should become points of refuge against violence.

Humanity and reason must applaud such salutary decrees; but the sovereign pontiff, although he presented himself as the defender of the sanctity of marriage, did not merit the same praises when he pronounced in this council an anathema against Philip I. But such was then the general infatuation, that no one was astonished that a king of France should be excommunicated in the very bosom of his own kingdom. The sentence of Urban could not divert attention from an object that seemed much more imposing, and the excommunication of Philip scarcely holds a place in the history of the Council of Clermont. The faithful, gathered from all the provinces, had but one single thought; they spoke of nothing but the evils the Christians endured in Palestine, and saw nothing but the war which was about to be declared against the infidels. Enthusiasm and fanaticism, which always increase in large assemblies, were carried to their full height. Urban at length satisfied the impatience of the faithful—impatience which he, perhaps, had adroitly excited, and which was the surest guarantee of success.

The council held its tenth sitting in the great square or place of Clermont, which was soon filled by an immense crowd. Followed by his cardinals, the pope ascended a species of throne which had been prepared for him; at his side was Peter the Hermit, clad in that whimsical and uncouth garb which had everywhere drawn upon him the attention and the respect of the multitude. Urban, who spoke after Peter, represented, as he had done, the holy places as profaned by the domination of the infidels.

As Urban proceeded, the sentiments by which he was animated penetrated to the very souls of his auditors. When he spoke of the captivity and the misfortunes of Jerusalem, the whole assembly was dissolved in tears; when he described the tyranny and the perfidy of the infidels, the warriors who listened to him clutched their swords, and swore in their hearts to avenge the cause of the Christians. Urban redoubled their enthusiasm by announcing that God had chosen them to accomplish his designs, and exhorted them to turn those arms against the Moslems which they now bore in conflict against their brothers. They were not now called upon to revenge the injuries of men, but injuries offered to divinity; it was now not the conquest of a town or a castle that was offered to them as the reward of their valour, but the riches of Asia, the possession of a land in which, according to the promises of the Scriptures, flowed streams of milk and honey.

“Christian warriors,” he exclaimed, “who seek without end for vain pretexts for war, rejoice, for you have to-day found true ones. You who have been so often the terror of your fellow-citizens, go and fight against the barbarians, go and fight for the deliverance of the holy places; you who sell for vile pay the strength of your arms to the fury of others, armed with the sword of the Maccabees, go and merit an eternal reward. If you triumph over your enemies, the kingdoms of the East will be your heritage; if you are conquered, you will have the glory of dying in the very same place as Jesus Christ, and God will not forget that he shall have found you in his holy ranks. This is the moment to prove that you are animated by a true courage; this is the moment in which you may expiate so many violences committed in the bosom of peace, so many victories purchased at the expense of justice and humanity. If you must have blood, bathe your hands in the blood of the infidels. I speak to you with harshness, because my ministry obliges me to do so: soldiers of hell, become soldiers of the living God! When Jesus Christ summons you to his defence, let no base affections detain you in your homes; see nothing but the shame and the evils of the Christians; listen to nothing but the groans of Jerusalem, and remember well what the Lord has said to you: ‘He who loves his father and his mother more than me, is not worthy of me; whoever shall abandon his house, or his father, or his mother, or his wife, or his children, or his inheritance, for the sake of my name, shall be recompensed a hundredfold, and possess life eternal.’”

At these words the auditors of Urban displayed an enthusiasm that human eloquence had never before inspired. The assembly arose in one mass as one man, and answered him with a unanimous cry, “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!”[46] Pity, indignation, despair, at the same time agitated the tumultuous assembly of the faithful; some shed tears over Jerusalem and the fate of the Christians; others swore to exterminate the race of the Moslems; but, all at once, at a signal from the sovereign pontiff, the most profound silence prevailed. Cardinal Gregory, who afterwards occupied the chair of St. Peter under the name of Innocent II, pronounced, in a loud voice, a form of general confession, the assembly all fell upon their knees, beat their breasts, and received absolution for their sins. All the faithful decorated their garments with a red cross. From that time, all who engaged to combat the infidels were termed “bearers of the cross,”[47] and the holy war took the name of “Crusade.” The faithful solicited Urban to place himself at their head; but the pontiff, who had not yet triumphed over the anti-pope Guibert, who was dealing out at the same time his anathemas against the king of France and the emperor of Germany, could not quit Europe without compromising the power and the policy of the holy see. He refused to be chief of the crusade, and named the bishop of Puy apostolic legate with the army of the Christians.

THE FRENZY OF EUROPE

He promised to all who assumed the cross the entire remission of their sins. Their persons, their families, their property, were all placed under the protection of the church and of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. The council declared that every violence exercised upon the soldiers of Christ should be punished by anathema, and recommended its decrees in favour of the bearers of the cross to the watchful care of all bishops and priests. It regulated the discipline and the departure of those who had enrolled themselves in the holy ranks, and for fear reflection might deter any from leaving their homes, it threatened with excommunication all those who did not fulfil their vows.

Monks of the Middle Ages

It might be said that the French had no longer any other country than the Holy Land, and that to it they were bound to sacrifice their ease, their property, and their lives. This enthusiasm, which had no bounds, was not long in extending itself to the other Christian nations; the flame which consumed France was communicated to England, still disturbed by the recent conquest of the Normans; to Germany, troubled by the anathema of Gregory and Urban; to Italy, agitated by its factions; to Spain, even, although it had to combat the Saracens on its own territory.

The devotion for pilgrimages, which had been increasing during several centuries, became a passion and an imperative want for most Christians; everyone was eager to march to Jerusalem, and to take part in the crusade, which was, in all respects, an armed pilgrimage. The situation in which Europe was then placed no doubt contributed to increase the number of pilgrims. “All things were in such disorder,” says William of Tyre, “that the world appeared to be approaching to its end, and was ready to fall again into the confusion of chaos.” Everywhere the people groaned under a horrible servitude; a frightful scarcity of provisions, which had during several years desolated France and the greater part of the kingdoms of the West, had given birth to all sorts of brigandage and violence; and these proving the destruction of agriculture and commerce increased still further the horrors of the famine. Villages, towns even, became void of inhabitants, and sank into ruins. The people abandoned a land which no longer nourished them, or could offer them either repose or security: the standard of the cross appeared to them a certain asylum against misery and oppression. According to the decrees of the Council of Clermont, the crusaders were freed from all imposts, and could not be pursued for debts during their voyage. At the name of the cross the very laws suspended their menaces, tyranny could not seek its victims, nor justice even the guilty, amidst those whom the church adopted for its defenders. The assurance of impunity, the hope of a better fate, the love of license, and a desire to shake off the most sacred ties, actuated a vast proportion of the multitude which flocked to the banners of the crusade.

Many nobles who had not at first taken the cross, and who saw their vassals set out, without having the power to prevent them, determined to follow them as military chiefs, in order to preserve some portion of their authority. It was known that two or three hundred Norman pilgrims had conquered Apulia and Sicily from the Saracens. The lands occupied by the infidels appeared to be heritages promised to knights whose whole wealth consisted in their birth, their valour, and their sword.

We should nevertheless deceive ourselves if we did not believe that religion was the principle which acted most powerfully upon the greater number of the crusaders. In ordinary times men follow their natural inclinations, and only obey the voice of their own interest; but in the times of the Crusades, religious fever was a blind passion which spoke louder than all others. Religion permitted not any other glory, any other felicity to be seen by its ardent defenders, but those which she presented to their heated imagination. Love of country, family ties, the most tender affections of the heart, were all sacrificed to the ideas and the opinions which then possessed the whole of Europe. Moderation was cowardice, indifference treason, opposition a sacrilegious interference. The power of the laws was reckoned as nothing amongst men who believed they were fighting in the cause of God. Subjects scarcely acknowledged the authority of princes or lords in anything which concerned the holy war; the master and the slave had no other title than that of Christian, no other duty to perform than that of defending his religion, sword in hand.

They whom age or condition appeared to detain in Europe, and whom the council had exempted from the labours and perils of the crusade, caused the heaven which called them to the holy war to speak aloud. Women and children imprinted crosses upon their delicate and weak limbs, to show the will of God. Monks deserted the cloisters in which they had sworn to die, believing themselves led by a divine inspiration; hermits and anchorites issued from forests and deserts, and mingled with the crowd of crusaders. What is still more difficult to believe, thieves and robbers, quitting their secret retreats, came to confess their crimes, and promised, whilst receiving the cross, to go and expiate them in Palestine.

Europe appeared to be a land of exile, which everyone was eager to quit. Artisans, traders, labourers, abandoned the occupations by which they subsisted; barons and lords even renounced the domains of their fathers. The lands, the cities, the castles, for which they had but of late been at war, all at once lost their value in the eyes of their possessors, and were given up, for small sums, to those whom the grace of God had not touched, and who were not called to the happiness of visiting the holy places and conquering the East.

Contemporary authors relate several miracles which assisted in heating the minds of the multitude. Stars fell from the firmament; traces of blood were seen in the heavens; cities, armies, and knights decorated with the cross were pictured in the clouds. We will not relate all the other miracles reported by historians, which were believed in an age in which nothing was more common than prodigies, in which, according to the remark of Fleury, the taste for the wonderful prevailed greatly over that for the true. Our readers will find quite enough of extraordinary things in the description of so many great events for which the moral world, and even nature herself, seemed to have interrupted their laws. What prodigy, in fact, can more astonish the philosopher, than to see Europe, which may be said to have been agitated to its very foundations, move all at once, and like a single man march in arms towards the East?

The Council of Clermont, which was held in the month of November, 1095, had fixed the departure of the crusaders for the festival of the Assumption of the following year. During the winter nothing was thought of but preparations for the voyage to the Holy Land. As soon as the spring appeared, nothing could restrain the impatience of the crusaders, and they set forward on their march to the places at which they were to assemble. The greater number went on foot; some horsemen appeared amongst the multitude; a great many travelled in cars; they were clothed in a variety of manners, and armed, in the same way, with lances, swords, javelins, iron clubs, etc. The crowd of crusaders presented a whimsical and confused mixture of all ranks and all conditions; women appeared in arms in the midst of warriors, prostitution not being forgotten among the austerities of penitence. Old age was to be seen with infancy, opulence next to misery; the helmet was confounded with the frock, the mitre with the sword. Around cities, around fortresses, in the plains, upon the mountains, were raised tents and pavilions; everywhere was displayed a preparation for war and festivity. Here was heard the sound of arms or the braying of trumpets; whilst at a short distance the air was filled with psalms and spiritual songs. From the Tiber to the ocean, and from the Rhine to the other side of the Pyrenees, nothing was to be seen but troops of men marked with the cross, who swore to exterminate the Saracens, and were chanting their songs of conquest beforehand. On all sides resounded the war-cry of the crusaders: “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!”

Families, whole villages, set out for Palestine, and drew into their ranks all they met with on their passage. They marched on without forethought, and would not believe that he who nourishes the sparrow would leave pilgrims clothed with the holy cross to perish with want. Their ignorance added to their illusion, and lent an air of enchantment to everything they saw; they believed at every moment they were approaching the end of their pilgrimage. The children of the villagers, when they saw a city or a castle, asked if that was Jerusalem. Many of the great lords, who had passed their lives in their rustic donjons, knew very little more on this head than their vassals; they took with them their hunting and fishing appointments, and marched with their falcons on their wrists, preceded by their hounds. They expected to reach Jerusalem enjoying themselves on the road, and to exhibit to Asia the rude luxury of their castles.

In the midst of the general delirium, no sage caused the voice of reason to be heard; nobody was then astonished at that which now creates so much surprise. These scenes so strange, in which everyone was an actor, could only be a spectacle for posterity.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[46] Dieu le veut was pronounced in the language of the times Dieu le volt, or Diex le volt.

[47] The cross which the faithful wore in this crusade was of cloth, and sometimes even of red-coloured silk. Afterwards they wore crosses of different colours. The cross, a little in relief, was sewed upon the right shoulder of the coat or mantle, or else fastened on the front of the helmet, after having been blessed by the pope or some bishop. The prayers and ceremonies used on this occasion are still to be found in the Romish ritual. On returning from the Holy Land, they removed this mark from the shoulder and placed it on the back, or else wore it at the neck.

---

CHAPTER II. THE FIRST CRUSADE

There, armed and mounted, goes the pilgrim knight,

To meet the Saracen on Acre’s field:

The Cross is on his shoulders and his shield,

And on his banner and his helmet bright:

He knoweth not to truckle or to yield,

But valiantly for his dear Lord to fight;

For on his heart is this high purpose sealed,—

To see Jerusalem; O glorious sight!

To quench his thirst at Siloa’s sacred fount;

To bathe in Jordan’s stream without control;

To stand on Calvary’s thrice honoured mount,

And there the standard of the Cross unroll;

On that blest spot those sufferings to recount

Which He endured who died to save his sinful soul.

—John Holland.

[1096-1147 A.D.]

The 15th of August had been fixed in the Council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes, flocked round the first missionary of the Crusades, and pressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the Holy Sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy soldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims, whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot.

The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal [or Gottschalk], whose sermons had swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine Spirit. Of these, and of other bands of enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich; and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion. At Verdun, Trèves, Mainz, Speier, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred; nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricaded their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and their wealth into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

PETER THE HERMIT AND HIS RABBLE

Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy the crusaders were compelled to traverse an interval of six hundred miles—the wild and desolate countries of Hungary and Bulgaria. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity: the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes, the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor; but on the slightest provocation their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims. Agriculture must have been unskilful and languid among a people whose cities were built of reeds and timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose rein to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of discipline exposed them to every snare. The Greek prefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody. About a third of the naked fugitives, and the hermit Peter was of the number, escaped to the Thracian Mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succour of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren.

For awhile they remembered their faults and losses; but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor, and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches were safe from their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosporus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks who occupied the road of Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumour that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Suleiman tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nicæa; they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand[48] had already perished before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise.

THE LEADERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

[1096-1097 A.D.]

None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the First Crusade. The religious ardour was more strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an important place in the feudal system. The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey de Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line.

In the service of Henry IV, he bore the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rudolf the rebel king; Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the Holy Sepulchre, not as a pilgrim but a deliverer. His valour was matured by prudence and moderation; his piety, though blind, was sincere; and in the tumult of a camp he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey de Bouillon was accompanied by his two brothers—by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue.

In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king’s presence, about two months after the Council of Clermont, Hugh, count of Vermandois was the most conspicuous of the princes who assumed the cross. But the appellation of “the great” was applied, not so much to his merit or possessions (though neither were contemptible) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king of France. Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of William the Conqueror; but on his father’s death he was deprived of the kingdom of England by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks he mortgaged Normandy, during his absence, to the English usurper; but his engagement and behaviour in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem. Another Robert was count of Flanders; he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the number of his castles has been compared to the 365 days of the year. His mind was improved by literature; and in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen was chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the pilgrims of the British Isles; but the list of the barons who were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan War.

THE FOUR LEADERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

In the south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar, bishop of Puy, the pope’s legate; and by Raymond, count of St. Giles and Toulouse, who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who consecrated his declining age not only to the deliverance but to the perpetual service of the Holy Sepulchre. A mercantile, rather than a martial spirit prevailed among his provincials—a common name which included the natives of Auvergne and Languedoc—the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. From the adjacent frontier of Spain, he drew a band of hardy adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting farewell.

A Crusader

The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor; but his father’s will had reduced him to the principality of Taranto and the remembrance of his eastern trophies, till he was awakened by the rumour and passage of the French pilgrims. It is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the coolest policy and ambition with a small alloy of religious fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with astonishment and zeal. At the siege of Amalfi, his example and discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous candidates and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and his cousin Tancred was the partner, rather than the servant, of the war. In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the virtues of a perfect knight—the true spirit of chivalry, which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man, far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of the times.

Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the Crusades, a revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe. The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians; the cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honourable name miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen who served on horseback and were invested with the character of knighthood. The dukes and counts, who had usurped the rights of sovereignty, divided the provinces among their faithful barons; the barons distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices of their jurisdiction; and these military tenants, the peers of each other and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian order, which disdained to conceive the peasant or burgher as of the same species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was preserved by pure and equal alliances; their sons alone who could produce four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or reproach, might legally pretend to the honour of knighthood: but a valiant plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the sword and became the father of a new race. A single knight could impart, according to his judgment, the character which he received; and the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this personal distinction than from the lustre of their diadem.

Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the cross for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. As soon as they were relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they encouraged each other, by interviews and messages, to accomplish their vow and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the pilgrimage; their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of silver and gold; and the princes and barons were attended by their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their forces; their choice or situation determined the road; and it was agreed to meet in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and from thence to begin their operations against the Turks.

ALEXIUS COMPELS HOMAGE

[1097 A.D.]

In some oriental tale there is the fable of a shepherd, who was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes: he had prayed for water; the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his flock and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was the fortune, or at least the apprehension, of the Greek emperor Alexius Comnenus. In the Council of Placentia, his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succour, perhaps of ten thousand soldiers; but he was astonished by the approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The promiscuous multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike destitute of humanity and reason; nor was it possible for Alexius to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious, to the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious; but he was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond, and his ignorance of the Transalpine chiefs; the courage of the French was blind and headstrong; they might be tempted by the luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion of their invincible strength; and Jerusalem might be forgotten in the prospect of Constantinople.

After a long march and painful abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of Thrace; they heard with indignation that their brother, the count of Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of Alexius; he promised to supply their camp; and as they refused, in the midst of winter, to pass the Bosporus, their quarters were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds of the two nations, who despised each other as slaves and barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion was inflamed into daily provocations; prejudice is blind, hunger is deaf; and Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the waters. Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net, overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs; but the gates of Constantinople were strongly fortified; the ramparts were lined with archers; and after a doubtful conflict, both parties listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the fierce spirit of the western strangers; as a Christian warrior, he rekindled their zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise, which he engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return of spring, Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and plentiful camp in Asia; and no sooner had he passed the Bosporus than the Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the opposite shore. The same policy was repeated with the succeeding chiefs, who were swayed by the example and weakened by the departure of their foremost companions. By his skill and diligence Alexius prevented the union of any two of the confederate armies at the same moment under the walls of Constantinople; and before the feast of the Pentecost not a Latin pilgrim was left on the coast of Europe.

The same arms which threatened Europe might deliver Asia, and repel the Turks from the neighbouring shores of the Bosporus and the Hellespont. The fair provinces from Nicæa to Antioch were the recent patrimony of the Roman emperor; and his ancient and perpetual claim still embraced the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. In his enthusiasm, Alexius indulged, or affected, the ambitious hope of leading his new allies to subvert the thrones of the East; but the calmer dictates of reason and temper dissuaded him from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and lawless barbarians. His prudence, or his pride, was content with extorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity, and a solemn promise that they would either restore, or hold, their Asiatic conquests, as the humble and loyal vassals of the Roman Empire. Their independent spirit was fired at the mention of this foreign and voluntary servitude; they successively yielded to the dexterous application of gifts and flattery; and the first proselytes became the most eloquent and effectual missionaries to multiply the companions of their shame.

The ceremony of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne, the emperor sat mute and immovable; his majesty was adored by the Latin princes; and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his knees, an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to confess, and unable to deny.

NUMBERS OF THE CRUSADERS

The conquest of Asia was undertaken and achieved by Alexander, with thirty-five thousand Macedonians and Greeks; and his best hope was in the strength and discipline of his phalanx of infantry. The principal force of the crusaders consisted in their cavalry; and when that force was mustered in the plains of Bithynia, the knights and their martial attendants on horseback amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed with the helmet and coat of mail. The value of these soldiers deserved a strict and authentic account; and the flower of European chivalry might furnish, in a first effort, this formidable body of heavy horse. A part of the infantry might be enrolled for the service of scouts, pioneers, and archers; but the promiscuous crowd were lost in their own disorder; and we depend not on the eyes or knowledge, but on the belief and fancy of a chaplain of Count Baldwin, in the estimate of six hundred thousand pilgrims able to bear arms, besides the priests and monks, the women and children, of the Latin camp. The reader starts; and before he recovers from his surprise, we shall add, on the same testimony, that if all who took the cross had accomplished their vow, above six millions would have migrated from Europe to Asia. Under this oppression of faith we derive some relief from a more sagacious and thinking writer, who, after the same review of the cavalry, accuses the credulity of the priest of Chartres, and even doubts whether the Cisalpine regions (in the geography of a Frenchman) were sufficient to produce and pour forth such incredible multitudes. The coolest scepticism will remember, that of these religious volunteers great numbers never beheld Constantinople and Nicæa. Of enthusiasm the influence is irregular and transient; many were detained at home by reason or cowardice, by poverty or weakness; and many were repulsed by the obstacles of the way, the more insuperable as they were unforeseen to these ignorant fanatics. The savage countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones; their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan; and the loss of the first adventure, by the sword, or climate, or fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men. Yet the myriads that survived, that marched, that pressed forwards on the holy pilgrimage, were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anna Comnena; the images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had seen and heard; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims, that Europe was loosened from its foundations and hurled against Asia. The ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labour under the same doubt of a vague and indefinite magnitude; but we are inclined to believe that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of a single camp than at the siege of Nicæa, the first operation of the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their arms, have been already displayed. Of their troops the most numerous portion were natives of France; the Low Countries, the banks of the Rhine, and Apulia sent a powerful reinforcement; some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and England, and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or Scotland issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at home, but unwarlike abroad.

THE SIEGE OF NICÆA

We have expatiated with pleasure on the first steps of the crusaders, as they paint the manners and character of Europe; but we shall abridge the tedious and uniform narrative of their blind achievements, which were performed by strength, and are described by ignorance. From their first station in the neighbourhood of Nicomedia, they advanced in successive divisions; passed the contracted limit of the Greek Empire; opened a road through the hills, and commenced, by the siege of his capital, their pious warfare against the Turkish sultan. His kingdom of Roum extended from the Hellespont to the confines of Syria, and barred the pilgrimage of Jerusalem; his name was Kilij-Arslan, or Suleiman, of the race of Seljuk, and son of the first conqueror; and in the defence of a land which the Turks considered as their own, he deserved the praise of his enemies, by whom alone he is known to posterity. Yielding to the first impulse of the torrent, he deposited his family and treasure in Nicæa; retired to the mountains with fifty thousand horse; and twice descended to assault the camps or quarters of the Christian besiegers, which formed an imperfect circle of above six miles.

The lofty and solid walls of Nicæa were covered by a deep ditch, and flanked by 370 towers; and on the verge of Christendom, the Moslems were trained in arms, and inflamed by religion. Before this city, the French princes occupied their stations, and prosecuted their attacks without correspondence or subordination; emulation prompted their valour; but their valour was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy and civil discord. In the space of seven weeks, much labour and blood were expended, and some progress, especially by Count Raymond, was made on the side of the besiegers. But the Turks could protract their resistance and secure their escape, as long as they were masters of the lake Ascanius, which stretches several miles to the westward of the city. The means of conquest were supplied by the prudence and industry of Alexius; a great number of boats was transported on sledges from the sea to the lake; they were filled with the most dexterous of his archers; the flight of the sultana was intercepted; Nicæa was invested by land and water; and a Greek emissary persuaded the inhabitants to accept his master’s protection, and to save themselves, by a timely surrender, from the rage of the savages of Europe. In the moment of victory, or at least of hope, the crusaders, thirsting for blood and plunder, were awed by the imperial banner that streamed from the citadel; and Alexius guarded with jealous vigilance this important conquest. The murmurs of the chiefs were stifled by honour or interest; and after a halt of nine days, they directed their march towards Phrygia, under the guidance of a Greek general, whom they suspected of a secret connivance with the sultan. The consort and the principal servants of Suleiman had been honourably restored without ransom; and the emperor’s generosity to the miscreants was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.

BATTLE OF DORYLÆUM

Suleiman was rather provoked than dismayed by the loss of his capital; he admonished his subjects and allies of this strange invasion of the western barbarians; the Turkish emirs obeyed the call of loyalty or religion; the Turkoman hordes encamped round his standard; and his whole force is loosely stated by the Christians at 200,000, or even 360,000 horse. Yet he patiently waited till they had left behind them the sea and the Greek frontier; and hovering on the flanks, observed their careless and confident progress in two columns beyond the view of each other. Some miles before they could reach Dorylæum in Phrygia, the left, and least numerous, division was surprised and attacked and almost oppressed, by the Turkish cavalry. The heat of the weather, the clouds of arrows, and the barbarous onset, overwhelmed the crusaders; they lost their order and confidence; and the fainting fight was sustained by the personal valour, rather than by the military conduct, of Bohemond, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. They were revived by the welcome banners of Duke Godfrey, who flew to their succour with the count of Vermandois and sixty thousand horse; and was followed by Raymond of Toulouse, the bishop of Puy, and the remainder of the sacred army. Without a moment’s pause, they formed in new order, and advanced to a second battle. They were received with equal resolution; and, in their common disdain for the unwarlike people of Greece and Asia, it was confessed on both sides, that the Turks and the Franks were the only nations entitled to the appellation of soldiers.

Helmet of a Crusader of the First Crusade

As long as the horses were fresh and the quivers full, Suleiman maintained the advantage of the day; and four thousand Christians were pierced by the Turkish arrows. In the evening, swiftness yielded to strength; on either side, the numbers were equal, or at least as great as any ground could hold, or any generals could manage; but in turning the hills, the last division of Raymond and his provincials was led, perhaps without design, on the rear of an exhausted enemy, and the long contest was determined. Besides a nameless and unaccounted multitude, three thousand pagan knights were slain in the battle and pursuit; the camp of Suleiman was pillaged. Reserving ten thousand guards of the relics of his army, Suleiman evacuated the kingdom of Roum, and hastened to implore the aid, and kindle the resentment, of his eastern brethren. In a march of five hundred miles, the crusaders traversed the Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted towns, without either finding a friend or an enemy. The geographer may trace the position of Dorylæum, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Archelais, and Germanicia, and may compare those classic appellations with the modern names of Eskishehr the old city, Akshehr the white city, Cogni, Erekli, and Marash.

PRINCIPALITY OF EDESSA FOUNDED

To improve the general consternation, the cousin of Bohemond and the brother of Godfrey were detached from the main army with their respective squadrons of five, and of seven, hundred knights. They overran in a rapid career the hills and sea coast of Cilicia, from Cogni to the Syrian gates; the Norman standard was first planted on the walls of Tarsus and Malmistra; but the proud injustice of Baldwin at length provoked the patient and generous Italian; and they turned their consecrated swords against each other in a private and profane quarrel. Honour was the motive, and fame the reward, of Tancred; but fortune smiled on the more selfish enterprise of his rival. He was called to the assistance of a Greek or Armenian tyrant, who had been suffered under the Turkish yoke to reign over the Christians of Edessa. Baldwin accepted the character of his son and champion; but no sooner was he introduced into the city than he inflamed the people to the massacre of his father, occupied the throne and treasure, extended his conquests over the hills of Armenia and the plain of Mesopotamia, and founded the first principality of the Franks or Latins, which subsisted fifty-four years beyond the Euphrates.

SIEGE OF ANTIOCH

[1097-1098 A.D.]

Before the Franks could enter Syria, the summer, and even the autumn, were completely wasted. The siege of Antioch, or the separation and repose of the army during the winter season, was strongly debated in their council. At the head of the Turkish emirs, Baghi Sian, a veteran chief, commanded in the place; his garrison was composed of six or seven thousand horse, and fifteen or twenty thousand foot. Notwithstanding strong fortifications, the city had been repeatedly taken by the Persians, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Turks; so large a circuit must have yielded many previous points of attack; and in a siege that was formed about the middle of October, the vigour of the execution could alone justify the boldness of the attempt. Whatever strength and valour could perform in the field was abundantly discharged by the champions of the cross; in the frequent occasions of sallies, of forage, of the attack and defence of convoys, they were often victorious; and we can only complain that their exploits are sometimes enlarged beyond the scale of probability and truth. The sword of Godfrey divided a Turk from the shoulder to the haunch; and one half of the infidel fell to the ground, while the other was transported by his horse to the city gate. But the reality or report of such gigantic prowess must have taught the Moslems to keep within their walls; and against those walls of earth or stone, the sword and the lance were unavailing weapons.

Indolence or weakness had prevented the Franks from investing the entire circuit; and the perpetual freedom of two gates relieved the wants and recruited the garrison of the city. At the end of seven months, after the ruin of their cavalry, and an enormous loss by famine, desertion, and fatigue, the progress of the crusaders was imperceptible, and their success remote, if the Latin Ulysses, the artful and ambitious Bohemond, had not employed the arms of cunning and deceit. The Christians of Antioch were numerous and discontented; Firuz, a Syrian renegado, had acquired the favour of the emir and the command of three towers. A secret correspondence was soon established. Bohemond declared in the council of the chiefs that he could deliver the city into their hands. But he claimed the sovereignty of Antioch as the reward of his service; and the proposal which had been rejected by the envy, was at length extorted from the distress, of his equals. The nocturnal surprise was executed by the French and Norman princes, who ascended in person the scaling ladders that were thrown from the wall; their new proselyte, after the murder of his too scrupulous brother, embraced and introduced the servants of Christ; the army rushed through the gates; and the Moslems soon found, that, although mercy was hopeless, resistance was impotent.

But the citadel still refused to surrender, and the victors themselves were speedily encompassed and besieged by the innumerable forces of Kerboga, prince of Mosul, who with twenty-eight Turkish emirs advanced to the deliverance of Antioch. Five-and-twenty days the Christians spent on the verge of destruction; and the proud lieutenant of the caliph and the sultan left them only the choice of servitude or death. In this extremity they collected the relics of their strength, sallied from the town, and in a single memorable day annihilated or dispersed the host of Turks and Arabians, which they might safely report to have consisted of six hundred thousand men. Their supernatural allies we shall proceed to consider; the human causes of the victory of Antioch were the fearless despair of the Franks, and the surprise, the discord, perhaps the errors, of their adversaries.

In the eventful period of the siege and defence of Antioch, the crusaders were alternately exalted by victory or sunk in despair; either swelled with plenty or emaciated with hunger. A speculative reasoner might suppose that their faith had a strong and serious influence on their practice; and that the soldiers of the cross, the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre, prepared themselves by a sober and virtuous life for the daily contemplation of martyrdom. Experience blows away this charitable illusion; and seldom does the history of profane war display such scenes of intemperance and prostitution as were exhibited under the walls of Antioch. The grove of Daphne no longer flourished; but the Syrian air was still impregnated with the same vices; the Christians were seduced by every temptation that nature either prompts or reprobates; the authority of the chiefs was despised; and sermons and edicts were alike fruitless against those scandalous disorders, not less pernicious to military discipline, than repugnant to evangelic purity. In the first days of the siege and the possession of Antioch, the Franks consumed with wanton and thoughtless prodigality the frugal subsistence of weeks and months; the desolate country no longer yielded a supply; and from that country they were at length excluded by the arms of the besieging Turks. Disease, the faithful companion of want, was envenomed by the rains of the winter, the summer heats, unwholesome food, and the close imprisonment of multitudes. The pictures of famine and pestilence are always the same, and always disgustful.

The remains of treasure or spoil were eagerly lavished in the purchase of the vilest nourishment; and dreadful must have been the calamities of the poor, since, after paying three marks of silver for a goat, and fifteen for a lean camel, the count of Flanders was reduced to beg a dinner, and Duke Godfrey to borrow a horse. Sixty thousand horses had been reviewed in the camp; before the end of the siege they were diminished to two thousand, and scarcely two hundred fit for service could be mustered on the day of battle. Weakness of body and terror of mind extinguished the ardent enthusiasm of the pilgrims; and every motive of honour and religion was subdued by the desire of life. Among the chiefs, three heroes may be found without fear or reproach: Godfrey de Bouillon was supported by his magnanimous piety; Bohemond by ambition and interest; and Tancred declared, in the true spirit of chivalry, that as long as he was at the head of forty knights he would never relinquish the enterprise of Palestine. But the count of Toulouse and Provence was suspected of a voluntary indisposition; the duke of Normandy was recalled from the sea shore by the censures of the church; Hugh the Great, though he led the vanguard of the battle, embraced an ambiguous opportunity of returning to France; and Stephen count of Chartres basely deserted the standard which he bore, and the council in which he presided. The soldiers were discouraged by the flight of William, viscount of Melun, surnamed the Carpenter from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalised by the fall of Peter the Hermit, who attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast.[49]

A TYPICAL MIRACLE

A Norman Crusader

In such a cause, and in such an army, visions, prophecies, and miracles were frequent and familiar. In the distress of Antioch, they were repeated with unusual energy and success; St. Ambrose had assured a pious ecclesiastic that two years of trial must precede the season of deliverance and grace; the deserters were stopped by the presence and reproaches of Christ himself; the dead had promised to arise and combat with their brethren; the Virgin had obtained the pardon of their sins; and their confidence was revived by a visible sign, the seasonable and splendid discovery of the holy lance. The policy of their chiefs has on this occasion been admired, and might surely be excused; but a pious fraud is seldom produced by the cool conspiracy of many persons; and a voluntary impostor might depend on the support of the wise and the credulity of the people. Of the diocese of Marseilles, there was a priest of low cunning and loose manners, and his name was Peter Bartholemy. He presented himself at the door of the council-chamber to disclose an apparition of St. Andrew which had been thrice reiterated in his sleep, with a dreadful menace, if he presumed to suppress the commands of heaven. “At Antioch,” said the apostle, “in the church of my brother St. Peter, near the high altar, is concealed the steel head of the lance that pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days, that instrument of eternal, and now of temporal salvation, will be manifested to his disciples. Search and ye shall find; bear it aloft in battle, and that mystic weapon shall penetrate the souls of the miscreants.” The pope’s legate, the bishop of Puy, affected to listen with coldness and distrust; but the revelation was eagerly accepted by Count Raymond, whom his faithful subject, in the name of the apostle, had chosen for the guardian of the holy lance.

The experiment was resolved; and on the third day after a due preparation of prayer and fasting the priest of Marseilles introduced twelve trusty spectators, among whom were the count and his chaplain; and the church doors were barred against the impetuous multitude. The ground was opened in the appointed place; but the workmen, who relieved each other, dug to the depth of twelve feet without discovering the object of their search. In the evening, when Count Raymond had withdrawn to his post, and the weary assistants began to murmur, Bartholemy in his shirt, and without his shoes, boldly descended into the pit; the darkness of the hour and of the place enabled him to secrete and deposit the head of a Saracen lance; and the first sound, the first gleam of the steel, was saluted with a devout rapture. The holy lance was drawn from its recess, wrapped in a veil of silk and gold, and exposed to the veneration of the crusaders; their anxious suspense burst forth in a general shout of joy and hope, and the desponding troops were again inflamed with the enthusiasm of valour. Next day the gates of Antioch were thrown open; the battle array was marshalled; the holy lance was carried by Raymond’s chaplain; and the hosts of the enemy were annihilated or scattered.

In the season of danger and triumph, the revelation of Bartholemy of Marseilles was unanimously asserted; but as soon as the temporary service was accomplished, the personal dignity and liberal alms which the count of Toulouse derived from the custody of the holy lance provoked the envy, and awakened the reason, of his rivals. A Norman clerk presumed to sift, with a philosophic spirit, the truth of the legend, the circumstances of the discovery, and the character of the prophet; and the pious Bohemond ascribed their deliverance to the merits and intercession of Christ alone. For a while, the provincials defended their national palladium with clamours and arms; and new visions condemned to death and hell the profane sceptics who presumed to scrutinise the truth and merit of the discovery. The prevalence of incredulity compelled the author to submit his life and veracity to the judgment of God. A pile of dry fagots, four feet high, and fourteen long, was erected in the midst of the camp; the flames burned fiercely to the elevation of thirty cubits; and a narrow path of twelve inches was left for the perilous trial. The unfortunate priest of Marseilles traversed the fire with dexterity and speed; but his thighs and belly were scorched by the intense heat; he expired the next day; and the logic of believing minds will pay some regard to his dying protestations of innocence and truth. Some efforts were made by the provincials to substitute a cross, a ring, or a tabernacle, in the place of the holy lance, which soon vanished in contempt and oblivion.

The prudence or fortune of the Franks had delayed their invasion till the decline of the Turkish Empire. Under the manly government of the first three sultans, the kingdoms of Asia were united in peace and justice; and the innumerable armies which they led in person were equal in courage, and superior in discipline, to the barbarians of the West. But at the time of the crusade the inheritance of Malik Shah was disputed by his four sons. The twenty-eight emirs, who marched with the standard of Kerboga, were his rivals or enemies; their hasty levies were drawn from the towns and tents of Mesopotamia and Syria; and the Turkish veterans were employed or consumed in the civil wars beyond the Tigris. The caliph of Egypt embraced this opportunity of weakness and discord, to recover his ancient possessions; and his sultan Afdal besieged Jerusalem and Tyre, expelled the children of Ortok, and restored in Palestine the civil and ecclesiastical authority of the Fatimites. They heard with astonishment of the vast armies of Christians that had passed from Europe to Asia, and rejoiced in the sieges and battles which broke the power of the Turks, the adversaries of their sect and monarchy. But the same Christians were the enemies of the prophet; and from the overthrow of Nicæa and Antioch, the motive of their enterprise, which was gradually understood, would urge them forwards to the banks of the Jordan, or perhaps of the Nile. An intercourse of epistles and embassies, which rose and fell with the events of war, was maintained between the throne of Cairo and the camp of the Latins; and their adverse pride was the result of ignorance and enthusiasm. The ministers of Egypt declared in a haughty, or insinuated in a milder, tone, that their sovereign, the true and lawful commander of the faithful, had rescued Jerusalem from the Turkish yoke; and that the pilgrims, if they would divide their numbers, and lay aside their arms, should find a safe and hospitable reception at the sepulchre of Jesus. In either fortune the answer of the crusaders was firm and uniform; they disdained to inquire into the private claims or possessions of the followers of Mohammed; whatsoever was his name or nation, the usurper of Jerusalem was their enemy; and instead of prescribing the mode and terms of their pilgrimage, it was only by a timely surrender of the city and province, their sacred right, that he could deserve their alliance, or deprecate their impending and irresistible attack.

JERUSALEM BESIEGED

[1098-1099 A.D.]

Yet this attack, when they were within the view and reach of their glorious prize, was suspended above ten months after the defeat of Kerboga. The zeal and courage of the crusaders were chilled in the moment of victory; and instead of marching to improve the consternation, they hastily dispersed to enjoy the luxury of Syria. The causes of this strange delay may be found in the want of strength and subordination. In the painful and various service of Antioch, the cavalry was annihilated; many thousands of every rank had been lost by famine, sickness, and desertion; the same abuse of plenty had been productive of a third famine; and the alternation of intemperance and distress had generated a pestilence, which swept away above fifty thousand of the pilgrims. Few were able to command, and none were willing to obey; and Count Raymond exhausted his troops and treasures in an idle expedition into the heart of Syria. The winter was consumed in discord and disorder. In the month of May, the relics of this mighty host proceeded from Antioch to Laodicea; about forty thousand Latins, of whom no more than fifteen hundred horse, and twenty thousand foot, were capable of immediate service. Their easy march was continued between Mount Libanus and the sea shore; their wants were liberally supplied by the coasting traders of Genoa and Pisa; and they drew large contributions from the emirs of Tripolis, Tyre, Sidon, Acre, and Cæsarea, who granted a free passage and promised to follow the example of Jerusalem. From Cæsarea they advanced into the midland country; their clerks recognised the sacred geography of Lydda, Ramla, Emmaus, and Bethlehem, and as soon as they descried the Holy City, the crusaders forgot their toils and claimed their reward.

Jerusalem has derived some reputation from the number and importance of her memorable sieges. It was not till after a long and obstinate contest that Babylon and Rome could prevail against the obstinacy of the people, the craggy ground that might supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and towers that would have fortified the most accessible plain. By the experience of a recent siege, and a three years’ possession, the Saracens of Egypt had been taught to discern, and in some degree to remedy, the defects of a place, which religion as well as honour forbade them to resign. Aladin, or Iftikhar, the caliph’s lieutenant, was entrusted with the defence; his policy strove to restrain the native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and that of the Holy Sepulchre. His garrison is said to have consisted of forty thousand Turks and Arabians; and if he could muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging army. Their siege was more reasonably directed against the northern and western sides of the city. Godfrey de Bouillon erected his standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary; to the left, as far as St. Stephen’s gate, the line of attack was continued by Tancred and the two Roberts; and Count Raymond established his quarters from the citadel to the foot of Mount Zion, which was no longer included within the precincts of the city. On the fifth day, the crusaders made a general assault. By dint of brutal force, they burst the first barrier, but they were driven back with shame and slaughter to the camp; the influence of vision and prophecy was deadened by the too frequent abuse of those pious stratagems; and time and labour were found to be the only means of victory. The time of the siege was indeed fulfilled in forty days, but they were forty days of calamity and anguish. On a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and hour of the passion, Godfrey de Bouillon stood victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the emulation of valour; and about 460 years after the conquest of Omar, the Holy City was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the adventurers had agreed to respect the exclusive property of the first occupant; and the spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps and massy vases of gold and silver, rewarded the diligence, and displayed the generosity, of Tancred.

A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians; resistance might provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage; they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre; and the infection of the dead bodies produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burned in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives, whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some sentiments of compassion; yet we may praise the more selfish lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe conduct to the garrison of the citadel.

The Holy Sepulchre was now free; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in a humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the Saviour of the world, and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption.[b]

THE ARAB ACCOUNT

It is well in a moment of such historic import as this to see how the other side accepts the crisis. The Arab historian Ibn Guzi[d] wrote as follows: “The Franks, when they set out from Antioch, numbered one million men, of whom five hundred thousand were fit for war. The rest consisted of workmen and those employed on the swivel-guns and other instruments of war. They marched along the sea shore. Jerusalem at that time belonged to the Egyptians. Their commander was named Iftikhar ad-Daulah, or ‘the glory of the empire.’

“The siege lasted forty days. The Franks built two towers to command the walls of the town, one in the direction of the gate of Sidon, the other in that of the gates of Asbat and Amud, or the gates of the Tribes and of the Column. The besieged succeeded in burning the tower near the gate of Sidon; the second was brought up close to the walls. Then the Franks set all their machines to work at the same time; attacking like one single man, they put the Moslems to flight and entered the town by force. The inhabitants took refuge in the mosque Alacsa and its dependencies; the Franks, following them there, killed it is said one hundred thousand persons, and made an equal number prisoners. They did not even spare the aged of both sexes.

“In this spot immense riches were stored. They found seventy lamps, twenty of which were of gold and the others of silver; they also carried off a tennur or large silver lamp, weighing forty Syrian pounds. The Jews they shut up in their synagogue, and burned them there. Jerusalem had been in the power of Islam without a break since the reign of Caliph Omar, in the sixteenth year of the Hegira (637 A.D.). A Moslem author named Ibn Zulak,[d] thinking no doubt to give greater importance to this event, declares that at the moment when the Christians entered the Holy City the sun was eclipsed, the earth was hidden in darkness, and the stars appeared in broad daylight.”[d]

The Moslem poets describe the horrors of massacre in vehement terms, bewailing the butchery of the women and the children and the fate of their fathers who “but lately masters of Syria, now found no other refuge than the backs of swift camels or even the entrails of the vultures!”[a]

GODFREY ELECTED KING (1099 A.D.)

[1099-1147 A.D.]

Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king to guard and govern their conquest in Palestine. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own followers; and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed Godfrey de Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year, too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a summons to the field by the approach of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Askalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalised the valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars.

After suspending before the Holy Sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only, with the gallant Tancred, three hundred knights and two thousand foot soldiers, for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague of Antioch; the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious clamours had required that the choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin clergy; the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was justified by the reproach of heresy or schism; and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the oriental Christians regretted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome; he brought a fleet of his countrymen to the succour of the Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of the church. The new patriarch immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Joppa; instead of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus.

A Crusader

(From an effigy on a tomb in Florence)

Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have been almost stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jerusalem and Joppa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent country. Within this narrow verge, the Mohammedans were still lodged in some impregnable castles; and the husbandman, the trader, and the pilgrim were exposed to daily and domestic hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne, the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and Israel. After the reduction of the maritime cities of Laodicea, Tripolis, Tyre, and Askalon, which were powerfully assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of Flanders and Norway, the range of sea coast from Scanderoon to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims. If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of Edessa and Tripolis owned themselves the vassals of the king of Jerusalem; the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo were the only relics of the Mohammedan conquests in Syria.

The laws and language, the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church, were introduced into these transmarine colonies. The whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding myriads of Saracens and Turks. But the firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John, and of the Temple of Solomon; on the strange association of a monastic and military life, which fanaticism might suggest, but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the vows of these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were immortal; and the speedy donation of twenty-eight thousand farms, or manors, enabled them to support a regular force of cavalry and infantry for the defence of Palestine. The austerity of the convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms; the world was scandalised by the pride, avarice, and corruption of these Christian soldiers. But in their most dissolute period, the knights of the Hospital and Temple maintained their fearless and fanatic character; they neglected to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ; and the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the Crusades, has been transplanted by this institution from the Holy Sepulchre to the Isle of Malta.

No sooner had Godfrey de Bouillon accepted the office of supreme magistrate, than he solicited the public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, who were the best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarchs and barons of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assize of Jerusalem—a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence.

The justice and freedom of the constitution were maintained by two tribunals of unequal dignity, which were instituted by Godfrey de Bouillon after the conquest of Jerusalem. The king, in person, presided in the upper court, the court of the barons. Of those the four most conspicuous were the prince of Galilee, the lord of Sidon and Cæsarea, and the counts of Joppa and Tripolis, who, perhaps with the constable and marshal, were in a special manner the compeers and judges of each other. But all the nobles who held their lands immediately of the crown were entitled and bound to attend the king’s court; and each baron exercised a similar jurisdiction in the subordinate assemblies of his own feudatories. The trial by battle was established in all criminal cases which affected the life, or limb, or honour, of any person; and in all civil transactions, of or above the value of one mark of silver.

Among the causes which enfranchised the plebeians from the yoke of feudal tyranny, the institution of cities and corporations is one of the most powerful; and if those of Palestine are coeval with the First Crusade, they may be ranked with the most ancient of the Latin world. Many of the pilgrims had escaped from their lords under the banner of the cross; and it was the policy of the French princes to tempt their stay by the assurance of the rights and privileges of freemen. It is expressly declared in the Assize of Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights and barons, the court of peers, in which he presided himself, Godfrey de Bouillon established a second tribunal, in which his person was represented by his viscount. The jurisdiction of this inferior court extended over the burgesses of the kingdom; and it was composed of a select number of the most discreet and worthy citizens, who were sworn to judge, according to the laws, of the actions and fortunes of their equals. In the conquest and settlement of new cities, the example of Jerusalem was imitated by the kings and their great vassals; and above thirty similar corporations were founded before the loss of the Holy Land. Another class of subjects, the Syrians, or oriental Christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy, and protected by the toleration of the state. Godfrey listened to their reasonable prayer, that they might be judged by their own national laws. A third court was instituted for their use, of limited and domestic jurisdiction; the sworn members were Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the office of the president (in Arabic, of the rais) was sometimes exercised by the viscount of the city. At an immeasurable distance below the nobles, the burgesses, and the strangers, the Assize of Jerusalem condescends to mention the villeins and slaves, the peasants of the land and the captives of war, who were almost equally considered as the objects of property. The relief or protection of these unhappy men was not esteemed worthy of the care of the legislator; but he diligently provides for the recovery, though not indeed for the punishment, of the fugitives. Like hounds, or hawks, which had strayed from the lawful owner, they might be lost and claimed; the slave and falcon were of the same value; but three slaves, or twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price of the war-horse; and a sum of three hundred pieces of gold was fixed, in the age of chivalry, as the equivalent of the more noble animal.[b]

RESULTS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

As if obeying the impetus it had received, the new state continued the spirit of conquest under Godfrey’s first two successors—Baldwin I (1100-1118) and Baldwin II of Bourg (1118-1131). But after these two reigns decadence began in discord. The atabegs who ruled at Mosul and Damascus took Edessa and massacred its people in 1144. There needed nothing less than this bloody disaster, which left Palestine exposed, to drive Europe to the renewal of crusade.

The First Crusade was very different from the seven others. It kindled all Europe, profoundly stirred the masses, both people and peers, and was the symptom of a great upheaval of sentiments and ideals. Those of the two following centuries had not the same motive. They were almost all conducted by kings who had kept aloof from the first; and even if faith were never absent, politics was often superior.

The Second Crusade felt still a vivid reflection of the spirit of devotion that animated the First; but it was no longer the work of the people but of princes—the emperor Conrad III and King Louis VII of France, who took the cross in spite of the prudent counsels of his minister, Abbé Suger. This Crusade was preached in France and Germany by St. Bernard; but already the zeal was somewhat chilled. A general tax levied on the whole kingdom of France, and on every class—nobles, priests, or peasants—roused much protest; at Sens the people killed the abbé of St. Pierre le Vif, ruler of part of their city, because of an impost he had wished to collect. “The king,” said a contemporary, “started on his way in the midst of curses.” St. Bernard had been offered the command of the expedition, but remembering Peter the Hermit, he refused.[e]

This Peter the Hermit, who for all his meek and lowly manner had unhinged all Europe and led a huge rabble to the slaughter in Asia Minor, had received an address of thanks in Jerusalem when the city had been taken; and then retiring to his native France had built a monastery at Huy on the Maas, where he lived quietly and died obscurely in 1115, recking nothing of the series of bloody wars that were to follow as the aftermath of his perfervid oratory and fanatic frenzy.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[48] [The reader will be cautious in giving some of these numbers his full credence, but there are often no existing documents on which to base a modification or substitution, and we can only quote the old chronicler and take his figures with a liberal pinch of salt.]

[49] Peter and William fled, during the night, from the distress which prevailed in the camp of the crusaders before the capture of Antioch. In the morning they were pursued by Tancred, brought back, and obliged to swear publicly that they would never again desert the army.—Wilken,[c] I, p. 184.

Horse Armour of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

---

CHAPTER III. THE SECOND CRUSADE

Winged is each heart, and winged every heel;

They fly, yet notice not how fast they fly;

But by the time the dewless meads reveal

The fervent sun’s ascension in the sky,

Lo, towered Jerusalem salutes the eye!

A thousand pointing fingers tell the tale;

“Jerusalem!” a thousand voices cry,

“All hail, Jerusalem!” hill, down, and dale

Catch the glad sounds, and shout, “Jerusalem, all hail!”

—Tasso (Jerusalem, Canto iii).

[1147-1189 A.D.]

The enthusiasm of the First Crusade is a natural and simple event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration: that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the Council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some impending or recent calamity; the nations were moved by the authority of their pontiffs and the example of their kings; their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard, the monk or the saint, may claim the most honourable place.

ST. BERNARD

[1115-1147 A.D.]

About eight years before the first conquest of Jerusalem he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of twenty-three he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive fervour of the institution; at the end of two years he led forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux in Champagne; and was content till the hour of his death with the humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honours of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at least superior to their votaries and disciples; and in the race of superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint. In a secular life he would have shared the seventh part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world, by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the founder of 160 convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures; France, England, and Milan consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church; the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent II; and his successor, Eugenius III, was the friend and disciple of the holy Bernard.

It was in the proclamation of the Second Crusade that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of the Holy Sepulchre. At the parliament of Vézelay he spoke before the king; and Louis VII, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad; a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress from Constance to Cologne was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes that only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows. The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favour, he prudently declined a military command in which failure and victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character.[b]

In the consternation throughout Palestine which the fall of Edessa occasioned, all classes of people beckoned their compatriots in the West. The news of the loss of the eastern frontier of the Latin kingdom reached France at a time peculiarly favourable for foreign war. After having reduced his vassal the count of Champagne to obedience, Louis VII the French king exceeded the usual cruelty of conquerors, and instead of sheathing his sword, when the inhabitants of Vetri submitted, he set fire to a church, to which more than thirteen hundred of them had fled for refuge. His sacrilegious barbarity excited the indignation of the clergy and laity. A fit of sickness calmed his passions; his conscience accused and condemned him, and he resolved to expiate his sins by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Louis VII was the first sovereign prince who engaged himself to fight under the banner of the cross. The news of the calamities in Palestine quickened his holy resolution, and like other men he was impetuously moved by the eloquence of St. Bernard, the great oracle of the age.

The wish of Louis for a crusade was applauded by Pope Eugenius III. His intention was pronounced to be holy; and Bernard was ordered to travel through France and Germany, and preach a plenary indulgence to those who followed the royal example. Eugenius wrote to the faithful sons of the church, urging them to cross the seas to Palestine. The first crusaders had provoked the wrath of heaven by their dissoluteness and folly; but the new soldiers of Christ ought to travel simple in dress, and disdaining the luxury of falcons and dogs of the chase. As Peter had represented the scandal of suffering the sacred places to remain in the hands of the infidels, the eloquent Bernard thundered from the pulpit the disgrace of allowing a land which had been recovered from pollution again to sink into it. He was admitted to the thrones of princes, as well as to the pulpits of their churches; to public assemblies and to private meetings. In a parliament held at Vézelay, in the season of Easter, 1146, Louis was confirmed in his pious resolve; and having on his knees received the holy symbol, he joined with Bernard in moving the barons and knights to save the sanctuary of David from the hands of the Philistines. No house could contain the multitude; they assembled in the fields and Bernard addressed them from a lofty pulpit. As at the Council of Clermont, so on this occasion shouts of “Deus id vult” rent the skies; the crosses which the man of God had brought with him to the meeting fell far short of the number of enthusiasts; and he therefore tore his simple monkish garment into small pieces, and affixed them to the shoulders of his kneeling converts. The successful incendiary then crossed the Rhine; and every city and village from Constance to Carinthia echoed the call to war.

[1147-1148 A.D.]

But the emperor Conrad III made a long and firm denial. As politics prevented the exercise of religious fervour, the preacher endeavoured to impress him with the belief that were he in arms for the kingdom of God, heaven would protect his kingdom in Europe. Still the emperor wanted faith; but when the holy orator, in a moment of peculiar energy, drew an animated picture of the proceedings of the day of judgment, of the punishments which would be inflicted on the idle, and the rewards which would be showered upon the Christians militant, then it was that conviction flashed across the mind of the royal auditor; and the profession was made that the lord of the Germans knew and would perform his duty to the church. Encouraged by this example, the barons and people flew to arms.[50]

Mainz was the rendezvous of the French crusaders, and Ratisbon of those from Germany. The French levies were of priests, of people, and of soldiers; and of the last class the number of men armed with the helmet and coat of mail was seventy thousand. The civil wars of England had been closed by the weakness of all parties; but some of the nobility, restless when not engaged in deeds of blood, joined themselves to the force of Louis. Conrad had an army quite as large and formidable, with a due proportion of light-armed men, and simple pilgrims. The enthusiasm of the crusade realised the dreams of romancers, and heroines as well as heroes had prepared themselves to make war upon the paynim brethren. A considerable troop of women rode among the Germans; they were arrayed with the spear and shield, but (like Virgil’s Camilla) some love of usual delights had mingled itself with the desire of great exploits, for they were remarkable by the splendour of their dress, and the bold leader was called “the golden-footed dame.”[51] The emperor marched through Hungary and solicited the friendship of the Grecian court.

ST. BERNARD FEEDING THE POOR

Manuel, the grandson of Alexius, was on the throne, and although like his ancestor he beheld with secret dread the armaments of Europe, yet for the protection of his subjects he entered into a treaty with Conrad for the regular purchase and sale of provisions. There was frequent matter of charge and recrimination between the Greeks and the Germans in the march of the latter to Constantinople; and circumstances occasioned many negotiations between the two emperors. But Conrad apprehended the duplicity of Manuel, and in indignation at the Grecian’s infraction of the treaty relating to intercourse, he crossed the Bosporus without meeting or conferring with the emperor.

Manuel received the king of France as an equal. He met him in the court of his palace, and after mutual embraces conducted him into an apartment, where they sat with equal dignity. In the midst of feasts and public rejoicings the French monarch learned that the emperor and the sultan of Iconium were in correspondence. The impatience of the barons and knights to visit Jerusalem overcame every suggestion to revenge, and made them think that the defence of the Holy Land, and not the destruction of the Greek Empire, was the object for which they had taken up arms. But there were not wanting men who urged that the time was arrived for removing the barrier between Europe and Asia.

DISASTERS OF THE GERMANS

The passage through Bithynia completed, Conrad entered Lycaonia, the heart of the dominions of the Seljuk Turks. The sultan had assembled from every quarter of his states all the troops that could possibly be brought into the field, and the number was so great that the rivers could not satisfy their thirst or the country furnish provisions. The imperial guides conducted the objects of their care either through deserts where the soldiers perished from hunger, or led them into the jaws of the Moslems. In their occasional transactions, the bread which the crusaders purchased was mixed with chalk, and various other cruel frauds were practised by the Greeks. The assaults of the Turks were incessant. The staff of the pilgrim was a poor defence from a scimitar, and the heavily armed Germans could not retreat from the activity of the Tatars. Only a tenth part of the soldiers and palmers that had left the banks of the Danube and the Rhine escaped the arrows of the Moslems, and with their commander secured their retreat to the French army. Louis had been lulled into security by the flattering assurances of Manuel that Conrad, so far from standing in need of succour, had even defeated the Turks and taken Iconium. The French king was lying in camp on the borders of the lake near Nicæa, when some wretched German fugitives arrived with news of the perfidy of the Greeks, and the triumph of the Moslems. The allied monarchs soon met and consulted on the road which the champions of the cross should take. They united their crusaders, turned aside from the path which had been trodden by the feudal princes of Europe, and marched in concert as far as Philadelphia in Lydia; but the Germans had lost their baggage, and on a prospect of new calamities, many returned to Constantinople, and near Ephesus (to which place the army directed its course) the emperor himself embarked, and went to Jerusalem by ship.

THE FRENCH FAILURE

Dubbing a Knight on the Field of Battle

The French recruited themselves on the shores of the Ægean Sea, and pursued their march in an easterly direction. They rejected with disdain an offer of Manuel of a protection from Moslem fury, and they gallantly kept up their course with the usual portion of suffering, till they arrived at the banks of the Mæander. They found there the Turks, who having safely deposited their spoils came to dispute with the Latins the passage of the river. The battle was not of long duration; the French made so great a slaughter of their foe, that the bones of the Moslems were conspicuous for years. The crusaders proceeded in good order and discipline through the town of Laodicea, into the barrier mountains between Phrygia and Pisidia. The vanguard of the army advanced beyond the appointed rendezvous. The rearguard, in which was the king, moved forwards with perfect confidence that the heights before them were in possession of their friends. Their ravenous enemy, who always hovered round them, seized the moment when the ranks of the Christians were divided, and casting aside their bows and arrows, fell upon them with tumultuous rapidity, sword in hand. It was in a defile of the mountains that the Turkish tempest burst on the Latin troops. Rocks ascending to the clouds were above the crusaders, and fathomless precipices beneath them. The French could not recover from the shock and horror of the surprise. Men, horses, and baggage were cast into the abyss. The Turks were innumerable and irresistible. The life of the king was saved more by fortune than by skill. He escaped to an eminence with a few soldiers, and in the deep obscurity of the night made his way to the advanced guard. The snows of winter, deficiency of stores, and the refusal of the Greeks to trade with them, were the evils with which the French had to contend. They marched, or rather wandered, for they knew not the roads, and the discipline of the army was broken. They arrived at Attalia (Adalia), the metropolis of Pamphylia, seated on the sea shore near the mouth of the Cestrus. But the unchristian Greeks refused hospitality to the enemies of the infidel name.

[1148-1149 A.D.]

Famine had so dreadfully thinned the ranks of the army, and so many horses and other beasts of burden had perished, that the most sage and prudent among the crusaders advised their companions to turn aside from scenes of desolation, and proceed by sea to Antioch. The king and his soldiers embarked for Antioch. The way-worn pilgrims and the sick were committed to the charge of Thierry, count of Flanders, who was to march with them to Cilicia. But when Louis quitted the harbour, the Turks fell upon the Christians who were left behind, and the escort was found to be feeble and ineffective. The people of Attalia not only declined to open their gates, but even murdered the sick. Every day the Turks killed hundreds of the pilgrims, and as it was evident that flight alone could save the remainder, Thierry escaped by sea. Seven thousand wretched votaries of the cross attempted to surmount the higher difficulties of the land journey to Jerusalem; but the Holy City never opened to their view, and in perishing under Moslem vengeance they thought that the loss of the completion of the pilgrimage was compensated by the glories of martyrdom.

The nobility, the clergy, and people of Antioch received the French king with every demonstration of respect; but no blandishments of persuasion or petulant threats of divorce from his wife Eleanora, could move Louis from his purpose of marching into Palestine. He repaired to the Holy City; entered it in religious procession, while crowds of ecclesiastics and laymen were singing the psalm, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” His arrival had been preceded by that of the emperor of Germany, the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, and the ruined German band.

A council was held at Ptolemais, composed of the princes, barons, and prelates of Syria and Palestine, and the new commanders from Europe. The misfortunes of the Edessenes were forgotten, or yielded to higher feelings, for though the recapture of the principality of the Courtenais was the great object of the crusade, yet there were Moslem cities in Syria far more dangerous to Jerusalem than the remote city of Edessa. The decree for a march to Damascus was passed, and the emperor of Germany and the kings of France and Jerusalem brought their troops into the field; but the best disciplined parts of the army were the knights of the Temple and St. John. Eager to relieve Damascus from the yoke under which she had groaned for nearly five centuries, the champions of Christianity soon arrived under her walls. Numerous and of long continuance were the engagements between the Latins and the Syrians. The city was apparently in the power of the crusaders, and the people abandoned themselves to despair. But instead of taking possession of Damascus the Latins anticipated the event and thought only to whom the prize should be given. Much time was wasted in intrigues, and after sustaining for a short time the sallies of reinforcements, and rejecting in a council of war the advice of some unsubdued spirits for an attack on Askalon, the Christian army raised the siege of Damascus, and retrograded to Jerusalem in sorrow and in shame. Conrad soon returned to Europe with the shattered relics of the German host, and his steps were a year afterwards traced by the French king, the queen, and most of the French lords.

Among the few men whose virtues and abilities spread some rays of moral and intellectual light over the twelfth century was Suger, the abbot of the celebrated religious fraternity of St. Denis, in France. Strongly imbued with the superstition of his time, his fondest wish was for the overthrow of the Moslems. As minister of Louis VII, however, he had exposed to his royal master the embarrassment of the state finances, the fierce and menacing aspect of the crown vassals, and other circumstances of a political nature, to deter him from quitting his dominions. But the spirit of romantic devotion in the heir of Charlemagne could not be quenched, and Louis well consulted the interests of his kingdom in delivering the sceptre to the charge of the abbot of St. Denis. After his return from Palestine, the king ardently wished to recross the seas, and by martial achievements to obliterate the memory of former disasters. When all thoughts of a crusade had apparently died away, France was astonished at the appearance of a martial missionary in the person of him who had opposed the second holy war. The clergy of the East implored Suger to restore the fortunes of the Holy Land, knowing that he possessed more credit in France than all the other princes and prelates, and that his piety equalled his authority. Papal benediction was bestowed upon him, though the pope was at first amazed at the enthusiasm of a man nearly seventy years of age; but his influence was exerted in vain. Angry at the timidity of his countrymen, his own courage rose; he resolved to conduct a small army to Palestine himself, and his reliance on the favour of heaven made him hope that the vassals of St. Denis alone would be more powerful than the congregated myriads of Europe. All aspirations for glory were humbled by a fever; he died at St. Denis, and his successor in the abbacy pursued the usual duties of his station, without superadding those of a martial description.[c]

THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM

[1149-1154 A.D.]

The very question that had proved a stumbling-block to the Germano-Roman world, namely, the right of women to succeed to the throne, also kept the knightly ecclesiastical colony of the kingdom of Jerusalem in perpetual unrest. War broke out between Melusina—who, assuming the management of public affairs at the death of her husband Fulk, gave great power into the hands of her cousin, the constable of Manassa—and her son, King Baldwin III, around whom rallied a number of barons, all ill-disposed to acknowledge the new rule. The feud was fought out by the mother and son near the Holy Sepulchre in 1152, with the result that Melusina was obliged to relinquish all her pretensions.

Hodierna, Melusina’s sister, on the other hand, was given guardianship over her youngest son, after the murder of her husband, Raymond I of Tripolis. The remainder of the countship of Edessa passed to Greece, by reason of a pact which assured to the widowed countess and her children a considerable income; Jocelyn II was taken prisoner by the Turkomans and died in captivity. Raymond of Antioch had also been killed while bravely fighting in 1149, and his widow Constantia now became the object of the liveliest contention. It was at first feared that she would listen to the many proposals made to her by Greeks; but when she finally accepted the French knight, Rainald de Chatillon, a struggle broke out between him and the patriarchs, who had hitherto held the preponderance of power, laming the forces of both sides. Under such circumstances there could be as little thought of establishing one solid supremacy and power in the Orient as of accomplishing a like result in France at the same period.

[1154-1163 A.D.]

The wonder was that there had actually risen to prominence on the side of the Abbasids and Seljuks, during the late struggles for the possession of Aleppo, Edessa, and Damascus, a well-consolidated might—that of the atabegs of Mosul, who disposed of a particularly warlike element in the Kurds, with whom their borders were overrun from the north. Nur ad-Din vigorously pursued the policy laid down by his father, Zenki. He was by far the more capable and enlightened of the two; since the days of the Omayyads, so historians tell us, there had been no prince so liberal and law-abiding, and there never reigned one more just. Four times each week he sat in judgment. He made no personal use of the state revenues, looking upon them as a sacred trust placed in his hands to be expended for the public good. He was equally zealous in the conduct of the holy war. All the dust that settled on his shoes and garments during his various battles against unbelievers, he caused to be collected in a sack which was to be placed under his head when he was dead. As already related, he conquered Damascus (1154), which was under the rule of a weak prince who had in vain sought safety on the side of the Christians, and took up his residence in the immediate neighbourhood of that kingdom. He was a brave and worthy representative of the Abbasid caliphate, which he had formerly served in the capacity of Emir al-Omara. At times the Christians rallied for a successful feat of arms, and under the sacred symbol of the cross, which after preliminary worship in the king’s tent they gave into the keeping of the archbishop of Tyre, they even inflicted defeat on Nur ad-Din (1158). Also Baldwin III, who died in 1162 at the age of thirty-three, achieved some fame and several victories. He was brave and circumspect—in every way a fit man for the particular kind of warfare he was obliged to carry on. Still it was not in these battles alone that the real issue lay; the result was determined as much by the weakness of the Fatimites in Egypt as by the strength of the atabegs in Syria.

Neither had the power of the Ismailite doctrines, founded on those in circulation before the beginning of the Fatimite caliphate, suffered any diminution; rather it had recently taken on a new form in the most singular and hideous of all religious sects. Who has not heard of the Assassins and of their leader, the Old Man of the Mountain? Unlike the Sunnite caliphate which had been restored to power by the victories of the great Seljuk sultans, the sect founded by the Persian, Hassan, towards the end of the eleventh century, rose to prominence by reason of teachings based on the extremest Ismailite beliefs, and compounded of fanaticism, sensuality, and blind obedience, which raised up men to be assassins and general instruments of terror. Mainly by the agency of that Ridwan of Aleppo who fought with the crusaders before Antioch, and wavered in allegiance between the Abbasids and the Fatimites, there was planted in northwestern Syria a colony of Assassins which, under the rule of a certain sheikh, Al-Jebel, grew to occupy an important place in history—if such can be said of a purely destructive principle. It was by the Assassins that Raymond of Tripolis was slain. But their dagger struck Moslem as well as Christian, Shiite as well as Sunnite, since a foe of their nature lies outside all partisanship—is in fact beyond the pale of any human ordinance.

That the Fatimite caliphate profited nothing by this latest religious movement is apparent from the symptoms of decay that shortly afterward began to be manifest. The caliphs themselves were given over to a life of luxury and disorder, and vizirs, who bore the title of sultan, were constantly engaged in quarrels with each other, in which right was decided by might alone. The conditions were similar to those which preceded the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in the tenth century. In the year 1163 the sultan and vizir Shawer was deposed and supplanted by his rival Dargham, who enjoyed for some time the fruits of his usurpation. But Shawer eventually returned, and with him the emir and Kurd chieftain, Shirkuh, whom Nur ad-Din, regardless of religious differences, had sent to his assistance. Dargham was murdered and Shawer again assumed the sultanate, but he could not reconcile himself to fulfilling the promise he had made the Kurds, that he would pay over to them one third of the revenues of Egypt. To protect himself more fully against his extortionate allies, he besought assistance of Almeric, king of Jerusalem, brother and successor of Baldwin III.

[1163-1168 A.D.]

Inheriting the desire of Baldwin I for ascendency in Egypt, Baldwin III had besieged and taken Askalon in 1153. The garrison had defended itself ably, even to the point of driving back a body of Templars that had penetrated within the walls, and the king had reason to believe that all was lost. But the support of the Jerusalem patriarchs enabled him to press the siege, and a successful sally on the part of the knights of St. John, who with their grand master had been particularly active, finally placed Askalon at his mercy. At this the inhabitants, in despair, having received no reinforcements from either Damascus or Egypt, called upon their military commander to surrender. Without doubt Almeric (1162-1173) was the most important of the later kings of Jerusalem. Like Louis VII he was tireless, despite his corpulence, in the hunt and in war, and took no pleasure in any kind of diversion. In theological questions he often revealed an acuteness that brought his prelates to confusion; with a firm hand he held the troublesome barons in subjection, even giving precedence over them to certain newly arrived Franks—Milo de Plancy, for example.

Italian Armour, Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

It could escape no one that there was danger to the kingdom in allowing the Kurds of Nur ad-Din to become firmly established in Egypt. Losing no time in reflection, Almeric took decisive steps at once, and fortune so far favoured him that he succeeded in confining the Kurds within Pelusium (1164); he was obliged to grant them a free withdrawal, however, in consequence of domestic troubles that had befallen Nur ad-Din. A Christian knight addressed Shirkuh, who was striding with uplifted axe behind his followers: “Think you we do not mean to keep our pact with you?” “You dare not break it!” was the reply.

No sooner had they returned home than the Kurds began preparations for a second and greater expedition; Shirkuh incited the Sunnites to wrath against the perfidious caliph in Cairo, and in 1167 he set out for Egypt. Almeric also assembled his forces at the same time, and in Egypt the native populations consolidated with the Pullanes in a formal alliance. That the caliph might be encouraged by the support of their presence, the Christian delegates were conducted into the palace. Scarcely could they repress their admiration and astonishment at the wonders that everywhere met their gaze. When they arrived in a splendid hall that was divided in the middle by a curtain embroidered in gold and pearls, the vizir prostrated himself and went through the form of taking a solemn oath; at the conclusion of this ceremony the curtain was drawn aside and the figure of the caliph was revealed. From his golden chair he extended his right hand to the Christian knights, but the hand was enveloped in a veil. Hugo of Cæsarea objected that in entering upon a pact both sides must act with perfect fairness and good faith; whereupon the caliph uncovered his hand, but with exceeding ill grace, as though his royal dignity had been affronted. To the Christian knights was entrusted the defence of the walls and towers of Cairo.

[1168 A.D.]

Compelled to abandon his position opposite Cairo on the left bank of the Nile, Shirkuh withdrew his forces in the direction of Upper Egypt. Almeric pursued him hotly at the head of a mixed band of Frankish and oriental troops, such as were never again brought together in that land until the time of Napoleon. The two armies met in the pass of Babein. Shirkuh was about to cross over to the other side of the river with the intention of fleeing into the regions beyond, when a mameluke of Nur ad-Din overtook him and exclaimed: “What, you who rejoice in all the blessings of Islam are about to fly from the enemy? Do you not know that the atabegs will take from the Kurds all the lands they may find on the other side?” Thus it came about that Shirkuh remained where he was, and taking up his position with a picked band of men on the right flank of the main body of his troops, he overcame the king while the latter was making an attack on the enfeebled centre. So hard was Almeric beset that he could scarcely cut his way back to his own forces. He retained sufficient power, however, to surround and harass Alexandria, which Shirkuh had left in the charge of his nephew, Saladin, the son of Eyyub. Shirkuh was induced to conclude a peace, according to the terms of which both sides, Christians as well as Kurds, were obliged to evacuate Egypt. As the price of this concession Shirkuh received from Shawer fifty thousand pieces of gold, while to the Christians, so Abulfeda tells us, were promised a special magistracy in Cairo and an important yearly revenue.

It is well to contemplate closely these events, as they offer not only the final standpoint from which to judge the kingdom of Jerusalem, but the highest and best from which to take cognisance of the entire Christian world of that time in its relation to Islam. The main fact derived by history is that the establishment of the Franks in the Orient was made possible only by the antagonism that subsisted between the Abbasid and Fatimite dynasties; so long as this antagonism continued the colonial kingdom could be upheld, but let it once subside and the whole structure would fall to the ground. At the period of which we write the Cairo caliphate had sunk into a state of impotency and demoralisation; in order to prevent its falling into the hands of the Mohammedans of Syria the kings of Jerusalem must either take forceful possession of Egypt themselves, or must sustain it in its present show of independence by the most rigid political conjunction. For the first course they were far too weak, as the sequel showed, and as might have been expected from a study of the circumstances by which they were surrounded; but for the second they possessed quite sufficient strength, as was evidenced by the successes of Almeric. Indeed in all respects this was the better course to pursue, since by the exercise of a moderate degree of wisdom affairs would doubtless, even in the natural course of events, so have shaped themselves that to the Christian element would gradually fall a peaceful sovereignty over the whole realm of Egypt. What a position in the world would have been gained to the Latin races by such a solution! Entrance into all the Indian waters would have been open to the Italian sea powers, and it was furthermore to be expected that northern Africa, cut off entirely from the powers of the East, would eventually fall into the hands of the Spaniards or of the Sicilian Normans.

A Norman Archer of the Twelfth Century

It is not to be denied, however, that mankind at that period was not yet ripe to exercise complete ascendency either over the Orient or over any other considerable portion of the world. The religions of both divisions of humanity permitted not the slightest compromise with unbelievers, and the very factors that had brought about the first amazing successes later acted as a check on the progress of their cause towards complete fulfilment. It seemed to be self-evident that no kind of serious alliance could ever permanently subsist between the crusaders and the caliphs; nay, there was something almost against nature in the thought of Christians defending the towers of Cairo on behalf of infidels in a struggle of Moslem against Moslem. Religious antagonism was stronger in the guardians of the Holy Sepulchre than loyalty and good faith.

Almeric united with Manuel of Byzantium,[52] who had already formed a league with the Lombards and the pope, and allowed himself to be drawn into a joint scheme of conquest in Egypt. This union between Greeks and Latins was the more easily effected inasmuch as the king had married a Greek and the emperor a Syrian princess. The idea of the expedition seems to have emanated from Manuel who, in his all-embracing policy, kept a constant watch on both East and West, in search of undertakings that might promise him success. Influence was brought to bear on Almeric to gain his consent by the grand-master of the knights of St. John; but the Templars were strongly opposed to the project, seeing in it a shameful violation of the peace.

Without waiting for the arrival of the Greek forces, the Christians of Jerusalem opened the war in November, 1168. They took Pelusium, and advanced on Cairo—at a very slow rate of progress, to be sure, as they were awaiting ransom for a son of Shawer, whom they had taken prisoner. The ransom was brought them, but at the same time they learned that the invincible Shirkuh had set out from his desert in their direction. Both Shawer and the caliph had overcome their former repugnance and had addressed an appeal for aid to Nur ad-Din. Thus the supporters of the two caliphs came together in a coalition similar to that formed by the Greeks and Latins. The bravest and hardiest Turkomans composed the troops led by Shirkuh and Saladin. Almeric had courageously advanced into the desert to meet them, but Shirkuh passed him by; it was destined that the Franks should depart from Egypt in dishonour. And now fate hurried events on to the climax. Arrived in Jerusalem Shirkuh and Saladin opened hostilities with the sultan, Shawer, who was accused of having plotted to murder the Turkoman emirs. An opportunity was given Saladin to become possessed of the sultan’s person on the occasion of a visit the latter made to the grave of a Moslem saint. The caliph gave his consent to the captive’s execution, and was further persuaded to appoint Shirkuh his vizir.

[1169-1174 A.D.]

On the death of Shirkuh, shortly after, Saladin acceded to the vacant post (1169). He looked upon himself as in truth the chief power under Nur ad-Din, who persistently urged him to overthrow the Fatimite caliphate. But Saladin shrewdly withheld compliance[53] until he had obtained complete possession of the capital and had rid himself of all his enemies, even delaying until the Fatimite Aladid, who was still young, fell sick unto death. He died in 1171 and Saladin, who had meanwhile repulsed an attack by Almeric and a Byzantine fleet from Damietta, and torn from the Franks the harbour of Ailah, on the Red Sea, took possession of the entire treasure of the Fatimites and became master over all Egypt.

[1174-1181 A.D.]

A momentary advantage accrued to the Christians from this usurpation, inasmuch as a continuance of friendly relations between the new master of the Nile and his supreme chief, the atabeg in Damascus, was not to be thought of. Saladin immediately sought to cut himself loose from all allegiance to Nur ad-Din. That no hostages might be left in the hands of the atabeg ruler, he caused his entire family to come to him in Egypt, giving to his aged father, Eyyub, the post of guardian of his treasure. Nur ad-Din first conceived suspicions as to his subordinate’s fealty when the latter refused to assist him in conquering certain Frankish settlements that guarded the route from Damascus to Egypt. He was stricken by death, however (1174), in the midst of preparations for an expedition that was to punish the faithless emir. Now Saladin’s plans took on wider expansion, and his aspirations soared to greater heights. Nur ad-Din had left behind him but one minor son, Malik as-Salih, and it was his name that appeared on the coins Saladin at first caused to be struck off. But the Syrians were highly dissatisfied with the rule that had succeeded that of Nur ad-Din, and were inclined to welcome Saladin whenever he should present himself among them. Without drawing sword he entered Damascus in 1174, and Emesa, Hama, and Baalbek also fell into his power. Malik as-Salih was allowed to retain Aleppo on condition that he should withdraw from Damascus. At his death (1181) Saladin gained possession of Aleppo and little by little extended his territory as far as Mesopotamia; eventually the entire heritage of Nur ad-Din fell into his hands.

In this manner there arose in the course of a few years a might that, springing as it did from a union of Egypt and Syria, threatened great danger to the Christians, and even placed in question the further existence of the many Frankish colonies that were scattered about the Orient. The forces at the command of the consolidated power were trained to obey the slightest gesture of a single chief, and were saturated with the doctrines of a single religion. Of lateral religious branches there was no longer any question, save as they still survived in the sect of the Assassins of Lebanon, whose leader, the Old Man of the Mountain, occasionally instigated some fresh disturbance. Saladin himself was one day set upon by three assailants, but his strong arm successfully defended his life. He immediately thereafter started out to exterminate the Assassins, and devastated their entire domains, making his name a terror wherever he went. All Saladin’s prowess and success was the outgrowth of a remarkable personality. Like Zenki and Nur ad-Din, he was a devout Mohammedan; it was even his custom to read the Koran to armies about to rush upon each other in battle. He scrupulously made up for all fasts that he missed, and never failed to say the five prayers through to the end. He drank nothing but water, wore garments of harsh wool, and allowed himself to be summoned before the bar of judgment. He personally instructed his children in the tenets of Islam; but his own close observance of religion did not prevent him from unlawfully usurping power. When fortune favoured him, as on the achievement of some brilliant victory, he delighted in exhibiting a certain careless magnanimity that greatly enhanced the majesty of his bearing. In misfortune he was steadfast and patient, never once turning aside from the aim he had in view. He was brave and crafty, contriving to win for himself supporters even among the ranks of his enemies, and he governed his subjects with justice and moderation. As a ruler he possessed all the qualities necessary to accomplish the building up of a state and its conservation in prosperity and power; and to a far greater degree than had the atabegs he became the hero of reconstructed Islam, the man of fate in the destinies of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Had the Christians then but known how to make the most of the little time that was left them, all might yet have been well; but it is not to be denied that simultaneously with the rise of the new oriental might occurred the rapid and shameful decay of the Christian administration in the East. The western laws of succession which had been transplanted in full force, and which secured the throne to the direct line of descent whether male or female, dealt the finishing blow to the tottering kingdom. In a community of which the head should be above all a military commander, where the commonweal could be secured only by holding the whole state in constant readiness for war, the rule frequently fell into the hands of feeble, incompetent youths, the whole question of succession was repeatedly and violently reopened by the marriages of female heirs to the throne; and regencies were successively established, disputed, and destroyed. There was no permanent, inflexible power to hold in check the inordinate ambition of the knights, and a general lawlessness prevailed that penetrated to every rank of political and religious life.

[1173-1185 A.D.]

Almeric died before Nur ad-Din in 1173. He was succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son, Baldwin IV, who was a victim to the terrible disease of leprosy, and up to the time of his early death in 1185 never really came into possession of the rule. During the first part of his reign Raymond II of Tripolis, son of Hodierna, acted as vicegerent, and in 1175 he concluded a truce with Saladin by which he bound himself not to oppose the latter in any of his struggles for the succession of Nur ad-Din. It was this act that lost for Raymond all his authority in the realm. The knights now looked towards the West for a ruler more to their liking, and Longaspada, marquis of Montferrat, arrived among them in answer to their summons in October, 1176, shortly afterward marrying Sybilla, the eldest sister of the minor king. He had firmly established himself in the respect and confidence of all when his untimely death occurred (1177). His successor was Philip of Flanders and Vermandois, a former adversary of Henry II of England and an adherent of Becket, who was obliged to make this pilgrimage to Jerusalem in expiation of certain violent acts he had committed. There was some reluctance felt at placing the government in the hands of this prince, the general opinion being that only one who was bound by self-interest to the kingdom could effectually serve it. Philip was willing either to assume the authority himself or to relinquish it into the hands of the count of Bethune, provided the latter would cede to him certain possessions in the vicinity. The project had been formed of organising, in alliance with the Greeks, an expedition against Saladin; but Philip proved to be totally inadequate to the command of such an enterprise, and returned home without having performed a single act of moment.

A prince who fulfilled in all respects the requirements of the knights next assumed the vicegerency, Rainald of Chatillon, who had taken part in the siege of Askalon, and was afterwards chosen as husband and the guardian of her son by Constantia, widow of Raymond of Antioch. In this noble were represented all the warlike tendencies of the times. He defeated Saladin in November, 1178, near Askalon, as he had only a short time previously defeated Saladin’s brother, Turan Shah, near Damascus. A breathing space fell to the kingdom after these victories that was utilised to construct near Paneas, on the Jordan, a citadel which was entrusted to the Templars to defend. Near this very place, however, Saladin achieved a victory over the Christians in a battle wherein fell the grand master of the Templars, Odo de St. Amand. On his death Saladin laid siege to the stronghold and carried it by storm. The defeated Templars sought death by remaining behind in the burning citadel, plunging into the waters of the Jordan, or precipitating themselves from the top of a steep cliff.

About this time the bishops of the oriental Latin church began to assume prominence in the Council of Lateran; among them being Archbishop William of Tyre, historian of the kingdom, who in chronicling the defeat of the Templars employed the language of the Bible: “The Lord, their God, departed from them.” The eyes of all were now turned towards the West. Nothing would have so fully met the aspirations of Alexander III as another crusade, entered upon in the spirit that had marked that of Urban II; shortly before his death he even caused a petition to be drawn up urging the advisability of such an undertaking. It was then generally assumed that in case the two great western monarchs, the kings of England and France, should again decide to invade the Orient, they could count on the support and assistance of the emperor Manuel, who had maintained friendly relations with the Christians of Syria while engaging in fresh wars with the Seljuks of Asia Minor. Most reluctantly had he given up the expedition against Egypt, even after Saladin had made himself master of the land; he could not have been induced to do so at all, in fact, had not the knights of Jerusalem been so tardy in rendering aid. Unfortunately for the Christian cause he died in the year 1180; conditions in the West at that time were also unfavourable to the undertaking of any important enterprise, Frederick I being deeply engaged in war with Henry the Lion and in negotiations for a treaty with the Lombards while the sons of Henry II kept France and England in a state of constant turmoil. Thus the kingdom of Jerusalem, being deprived of all hope of outside aid, was thrown completely on its own resources.

A Crusader of the Second Crusade

Life was not utterly intolerable there, nor was hope definitively abandoned so long as Saladin was kept from entering into possession of the entire inheritance of Nur ad-Din. The knights still gained an occasional victory over him, as in the plain of Belveir and Ferbelet in 1182; and he was compelled to raise the siege of Berytus at the approach of the Christian troops. The daring Rainald de Chatillon even succeeded in his bold attempt to reconquer the harbour of Ailah, on the Mediterranean sea. The Latin fleet proceeded thence to the coast of Arabia, where it threatened Mecca and Medina, but was finally overcome near Haura, and the knights were slain in a battle with the Arab prophet. By this defeat Ailah was again lost to Jerusalem. Brave to the point of foolhardiness as was Rainald de Chatillon in his undertakings against Saladin, and knightly as was the spirit by which he was moved, he failed to achieve any serious result for the cause to which he was devoted.

The affairs of the opposite side now took a decisive turn. In 1181 Malik as-Salih, prince of Aleppo and Nur ad-Din’s son, had died, leaving no kinsman worthy to succeed him. Imad ad-Din had essayed to fill the difficult post of ruler, but was totally incompetent, and when Saladin marched against him in 1183 he surrendered Aleppo without a struggle, and made no attempt to regain any of the fortresses that had already been taken from him. Saladin made his formal entry into Aleppo in June, 1183. He was universally accepted as the bravest and mightiest warrior that had ever fought on the side of Islam, and religious fervour, once more risen to great height among the Mohammedans, further aided to smooth all difficulties from his path.

[1185-1187 A.D.]

In contrast to this success disaster followed disaster in the Frankish camp. In 1185 Baldwin IV succumbed to his fatal malady, and was succeeded by his nephew, Baldwin V, the son of Sybilla and of William Longaspada, who was but five years old. As if this misfortune were not enough, Sybilla espoused in second marriage, contrary to the wishes of all her advisers, a certain knight, Guy de Lusignan, of an ancient and noble family of Poitou, whom no one believed capable of successfully defending the kingdom in case of need.[54]

SALADIN

At this juncture Raymond of Tripolis again assumed the vicegerency, and as before held a compact with Saladin to be the only means by which he could preserve authority over the realm. A truce was concluded on the only terms possible—the payment by Raymond of a certain tribute. A fresh disturbance arose when Sybilla gave the crown, which she had claimed for herself on the death of Baldwin V in 1186, over to her husband, Guy de Lusignan. This was done in direct opposition to Raymond, who had planned to usurp the crown himself, and endangered his newly concluded pact with Saladin. While Guy de Lusignan, at the head of the whole body of knighthood which had gone unhesitatingly over to the side of the rightful heiress, was preparing to attack Raymond at Tiberias, the latter appealed for aid to Saladin, who sent him a band of Turkish horsemen. It had come, then, to this, that a master Templar was obliged to fly to Saladin in his distress, and march out, at the head of an army of infidels, to do battle against his fellow Templars of Jerusalem! All bonds of honour and tradition were severed at a single blow. The clergy made itself particularly obnoxious at this crisis, being incited thereto by the patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem. Thus, eaten up by corruption from within and left by its natural supporters in the West to face alone an enemy that was practically all-powerful, the kingdom that had once given such rich promise for the future was now tottering helplessly to its fall.

A Crossbow Man of the Second Crusade

Saladin, standing ready to seize the first favourable opportunity, had some show of justice on his side in choosing the present crisis as the most suitable for attack, since Rainald de Chatillon, now in command of certain citadels on the other side of the Jordan, had recently, in flagrant breach of the truce, fallen upon and plundered a passing caravan in which was the mother of the sultan. After in vain demanding indemnity of Rainald, Saladin rallied all his forces for another great sacred war, and at head of countless warriors made forcible irruption into Galilee.

As on many previous occasions the Christian army again assembled near the spring of Saffuria. The grand master of the Templars had contributed an important sum, sent him by Henry II of England, toward the preparations for war, and Count Raymond of Tripolis was present in person. Once more the holy cross of Jerusalem was worshipped by the Christian army on the eve of battle. The very first day’s operations were disastrous, however, as the army, impelled by the knights, hurried to the relief of beleaguered Tiberias. On the evening of July 4th, 1187, after a battle that brought victory to neither side, Saladin’s light horse drove the Christians back to a parched and arid eminence in the neighbourhood of Hittin, named by tradition as the scene of Christ’s sermon on the mount. Here, at the close of a torrid summer day, they were obliged to pass the night in the tortures of thirst. On July 5th Saladin resumed his attack on the enfeebled, exhausted Christians, of whom very few survived the battle that ensued. Count Raymond escaped, thanks to the clemency of the Saracens, who opened their ranks before him and his body of knights, as before one who had once been their friend. King Guy and as many of his followers as had not been slain, together with the holy cross, fell into the hands of Saladin, who this time knew no mercy. All the captured Templars and knights of St. John were put to death, while with his own hand the angry monarch struck down Rainald de Chatillon, the perjured violator of the truce.[d]

MOSLEM ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLE OF TIBERIAS

[1187 A.D.]

Imad ad-Din, the Moslem historian, who took part in the battle, remarks with astonishment that as long as the Christians kept in the saddle they were unharmed, for they were covered from head to foot with a protecting mail woven of iron rings; but when the horse fell, the rider was lost. “That battle,” adds the writer, “took place on a Saturday. The Christians, like lions at the beginning of the fray, were as scattered lambs at the end. Of many thousands, but a small number survived. The battle-field was covered with the dead and dying. I myself walked over Mount Hittin; it was a horrible spectacle. I saw all that a happy nation had done to a miserable people. I saw the condition of their leader—who could describe it? I saw severed heads; dull, dead eyes; dust-covered bodies, twisted limbs; severed arms; crushed bones; gashed and bloody necks; broken thighs; feet no longer joined to the leg; bodies in two pieces; torn lips and split foreheads. On seeing their faces strewn over the ground and covered with blood and wounds, I recalled these words of the Koran: “The infidel shall say ‘What am I but dust!’ What sweet odour is exhaled from this victory!”

After these reflections, which show well the Arab taste, the writer presents another picture: “The tent ropes,” he says, “did not suffice to bind the prisoners. I saw thirty or forty men bound by the same rope; I saw one or two hundred of them placed together and guarded by a single man. These warriors, who formerly exhibited extraordinary prowess and enjoyed might and power, now with lowered brows and naked bodies were indeed a miserable sight. Counts and Christian lords had become the prey of the hunter, the knights that of the lion. Those who had humiliated others were humbled in their turn; the free man was in irons. Those who accused the truth of falsehood and treated the Koran as imposture had fallen into the hands of the true believers.”

After the battle Saladin retired to his tent and caused King Guy and the principal prisoners to be brought before him. It was his will that the king be seated at his side; and as the prince was suffering from thirst he had melted snow brought to him. The king, after drinking, offered the cup to Rainald, but Saladin cried: “It is not I who have asked that wretched man to drink; I am in no way bound to him.” In fact, according to Imad ad-Din’s statement, it was the custom with the Arabs never to kill a prisoner to whom drink or food had been offered. Now Saladin had on two occasions vowed to kill Rainald did the lord of Karak ever fall into his hands—the first, when the knight planned to attack Mecca and Medina; the second, when he captured a caravan in times of peace. The sultan turned to Rainald and in terrible tones reproached him with these two deeds; then rushed upon him with uplifted sword. Following his example the emirs threw themselves upon Rainald and severed head from body. The trunk rolled to the feet of the king, who at the sight trembled in great fear; but Saladin hastened to reassure him and promised to respect his life.

Imad ad-Din relates later that what had most angered Saladin against Rainald was that on the occasion of the above-mentioned seizure of the Moslem caravan he called in jest to his captives to invoke Mohammed to see whether the prophet would come to their assistance, and that before killing him the sultan said to him: “Well, how does it seem to thee? Have I not sufficiently avenged Mohammed for thy outrages?” Finally, adds Imad ad-Din, he proposed to Rainald to become a Mohammedan; the latter refused, saying that he preferred to die. Imad ad-Din relates on his own side that when Saladin reproached Rainald with his perfidies and bad faith, the lord replied by interpreter that such was the custom of princes and that he in this respect had but followed the beaten path.

Finally the sultan had the king brought to Damascus, the captive lords with him. With regard to the Templars and Hospitallers, Ibn al-Atir relates that the sultan collected all he had in one place and cut off their heads. He ordered also all those in his army who had any belonging to these religious orders in their hands to put them to death; then judging that the soldiers would not be sufficiently generous to make this sacrifice, he offered fifty pieces of gold for each Templar or Hospitaller surrendered to him. Two hundred of these warriors who were brought to him were at once decapitated. What led the sultan to these extreme measures was that the Templars and Hospitallers made war by profession upon Islam and were its most cruel enemies. Thus Abul-Faraj in his Syrian Chronicle puts on this occasion these words into Saladin’s mouth: “Since killing when it can be turned to the good of their religion seems to them so sweet a thing, let us kill them in their turn.” Saladin sent also to his lieutenant in Damascus ordering to be put to death all the knights held in that city, whether they were his own property or that of others; and this was done.

We read in Imad ad-Din, an eye-witness, that during the massacre of the knights Saladin looked on with smiling countenance and that the victims were sunk in hopeless despair. The Moslem army was drawn up in battle array, the emirs in two rows. Some of the executioners performed their duty, adds the author, with a degree of skill that brought deserved praises; some, however, refused to act and left it to their companions. Before beheading, a proposition was made to the prisoners to embrace Islamism but the opportunity was taken by a very small number.

Such is the manner in which the Arabian chroniclers describe the battle of Tiberias. The compiler of The Two Gardens gives several letters written on that occasion. We read in one of them, sent to Baghdad, that of the forty-five thousand men composing the Christian army scarcely one thousand survived, and since one poor Mohammedan soldier, having taken a prisoner, exchanged him for a pair of sandals, posterity may know that the number of prisoners was so great that they were sold for footgear. Imad ad-Din says in another place that all Islam rejoiced in this victory which was but the prelude to the conquest of Jerusalem and the source of greater triumphs.[e]

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

A panic terror now overspread the land, and under its resistless impulse all hastened to place themselves in subjection to the conqueror. Even the most strongly fortified coast towns fell one after the other; Tyre, Tripolis, and Antioch alone upheld their independence. Askalon demanded as the price of its surrender the release of the captive king. Jerusalem held out in its own defence a few days longer; but what could the few knights that remained avail against an enemy so mighty? On the 2nd of October, 1187, Saladin took formal possession of the Christian capital, to shouts of “Allah akbar!” instead of the “Christ victorious!” that had been heard in former times.[d]

Jerusalem became the refuge for such of the Christians as had escaped the swords or the chains of the Turks. One hundred thousand people are said to have been in the place; but so few were the soldiers, and so feeble was the government of the queen, that the Holy City was no object of terror. Saladin declared his unwillingness to stain with human blood a spot which even the Turks held in reverence, as having been sanctified by the presence of many of God’s messengers. He offered the people, on condition of the surrender of the city, money and settlements in Syria. Prudence suggested the acceptance of this offer, but, clinging to that feeling of superstition which had given birth to the holy wars, the Christians declared that they would not resign to the infidels the place where the Saviour had died. Saladin was indignant at this rejection of his kindness, and swore to enter the place sword in hand, and retaliate the dreadful carnage which the Franks had made in the days of Godfrey de Bouillon. The people cast their eyes on Balean of Ibelin as their commander. The veteran organised the forces, and put arms into the hands of the citizens.

During fourteen days there were various engagements; but the Christians, though brave to desperation, could never destroy the military engines of the Moslems. At the end of fourteen days the Latins discovered that the walls near the gate of St. Stephen’s were undermined. From that moment the defence of the city was abandoned; the clergy prayed for the miraculous protection of heaven, the soldiers threw down their arms and crowded into the churches. The consternation was augmented by the discovery of a correspondence between some Greeks that were in the place and the Moslems. The Latins then recollected the proffered clemency of Saladin, and a deputation of them implored a renewal of it. But he urged the force of the oath which he had taken, and that it was ridiculous to capitulate for a fallen town. “But,” said he, “if you will surrender the city to me, I will behave to you with mercy, and allow you to redeem the inhabitants.”

After some deliberation, the Christians resolved to trust the generosity of the conqueror. Saladin stipulated that the military and nobles should be escorted to Tyre, and that the Latin population should become slaves, if they were not ransomed at the rate of ten crowns of gold for a man, five for a woman, and one for a child. After four days had been consumed by the miserable inhabitants in weeping over and embracing the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred places, the Latins left the city and passed through the enemy’s camp. Children of all ages clung round their mothers, and the strength of the fathers was used in bearing away some little portion of their household furniture. In solemn procession the clergy, the queen, and her retinue of ladies followed. Saladin advanced to meet them, and his heart melted with compassion, when they approached him in the attitude and with the air of suppliants. The softened warrior uttered some words of pity, and the women, encouraged by his sympathising tenderness, declared that one word of his would remove their distress.

It is the generous remark of an enemy that Saladin was in nothing a barbarian but in name. With courteous clemency he released all the prisoners whom the women requested, and loaded them with presents. This action, worthy of a gentle and Christian knight, was not the consequence of a transient feeling of humanity; for when he entered the city of Jerusalem, and heard of the tender care with which the military friars of St. John treated the sick, he allowed ten of the order to remain in their hospital till they could complete their work of humanity.

[1188-1189 A.D.]

The infidels were once more established in Jerusalem. The great cross was taken down from the church of the sepulchre, and for two days dragged through the mire of the streets. The bells of the churches were melted, and the floors and walls of the mosque of Omar were purified with Damascene rose-water. Prayers and thanksgivings were offered to heaven for the victory; all individual merit was forgotten, and the conquest of Jerusalem was attributed to the bounty of God, and his desire for the universal influence of Islamism. Askalon, Laodicea, Gabala, Sidon, Nazareth, Bethlehem—all those places and their territories fell when their great support was gone, and Tyre was almost the only town of consequence which remained to the Christians.

Saladin attacked it with all his efforts, but the spirit of freedom triumphed over the thirst of conquest, and the Moslems were necessitated to raise the siege. Some time after the capitulation of Askalon, Guy de Lusignan, the grand master of the Templars, and others obtained their liberty; and the husband of Sybilla solemnly renounced to Saladin his title to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The unprincipled Guy took the road for Tyre, and announced his resolve to enter the city as sovereign lord.

After the fall of Jerusalem, Saladin carried his conquering army into the principality of Antioch. Five and twenty towns submitted, and Antioch itself became tributary to the Moslems. The victories of Saladin and the loss of Jerusalem were melancholy contrasts to those hopes of the triumphs of Christianity over Islamism which the Council of Clermont had held out to Europe. In the eighty-eight years that the crusaders possessed the Holy City, peace seldom dwelt about her walls; surrounded by numerous hostile nations, she was in a continual siege, and as great a number of her wars were undertaken for the maintenance of her existence as for the purposes of conquest. In the time of Godfrey de Bouillon, Asia was in a state of more than usual imbecility. The Arabian and Tatarian storms were spent, the caliphs were pontiffs rather than sovereign princes, and the great empire of their predecessors was dismembered and scattered.

But states which are formed by arms, not by policy, are as quick in their rise as rapid in their decay, and ruin and disorder are the scenes of ambition. The passions and abilities of the enterprising lords of Syria raised several powerful governments; the hostile aspect of the Moslems increased in terror when the imperial and royal crowns of Germany and France were broken; and the crescent triumphed over the cross when Saladin united and led the Moslem nations to the conquest of Jerusalem. In the strength of body, and personal and military prowess, the Turks and the Franks were equal; but the Turks were in multitudes, the Franks were few; and as the twelfth century was an age of war rather than of policy, the Latins did not by intellectual superiority raise themselves above their enemies. The Christians scrupled not to break treaties[55] with the Moslems; they never attempted to conciliate the foe, or to live in terms of large and liberal intercourse. Except in the case of Egypt, they allowed the Saracenian nations to unite, without making any endeavour to break their force; and they were too proud and too ignorant to win any members to their cause from the great confederacy of atabegs. Conciliation could only be the result of weakness; a tender pitying forbearance of error was held a criminal indifference by armed saints. The Moslem contempt of infidels was not more sincere than was the hatred which the Christians felt for the supposed enemies of God.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[50] Germany was not affected by the First Crusade in an equal degree with Lorraine, Flanders, France, and Italy. Saxo Grammaticus says that when the Germans saw the troops of men, women, and children, on horseback and on foot, passing through their country on their way to Greece, they laughed at them as mad for quitting their homes to run after imaginary good in the midst of certain dangers, renouncing their own property in search of that of other people. Ekkehard mentions the same circumstance, and adds that the cause of the want of enthusiasm in Germany was that the divisions between the emperor and the pope prevented the preaching of the Crusade in that country. Signs, however, in the heavens, and other wonderful things, made many Germans take the cross and join the armies in the course of their march.

[51] The ladies of the twelfth century did not merely thread pearls, and amuse themselves with other employments equally delicate and elegant. The sword, and not merely the tongue, decided their disputes. Of this practice Ordericus Vitalis, p. 687, has given a remarkable instance. The love of “brave gestes” was the passion of the ladies as well as of the knights of chivalry.

[52] [Gibbon says “The emperor of Constantinople either gave or promised a fleet to act with the armies of Syria, and the perfidious Christian [Almeric] unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy aspired to the conquest of Egypt.”]

[53] After the death of Shirkuh, several emirs of the Syrian army came forward to fill his place: but the caliph chose Saladin and conferred on him the dignity of vizir, with the title of malik nassir or general protector. According to the atabeg historian, “what induced the caliph to choose Saladin in preference to the others, was both his youth and his weakness. He imagined that by choosing Saladin, a man without an army and without strength, he could keep him dependent on him and could do with him whatever he wished. He also hoped to win over one part of the Syrian army and to drive away the other, which would restore his power to him and at the same time put him in a position to resist Nur ad-Din and the Franks.”

Ibn al-Atir makes the caliph’s advisers speak in the following manner on this occasion: “Among all the emirs of the Syrian army, there is not one weaker or younger than Joseph. He is the one to choose. As for him, he will do what we please; we will place in the army men devoted to our cause; we will put ourselves in a state of defence, and then we will decide whether to seize Joseph or to banish him to Egypt.”

But according to the remark of the atabeg historian, “God had decided differently,” and the caliph was to meet his ruin where he had founded his hopes. Besides, continues the same author, Saladin at first resisted. Frightened at the high rank to which they wished to raise him, it was necessary to persuade him by all possible means, like those beings of whom it is said that “they must be dragged with chains to be made to enter paradise.” At last he decided to go to the palace, and the caliph clothed him in the dress, cap, and other signs of the dignity of vizir.[e]

[54] [“Such,” says Gibbon, “were the guardians of the Holy City; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor; yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by the valour of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy.”]

[55] It was impossible that any respect could be entertained for people like the Latins, who were not only cruel invaders and sanguinary persecutors, but common robbers. At one time Baldwin III gave the Moslems liberty of pasturage round Paneas. As soon as the ground was covered with flocks of sheep, the Christian soldiers broke into the country, carried away the animals, and murdered their keepers. The principle of not keeping faith with infidels seems consequent on a dogma in the Decretals: “Juramentum contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam præstitum non tenet.” Tancred and St. Louis were almost the only two eminent crusaders who distinguished themselves for preferring honesty and truth to utility and convenience.

---

CHAPTER IV. THE THIRD CRUSADE

King Richard shall warrant,

There is no flesh so nourissant

Unto an Englishman,

Partridge, plover, haron, ne swan,

Cow ne ox, sheep ne swine,

As the head of a Sarezyn.

There he is fat and thereto tender;

And my men be lean and slender.

While any Saracen quick be,

Livand now in this Syrie;

For meat will we nothing care,

Abouten fast we shall fare,

And every day we shall eat

All so many as we may get.

To England will we nought gon,

Till they be eaten every one.

—Old Romance of Richard Cœur de Lion.

[1189-1193 A.D.]

Europe rang with invectives against the holy Bernard, when the thousands of men whom his eloquence and miracles had roused to arms perished in the rocks of Cilicia. A general or a statesman would have pointed out errors in the policy or conduct of the crusaders; but the preacher sheltered himself under the usual defence of impostors, and declared that the sins of the people had merited divine punishment, and that the men of his day resembled in morals the Hebrews of old, who perished in the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. This language was justly felt to be cruel and insulting; it did not exculpate the saint in the opinion of the world, and the nations of the West were not again disposed to make religious wars the common concern of Christendom. In the third council of the Lateran, which met twenty years after the return to Europe of Louis and Conrad, the policy of King Almeric had been applauded; Egypt was more dreaded than Syria, and the possession of Damietta was held out as the object to which all the efforts of the Christians should tend.[56] The clergy called on the world to arm, but the recollection of misery was too fresh, and the decrees of the council were heard of with sullenness and discontent. Louis, however, always cherished the hope of returning to the Holy Land, and of reviving his faded glory; and at length he found his wishes met by a brother sovereign. Since virtue was his policy as well as his duty, Henry II in the height of his disputes with Thomas à Becket had professed great sanctity; and following the example of the French king, he and his barons commanded that for one year a tax of two-pence, and for four subsequent years a tax of a penny in the pound should be levied on the movables of the people of England. Among the deeds of virtue which washed from Henry the guilt of Becket’s murder was the supporting of two hundred knights Templar in Palestine for a year, and an agreement with the pope to go and fight the infidels in Asia, or in Spain, for thrice that time if his holiness should require it. In the year 1177, Henry and Louis agreed to travel together to the Holy Land. But the English monarch was prudent and fond of peace, and the illness and subsequent death of the French king terminated the project.

[1177-1188 A.D.]

The count of Tripolis, while regent of Jerusalem, endeavoured to strengthen his kingdom by new draughts of men from Europe. The importance of the embassy which he sent to the West was apparent from the dignity of the legates, for they were the patriarch of Jerusalem and the grand masters of the Templars and Hospitallers.

While fanaticism was rekindling the torch of religious war, news arrived in the West of the fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the infidels. The event was felt as a calamity from one end of Europe to the other. Nothing could exceed the terror which seized the court of Rome. In the moment of weakness and humiliation, the cardinals acknowledged the dignity and the force of virtue. They resolved to take no bribes in the administration of justice, to abstain from all luxury of living and splendour of dress, to go to Jerusalem with the scrip and staff of simple pilgrims, and never to ride on horseback while the ground of their Saviour was trodden under the feet of the pagans. Pope Urban III died about this period; and his death, like every direful event of the time, was attributed to grief at the intelligence of the Saracenian victories. William, archbishop of Tyre, our great guide in history, was one of the messengers of the news; and his friend, Gregory VIII, successor of Urban, not only endeavoured to deprecate the wrath of heaven by ordaining fasting and prayer throughout Christendom, but issued a bull for a new crusade, with the usual privileges to the crusaders.

The emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, summoned a council at Mainz for the purpose of considering the general propriety of a new crusade. Prelates and barons were unanimous in the wish for it, and William of Tyre, and Henry, bishop of Albano, legates of the papacy, arrived at the assembly in time to confirm and approve its holy resolve. The emperor, and his son the duke of Swabia, the dukes of Austria and Moravia, and sixty-eight temporal and spiritual lords, were fired with the same enthusiasm.

At the solicitation of the archbishop of Tyre, Philip Augustus, king of France, and Henry II, king of England, met at a place between Trie and Gisors, in Normandy, February, 1188, in order to deliberate on the political state of the times. The prelate of the eastern Latin church appeared, and pleaded the cause of religion before the two monarchs. So pathetic was his description of the miseries of the Latins in Syria, so touching were his reflections on those who engaged in petty national wars, when even the stones of the temple called on all people to avenge the cause of God, that Philip and Henry wept, embraced, and vowed to go together to the Holy Land. They received the cross from the hands of the archbishop. The count of Flanders entered into their intentions. They agreed that the French crusaders should wear red crosses, the English should be indicated by white ones, and the Flemish by green.

THE SALADIN TITHE

[1188-1190 A.D.]

One opinion and one feeling influenced every breast; and, by universal consent, a tax similar everywhere in name and in nature was imposed on those who would not be crossed. This imposition was called the Saladin tithe; it was to last for one year; and it extended both to movable and unmovable property. Persons who actually assumed the cross were not only exempted, but were even allowed to take the fiscal part of their tenants’ property. If the collectors of the tithe were dissatisfied with what a man offered to pay, they were authorised to appoint four or six men of his parish to make an assessment. The crusaders, too, might mortgage their land for three years, and the mortgagee should receive the rents even to the prejudice of former creditors. The English council forbade the pilgrims from sensual pleasures,[57] from all manner of gaming, and from the luxury of dressing in ermine and sables. Henry wrote to the king of Hungary and the emperor of Constantinople requesting a safe passage for his troops. The request was granted.

Though ships continually sailed from England and France, bearing martial pilgrims to the Holy Land, the ambition and restlessness of Philip Augustus, and of Prince Richard, diverted the government and the great body of the people from the salvation of Palestine. The ignominious peace which England was compelled to make with France, and his mental agony at the rebellion and ingratitude of his sons, brought on the death of the English monarch (July, 1189). The love of military honour inflamed the French king, and the bold, ardent, and valiant Richard Cœur de Lion had more of the warlike spirit than of the religious feelings of the age. None of the principles which originally caused the Crusades influenced the actions of either.

So eager was Richard to equip a large military force, that he sold the crown lands, and offices of trust and dignity were no longer to be acquired by desert or favour. The king of Scotland obtained for ten thousand marks Richard’s renunciation of the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, and of the claims of England on the allegiance of Scotland. Richard crossed the channel in December, and soon after Christmas met his brother sovereign. The monarchs renewed their protestations of perpetual friendship, and swore that in case of necessity they would defend each others’ territories with all the warmth of self-interest. If either of the princes should die during the Crusade, the survivor was to use his men and money for the accomplishment of the great design. The period of departure was deferred from Easter to the ensuing midsummer. During his stay in Normandy, Richard made some singular laws for regulating the conduct of the pilgrims in their passage by sea. Murder was to be punished by casting into the water the deceased person, with the murderer tied to him. He that drew his sword in anger should lose his hand. If a man gave another a blow, he was to be thrice immersed; an ounce of silver was the penalty for using opprobrious language. A thief was to have boiling pitch and feathers put upon his head, and was to be set on shore at the first opportunity.

Philip Augustus received the staff and scrip at St. Denis, and Richard at Tours (June, 1190). They joined their forces at Vézelay; the number was computed at one hundred thousand soldiers, and the march to Lyons was conducted in union and with harmony. At that city the monarchs parted; the lord of France pursued the Genoese road; his noble compeer that of Marseilles, and Sicily was named as the rendezvous.

BARBAROSSA’S CRUSADE AND DEATH

A Crusader of the Third Crusade

The heroic Frederick Barbarossa was among the first of those whose grief rose into indignation after the fall of Jerusalem. In his letters to the sacrilegious Saladin, he demanded restitution of the city, and threatened him in the event of non-compliance to pour into Asia all the military force of the German states. But the triumphant infidel replied that he would oppose his Turkomans, his Bedouins, and Syrians to the German hordes. Tyre, Tripolis, and Antioch, he continued, were the only places which at that time belonged to the Christians, and if those cities were resigned to him, he would restore the true cross, and permit the people of the West to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims. Germany was indignant at this haughty reply; all the powers took up arms against the man who had defied them; but in prudent remembrance of the disorders and calamities which popular impatience had occasioned in the First and Second Crusades, an imperial edict was issued, that no one should go who could not furnish his own viaticum for a twelvemonth. The consecrated standards of the German princes were surrounded by innumerable hosts of crusaders, drawn out of every class of life, from honourable knighthood down to the meanest vassalage. Their emperor conducted them from Ratisbon, their rendezvous, through the friendly Hungarian states; but when he reached the territories of the great lord of the East, he had to encounter the hostility of a violent yet timid foe.

The emperor Isaac Angelus displayed both enmity and cowardice. He did not deny the Germans the liberty to purchase provisions, but in his communications with Frederick he carefully avoided giving him imperial titles; and the Greek governors were perplexed by one day receiving orders to preserve the fortifications of their towns, and at another time by commands for their destruction, lest they should become stations of the Germans. Barbarossa marched with prudence and humanity. In his indignation at the haughtiness and duplicity of Isaac, he generally spared the people, and passed the Hellespont without having deigned to enter the imperial city. He entered the territories of the Mussulmans in triumph, and not only defeated the Turks in a general engagement, but took Iconium. The sultan then repented of his perfidy, and with the independent emirs of Asia Minor, deprecated the further vengeance of the Germans. They continued their march with more honour and dignity than had ever accompanied the early crusaders, but they were deprived by death of their venerable hero. It was in the spring of the year that they passed the Isaurian mountains, from which issues the small river of the Calycadnus. In this stream Frederick bathed, but his aged frame could not sustain the shock.[58] His son, the duke of Swabia, was a brave and experienced general, yet the death of the emperor so much revived the courage of the Saracens, that the course of the Christians was continually harassed. Saladin had been compelled to withdraw most of his soldiers from Antioch, and the Germans had little difficulty in renewing a Christian government in that city.

In the autumn of 1190, the duke of Swabia arrived at Acre, and importance was given to the German force by the formation of a Teutonic order of knighthood. The Vatican confirmed the establishment; Pope Celestine III gave it the rule of St. Augustine for its general law, and accorded to it the privileges which distinguished the other military fraternities. The service of the poor and sick, and the defence of the holy places, were the great objects which the pope commanded them to regard; and their domestic economy was to be preserved by chastity and equal participation of property. They were divided into three classes, knights, priests, and serving brothers. All the members were to be Germans, and those of the first class could only be men of noble birth and extraction. The order of the Teutonic knights of the house of St. Mary in Jerusalem was their title, and their dress was a white mantle with a black cross, embroidered with gold.

THE SIEGE OF ACRE OR PTOLEMAIS (1189-1191 A.D.)

[1189-1191 A.D.]

While the kings of England and France were marshalling their hosts for a foreign war, the Christians in the Holy Land slowly recovered from their panic, and joined Lusignan. Greeks, Latins, Syrians, Templars, and Hospitallers, emerged from their places of secrecy, burning for revenge on the infidel spoliators. Acre had opened its gates to the conqueror a few days after the battle of Tiberias, and that city, by reason of its situation and magnitude, was worthy the bravest efforts of its former lords. The sea washed its fortifications on the north and west; a noble pier defended the port from the storms and the enemy; and the city on the land side was fortified by double walls, ditches, and towers.[b]

GEOFFREY DE VINSAUF’S ACCOUNT OF ACRE

If a ten-years’ war made Troy celebrated; if the triumph of the Christians made Antioch more illustrious, Acre will certainly obtain eternal fame, as a city for which the whole world contended. In the form of a triangle, it is narrow on the western side, while it extends in a wider range towards the east, and full a third part of it is washed by the ocean on the south and west. The port, which is not so convenient as it should be, often deceives and proves fatal to the vessels which winter there; for the rock which lies over against the shore, to which it runs parallel, is too short to protect them from the fury of the storm. And because this rock appeared a suitable place for washing away the entrails, the ancients used it as a place for offering up sacrifices, and on account of the flies which followed the sacrificial flesh, the tower which stands above it was called the Tower of Flies.

There is also a tower called the Cursed, situated on the wall which surrounds the city; and if we are to credit common report, it received its name because it is said that the pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed his Lord, were made there. The city, then named Ptolemais, was formerly situate upon Mount Turon, which is close to the city, whence, by an error of antiquity, some call Acre Ptolemais. There is a hill called the Mosque, near Mount Turon, where the ancients say is the sepulchre of Memnon; but by whose kind offices he was brought thither, we have learned neither by writing nor by hearsay. The river which flows by the city is named Belus, and although its bed is narrow, and not deep, Solinus has rendered it celebrated by numbering it amongst the wonders of the world as being enriched with glassy sand. For there was a certain sandy foss, the sand of which supplied materials for making glass; these, if taken out, were altogether useless; but, if let in, from the secret virtue of the place assumed a glassy nature.

Not far from the river is pointed out a low rock near the city, at which it is said that the three divisions of the world, Asia, Europe, and Africa meet; and though it contains separately the other parts of the world, the place itself, dependent on none, is distinct from and independent of all three. Mount Carmel rises aloft on the southern side of the city, where Elijah the Tishbite is known to have had a habitation of modest cost, as his cave still testifies; but although we are often wont in a description to wander away to the pleasant parts of the circuit, we must at present overlook the attractions of the surrounding places, while we turn our attention to the course of the war.[g]

When Richard and Philip Augustus reached the Holy Land, the siege of Acre had lasted twenty-two months. The most patient attention would be exhausted by a minute detail of the operations of that period, and a liberal curiosity will be satisfied by a notice of the chief and characteristic circumstances.

So perfect was the self-security of Saladin, that he did not attempt to overwhelm the foe; and when he at length found the necessity of personally attempting the relief of his city, the force of the king of Jerusalem was appallingly numerous. The people of France and England could not wait the tardy march of their organised armies; they answered with impatience the signals of distress which Palestine hung out; indeed every country of Europe poured forth its population with disorderly rapidity, and Lusignan was at one time the commander of one hundred thousand soldiers. The Christians were encamped on the plain to the south of Acre, and the general station of Saladin was near the town and mountain of Kharuba, still further to the south. Among the bravest of the Christian lords were the count of Champagne, the duke of Gelderland, the landgraf of Thuringia, and James d’Avesnes. Many of the clergy wore the casque and the cuirass; the archbishops of Pisa and Ravenna, the bishops of Salisbury, Beauvais, Cambray, Acre, and Bethlehem, deserved the honour of ecclesiastical knighthood; and on one occasion the valour of Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, saved the camp. The Christians plied the battering-rams and mangonels against the walls, and they only ceased from their labour when Saladin called them to battle on the plain.

The engagements were as sanguinary and obstinate as any which had marked the holy wars. If the Latins at any time prevailed, they speedily lost their advantages, by abandoning themselves to plunder, and allowing the vigilant enemy to collect his broken battalions. When the Saracens conquered, the Christians kept within the shelter of their fortified camp,[59] and did not again take the field till pressed to action by some new bands of crusaders. The conflicts between the Moslems and Christians were by sea as well as by land; but the naval forces were so equally balanced, that the Latins could not finally prevent the Egyptians from succouring Acre, and Europe kept up its communications with the camp. In the last year of the siege the deaths by famine and pestilence exceeded the destruction which former battles had occasioned. Both armies were wasted by a swift decay, for the presence of such numbers had exhausted the Mussulman as well as the Christian neighbourhood. At the siege of Acre, as well as at the old siege of Antioch, the morals of the holy warriors were as depraved as their condition was miserable. Yet an appearance of holiness pervaded the camp. Religious exercises were performed, and vice was reprehended. The crusaders were seemingly devout, but in reality were dissolute,[60] and compromised for personal excesses by pharisaical scrupulosity and uncharitableness.

Conrad, marquis of Tyre, had joined, and afterwards left his friends, and to his departure all the miseries of the Christians from famine were attributed. But his own principality was his most important charge, and he could not furnish provisions for his people and for the whole of the army at the same time. Disease reached and destroyed princes as well as plebeians; and when Queen Sybilla and her two young children died, Guy de Lusignan lost his principal political support. New competitors appeared for the visionary kingdom. Isabel, the sister of Sybilla, had been married at the early age of eight years to Humphry lord of Thoron; but when the warm passions of youth succeeded the indifference of infancy, the gallantry and knightly accomplishments of Conrad, marquis of Tyre, gained her affections. In the Middle Ages consanguinity or some canonical impediment was always discovered, when disgust or ambition urged the dissolution of the marriage contract; and when the will is resolved the mind is not scrupulous in its choice of arguments of justification. The church terminated the union of Humphry and Isabel, and the day after the proclamation of the divorce the bishop of Beauvais married the amorous fair one to the marquis of Tyre. As husband of the princess, Conrad claimed the honours of respect which were due to the king of Jerusalem; Humphry was too prudent to contend for an empty distinction, but Lusignan, who had once enjoyed the crown would not forego the hope of recovering it. The Christian cause was scandalised and injured by these divisions among the chiefs, but the candidates for the pageant sceptre were obliged to submit to the general opinion of the army, and reserve the decision of their claims for the judgment of the French and English monarchs.

RICHARD’S VOYAGE

[1190-1191 A.D.]

Richard’s fleet had not arrived at Marseilles at the appointed time; and so great was his impatience that after waiting for it only eight days he hired some galleys and put to sea. He went to Genoa, and conferred with the French king, whose illness had kept him in that city. He then made a brief stay at Pisa, and shortly afterwards an accident which happened to his vessel compelled him to enter the Tiber.

He made some stay in Naples, and then travelled on horseback to Salerno, where he resolved to wait till he should hear of the arrival of his navy in the Mediterranean. The English fleet had been dispersed off Portugal by a violent storm, but the ships finally reached Lisbon, and circumstances enabled them to pay their obligation of gratitude. The Moors of Spain and Africa were menacing Portugal, five hundred English soldiers joined the king and marched to Santarem. Their warlike aspect awed the Saracens, and the fortunate death at this juncture of the Moorish commander broke the union of the enemy, and the country was saved. The English fleet coasted Portugal, and the southern part of Spain, and arrived at Marseilles. It then set sail for Messina, and reached that place a few days before the arrival of Philip and the French.

A Knight of the Third Crusade

Richard left Salerno on the 13th of September, and on the 21st reached Mileto. He then pursued his journey, accompanied only by one knight. He assembled all the English ships, and entered the harbour of Messina with so much splendour and such clangour of horns and trumpets that the Sicilians and French were astonished and alarmed. Tancred, the illegitimate son of Roger, duke of Apulia, was at that period the king of the island.

Among the precautions which Tancred took for the establishing of his authority was the imprisonment of the widow of William the Good, his immediate predecessor. She was the sister of Richard, king of England, but on the arrival of that monarch in Sicily, the usurper restored her to freedom. But her dowry was still withheld, and her brother was resolved to avenge her wrongs. In all his measures he was violent and unjust. He placed her in a fortress which he seized from the Sicilians, and drove out the religious inhabitants of a monastery in order that it might contain his stores. Those circumstances and the dissoluteness of his people were the occasion of much altercation between the natives and the strangers. Philip Augustus had favoured the Sicilians’ cause, and the English monarch, therefore, regarded him as an enemy, and planted his standard on the quarters of the French. The mediation of the barons prevented a war between Philip and Richard, and the latter showed his goodwill to his royal companion by delivering Messina to the soldiers of the military orders till Tancred should equitably settle the claims of his sister. Peace was then concluded. Richard renounced all claims on Sicily. Messina was given to the French king, and Richard encamped without the walls. Various regulations were made for intercourse between the different nations during the winter months. Merchants were not to purchase bread or corn in the army for the purpose of re-sale, and the profits on their general transactions were restricted to one denarius in ten. Gaming was permitted to the knights and clergy, to the exclusion of the rest of the army. No individual, however, was to lose more than twenty shillings in one day or night. For some time there was a frequent interchange of good offices between the French and English. Richard gave Philip several ships, and was so prodigal of his money among the soldiers that it was commonly said he was more bountiful in a month than his father had been in a year. But the disputes at Messina had rankled in the mind of Philip, and contemporary English historians have charged him with offering his assistance to Tancred for the expulsion of Richard.

THE FRENCH SAIL TO ACRE

In the month of March, 1191, Philip left Sicily and sailed to Acre. His appearance was regarded as a divine blessing; in the moment of elation the attacks were renewed; but orders were soon given for suspending them till the arrival of Richard, and it is more rational to think that the improbability of success without him was Philip’s motive, and not the specious reason that as the cause was common, the victory should be common also. Before his departure from Sicily, Richard avowed that he would lead a life of virtue, and with all humility submitted his back to the scourges of his clergy. He was detained for a short time on account of the expected arrival of his mother Eleanor with the princess Berengaria of Navarre, to whom he had been affianced, long before his treaty with Philip gave him liberty of marriage.

About a fortnight after the departure of his rival, the English monarch set sail. In the absence of numerical statements concerning the strength of his army, we can conjecture that it was formidable from the fact that his soldiers, horses, and stores filled two hundred ships of various sizes. A storm dispersed his fleet, and he heard at Rhodes that two of his vessels had been stranded on the shores of Cyprus, and that the people of the island had plundered and imprisoned such of the crews as had survived shipwreck. The vessel which carried the dowager queen of Sicily had been refused entrance into port. The English therefore landed on the shores of Cyprus; the archers as usual preceded to clear the way; their barbed arrows fell like showers of rain on the meadows, and supported by the heavily armed soldiers they drove the emperor and his Greeks into the interior of the island. The ruler of Cyprus was of the race of Comnenus, but he had changed his government into a kingdom. Isaac was taken; the king of England became lord of Cyprus; he taxed the people to the dreadful amount of the half of their movables, and then accorded to them the rights they had enjoyed under the dominion of the Byzantine emperors.

Richard reposed himself from the toil of conquest by celebrating his marriage with Berengaria. But in a few weeks he roused himself to arms. His fleet left Cyprus; a large troop ship[61] of Saladin crossed his way; the light galleys surrounded and attacked her, but the lofty sides of the Turk could not be mounted. “I will crucify all my soldiers if she should escape,” exclaimed Richard. His men, more in dread of their sovereign’s wrath than the swords of the foe, impelled the sharp beaks of their vessels against the enemy; some of the soldiers dived into the sea, and seized the rudder; and others came to close combat with the Saracens. In order to make the capture an unprofitable one, the emir commanded his troops to cut through the sides of their ship till the waters should rush in. They then leaped on the decks of the English galleys. But the sanguinary and ungenerous Richard killed or cast overboard his defenceless enemies, or, with an avarice equally detestable, saved the commanders for the sake of their ransom.

Shouts of warm and gratulatory acclamations saluted the English on their arrival at Acre. The brilliant scene before them was calculated to excite all the animating feelings of warriors. The martial youth of Europe were assembled on the plain in all the pride and pomp of chivalry. The splendid tents, the gorgeous ensigns, the glittering weapons, the armorial cognisances, displayed the varieties of individual fancy and national peculiarities. On the eminences in the distance the thick embattled squadrons of the sultan were encamped. The mameluke Tatar was armed with his bow; the people of the higher Egypt with their flails and scourges; and the Bedouins with their spears and small round shields. The brazen drum sounded the note of war; and the black banner of Saladin was raised in proud defiance of the crimson standard of the cross.

DISSENSION BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH KINGS

The joy with which the French regarded the English was soon changed for the bitter feelings of military envy and national hatred. The religious objects of the war appeared to be forgotten. The Genoese and Templars sided with Philip; and the Pisans and Hospitallers with Richard. The king of France prepared his soldiers and their battering engines for a vigorous and general assault on the walls of Acre; and murmured revenge when his martial competitor declined co-operation on the ground of illness. The choicest part of the French troops marched to the walls, eager to shame the English.

But high as was the valour of the assailants, their numbers were not adequate; and they were repulsed in every point. When Saladin, however, attempted to carry destruction into the army and camp of his baffled foes, he was driven back with loss. The French reappeared as assailants; but once again displayed their imprudent spirit. In sickness and in convalescence Richard was carried to his military engines on a mattress, and was so active in making and using his petrariæ, that he soon destroyed half of one of the Turkish towers. He preserved his machines from the Greek fire of the city; and he rewarded his balistarii for every stone which they removed from the walls. The ditch was filled up; the tower was completely levelled; and the English heroes, particularly the earl of Leicester and the bishop of Salisbury, prepared to enter the breach. The conflict was close and sanguinary. The Pisans came to the assistance of the English, but the fury of the Turks was irresistible and the walls were cleared of the enemy.

A Knight of the Third Crusade

The failure of the ambitious attempts of each of the monarchs at the capture of Acre without the aid of his rival, evinced the necessity of their co-operation.[62] A reconciliation in consequence was effected between Richard and Philip: and they determined that one should attack the walls, while the other guarded the camp from the approaches of Saladin. But Acre had suffered so dreadfully from a two years’ siege, that the inhabitants were reduced to the melancholy necessity of resolving to desist from defence. Saladin endeavoured to infuse his own invincible spirit into the minds of his people, and revived for a moment their languid courage, by directing their hopes to succour from Egypt. The expected aid from Cairo did not arrive; and the citizens wrung from Saladin his permission for them to capitulate. Their safety was accordingly purchased by their agreeing to deliver unto the two kings the city itself, and five hundred Christian prisoners who were in it. The true cross was to be resigned, and one thousand other captives, and two hundred knights selected by the allies from those who were in the hands of Saladin; and unless the Mussulmans paid to Richard and Philip the sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold within forty days, the inhabitants of Acre should be at the mercy of the conquerors.

These conditions were assented to, and, before the city changed its lords, a proclamation was made in the French and English camps that no one should injure or insult such of the Turks as quitted the place. The Christians entered Acre; the banners of the two kings floated on the ramparts; but precedence seems to have been given to Richard, for he and his wife and sister inhabited the royal palace, while Philip occupied the house of the Templars. They could not refuse the justice of their soldiers’ claim, founded on the principle that those who had shared the labours should divide the reward; but payment was so long deferred, that many persons were forced by poverty to sell their military equipments, and return to Europe. The kings were divided in opinion respecting the title to the sovereignty over Palestine. The English monarch was persuaded to espouse the cause of the weak and miserable Lusignan. The disputes were sometimes heard of during the siege; but after the capture they raged with violence. Negotiations however were entered into, and the agreement reached that Lusignan should be styled king of Jerusalem, and lord of Joppa and Askalon; yet that if Conrad should be the survivor, he and his heirs were to have perpetual sovereignty. The English monarch afterwards generously surrendered the isle of Cyprus to Lusignan.

A few weeks after the capitulation of Acre, and before the time had elapsed for the performance of all the conditions of the treaty, Philip Augustus expressed his wish of returning to Europe. The duke of Burgundy, and the largest portion of the French army, it was stipulated, were to remain in Syria under the command of Richard. Philip Augustus went to Tyre, gave to the marquis of that city his moiety, both of Acre and of the Turkish prisoners, and then set sail for Europe.[b]

REVIEW OF THE SIEGE

[1189-1191 A.D.]

Such was the confusion of this famous siege, which lasted nearly three years, and in which the crusaders shed more blood and exhibited more bravery than ought to have sufficed for the subjugation of the whole of Asia. More than a hundred skirmishes and nine great battles were fought before the walls of the city; several flourishing armies came to recruit armies nearly annihilated, and were in their turn replaced by fresh armies. The bravest nobility of Europe perished in this siege, swept away by the sword or disease. Among the illustrious victims of this war, history points out Philip, count of Flanders, Guy de Chatillon, Bernard de St. Vallery, Vautrier de Mory, Raoul de Fougères, Eudes de Gonesse, Renaud de Maguy, Geoffroi d’Aumale, viscount de Châtellerault, Josselin de Montmorency, and Raoul de Marle; the archbishops of Besançon and Canterbury; with many other ecclesiastics and knights whose piety and exploits were the admiration of Europe.

In this war both parties were animated by religion; each side boasted of its miracles, its saints, and its prophets. Bishops and imams equally promised the soldiers remission of their sins and the crown of martyrdom. Whilst the king of Jerusalem caused the Book of the Evangelists to be borne before him, Saladin would often pause on the field of battle to offer up a prayer or read a chapter from the Koran. The Franks and the Saracens mutually accused each other of ignorance of the true God and of outraging him by their ceremonies. The Christians rushed upon their enemies crying, “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!” and the Saracens answered by their war-cry, “Islam! Islam!”

Fanaticism frequently augmented the fury of slaughter. The Mussulmans from the heights of their towers insulted the religious ceremonies of the Christians. They raised crosses on their ramparts, beat them with rods, covered them with dust, mud, and filth, and broke them into a thousand pieces before the eyes of the besiegers. At this spectacle the Christians swore to avenge their outraged worship, and menaced the Saracens with the destruction of every Mohammedan pulpit. In the heat of this religious animosity, the Mussulmans often massacred disarmed captives; and in more than one battle they burned their Christian prisoners in the very field of conflict. The crusaders but too closely imitated the barbarity of their enemies; funeral piles lighted up by fanatical rage were often extinguished in rivers of blood.

The Mussulman and Christian warriors provoked each other during single combats, and were as lavish of abuse as the heroes of Homer. Heroines often appeared in the mêlée, and disputed the prize of strength and courage with the bravest of the Saracens. Children came from the city to fight with the children of the Christians in the presence of the two armies. But sometimes the furies of war gave place to the amenities of peace, and Franks and Saracens would for a moment forget the hatred that had led them to take up arms. During the course of the siege several tournaments were held in the plain of Acre, to which the Mussulmans were invited. The champions of the two parties harangued each other before entering the lists; the conqueror was borne in triumph, and the conquered ransomed like a prisoner of war. In these warlike festivities, which brought the two nations together, the Franks often danced to the sound of Arabian instruments, and their minstrels afterwards played or sang to the dancing of the Saracens.

Most of the Mussulman emirs, after the example of Saladin, affected an austere simplicity in their vestments and manners. An Arabian author compares the sultan, in his court, surrounded by his sons and brothers, to the star of night which sheds a sombre light amidst the other stars. The principal leaders of the crusade did not entertain the same love of simplicity, but endeavoured to excel each other in splendour and magnificence. As in the First Crusade, the princes and barons were followed into Asia by their hunting and fishing appointments, and the luxuries of their palaces and castles. When Philip Augustus arrived before Acre, all eyes were for a moment turned upon the falcons he had brought with him. One of these having escaped from the hands of his keeper, perched upon the ramparts of the city, and the whole Christian army was excited by endeavours to recapture the fugitive bird. As it was caught by the Mussulmans, and carried to Saladin, Philip sent an ambassador to the sultan to recover it, offering a sum of gold that would have been quite sufficient for the ransom of many Christian warriors.

The misery which so often visited the crusaders, did not at all prevent a great number of them from indulging in excesses of license and debauchery. All the vices of Europe and Asia were met together on one spot. If an Arabian author may be believed, at the very moment in which the Franks were a prey to famine and contagious diseases, a troop of three hundred women from Cyprus and the neighbouring islands arrived in the camp. These three hundred women, whose presence in the Christian army was a scandal in the eyes of the Saracens, prostituted themselves among the soldiers of the cross, and stood in no need of employing the enchantments of the Armida of Tasso to corrupt them.

Nevertheless, the clergy were unremitting in their exhortations to the pilgrims to lead them back to the morals of the Gospel. Churches, surmounted by wooden steeples, were erected in the camp, in which the faithful were every day called together. Not unfrequently the Saracens took advantage of the moment at which the soldiers left their entrenchments unguarded to attend mass, and made flying but annoying incursions. Amidst general corruption, the siege of Acre presented many subjects of edification. In the camp, or in the field of battle, charity hovered constantly around the Christian soldier, to soothe his misery, to watch his sick pallet, or dress his wounds. During the siege the warriors from the north were in the greatest distress, and could gain little assistance from other nations. Some pilgrims from Lübeck and Bremen came to their aid, formed tents of the sails of their vessels to shelter their poor countrymen, and ministered to their wants and tended their diseases. Forty German nobles took part in this generous enterprise, and their association was the origin of the hospitable and military order of the Teutonic knights.

When the crusaders entered Acre, they shared the sovereignty of it amongst them, each nation taking possession of one of the quarters of the city, which had soon as many masters as it had had enemies. The king of Jerusalem was the only leader that obtained nothing in the division of the first reconquered place of his kingdom.

The capitulation remained unexecuted; Saladin, under various pretexts, deferring the completion of the conditions. Richard, irritated by a delay which appeared to him a breach of faith, revenged himself upon the prisoners that were in his hands. Without pity for disarmed enemies, or for the Christians he exposed to sanguinary reprisals, he massacred five thousand Mussulmans before the city they had so valiantly defended, and within sight of Saladin, who shared the disgrace of this barbarity by thus abandoning his bravest and most faithful warriors.[63]

This action, which excited the regret of the whole Christian army, sufficiently exposed the character of Richard, and showed what was to be dreaded from his violence; a barbarous and implacable enemy could not become a generous rival. On the day of the surrender of Acre, he committed a gross outrage upon Leopold, duke of Austria, by ordering the standard of that prince, which had been planted on one of the towers, to be cast into the ditch. Leopold dissembled his resentment, but swore to avenge this insult whenever he should find an opportunity.[c]

THE CRUSADERS MOVE ON JERUSALEM

[1191-1192 A.D.]

It was with difficulty that the soldiers would leave the pleasures of Acre. A historian tells us that the wine in the city had already changed the complexion of the gravest Christian knights, and, for the preservation of discipline, women were prohibited from marching with the army. The largesses of Richard to the duke of Austria, the count of Champagne, and others, kept them from following Philip to Europe, and Plantagenet was at the head of nearly thirty thousand French, German, and English soldiers. These holy warriors left Acre and marched in a southerly direction, generally within sight of their ships, which coasted along the shores, bearing forage and provisions, and military necessaries. Clouds of Turks overhung and burst on the advancing army; the Red Cross knights in the van, and the military friars in the rear, frequently broke the violence of the storm; but the safety of the crusaders was principally owing to the indissoluble firmness of their columns, and their resolute forbearance.[64]

Near Azotus a general engagement could no longer be avoided by Richard. The right of his line was commanded by that heroic and hardy champion of the cross, James d’Avesnes. The duke of Burgundy, a man of doubtful virtue, headed the left; and Plantagenet himself was the stay and bulwark of the centre. The hosts of Syria and Egypt, led by Saladin, made a general and impetuous charge on their foe. The right wing of the Christians was repulsed; the left drove back the Saracens, but it was drawn by the enemy far from the other divisions of the army. Richard hastened with a select band to the aid of the duke of Burgundy, and Saladin, in his endeavour to strengthen his right wing, removed the weight of hostility from James d’Avesnes. No deep impression had been made on the English lines. The personal bravery of Richard achieved wonders; his countenance, his gestures, his invocations to St. George, seconded the ardour of his troops, and the Turks were driven back with great slaughter to Azotus. The loss of the Christians, though not numerous, was severe, for James d’Avesnes perished, and his death was justly regretted by the king as the loss of a great pillar of the Christian cause.

Richard the Lion-hearted

The progress of Cœur de Lion was no longer molested, and he quickly arrived at Joppa. That city was now without fortifications, for when the tide of victory turned from the Mussulmans at Azotus, Saladin commanded the dismantling of all his fortresses in Palestine. It was policy to keep his enemies perpetually in the field, and to exhaust them by ceaseless skirmishes and engagements. As the road to Askalon was open, Richard wished to press his advantages; but the spirit of faction renewed its baneful influence, and the French barons insisted on the necessity of restoring the works of Joppa. Their opinion was in unfortunate accordance with the inclinations of an army already attenuated by incessant marching, and who thought with regret on the pleasures which had been for a while familiarised and endeared to them at Acre. It was resolved, therefore, that Joppa should be re-fortified. Plantagenet, alive to every duty of a general, urged the completion of the works. The soldiers, however, gradually sunk into that state of luxury and idleness, from which they had been with such difficulty recovered by Richard. The Mussulmans roused themselves from the distress and panic of their late defeat at Azotus; they began to collect in the vicinity of Joppa, and their military appearance awoke the English and French from their disgraceful sleep of licentiousness.

Vinsauf[g] tells how Richard, as ardent in pleasure as in war, enjoyed the amusement of falconry, heedless of the enemy. On one occasion the royal party would have paid dearly for their temerity, if a Provençal gentleman, named William de Pratelles, had not cried aloud, “I am the king”; and by this noble lie the attention of the Saracens was drawn upon himself, while the real sovereign escaped. Shortly afterwards a body of Templars fell into an ambuscade of the Turks. Richard sent the earl of Leicester to the aid of the brave but exhausted knights, and promised to follow straight. Before he could buckle on his coat of steel, he heard that the enemy had triumphed. Despising all personal solicitude, and generously declaring he should not deserve the name of king if he abandoned those whom he had vowed to succour, he flew to the place of combat, plunged into the thickest of the fight, and his impetuosity received its usual reward of success.

The fortifications of Joppa were at length restored, a vigorous renewal of the war was determined on, and Plantagenet declared to the Saracens that the only way of averting his wrath would be to surrender to him the kingdom of Jerusalem, as it existed in the reign of Baldwin the leper. Saladin did not reject this proposal with disdain, but made a modification of the terms, in offering to yield Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. The negotiation lasted for some time. Richard was deceived and cajoled by the presents and blandishments of Saphedin [Saif ad-Din], who was the brother of Saladin, and the Christians were ashamed that their leader should be so friendly with an infidel. The barons soon saw, and compelled their royal lord to see, the artifice of the Turks, who resumed their attacks, and the negotiation was broken off. But the Templars, Hospitallers, and Pisans, dissuaded the king from attacking Jerusalem, on the argument that even if it should be taken they would immediately have to fight with the Turks in the neighbourhood. Richard commanded a retreat, and the army fell back upon Ramula, and then continued its retrogression to Askalon, a city of high consequence in the judgment of the Latins, because it was the link between the Turks in Jerusalem and the Turks in Egypt.

Until the return of the spring, all commerce between Askalon and other countries was cut off, and the army endured therefore the hardships of famine in addition to the usual severities of the climate. The impatient duke of Burgundy deserted the standard of Richard; some of the French soldiers went to Acre and Joppa; and others found a welcome reception at the court of the marquis of Tyre. But discontent gave place for a while to better feelings; and, at the solicitation of Plantagenet, most of the deserters returned to their duty. But Conrad disdained an answer to the royal summons. The walls of Askalon were soon repaired, for the proudest nobles and the most dignified clergy worked like the meanest of the people. The duke of Austria was the only distinguished man who was wrapped in haughty selfishness, and who could say that he was neither a carpenter nor a mason. Before indeed the works were completed, Richard lost the aid of his French allies, who, more mercenary than chivalric, retired to Acre, because the royal coffers were exhausted, and the king could not give them their stipulated pay. Commercial jealousy, as well as military envy, obstructed the Crusades. The Genoese and Pisans made Acre the theatre of their animosities; and an appearance of dignity and disinterestedness was given to their feuds, when they fought in the name and for the interests of their respective friends, Conrad and Guy. The marquis of Tyre joined his troops to the Genoese, and the civil war would have spread through all the Christian powers, if Plantagenet had not marched from Askalon to Acre. Conrad prudently retraced his steps, and by the address of the English king the breach between the republicans was closed. Richard endeavoured to conciliate the marquis; but the young nobleman aspired to independence and sovereign power, drew seven hundred French soldiers from Askalon to Tyre, and allied himself with Saladin. When Richard had retired from Jerusalem, and his army became broken, Saladin had dismissed many of his troops to their families and homes; but when he heard of the defection of Conrad, he thought that the moment of active hostility was arrived, and he accordingly spread his standard, and summoned his hosts.

ARMY OF RICHARD IN THE EAST

Richard was cool and undismayed at the military port of his enemy, but political disturbances in England demanded the presence of the monarch, and he was compelled to yield to his necessities, and solicit his generous foe to terminate the war. He declared that he required only the possession of the sacred city, and of the true cross. But the Mussulman replied that Jerusalem was as dear to the Moslem as to the Christian world, and that he would never be guilty of conniving at idolatry by permitting the worship of a piece of wood. Thwarted by the religious principles of his enemies, Richard endeavoured to win upon their softer affections. He proposed a consolidation of the Christian and Mohammedan interests, the establishment of a government at Jerusalem, partly European and partly Asiatic; and these schemes of policy were to be carried into effect by the marriage of Saphedin with the widow of William king of Sicily. The Mussulman princes would have acceded to these terms; but the marriage was thought to be so scandalous to religion, that the imams and the priests raised a storm of clamour, and Richard and Saladin, powerful as they were, submitted to popular opinion.[65]

The necessity of Richard’s return to England grew stronger, and the only cause of his delay was the choice of a military commander of the Christians. The imbecile Guy had but few partisans, and the public voice was in favour of the valiant Conrad; Richard generously overlooked the circumstance, that the prince of Tyre was his enemy, and the friend of Saladin, and consented to the public wish. But while preparations were making for the coronation, Conrad was slain by two of the Assassins. In the first moments of indignation, the French declared that Richard had instigated the murderers. They demanded from the widow of Conrad the resignation of Tyre, but she was too politic to encounter the anger of the king. Count Henry of Champagne appeared in the midst of the tumult; he took the throne upon the invitation of the people, and following the approved precedent, he secured himself from opposition by marrying the widow of Conrad. Richard confirmed the election of the people, and the civil war was closed. The duke of Burgundy and the count of Champagne joined Richard.

Disregarding the calls from England, the king led his English and Normans to the fortress of Darum, reduced it, and gave it to the French, whose preparations for the attack had been rendered needless by the superior activity of their allies. Some new messengers from England brought fresh accounts of the increasing power of Prince John, and the treachery of Philip Augustus. The army continued its march towards Jerusalem, and encamped in the valley of Hebron. The generals and soldiers vowed that they would not quit Palestine without having redeemed the sepulchre. Everything wore the face of joy when this resolution was adopted; Richard participated in the feeling, and although he thought that his presence in England would be the only means of restoring affairs there, yet he professed to the duke of Burgundy, and the count of Champagne, that no solicitation from Europe should prevail with him to leave the allies until after the following Easter. Hymns and thanksgivings testified the popular joy at this resolution.

The nearer the approach of the Christians the greater was the terror of the Mussulmans in Jerusalem; many of them prepared to leave the city, and even Saladin was alarmed for its safety. The crusaders were at Bethlehem; the French nobility in the council were as clamorous as the people without to press forward; but the mind of Richard vacillated, and he avowed his doubts of the policy of the measure, as his force was not adequate to a siege, and to the keeping up of communications with its stores on the coast. He proposed that they should march to Berytus, to Cairo, or Damascus; but as the barons of Syria, the Templars, and Hospitallers, had a perfect knowledge of Palestine, he thought that their decision should regulate the proceedings of the army.

THE ENTERPRISE ABANDONED

A council of twenty was accordingly appointed from the military orders, the lords of the Holy Land, and also the French knights. They learned that the Turks had destroyed all the cisterns, which were within two miles of the city; they felt that the heats of summer had begun; and for these reasons it was decided that the siege of Jerusalem should be deferred, and that the army should march to some other conquest. As a general, Richard was fully aware of the impolicy of advancing against the sacred city, yet he was unable to suppress his bitter feelings of mortification at a decision which would probably blast the proud hopes that he had indulged of redeeming the sepulchre. A friend led him to a hill which commanded a view of Jerusalem; but, covering his face with a shield, he declared that he was not worthy to behold a city which he could not conquer. The French soldiers uttered invectives and complaints against the decision of the council; Cœur de Lion offered them provisions, ships, and money, if they would obey its decree, and march to Cairo; and although they acquiesced, yet as they were not zealous, Richard remained in inactivity and indecision.

Active hostility against the Saracens was abandoned by the Christians for the fiercer employment of civil rancour and dissensions; and if a retreat had not been commanded, the army would have been totally destroyed by Saladin. Richard could preserve but little order and discipline among the soldiers. Some retired to Joppa, but Acre was the rendezvous of most of the army.

By the quickest marches Saladin reached Joppa, and so vigorous was his siege of it that in a few days one of the gates was broken down, and such of the people as could not defend themselves in the great tower, or escape by sea, were destroyed. Before the morning, however, the brave Plantagenet reached Joppa. Abandoning the hope of rescuing the Holy Land from infidel subjection, he was on the point of quitting Acre and of returning to Europe, when the precipitancy of his Moslem rival opened again all his visions of glory and conquest. The French refused to march; but the Templars and Hospitallers, the Pisans and Genoese, the earl of Leicester and the other English nobles, vowed to save their friends. Richard and some of his troops went by sea to Joppa; other soldiers took the land course, but were badly distressed by those impediments which Saladin, in anticipation of their approach, cast in their way. Plantagenet was the first who leaped on shore, and the most active with his deadly sword.[b]

There have been few feats of arms more renowned than this all-day fight of Richard, and the old chronicler, Geoffrey de Vinsauf, has written of it in such strain of enthusiasm that we cannot forbear quoting the splendid pictures, whose hyperbole is its own explanation and excuse.[a]

VINSAUF’S ACCOUNT OF RICHARD AT JOPPA

The king hearing of the danger to which the besieged were exposed and pitying their condition interrupted the messengers.

“As God lives,” said he, “I will be with them, and give them all the assistance in my power!” The words were hardly out of his mouth, before a proclamation was made that the army should be got ready. But the French would not vouchsafe even to honour the king with an answer, exclaiming proudly that they should never again march under his command; and in this they were not disappointed, for they never again marched under anybody’s command, for in a short time they all miserably perished. Meanwhile, however, the soldiers of all nations, whose hearts God had touched, and the sufferings of their fellow-creatures excited to compassion, hastened to set out with the king; namely, the Templars, the Hospitallers, and several other valiant knights, all of whom marched by land to Cæsarea; but the noble king trusting for his safety to his own valour, embarked on board his fleet of galleys, which were equipped with everything that could be necessary. A contrary wind arose, which detained the king’s ships three days at Caiphas, where they had put in.

The king, vexed at this delay, exclaimed aloud, “O Lord God, why dost thou detain us here? consider, I pray thee, the urgency of the case, and the devoutness of our wishes.” No sooner had he prayed thus than God caused a favourable wind to spring up, which wafted his fleet before it into the harbour of Joppa, in the midst of the night of Friday immediately preceding the Saturday on which they had agreed to surrender, and all of them would have been given over to destruction. They fled up the fortress as far as they were able, and there awaited the stroke of martyrdom, shedding tears, and supplicating the mercy of the Almighty who at length was appeased, and deigned to listen to their petition; their deliverer was already come, his fleet was riding in the harbour, and his soldiers were eager to land for their rescue!

The Turks, discovering the arrival of the king’s fleet, sallied down to the seaside with sword and shield, and sent forth showers of arrows: the shore was so thronged with their multitude that there was hardly a foot of ground to spare. Neither did they confine themselves to acting on the defensive, for they shot their arrows at the crews of the ships, and the cavalry spurred their horses into the sea to prevent the king’s men from landing. The king, gathering his ships together, consulted with his officers what was the best step to take.

“Shall we,” said he, “push on against this rabble multitude who occupy the shore, or shall we value our lives more than the lives of those poor fellows who are exposed to destruction for want of our assistance?” Some of them replied that further attempts were useless, for it was by no means certain that anyone remained alive to be saved, and how could they land in the face of so large a multitude?

The king looked around thoughtfully, and at that moment saw a priest plunge into the water and swim toward the royal galley. When he was received on board, he addressed the king with palpitating heart and spirits almost failing him. “Most noble king, the remnant of our people, waiting for your arrival, are exposed like sheep to be slain, unless the divine grace shall bring you to their rescue.” “Are any of them still alive, then?” asked the king, “and if so, where are they?” “There are still some of them alive,” said the priest, “and hemmed in and at the last extremity in front of yonder tower.” “Please God, then,” replied the king, “by whose guidance we have come, we will die with our brave brothers in arms, and a curse light on him who hesitates.”

The word was forthwith given, the galleys were pushed to land; the king dashed forward into the waves with his thighs unprotected by armour, and up to his middle in the water; he soon gained firm footing on the dry strand; behind him followed Geoffrey du Bois and Peter de Pratelles, and in the rear came all the others rushing through the waves. The Turks stood to defend the shore, which was covered with their numerous troops. The king, with an arbalest which he held in his hand, drove them back right and left; his companions pressed upon the recoiling enemy, whose courage quailed when they saw it was the king, and they no longer dared to meet him. The king brandished his fierce sword, which allowed them no time to resist, but they yielded before his fiery blows and were driven in confusion with blood and havoc by the king’s men until the shore was entirely cleared of them.

The king then, by a winding stair, which he had remarked in the house of the Templars, was the first to enter the town, where he found more than three thousand of the Turks turning over everything in the houses, and carrying away the spoil. The brave king had no sooner entered the town than he caused his banners to be hoisted on an eminence, that they might be seen by the Christians in the tower, who, taking courage at the sight, rushed forth in arms from the tower to meet the king, and at the report thereof the Turks were thrown into confusion. The king, meanwhile, with brandished sword, still pursued and slaughtered the enemy, who were thus enclosed between the two bodies of the Christians, and filled the streets with their slain. All were slain, except such as took to flight in time; and thus those who had before been victorious were now defeated and received condign punishment, whilst the king still continued the pursuit, showing no mercy to the enemies of Christ’s cross, whom God had given into his hands; for there never was a man on earth who so abominated cowardice as he.

But the king had only three horses with him, and what were three among so many? If we examine the deeds of the ancients, and all the records left us by former historians, we shall find that there never was a man who so distinguished himself in battle as King Richard did this day. When the Turks leaving the town saw his banners floating in the air, a cry was raised on right and left as he sallied forth upon them, and no hail-storm or tempest ever so densely concealed the sky, as it was then darkened by the flying arrows of the Turks. Saladin, hearing of the king’s arrival, and of his brilliant contest with the Turks, of whom he had slain all who opposed him, was seized with sudden fear, and like that timid animal, the hare, put spurs to his horse and fled from before his face. The king, with his men, still continued the pursuit, slaying and destroying, whilst his arbalesters made such havoc of the horses that for two miles the traces of their flight were visible. He now therefore pitched his tent in the same place where those of Saladin had been, and thus by the divine grace so small a body of men had defeated this large army of the Turks. It was then given out among the Turks what a reproach it was to them, and lasting scandal, that so large an army and so many thousands of the Turks had been defeated by so small an army, and that Joppa had been recovered from them by force of arms. In this manner they murmured to one another at what had taken place, and trembled with confusion.

Meanwhile a certain depraved set of men among the Saracens, called Menelones of Aleppo and Cordivi, an active race, met together to consult what should be done in the existing state of things. They spoke of the scandal which lay against them, that so small an army, without horses, had driven them out of Joppa, and they reproached themselves with cowardice and shameful laziness, and arrogantly made a compact among themselves that they would seize King Richard in his tent, and bring him before Saladin, from whom they would receive a most munificent reward. But now, by the providence of God, who had decreed that his holy champion should not be seized whilst asleep by the infidels, a certain Genoese was led by the divine impulse to go out early in the morning into the fields, where he was alarmed at the noise of men and horses advancing, and returned speedily, but just had time to see helmets reflecting back the light which now fell upon them. He immediately rushed with speed into the camp, calling out “To arms! to arms!” The king was awakened by the noise, and leaping startled from his bed, put on his impenetrable coat of mail, and summoned his men to the rescue.

God of all virtues! lives there a man who would not be shaken by such a sudden alarm? The enemy rushed unawares, armed against unarmed, many against few, for our men had no time to arm, or even to dress themselves. The king himself therefore, and many others with him, on the urgency of the moment, proceeded without their cuishes to the fight, some even without their breeches, and they armed themselves in the best manner they could, though they were going to fight the whole day. Whilst our men were thus arming in haste, the Turks drew near, and the king mounted his horse with only ten other knights. These alone had horses, and some even of those they had were base and impotent horses unused to arms; the common men were skilfully drawn out in ranks and troops, with each a captain to command them. Oh, who could fully relate the terrible attacks of the infidels? The Turks at first rushed on with horrid yells, hurling their javelins and shooting their arrows. The king ran along the ranks and exhorted every man to be firm and not to flinch. The Turks came on like a whirlwind, again and again, making the appearance of an attack, that our men might be induced to give way, and when they were close up, they turned their horses off in another direction. The king and his knights, who were on horseback, perceiving this, put spurs to their horses and charged into the middle of the enemy, upsetting them right and left, and piercing a large number through the body with their lances; at last they pulled up their horses, because they found that they had penetrated entirely through the Turkish lines.

The king now looking about him, saw the noble earl of Leicester fallen from his horse, and fighting bravely on foot. No sooner did he see this than he rushed to his rescue, snatched him out of the hands of the enemy, and replaced him on his horse. What a terrible combat was then waged! A multitude of Turks advanced, and used every exertion to destroy our small army; vexed at our success, they rushed towards the royal standard of a lion, for they would rather have slain the king than a thousand others. In the midst of the mêlée the king saw Ralph de Mauleon dragged off prisoner by the Turks, and spurring his horse to speed, in a moment released him from their hands, and restored him to the army; for the king was a very giant in the battle, and was everywhere in the field—now here, now there, wherever the attacks of the Turks raged the hottest. So bravely did he fight, that there was no one, however gallant, that would not readily and deservedly yield to him the pre-eminence.

On that day he performed the most gallant deeds on the furious army of the Turks, and slew numbers with his sword, which shone like lightning; some of them were cloven in two from their helmet to their teeth, whilst others lost their heads, arms, and other members, which were lopped off at a single blow. While the king was thus labouring with incredible exertions in the fight, a Turk advanced towards him, mounted on a foaming steed. He had been sent by Saphedin of Archadia, brother to Saladin, a liberal and munificent man, if he had not rejected the Christian faith. This man now sent to the king, as a token of his well-known honourable character, two noble horses, requesting him earnestly to accept them, and make use of them, and if he returned safe and sound out of that battle, to remember the gift and recompense it in any manner he pleased. The king readily received the present, and afterwards nobly recompensed the giver. Such is bravery, cognisable even in an enemy; since a Turk, who was our bitter foe, thus honoured the king for his distinguished valour.

The king, especially at such a moment of need, protested that he would have taken any number of horses equally good from anyone, even more a foe than Saphedin, so necessary were they to him at that moment. Fierce now raged the fight, when such numbers attacked so few; the whole earth was covered with the javelins and arrows of the unbelievers; they threw them several at a time against our men, of whom many were wounded. Thus the weight of the battle fell heavier upon us than before, and the galley-men withdrew in the galleys which brought them, and so, in their anxiety to be safe, they sacrificed their character for bravery. Meanwhile a shout was raised by the Turks, as they strove who should first occupy the town, hoping to slay those of our men whom they should find within.

The king, hearing the clamour, taking with him only two knights and two cross-bow men, met three Turks, nobly caparisoned, in one of the principal streets. Rushing bravely upon them, he slew the riders in his own royal fashion, and made booty of two horses. The rest of the Turks who were found in the town were put to the rout in spite of their resistance, and dispersing in different directions, sought to make their escape even where there was no regular road. The king also commanded the parts of the walls which were broken down to be made good, and placed sentinels to keep watch lest the town should be again attacked. These matters settled, the king went down to the shore, where many of our men had taken refuge on board the galleys. These the king exhorted by the most cogent arguments to return to the battle and share with the rest whatever might befall them. Leaving five men as guards on board each galley, the king led back the rest to assist his hard-pressed army; and he no sooner arrived, than with all his fury he fell upon the thickest ranks of the enemy, driving them back and routing them, so that even those who were at a distance and untouched by him, were overwhelmed by the throng of the troops as they retreated.

Never was there such an attack made by an individual. He pierced into the middle of the hostile army, and performed the deeds of a brave and distinguished warrior. The Turks at once closed upon him and tried to overwhelm him. In the meantime our men, losing sight of the king, were fearful lest he should have been slain, and when one of them proposed that they should advance to find him, our lines could hardly contain themselves. But if by any chance the disposition of our troops had been broken, without doubt they would all have been destroyed. What however was to be thought of the king who was hemmed in by the enemy, a single man opposed to so many thousands?

A Saracen Chief

The hand of the writer faints to tell it, and the mind of the reader to hear it. Who ever heard of such a man? His bravery was ever of the highest order, no adverse storm could sink it; his valour was ever blooming. Why then do we speak of the valour of Antæus, who regained his strength every time he touched his mother earth, for Antæus perished when he was lifted up from earth in the long wrestling match. The body of Achilles also, who slew Hector, was invulnerable, because he was dipped in the Stygian waves; yet Achilles was mortally wounded in the very part by which he was held when they dipped him. Likewise Alexander, the Macedonian, who was stimulated by ambition to subjugate the whole world, undertook a most difficult enterprise, and with a handful of choice soldiers fought many celebrated battles, but the chief part of his valour consisted in the excellence of his soldiers. In the same manner, the brave Judas Maccabæus, of whose wars all the world discoursed, performed many wonderful deeds worthy forever to be remembered, but when he was abandoned by his soldiers in the midst of a battle, with thousands of enemies to oppose him, he was slain, together with his brothers.

But King Richard, inured to battle from his tenderest years, and to whom even famous Roland could not be considered equal, remained invincible even in the midst of the enemy, and his body, as if it were made of brass, was impenetrable to any kind of weapon. In his right hand he brandished his sword, which in its rapid descent broke the ranks on either side of him. Such was his energy amid that host of Turks that, fearing nothing, he destroyed all around him, mowing men down with his sword as reapers mow down the corn with their sickles. Who could describe his deeds? Whoever felt one of his blows, had no need of a second. Such was the energy of his courage, that it seemed to rejoice at having found an occasion to display itself. The sword wielded by his powerful hand, cut down men and horses alike, cleaving them to the middle.

The Turks were terror-struck at the sight, and giving way on all sides, scarcely dared to shoot at him from a distance with their arrows. The king now returned safe and unhurt to his friends, and encouraged them more than ever with the hope of victory. How were their minds raised from despair when they saw him coming safe out of the enemy’s ranks! They knew not what had happened to him, but they knew that without him all the hopes of the Christian army would be in vain. The king’s person was stuck all over with javelins, like a deer pierced by the hunters, and the trappings of his horse were thickly covered with arrows. Thus, like a brave soldier, he returned from the contest, and a bitter contest it was, for it had lasted from the morning sun to the setting sun. It may seem indeed wonderful and even incredible that so small a body of men endured so long a conflict; but by God’s mercy we cannot doubt the truth of it, for in that battle only one or two of our men were slain. But the number of the Turkish horses which lay dead on the fields is said to have exceeded fifteen hundred; and of the Turks themselves more than seven hundred were killed, and yet they did not carry back King Richard, as they had boasted, as a present to Saladin; but, on the contrary, he and his brave followers performed so many deeds of valour in the sight of the Turks, that the enemy themselves shuddered to behold them. In the meantime, our men having by God’s grace escaped destruction, the Turkish army returned to Saladin, who is said to have ridiculed them by asking where Melek Richard was, for they had promised to bring him a prisoner? “Which of you,” continued he, “first seized him, and where is he? Why is he not produced?” To whom one of the Turks that came from the farthest countries of the earth replied; “In truth, my lord, Melek Richard, about whom you ask, is not here; we have never heard since the beginning of the world that there ever was such a knight so brave and so experienced in arms. In every deed at arms, he is ever the foremost; in deeds, he is without a rival, the first to advance and the last to retreat; we did our best to seize him, but in vain, for no one can escape from his sword; his attack is dreadful; to engage with him is fatal, and his deeds are beyond human nature.”

From the toil and exertion of the battle, King Richard and several others who had exerted themselves the most, fell ill, not only from the fatigue of the battle, but the smell of the corpses, which so corrupted the neighbourhood, that they all nearly died.[g]

PEACE BETWEEN THE KINGS

Richard now wished for peace, and Saladin, exhausted by wars, submitted to necessity. They exchanged expressions of esteem, and as the former avowed his contempt of the vulgar obligation of oaths, they only grasped each other’s hands in pledge of fidelity. A truce was agreed upon for three years and eight months; the fort of Askalon was to be destroyed; but Joppa and Tyre, with the country between them, were to be surrendered to the Christians. The people of the West were also at liberty to make their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, exempt from the taxes which the Saracenian princes had in former times imposed.

The French soldiers at Acre prepared to return to Europe; but wished first to behold the sepulchre which was so dear and sacred to the Christians. But Richard was indignant at the audacity of men who claimed the benefit of a treaty which no efforts of their own had procured. They had lost the laurel of holy warriors, and they deserved not to bear the pilgrim’s palm. The rest of the army visited the hallowed places, and Saladin, alive to every honourable obligation, prevented his subjects from injuring the persons and insulting the feelings of the devout palmers. In a familiar conversation with the bishop of Salisbury Saladin expressed his admiration of the bravery of Plantagenet, but thought that the skill of the general did not equal the valour of the knight. The courteous prelate complimented the Mussulman by replying that there were not two such warriors in the world as the English and the Syrian monarchs. Often have we had occasion to observe the generosity of Saladin in the moment of victory. At the solicitation of the bishop he allowed establishments of Latin priests in the Holy Sepulchre, and in the churches of Bethlehem and Nazareth. He had pity, too, on the different barons whom his conquests had dispossessed. He gave to the lord of Sajetta a handsome town near Tyre; to Belian of Ibelin a castle, four miles from Acre; and he restored Caiphas, Cæsarea, and Azotus to their respective lords. Count Henry of Champagne became master of Joppa.

The loss of many thousand soldiers on the plains of Acre, and the bravery and conduct of the English monarch, had prevented some of the anticipated issues of the battle of Tiberias; Palestine did not become a Mussulman colony; and so much of the sea coast was in the hands of the Christians, and so enfeebled were the enemy, that fresh hostilities could safely be commenced whenever Europe should again pour forth her religious fanatics, and military adventurers. Richard gained more honour in Palestine than any of the emperors of Germany and kings of France who had sought renown in foreign war; and although these distant ages may censure his conduct as unprofitable to his country, yet his actions were in unison with that spirit of the times which looked upon valour as more important than empire, and esteemed achievements in battle more highly than the consequences of victory. In the month of October, Richard, with his queen, the English soldiers, and pilgrims, set sail for England. But storms of violence, uncommon even for the boisterous season of autumn, soon scattered the fleet. Many of the vessels were wrecked on hostile shores, and the warriors of England, now penniless, naked, and famished, were led into Saracen prisons. Other ships fortunately reached friendly ports, and in time returned to Britain.[b]

END AND REVIEW OF THE THIRD CRUSADE

[1189-1192 A.D.]

Richard the Lion-hearted as a Crusader

Thus finished this Third Crusade, in which all the western powers in arms obtained no greater advantages than the taking of Ptolemais and the demolition of Askalon; in it Germany lost, without glory, one of the greatest of its emperors and the finest of its armies. If we may believe Arabian authors, six hundred thousand crusaders appeared before Ptolemais, and scarcely one hundred thousand of these warriors saw their native country again. Europe had the greater reason to deplore the losses of this war, from the fact of her armies having been so much better composed than in preceding expeditions; criminals, adventurers, and vagabonds had been strictly excluded from the ranks. All that the West could boast of the most noble and illustrious of its warriors had taken up arms.

The crusaders that contended with Saladin were better armed and better disciplined than any that preceded them in Palestine; the foot-soldiers employed the cross-bow, which had been neglected or prohibited in the Second Crusade. Their cuirasses, and their bucklers covered with thick leather, defied the arrows of the Saracens; and on the field of battle, soldiers were often seen bristling with arrows and darts, whom the Arabs compared to porcupines, still keeping their ranks and fighting bravely. The Saracens had likewise made some progress in the art of war, and began to resume the use of the lance, which they did not employ when the first crusaders arrived in Syria. The Mussulman armies were not confused multitudes; they remained longer under their banners, and fought with less disorder. The Kurds and Turks surpassed the Franks in the art of attacking and defending cities and castles. The Mussulmans had, besides, more than one advantage over the crusaders: they made war upon their own territories and in their own climate; they were under the command of one single leader, who communicated the same spirit to all, and only presented to them one cause to defend.

In this crusade the Franks appeared to be more polished than they had been till that time. Great monarchs making war against each other without ceasing to give evidences of mutual esteem and generous feeling, was a new spectacle for the world. Subjects followed the example of their princes, and lost beneath the tent much of their barbarism. The crusaders were sometimes admitted to the table of Saladin, and emirs received at that of Richard. By thus mingling together, Saracens and Christians might make a happy exchange of usages, manners, knowledge, and even virtues. The Christians, rather more enlightened than during the first Crusades, stood in less need of excitement from the visions of fanaticism. The passion for glory was for them almost as powerful a principle as religious enthusiasm. Chivalry also made great progress in this crusade; it was held in such honour, and the title of knight was so glorious, even in the eyes of the infidels, that Saladin did not disdain to be decorated with it.

In this crusade, in which so many knights rendered themselves illustrious, two men acquired an immortal glory, one by a useless bravery and qualities more brilliant than solid, the other by real successes and virtues that might have served as models to Christians. The name of Richard remained during a century the terror of the East, and the Saracens and Turks celebrated him in their proverbs a long time after the Crusades. He cultivated letters and merited a place among the troubadours; but the arts did not at all soften his character; it was his ferocity as well as his courage that procured him the surname of Cœur de Lion. Carried away by the inconstancy of his inclinations, he often changed his projects, his affections, and his principles of action; he sometimes braved religion, and very often devoted himself to its service. Sometimes incredulous, as often superstitious; measureless in his hatred as in his friendship, he was extravagant in everything, and only showed himself constant in his love for war. The passions which animated him scarcely ever permitted his ambition to have an aim or a determinate object. His imprudence, his presumption, and the unsteadiness of his plans, made him lose the fruits of his exploits. In a word, the hero of this crusade is more calculated to excite surprise than to create esteem, and appears to belong less to history than to the romances of chivalry.

CHRISTIANS PASSING BEFORE SALADIN

With less rashness and bravery than Richard, Saladin possessed a more firm character, one far better calculated to carry on a religious war. He paid more attention to the results of his enterprises; more master of himself, he was more fit to command others. When mounting the throne of the atabegs, Saladin obeyed rather his destiny than his inclinations; but when once firmly seated, he was governed by only two passions—that of reigning, and that of securing the triumph of the Koran. On all other subjects he was moderate, and when a kingdom or the glory of the prophet was not in question, the son of Eyyub was admired as the most just and mild of Mussulmans. We may add that the stern devotion[66] and ardent fanaticism that made him take up arms against the Christians, only rendered him cruel and barbarous in one single instance. He displayed the virtues of peace amidst the horrors of war. “From the bosom of camps,” says an oriental poet, “he covered the nations with the wings of his justice, and poured upon his cities the plenteous showers of his liberality.” The Mussulmans, always governed by fear, were astonished that a sovereign could inspire them with so much love, and followed him with joy to battle. His generosity, his clemency, and particularly his respect for an oath, were often the subjects of admiration to the Christians, whom he rendered so miserable by his victories, and of whose power in Asia he had completed the overthrow.

The Third Crusade, which was so glorious for Saladin, was not entirely without advantages for Europe. Many crusaders, on the way to Palestine, stopped in Spain, and by their victories over the Moors, prepared the deliverance of the kingdoms situated beyond the Pyrenees. A great number of Germans, as in the Second Crusade, prevailed upon by the solicitations of the pope, made war upon the barbarous inhabitants of the shores of the Baltic, and thus, by useful exploits, extended the limits of the Christian republic in the West. As in this war the greater part of the crusaders went to Palestine by sea, the art of navigation made a sensible advance; the maritime nations of Europe acquired an accession of prosperity, their fleets became more formidable, and they were able, with glory, to dispute the empire of the sea with the Saracens.

In several states of Europe, commerce, and the spirit of the holy wars contributed to the enfranchisement of the lower classes. Many serfs, upon becoming free, took up arms. It was not one of the least interesting spectacles of this crusade, to see the standards of several cities of France and Germany floating in the Christian army amongst the banners of lords and barons. This crusade was particularly beneficial to France, from which it banished both civil and foreign wars. By prolonging the absence of the great vassals and the enemies of the kingdom, it weakened their power, and gave Philip Augustus authority to levy imposts, even upon the clergy. It afforded him an opportunity of surrounding his throne with a faithful guard, to keep up regular armies, and prepare, though at a distance, that victory of Bouvines which proved so fatal to the enemies of France.

[1192-1194 A.D.]

An English Crusader, Third Crusade

A long captivity awaited Richard on his return to Europe. The vessel in which he embarked was shipwrecked on the coast of Italy, and fearing to pass through France, he took the route of Germany, concealed under the habit of a simple pilgrim. His liberality betrayed the monarch, and as he had enemies everywhere, he was seized by the soldiers of the duke of Austria. Leopold had not sufficient generosity to forget the outrages received from Richard at the siege of Ptolemais, and detained him prisoner.[67] The duke of Austria did not dare to detain his redoubtable captive in his own hands, and gave him up to the emperor of Germany. Henry VI, who had likewise insults to revenge, was rejoiced to get Richard in his power, and kept him in chains, as if he had made him a prisoner in the field of battle. The hero of the crusade, who had filled the world with his renown, was cast into a dark dungeon, and remained a long time a victim to the vengeance of his enemies—and they were Christian princes. He was brought before the German diet, assembled at Worms, where he was accused of all the crimes that hatred and envy could invent. But the spectacle of a king in chains was so affecting, that no one durst condemn Richard, and when he offered his justification, the bishops and nobles melted into tears, and besought Henry to treat him with less injustice and rigour.

Queen Eleanor implored all the powers of Europe for the release of her son. The complaints and tears of a mother touched the heart of Celestine, who had recently ascended the chair of St. Peter. The pope several times demanded the liberty of the king of England, and even excommunicated the duke of Austria and the emperor; but the thunders of the church had so often been launched against the thrones of Germany, that they no longer inspired fear. Henry braved the anathemas of the holy see; the captivity of Richard lasted another year; and he only obtained his liberty after engaging to pay a considerable ransom. His kingdom, which he had ruined at his departure for the Holy Land, exhausted itself to hasten his return; and England gave up even her sacred vases to break the chains of her monarch. He was received with enthusiasm by the English; his adventures, which drew tears, obliterated the remembrance of his cruelties, and Europe only recollected his exploits and his misfortunes.[c]

DEATH OF SALADIN; ARAB EULOGIES

In the year 589 (1193 A.D.), after the departure of the king of England, Saladin having no longer anything to fear from the Christians, resolved to pass some time at Damascus. This was always a favourite place of sojourn, and he hoped there to recover his health, for he was feeling severely the strain of so arduous a war. His plan, after resting a while in Damascus, was to go to Egypt, which he had not visited for ten years. He left Jerusalem and paid visits en route to Nablus, Tiberias, and other scenes of his recent conquests. At Berytus, Bohemond, prince of Antioch, came to pay allegiance. What most touched the sultan was that Bohemond came of his own accord, without distrust, without escort, without even having requested a safe conduct. As evidence of his satisfaction the sultan gave him a splendid welcome, and granted him several fiefs contiguous to his own principality. The lords who came with him also received presents. Saladin finally arrived in Damascus amid the acclamations of the populace. Great was the rejoicing, and poets exercised their art for the occasion. The sultan immediately took in hand the welfare of the inhabitants and reformed several abuses. In the meanwhile he betook himself with his brother Malik Adil to the pleasures of the chase. He was away a fortnight; his health seemed restored, and already he began to believe himself beyond all danger, when suddenly he fell ill of a bilious fever of which he died on the thirteenth day, March 5, 1193. Boha ad-Din, who at the time of Saladin’s death was in the city, relates that grief was universal. “That day,” he says, “was the most terrible that had ever dawned on Islam. The castle of Damascus, the city, the whole universe was struck with a sorrow that God alone could measure.”

Saladin was born at Tekrit, on the Tigris, and died at the age of fifty-seven lunar years, after having reigned twenty-four years over Egypt and nineteen over Syria. Arabian historians represent him as a most generous prince, who would ever willingly deprive himself of the necessaries of life. Boha ad-Din avows that finally his steward felt obliged, unknown to him, to put aside money in order to meet future emergencies; at his death they found in his treasury forty-seven silver pieces and one of gold. “This,” adds Boha ad-Din, “was all that remained of the revenues of Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and a part of Mesopotamia.”

It always happened that when Saladin took possession of a new province he performed deeds of great generosity in order to win over the people. When he entered Damascus after the death of Nur ad-Din, he did not take for himself any of this prince’s treasures, but distributed everything among the emirs. “Saladin,” says Abulfeda, “had gentle manners, he bore contradiction easily, and showed great indulgence to those who served him. If anything wounded his feelings he did not exhibit it. He was reserved in speech; and his example inspired the same thing in others. No one dared attack his neighbour’s honour in the sultan’s presence.

“He never could see an orphan without being moved. If one of its parents were still alive he gave it into this parent’s keeping, but himself provided for the child’s maintenance and kept watch over its education. Whenever he met an aged person he wept tenderly and bestowed some token of generosity. Such was his manner of life until God called him to his merciful bosom.”

Saladin was not insensible to domestic affection. He loved to spend his time with his family, surrounded by his children, and taking part in their sports. He was sincerely devoted to his religion and brought up his children in the same way. Boha ad-Din has preserved for us the sultan’s speech, a short time before his death, on the occasion of the departure of his son Dhahir to the post of governor of Aleppo. “O my son,” the sultan said, “I recommend to thee the fear of God, source of all goodness. Do what God asks, and thou shalt find in that thy salvation. Hold always the sight of blood in horror. Take care not to shed or stain thyself with it, for the mark is never washed away. Look to the well-being of thy subjects and inform thyself as to their needs. Thou art for them God’s minister as well as mine. Take care to please the emirs, the great men of the land, and the people of high estate. It is by my righteous ways that I have reached this degree of power. Bear no malice towards anyone whoever he may be, for we are all mortal. Be attentive to thy duty to others, for in giving them satisfaction thou obtainest the forgiveness of God better than looking to thy own account with him, for repentance to cure all; for the Lord is good and merciful.”

He loved to read the Koran and he had the book read to his servitors and all those around him. Noticing one day a little child reading the Koran to his father, he was touched to tears by the sight and gave money and land to both father and son. He admitted unreservedly all that religion teaches, and hated philosophers and heretics. He once imprisoned and put to death at Aleppo a young man named Sahraverdi, who mocked at and insulted religion.

Boha ad-Din relates again: “Saladin was a great lover of justice; not only was he strict on its being given, but he dispensed it himself as far as his affairs would admit. He heard cases twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, assisted by cadis and people of the law. Great and small, everyone found the door open. He did the same on his journeys as in his capital, receiving all petitions presented to him, and rejecting no demands. When a case demanded a great amount of attention he examined it at leisure, sometimes in the day, sometimes at night, and judged it as God prompted him. Never was his sense of justice invoked in vain; it was the same for the princes of his family as for his other subjects, for he made exception of no one.”

There would be no end were one to transcribe all that the Arab chroniclers, particularly Boha ad-Din, relate concerning Saladin’s justice and piety. The latter is especially devoted to bringing out these virtues of his hero, and purposely omits to speak of the vices that stained them. In the whole course of his reign Saladin encountered no great opposition except on the part of the Christians, and especially those of the West. So he had come to believe in no enemies but the Franks. These he treated as enemies of God, and called the war they brought upon him, “the holy war.”

“When God shall have put into my hands the other Christian cities,” he told Boha ad-Din,[f] “I shall share my states with my children, leave them my last instructions, and bidding them farewell, embark upon that sea to subdue the western isles and lands. I shall never lay down my arms while there remains a single infidel upon the earth, at least if from here to there I am not stopped by death.”

Thus Saladin’s ambitions reached as far as the conquest of France, Italy, and the other Christian countries. And lest one should believe the words reported by Boha ad-Din to be a vain threat, we find the same idea in the sultan’s reply to a letter from the emperor Barbarossa. What is more singular is that the hate of Saladin was directed towards the Christians only as a body of nations. Once in his power, he looked at them through different eyes. Thus we can explain the magnificent and even exaggerated eulogies of certain contemporary Christian and especially Italian writers, eulogies which perhaps no Mohammedan writer has exceeded. For example, there is the following passage in the Arab history of the patriarchs of Alexandria, whose author was one of the Coptic Christians:

“Saladin in all the surrenders he had from the Franks was faithful to his word. When a town capitulated he left the inhabitants their liberty, with their wives, their children, and their belongings. As to their Mohammedan captives, Saladin offered to buy them back, and mentioned a sum greater than their value. If the Franks refused this he let them keep their prisoners, saying, ‘I don’t want to interfere with your captives; only treat them well, as I treat your people.’ Whenever his policy would permit it Saladin sought to please everybody. ‘I much prefer,’ he said, speaking of the Christians, ‘that they should remain contented and happy.’”

Saladin’s two most glorious achievements in the eye of the majority of the Mohammedan historians were the taking of Jerusalem and Palestine from the Christians, and the destruction of the Fatimite caliphate in Egypt. To these relate most of the titles and phrases in which they refer to him and which may be found on many monuments of the period. “With Saladin,” says Imad ad-Din, his secretary, “the great men perished, with him disappeared people of true worth; good deeds diminished, and bad ones increased; life became difficult, and earth was covered with shadows; the century had its phœnix to deplore, and Islam lost its support.”[k]

FOOTNOTES

[56] Among the causes of the First Crusade we mentioned the influence of the spirit of commerce on the love of pilgrimages. That spirit was afterwards mingled with the desire of conquest, particularly in the case of the Egyptian polities. Situated between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, Egypt was the communication between Europe and the Indies; and the possession of that country would have rendered the Europeans masters of commerce.

[57] There was a decree in these statutes forbidding a crusader to take any woman with him, except a laundress on foot of good character. This qualification of the exception was necessary; for in the Middle Ages the words “lotrix” and “meretrix” were synonymous.

[58] It will not be worth while to inquire whether the emperor bathed in the Cydnus or the Calycadnus: “If he went in to wash himself, he neither consulted with his health nor honour. Some say, his horse foundered under him as he passed the water; others, that he fell from him. But these several relations, as variety of instruments, make a doleful concert in this, that there he lost his life; and no wonder, if the cold water quickly quenched those few sparks of natural heat left in him at seventy years of age.”—Fuller.[i]

[59] The Christian camp was so well fortified, that the Saracens used to say, “not even a bird can enter it.”

[60] Thus, as has often been the case, the extreme of misery produced the effects of the extreme of luxury. Pagans and Christians considering God as the author of temporal good and evil only, and observing that the virtuous suffered as much as the wicked, concluded that moral conduct was disregarded by heaven. Unbounded licentiousness followed. No laws of God limited the people: the laws of man were equally inefficacious, because the criminal thought that he might die before the day of trial, or if he should live to that time, those who would have been his accusers might have perished in the general calamity. Compare Thucydides’ account of the plague at Athens.

[61] [Richard of Devizes[e] calls her “a wonderful ship, a ship than which, with the exception of Noah’s ark, we do not read of any being greater.” He says the Turks “fought fiercely because ‘the only hope for the conquered is to have nothing to hope for.’”]

[62] [On the other hand Richard of Devizes[e] quotes Saladin’s brother as saying, “Thanks be to God, Richard was burdened with the king of the French and hindered by him like a cat with a hammer tied to its tail.”]

[63] [The Arab historian Imad ad-Din[d] speaks thus concerning the prisoners put to death by Richard. “After the retreat of the Christians into the town, we found the Mussulman martyrs exposed quite naked on the sands. We went to inspect them. They recognised their friends and related what they had suffered for God’s cause, what honours they had received, what benefits they had acquired by martyrdom, what felicity they enjoyed at the price of their blood.”]

[64] Defensive war was so completely the object of the crusaders, that each man was covered with pieces of cloth, united together by rings, on which he received without injury the enemy’s arrows. Boha ad-Din[f] (who narrates this curious circumstance) adds, that he himself saw several of the Christians who had not one or two, but ten arrows adhering to their backs, and yet who marched forwards with a quiet step, and without trepidation. “So close did they march, that if an apple had been thrown, it must have struck either a man or a horse,” says Vinsauf.[g]

[65] According to Boha ad-Din[f] and Abulfeda,[j] in all these negotiations, the people of the two armies lived in friendly intercourse, and mingled in the tournament and dance. More than this, through the whole of the war, Saladin and Richard emulated each other as much in the reciprocation of courtesy, as in military exploits. If ever the king of England chanced to be ill, Saladin sent him presents of Damascene pears, peaches, and other fruits. The same liberal hand gave the luxury of snow, in the hot seasons, according to Hoveden.[h] Saladin could not but have felt some kindness for gallant warriors, whether Christians or Mussulmans, if it be true, that as soon as he was old enough to bear arms, he had requested and received the honour of knighthood from a French cavalier, named Humphrey de Thoron. See Vinsauf.[g]

[66] Saladin had but little indulgence in religious matters. The abbé Renaudot, in his manuscript history, relates that he caused a philosopher to be strangled who ventured to preach new doctrines in the city of Aleppo.

[67] [The well-known story of the discovery of Richard in Leopold’s hands, by Blondel, through the singing of a song which king and minstrel had composed together, is now believed to be apocryphal and quite fabulous.]

---

CHAPTER V. THE FOURTH TO THE SIXTH CRUSADES

Bound for Holy Palestine,

Nimbly we brush’d the level brine,

All in azure steel array’d;

O’er the wave our weapons play’d,

And made the dancing billows glow;

High upon the trophied prow,

Many a warrior-minstrel swung

His sounding harp, and boldly sung.

—Warton, The Crusade.

[1195-1229 A.D.]

Wars and rebellions had filled all the thoughts of Saladin, and he had established no principles of succession. Three of his numerous progeny became sovereigns of Aleppo, Damascus, and Egypt; others had smaller possessions, and the emirs and atabegs of Syria again struggled for independence. The soldiers of the late sultan rallied round his brother Saphedin [Saif ad-Din] whose wisdom and valour were familiar to them. Both by stratagem and liberal policy he reared a large fabric of empire in Syria, and he was the most powerful of all the Moslem princes, when the time for the expiration of the peace arrived. The Saracenic power was, however, palsied for a while by a dreadful famine in Egypt, and the Latins in Palestine suffered also from the miserable state of this general granary.

The knights of St. John cast their regards towards Europe, and particularly to England, for succour, and entreated that new armies would march to Palestine, and destroy the exhausted Moslems.

POPE CELESTINE III PROMOTES A CRUSADE (1195 A.D.)

[1195-1198 A.D.]

Two years before this favourable moment, the daring and ambitious pope Celestine III had again sounded the trumpet of war. France had not revived from its losses in the Third Crusade, and Philip Augustus heard the appeal with indifference. Many of the people of England enrolled their names as holy warriors, obtained spiritual absolution, and then abandoned their pious resolves. The pope hurled his thunders against those who deserted their profession, except for some legitimate cause; but all thoughts of a crusade gradually died away in England, for the king was too much occupied in political concerns to encourage it. But wild schemes of war were occasionally in his mind, and the early writers have ascribed to his dauntless spirit the vast design of conquering Egypt and, after having gained the Holy Land, of possessing himself of the throne of Constantinople.

Designs equally ambitious were entertained by the emperor Henry, the enemy of Plantagenet. Seconded by imperial influence, the clergy successfully preached the crusade through all the German states. The emperor declared that he would provide a passage for both rich and poor who wished to go. But, though influenced, he was not absorbed by the love of barren glory, and when the possession of Sicily seemed an easy achievement, he postponed the gathering of laurels in Palestine till he had added a great state to his empire in Europe. Tancred, prince of Sicily, had lately died, and Henry, in right of his wife Constanza, put in his claims. This defection from the holy war was declared to be in accordance with the opinions of his wisest princes and lords, and it did not quench the spirit of fanaticism and romance.

THE FOURTH (OR GERMAN) CRUSADE (1195-1198 A.D.)

From the north to the south of Germany the frenzy of crusading had spread, and it had infected the bishops of Bremen, Würzburg, Passau, and Ratisbon; the dukes of Saxony, Brabant, Bavaria, and the son of the duke of Austria; the marquis of Brandenburg and Moravia; the landgraf of Thuringia; the count Palatine, and the counts of Habsburg and Schwembourg. The son of Henry duke of Limburg and the archbishop of Mainz led the vanguard of the holy warriors; and in the passage through Hungary they were joined by Margaret, sister of the French king and queen of Hungary, who, as one mode of consolation for the loss of her husband, had vowed to pass the remainder of her life in the pains of pilgrimage. Though the time of peace, as settled by the treaty between Richard and Saladin, had expired, yet the Christians and Mussulmans continued to live in amity. When the new champions of the cross arrived at Acre, no remonstrances of the Latins against fresh wars, no suggestions that all new crusaders ought to be obedient to the discretion of the residents in the Holy Land could abate the furious desire of the Germans for hostility.

Their aggressions were quickly returned by the Mussulmans, civil feuds were hushed, and Saphedin again headed the veteran forces of Syria and of Egypt. The important city of Joppa was taken by him before the Christian army from Acre could relieve it. The care and expense of Richard were dissipated in a moment; the fortifications were destroyed, and several thousands of the people of Joppa were put to the sword. In these unhappy moments another portion of the German force, under the command of the dukes of the lower Lorraine and Saxony, arrived at Acre. They had made the voyage from the northern ports of Germany, and in their route had chastised the Moors of Portugal. Confident in their strength, the united forces of Europe and Palestine, led by the duke of Saxony, directed their march towards the city of Berytus; but Saphedin, ever observant of events, quitted the vicinity of Joppa, and overtook his foes between Tyre and Sidon. The close columns of the duke of Saxony’s army were impenetrable to his vigorous and continual attacks. The victory of the Christians appeared to be decisive, the enemy’s force was scattered, and so extensive was the panic that the Saracens abandoned Laodicea, Gabala, Joppa, Sidon, and Berytus. Nine thousand prisoners were redeemed without ransom; and the statement that there were three years’ provisions for the inhabitants of Berytus in the storehouses of that town shows the importance of the day of Sidon. The exultation of the crusaders was still further advanced by the arrival of a third body of friends, headed by Conrad, bishop of Hidelsheim and chancellor of the German Empire. By the usual process of ambitious princes Henry had subjugated Sicily; and now, devoted to the conquest of the Holy Land, he sent his third army as his immediate precursors.

It seemed that the hour was now at hand when Europe would receive the reward of her invincible heroism. All the sea coast of Palestine was already in the possession of the Christians: and even they who had generally most desponded were now elevated with the conviction that the cross must ere long surmount the walls of Jerusalem. But in their march from Tyre towards the Holy City they made a fatal halt at the fortress of Thoron. The lofty and solid pile of stones withstood the attacks of the common engines of violence. But by a month’s labour of some Saxon miners the rock itself which supported the fortress was pierced through; and the battlements tottered to their foundation. The Saracens were now at the feet of the Christians suing for clemency. A free passage into the Moslem territories was all that they asked, and the fort might then be at the disposal of the crusaders. After much time had been passed in balancing considerations of revenge or mercy, a treaty founded on these terms was signed; but although just principles of war prevailed with the majority, yet the smaller party, who breathed nothing but slaughter, impressed their menaces so deeply on the minds of the Saracens that the latter vowed to submit to the last extremity, rather than confide in the agreements and oaths of champions of the cross.

They gained resolution from despair; they met their foes in the passages which had been mined in the rocks; and in every encounter the Moslem scimitar reeked with Christian blood. Factious contentions disordered the Latin council; insubordination and vice raged in the camp; and, to crown their miseries, the crusaders heard that the infidel world had recovered from its defeat at Sidon, and that the sultans of Egypt and Syria were concentrating their levies. Daunted at the rumour of their march, the German princes deserted their posts in the middle of the night, and fled to Tyre. In the morning their flight was discovered by the soldiers, and horror and despair seized every breast. The camp was deserted by those who had strength to move; the feeble left their property, the cowardly their arms behind them. The road to Tyre was filled with soldiers and baggage in indiscriminate confusion; but so exhausted was the state of the Mussulmans in Thoron, that the Christians were not molested in their retreat by any accidents except those which their own imprudence and precipitation occasioned (1197).

[1198-1201 A.D.]

When the fragments of the army were collected, and the soldiers were at a distance from danger, everyone reproached the other as the cause of the late disgraceful event. The Germans accused the Latins of cowardice; and the barons of the Holy Land declared that they would not submit to the domineering pride of the Germans. All the quarrels were conducted in scriptural language. Treachery was the crime of which each party accused the other; for the case of Judas was in the minds of all. Conrad and his soldiers went to Joppa, and resolved to repair its fortifications and to await the moment for revenge on the Latins of Syria. Saphedin marched against them, and the Germans did not decline the combat. Victory was on the side of the Christians; but it was bought by the death of many brave warriors, particularly of the duke of Saxony, and of the son of the duke of Austria. But the Germans did not profit by this success, for news arrived from Europe that the great support of the Crusade, Henry VI, was dead. The archbishop of Mainz, and all those princes who had an interest in the election of a German sovereign, deserted the Holy Land. The queen of Hungary was the only individual of consequence whose fanaticism was stronger than worldly considerations. The remnants, and they were more than twenty thousand, of this once powerful host fortified themselves in Joppa. But a new storm arose in the Turkish states. It swept over Berytus and the land of the Christians; and, on the 11th of November, while the Germans were celebrating the feast of St. Martin, the Moslems entered the city of Joppa and slew every individual whom they found.

Old Fuller[f] says, “At this time, the spring-tide of their mirth so drowned their souls that the Turks, coming in upon them, cut every one of their throats to the number of twenty thousand; and quickly they were stabbed with the sword that were cup-shot before. A day which the Dutch (the Germans) may well write in their calendars in red letters dyed with their own blood, when the camp was their shambles, the Turks their butchers, and themselves the Martinmasse beeves, from which the beastly drunkards differ but a little.”

About the time of the massacre at Joppa, Henry, count of Champagne, the acknowledged king of Jerusalem, died. The grand master of the Hospitallers represented to Isabella the propriety of her marriage with Almeric de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, who had lately succeeded his brother Guy. It was thought that Acre and its vicinity could not remain in the hands of the Latins unless they were governed by a king, and that, in every circumstance, Cyprus, as a place of succour and retreat, would be a valuable ally to Jerusalem. With equal truth it might have been argued that, if there were a powerful king in Palestine, faction, the great foe of the state, could not raise its head. Familiarised to the joys of royalty and love, the widowed queen embraced with rapture new prospects of happiness, and in her eyes Almeric was as estimable as she had found her divorced husband Humphry, or her deceased lords Conrad and Henry. The union was approved of by the clergy and barons, it was celebrated at Acre, and Almeric and Isabella were proclaimed king and queen of Cyprus and Jerusalem.

THE FIFTH CRUSADE (1201-1204 A.D.)

[1201-1204 A.D.]

The Third and Fourth Crusades were created by the ordinary influence of papal power and royal authority; but the Fifth sprang from genuine fanaticism. At the close of the twelfth century a hero arose in France, worthy of companionship with Bernard. Fulk, of the town of Neuilly, near Paris, was distinguished by the vehemence and ability of his preaching, and as in early life he had drank deeply of the cup of pleasure he was well qualified to describe the different states of the sinner and the saint. He did not involve himself in the speculative absurdities of the day, but declaimed against the prevailing vices of usury and prostitution. For two years he preached without success, but after that time “heaven lent its aid to the efforts of the preacher, in order that his words, like arrows from a powerful bow, might penetrate the depraved hearts of men.” Accordingly, miracles attested celestial approbation, and his sermons were received as oracles. With the extension of his fame his wishes for religious good increased, and his soul was inflamed with the desire of accomplishing the great aim of Christendom. He accordingly assumed the cross, and war with the infidels became the copious matter of his sermons.[c]

Thirteenth Century Crusader

The Fifth Crusade was an individual enterprise. Since the failure of the Third, Jerusalem was forgotten and wars between kings and Christian peoples took the place of the pious expeditions. England, Germany, and France, once united for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, were now armed one against the other. The emperor Otto IV was excommunicated; Philip Augustus had been, John was to be. All these excommunicants gave little thought to the Holy Land. The great pope Innocent III wanted to bring it back to their minds and caused a new crusade to be preached, promising the remission of all sins to those who served God for one year. Fulk the curé was the pope’s mouthpiece. He visited a tournament that was being held in Champagne, and his burning words made all the princes and knights assembled there assume the cross. This time, as on the first, the kings held aloof, and the people did also. Knighthood alone took part, and rather to show strength of arms than any deep piety, for the affair was nothing more, or little more, than a plundering expedition. Baldwin IX, count of Flanders, and Boniface II, count of Montferrat, were at its head. And it had been previously proved that the sea route was much preferable to the land, the crusaders sought ships at Venice.

That city was even then the Queen of the Adriatic. Driven by Attila’s invasion to the lagoons, the people from the mainland had prospered in that most remarkable situation in the world. None of the invasions that passed over Italy had reached them. Their trade had extended, and the islands and shores of Istria and Illyria recognised their superiority. When the crusaders appeared, the Venetians encouraged them not only through piety but the spirit of gain as well. The Mohammedans and Greeks were their rivals in the eastern Mediterranean and they found this a good opportunity to dispossess them. The interested services rendered the crusaders in 1130 had brought the Venetians the privilege of opening in each town of the new kingdom of Jerusalem a quarter exclusively their own, and at the same time they took possession of the Greek islands of Rhodes, Samos, Scio, Mytilene, and Andros. In 1173 Venice had made its dogeship elective, and established with its grand council that aristocratic government which kept its power through many ages.

Such was Venice when the crusaders put in an appearance. Geoffrey de Villehardouin,[g] seneschal to the court of Champagne, himself narrates the mission in which he took part. It was a curious sight—that of the feudal lords obliged, kneeling and in tears, to beg the people humbly for ships. “We will grant them; we will grant them,” replied the sovereign people. City of merchants and seamen, Venice could not but sell such a service, and demanded 85,000 marks or 20,230 kilograms of silver, which to-day would be equal to about £161,840 or $809,200, but in those days was worth much more. The knights could not produce such a sum, and in place of cash the Venetians offered to take in payment a hostile city if the crusaders would capture it for them. They had already taken from the Greeks the principal cities of the Dalmatian coast—Spalato, Ragusa, and Sebenico. One alone remained to prevent their complete dominion over the Adriatic—Zara, still occupied by the king of Hungary. In vain did Innocent III thunder against this detour from the crusade; the Venetians got Zara and Doge Dandolo, ninety years old, assumed the cross (1202).

The little account settled, they could go; but whither? The set-backs of the last Crusades showed that it was necessary to have some point of support in order to operate successfully in Palestine, and this point must be either Egypt or the Greek Empire. The Venetians persuaded their allies that the keys of Jerusalem were either at Cairo or Constantinople. There was some truth in this idea, but there was much more commercial interest. The possession of Cairo would give the Venetians the route to India; that of Constantinople would assure them the commerce of the Black Sea and the whole Grecian archipelago. The crusaders decided on Constantinople, whither a young Greek prince, Alexius, offered to lead them provided they would re-establish on the throne his father Isaac Angelus who had been deposed (1203).

The account of the assault on Constantinople, given more fully in the history of the Byzantine Empire, may be briefly sketched here. When the French came in sight of Constantinople, saw its high walls, its innumerable churches whose gilded domes glistened in the sun, and their glances wandered, as Villehardouin says, “over the length and breadth of the city, sovereign of all others, there was none so brave whose heart did not tremble, and each one looked at the arms which he would soon need.” Along the shore there was lined up a magnificent army of sixty thousand men. The crusaders counted on a terrible battle. Barges brought them fully armed to the shore. Before even touching the strand “the knights jumped into the water up to their waists, fully armed, the lance men, the sword bearers, the good archers, and the good sergeants, and the good cross-bowmen. And the Greeks made much pretext to stop them. And when the crusaders came with lowered lances, the Greeks turned their backs and fled, leaving them the shore. And know that nothing more glorious ever took place.” The 18th of July (1203) the city was carried by assault; the old emperor was brought from his cell and put back on the throne. Alexius had made the crusaders the most glowing promises; to keep them he imposed new taxes and so angered the weakened people that they strangled their emperor, set up another, Mourzoufle, and shut the city’s gates. The crusaders attacked at once. Three days sufficed to get them in again (March, 1204); this time they put it to the sack. One whole quarter, a square league of territory, was burned. And what works of art perished! Four hundred thousand marks were collected in a church for distribution.[68]

Then they divided the empire up. Baldwin IV, count of Flanders, was elected emperor of Romania. He won against his opponents, Dandolo and Boniface of Montferrat. The Venetians did not like the idea of seeing their doge on the imperial throne. They took (which pleased them better) a portion of Constantinople with the shore of the Bosporus and the Propontis, and a majority of the Archipelago islands, Candia, etc., and dubbed themselves lords of a quarter and a half of the Eastern Empire. The marquis of Montferrat was elected king of Macedonia; Villehardouin, marshal of Romania, and his nephew, prince of Romania. The count of Blois received the Asiatic provinces. There were dukes of Athens and Naxos, counts of Cephalonia, and lords of Thebes and of Corinth. A new France, with all its feudal customs, arose at the eastern end of Europe. Members of the Comnenus family, however, managed to keep several portions which they divided into principalities—Trebizond, Napoli of Argolis, Epirus and Nicæa. But the crusaders were too few to hold their conquest long. In 1261 this Latin Empire fell to pieces. But, up to the end of the Middle Ages and the conquests of the Turks, there still subsisted in certain parts of Greece remnants of the feudal principalities so strangely established by the French in the ancient land of Miltiades and Leonidas.[b]

[1204-1261 A.D.]

The establishment of the Latins in Constantinople was the important though unlooked-for issue of the Fifth Crusade; but their dominion lasted only fifty-seven years. The history of that period forms a part of the annals of the Lower Empire, and not of the holy wars. But we may remark, generally, that in a very few years fortune ceased to smile on the conquerors. Their arrogant and encroaching temper awakened the jealousy of the king of Bulgaria. The fierce mountaineers, who had so often insulted the majesty of the Roman Empire, now redeemed themselves from the sin of rebellion, by ceaseless war on the usurpers of their former master’s throne. The change of the Greek ritual into the service of the Latin church, was a subject of perpetual murmur and discontent. The feudal code of the kingdom of Jerusalem was violently imposed on the people, in utter contempt of their manners and opinions. The Greeks, too, were not admitted into any places of confidence in the government, and the nobility gradually retired from Constantinople, and associated themselves with the princes of the deposed royal family. Several of those princes formed states out of the ruins of the empire, and Manuel Palæologus, the emperor of Nicæa, descendant of Lascaris, son-in-law of the usurper Alexius, had the glory of recovering the throne of the Cæsars, and of finally expelling the usurpers from Constantinople. On the Asiatic side of the Bosporus the Latins never had much power.

The jealousy which Genoa entertained of her great rival, Venice, was one of the most active causes of the fall of the Latin Empire. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, commercial concessions had often purchased for Constantinople the military and naval aid of the sovereign of the Adriatic; and at the time of the Fifth Crusade, the empire appeared to acknowledge the equality of the republic. The imperial throne gained the friendship of other Italian princes, and the Pisans as well as the Venetians had almost unlimited commerce with the Grecian states. Each of these allies had its church and its exchange in Constantinople; its consuls decided the causes of their respective citizens, and both nations enjoyed the rare and blessed privilege of exemption from payment of public taxes. In the middle of the twelfth century, Genoa had obtained commercial immunities; but it does not appear that they were so extensive as those which had been acceded to the Venetians and Pisans. When the crusaders captured Constantinople, the commerce of the Black Sea was open to the Venetians, a commerce, which before that event had only been slightly enjoyed by the Italians. The Genoese, alarmed at the maritime progress of the Venetians, took up arms against them; fortune befriended the inferior power, and in the year 1215 a treaty was concluded, whereby the Genoese were confirmed in the commercial privileges which they had enjoyed under the Greek emperor. But the political situation of the Venetians continued a great source of superiority, and their rivals incited and assisted the Greeks to throw off the Latin yoke, and recapture Byzantium.[c]

RESULTS OF THE FIFTH CRUSADE

An old empire which moulders away, a new empire ready to sink into ruins—such are the pictures that this crusade presents to us; never did any epoch offer greater exploits for admiration, or greater troubles for commiseration. The Greeks, a degenerate nation, honoured their misfortunes by no virtue; they had neither sufficient courage to prevent the reverses of war, nor sufficient resignation to support them. When reduced to despair, they showed some little valour; but that valour was imprudent and blind; it precipitated them into new calamities, and procured them masters much more barbarous than those whose yoke they were so eager to shake off. They had no leader able to govern or guide them; no sentiment of patriotism strong enough to rally them; deplorable example of a nation left to itself, which has lost its morals, and has no confidence in its laws or its government! The Franks had just the same advantages over their enemies that the barbarians of the north had over the Romans of the Lower Empire. In this terrible conflict, simplicity of manners, the energy of a new people for civilisation, the ardour for pillage, and the pride of victory, were sure to prevail over the love of luxury, habits formed amidst corruption, and vanity which attaches importance to the most frivolous things, and only preserves a gaudy resemblance of true grandeur.

This spirit of conquest, which appeared so general among the knights, might favour the expedition to Constantinople; but it was injurious to the holy war, by turning the crusaders aside from the essential object of the crusade. The heroes of this war did nothing for the deliverance of Jerusalem, of which they constantly spoke in their letters to the pope. The conquest of Byzantium, very far from being, as the knights believed, the road to the land of Christ, was but a new obstacle to the taking of the Holy City; their imprudent exploits placed the Christian colonies in greater peril, and only ended in completely subverting, without replacing it, a power which might have served as a barrier against the Saracens. To recapitulate in a few words our opinion of the events and consequences of this crusade, we must say that the spirit of chivalry and the spirit of conquest at first gave birth to wonders, but that they did not suffice to maintain the crusaders in their possessions. The crusaders evinced a profound contempt for the Greeks, whose alliance and support they ought to have been anxious to seek; they wished to reform manners and alter opinions, a much more difficult task than the conquest of an empire, and only met with enemies in a country that might have furnished them with useful allies.

We may add that the policy of the holy see, which at first undertook to divert the Latin warriors from the expedition to Constantinople, became, in the end, one of the greatest obstacles to the preservation of their conquests. The counts and barons, who reproached themselves with having failed in obedience to the sovereign pontiff, at length followed scrupulously his instructions to procure by their arms the submission of the Greek church, the only condition on which the holy father would pardon a war commenced in opposition to his commands. To obtain his forgiveness and approbation, they employed violence against schism and heresy, and lost their conquest by endeavouring to justify it in the eyes of the sovereign pontiff. The pope himself did not obtain that which he so ardently desired. The union of the Greek and Roman churches could not possibly be effected amidst the terrors of victory and the evils of war; the arms of the conquerors had less power than the anathemas of the church, to bring back the Greeks to the worship of the Latins. Violence only served to irritate men’s minds, and consummated the rupture, instead of putting an end to it. The remembrance of persecutions and outrages, a reciprocal contempt, an implacable hatred arose and became implanted between the two creeds, and separated them forever.

History cannot affirm that this crusade made great progress in the civilisation of Europe. The Greeks had preserved the jurisprudence of Justinian; the empire possessed wise regulations upon the levying of imposts and the administration of the public revenues; but the Latins disdained these monuments of human wisdom and of the experience of many ages; they coveted nothing the Greeks possessed but their territories and their wealth. Most of the knights took a pride in their ignorance, and amongst the spoils of Constantinople, attached no value to the ingenious productions of Greece. Amidst the conflagrations that consumed the mansions and palaces of the capital, they beheld with indifference large and valuable libraries given up to the flames. We may add that the necessity for both conquerors and conquered of intercommunication must have contributed to the spreading of the Latin language among the Greeks, and that of the Greeks among the Latins.

The crusaders likewise profited by several useful inventions, and transmitted them to their compatriots; and the fields and gardens of Italy and France were enriched by some plants till that time unknown in the West. Boniface sent into his marquisate some seeds of maize, which had never before been cultivated in Italy; a public document, which still exists, attests the gratitude of the people of Montferrat. The magistrates received the innocent fruits of victory with great solemnity, and, upon their altars, called down a blessing upon a production of Greece, that would one day constitute the wealth of the plains of Italy.

Flanders, Champagne, and most of the provinces of France, which had sent their bravest warriors to the crusade, fruitlessly lavished their population and their treasures upon the conquest of Byzantium. We may say that these intrepid fighters gained nothing by this wonderful war, but the glory of having given, for a moment, masters to Constantinople, and lords to Greece. And yet these distant conquests, and this new empire, which drew from France its turbulent and ambitious princes, must have been favourable to the French monarchy. Philip Augustus must have been pleased by the absence of the great vassals of the crown, and had reason to learn with joy that the count of Flanders, a troublesome neighbour, and a not very submissive vassal, had obtained an empire in the East. The French monarchy thus derived some advantage from this crusade; but the republic of Venice profited much more by it. This republic, which scarcely possessed a population of two hundred thousand souls, and had not the power to make its authority respected on the continent, in the first place, made use of the arms of the crusaders, to subdue cities, of which, without their assistance, she could never have made herself mistress. By the conquest of Constantinople, she enlarged her credit and her commerce in the East, and brought under her laws some of the richest possessions of the Greek emperors. She increased the reputation of her navy, and raised herself above all the maritime nations of Europe. The Venetians never neglected the interests or glory of their own country, whilst the French knights scarcely ever fought for any object but personal glory and their own ambition. Of her new possessions in the East, Venice only retained such as she judged necessary to the prosperity of her commerce, or the maintenance of her marine.[d]

THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (1212 A.D.)

[1212 A.D.]

Some of the best witnesses for the history of the Middle Ages affirm that, seduced by the preaching of fanatics, the children of France and Germany, about the year 1212, thought themselves authorised by heaven to attempt the rescue of the Sepulchre, and ran about the country, crying, “Lord Jesus Christ, restore thy cross to us.” Boys and girls stole from their homes, “no bolts, no bars, no fear of fathers or love of mothers, could hold them back,” and the number of youthful converts was thirty thousand. They were organised by some fanatical wretches, one of whom was taken and hanged at Cologne. The children drove down France, crossed the Alps, and those who survived thirst, hunger, and heat, presented themselves at the gates of the seaports of Italy and the south of France. Many were driven back to their homes; but seven large ships full of them went from Marseilles; two of the vessels were wrecked on the isle of St. Peter, the rest of the ships went to Bougie and Alexandria, and the masters sold the children to slavery. These singular events are mentioned by four contemporary writers. (1) Alberic, monk of Trois Fontaines, in his chronicle. (2) Godfrey of St. Pantaleon, in his annals. The editor cites in his margin a Belgic chronicle as a testimony. (3) Sicard, bishop of Cremona. (4) M. Paris. Roger Bacon, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, thus speaks of the Crusade of Children: “Forsan vidistis aut audistis pro certo quod pueri de regno Franciæ semel occurrebant in infinita multitudine post quondam malignum hominem, ita quod nec a patribus, nec a matribus, nec amicis poterant detineri, et positi sunt in navibus et Saracenis redditi, et non sunt adhuc 64 anni.” Honest Fuller says: “This crusade was done by the instinct of the devil, who, as it were, desired a cordial of children’s blood, to comfort his weak stomach, long cloyed with murdering of men.”[c]

A German Noble, Thirteenth Century

This expedition beyond the seas, undertaken about 1212, and composed entirely of children, if not one of the most striking events of the Crusades, certainly appears not one of the least extraordinary. Whoever is acquainted with the taste of the Middle Ages for the marvellous, and has only read the incomplete account of the modern historians of the Crusades, is at first tempted to range this expedition among fabulous adventures; and to procure it any credit, it is necessary to produce evidences worthy of our confidence.

With regard to the date, contemporary historians all place this crusade under the year 1212, or 1213 at the latest. It is only by an error very easy to be reconciled, that others advance it twelve years, or put it back ten. As to the places that witnessed the birth and growth of such an enterprise, it appears that the crusaders belonged to two nations, and formed two troops, which followed different routes; one, leaving Germany, traversed Saxony and the Alps and arrived on the shores of the Adriatic Sea; France furnished the others, who, after collecting in the environs of Paris, crossed Burgundy, and arrived at Marseilles, the place of embarkation. Prestiges, fanaticism, the announcement of prodigies, were all employed to rouse the youth of these countries and put them in motion. It was reported, according to Vincent de Beauvais, that the Old Man of the Mountain, who was accustomed to educate arsacides from the tenderest age, detained two clerks captives, and would only grant them their liberty upon condition that they brought him back some young boys from France. The opinion then was, that these children, deceived by false visions, and seduced by the promises of these two clerks, marked themselves with the sign of the cross.

The promoter of the crusade in Germany was a certain Nicholas, a German by nation. “This multitude of children,” says Bezarre, “were persuaded by the help of a false revelation, that the drought would be so great that year that the abysses of the sea would be dry; and they went to Genoa, with the intention of passing over to Jerusalem, across the arid bed of the Mediterranean.” The composition of these troops corresponded with the means employed to seduce them. There were children of all ages and conditions, and of both sexes; some of them were not more than twelve years old; they set out from villages and towns, without leaders, without guides, without provisions, and with empty purses. It was in vain their parents or friends thought to dissuade them by showing them the folly of such an expedition; the captivity to which they condemned them redoubled their ardour; breaking through doors, or opening themselves passages through walls, they succeeded in escaping, and went to rejoin their respective bands. If they were questioned upon the object of their voyage, they answered that they were going to visit the holy places. Although a pilgrimage commenced under such auspices, and stained with all sorts of excesses, must have been an object of scandal rather than of edification, there were people senseless enough to see in it an act of the all-powerful God; men and women quitted their houses and their lands to join these vagabond troops, believing they pursued the way of salvation; others furnished them with money and food, thinking they aided souls inspired by God, and guided by sentiments of divine piety. The pope, when informed of their proceedings, exclaimed, with a groan: “These children reproach us with being buried in sleep, whilst they are flying to the defence of the Holy Land.” If some few of the clergy, endowed with a little foresight, openly blamed this expedition, their censures were at once attributed to motives of avarice and incredulity; and, in order to avoid public contempt, wisdom and prudence were condemned to silence.

The event, however, proved that all which man undertakes without employing the balance of reason and earnest reflection, does not come to a fortunate issue; “for soon,” says Bishop Sicard, “this multitude entirely disappeared: quasi evanuit universa.” But we must carefully distinguish between the fate of the German and that of the French crusaders, although a part of the latter directed their course towards Italy. It required nothing beyond wearing the cross to be admitted into the crusade; if the watchful care of princes and prelates in expeditions directed by ecclesiastical and secular power could not succeed in excluding from them men of bad morals, what sort of people must have been mixed with a host got together without the least care, and under the eye of no superior intelligence, the greater part of whom fled, like the prodigal son, from the paternal dwelling, in order to give themselves up, without restraint, to their vicious inclinations? The account of Godfrey the Monk, therefore, does not at all astonish us when he says that thieves insinuated themselves among the German pilgrims, and disappeared after having plundered them of their baggage and the gifts the faithful had bestowed upon them. One of these thieves, being recognised at Cologne, ended his days on the rack.

To this first misfortune a crowd of evils quickly succeeded, the necessary result of the want of foresight of the crusaders. The fatigue of a long journey, heat, disease, and want, swept away a great number of them. Of those who arrived in Italy, some, dispersing themselves over the country, and plundered by the inhabitants, were reduced to servitude; others, to the amount of seven thousand, presented themselves before Genoa. At first the senate gave them permission to remain six or seven days in the city; but reflecting afterwards upon the folly of the expedition, fearing that such a multitude would produce famine, and, above all, apprehending that Frederick, who was then in a state of rebellion against the holy see and at war with Genoa, might take advantage of the circumstance to excite a tumult, they ordered the crusaders to depart from the city. Some, finding their error, turned back towards their own country again; and these crusaders, who had been seen advancing in numerous troops, and singing animating songs, returned singly, robbed of everything, walking barefooted, undergoing the pangs of hunger, and subjected to the scoffs and derision of the population of the cities and countries they passed through; it is not to be wondered at, that in such circumstances many young girls lost the chastity which had been their ornament in their homes.

The crusaders from France experienced a nearly similar fate; a very slender portion of them returned; the rest either perished in the waves or became an object of speculation for two Marseilles merchants. Hugh Ferrers and William Porcus, so were they named, carried on a trade with the Saracens, of which the sale of young boys formed a considerable branch. No opportunity for an advantageous speculation could be more favourable; they offered to transport to the East all the pilgrims who arrived at Marseilles, without any kind of charge for the voyage; assigning piety as the motive for this act of generosity. This proposition was joyfully accepted; and seven vessels, laden with these pilgrims, set sail for the coast of Syria. At the end of two days, when the ships were off the Isle of St. Peter, near the Rock of the Recluse, a violent tempest arose, and the sea swallowed up two of them, with all the passengers on board. The other five arrived at Bougie and Alexandria, and the young crusaders were all sold to the Saracens or to slave-merchants. The caliph bought forty of them, all of whom were in orders, and caused them to be brought up with great care in a place set apart for the purpose; twelve of the others perished as martyrs, being unwilling to renounce their religion. None of the clerks purchased by the caliph, according to the account of one of them who afterwards obtained his liberty, embraced the worship of Mohammed; all faithful to the religion of their fathers, practised it constantly in tears in slavery. Hugh and William, having at a later period formed the project of assassinating Frederick, were discovered, and perished in an ignominious manner, with three Saracens, their accomplices, receiving, in this miserable end, the wages due to their treachery.

Pope Gregory IX afterwards caused a church to be built in the island of St. Peter, in honour of those who were shipwrecked, and instituted twelve canonships to provide for the duties of it. In the time of Alberic the spot was still pointed out where the bodies cast up by the waves were buried. As for the crusaders who survived so many calamities, and remained in Europe, with the exception of some old and infirm persons, the pope would not release them from their vows; they were obliged either to perform the pilgrimage at a maturer age, or to redeem it by alms.

Such was the issue of this crusade, so justly designated by two chronicles, expeditio nugatoria, expeditio derisoria.

Two facts strike us as extraordinary in this account; the condition attached by the Old Man of the Mountain to the liberty of the clerk of whom Vincent de Beauvais speaks, and the trade in children carried on by the merchants of Marseilles. Upon the first point we can offer nothing but the opinion received among the nations of the West. It was generally believed in the thirteenth century, that the Old Man of the Mountain kept up a connection with Christian Europe; several princes were even accused of having had recourse to the daggers of his Assassins to get rid of their enemies. Frederick received ambassadors from him in Sicily. Roger Bacon complains bitterly of the fascinations secretly employed by the Saracens to seduce the young servants of Christ; the name of Assassins had already passed into the vulgar tongue in the thirteenth century, and was the object of general terror. In spite, then, of the opinion of some critics, a more extended examination is necessary, before we reject the account of Vincent de Beauvais. As to the trade in young boys, that is not at all a new fact; many traces of it are found much anterior to this period. The Greeks and Venetians practised it openly enough. Pope Zacharias repurchased, in 748, many Christian slaves, who had been taken away from Rome by Venetian merchants; the people of Verdun, as witnessed by Liutprand, were about to sell to the Arabs of Spain some young boys they had mutilated, and who were to serve as guards to the women of seraglios. Besides, the fate of the young crusaders who embarked at Marseilles, and found degradation and slavery instead of the sacred soil promised to their blind zeal, is attested by two contemporary writers, worthy of perfect confidence: Thomas de Champré and Roger Bacon.[e]

THE SIXTH CRUSADE (1217-1229 A.D.)

[1210-1215 A.D.]

The successful heroism of the French adventurers before Constantinople alarmed the Mussulmans, and Saphedin had gladly concluded a treaty for six years’ peace with the Christians. Palestine soon again became the theatre of ambition and of glory. Almeric and his wife died, and Mary, the daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Tyre, was the new ideal queen of Jerusalem, while Hugh de Lusignan, son of Almeric by his first wife, was proclaimed king of Cyprus. Hugh had married the princess Alice, half sister of the young queen, and daughter of Henry count of Champagne, and Isabella. There was not at that time any nobleman of rule or influence in Palestine capable of governing the state; and the ecclesiastical and civil potentates resolved that Philip Augustus of France should provide a husband for Mary. Philip Augustus fixed his eyes on Jean de Brienne, son of the count of Brienne in Champagne. Though the sovereignty over Jerusalem was titular, yet the command of the Christian army in Palestine, and the possession of a young queen so desirable as the ambassadors painted the daughter of Almeric, were circumstances so flattering to the imagination of an aspiring cavalier, that Jean de Brienne received the gift with joy; and the deputies were dismissed with the promise that in two years he would join them in Palestine with a powerful band. The truce of six years was on the point of expiring, and Saphedin offered to renew it, and to resign to the regency any ten castles or towns they might select, to be retained by them in perpetuity if the Saracens broke their faith. The knights of St. John, and those of the Teutonic order, argued strenuously for the acceptance of this offer; but the spirit of party was always the enemy of Palestine, and the Templars and clergy declared for war.

Thirteenth Century Crusader

At the appointed time Jean de Brienne arrived at Acre; the next day he received the hand of Mary, and shortly afterward was crowned, and received the oaths of allegiance of the barons. Only three hundred knights had participated in his hopes of restoring the fortunes of the Holy Land, for the enthusiasm and love of glory of the western chivalry were diverted into new channels. England and Germany were torn by internal disturbances, the court of France was watching the turn of events, and Pope Innocent employed the penitents in putting an end to the heresy of the Albigenses. The destroyers of heretics and of infidels were alike praiseworthy; and a crusade into the south of France was less dangerous than a voyage to Syria. From these various causes the Mussulmans in Asia were forgotten or disregarded.[69] As peace had been refused, Saphedin marched an army to the country round Tripolis. The king displayed his valour in many a fierce encounter; and though he never conquered his foes, yet he broke the impression of the enemy, and saved his states from utter annihilation. He foresaw the approaching ruin of the holy cause; every day the Saracens made some acquisition; and the Latin barons, by every opportunity, and for every pretext, returned to Europe. He wrote, therefore, to the pope that the kingdom of Jerusalem consisted only of two or three towns, and that the civil wars between the sons of Saladin alone suspended its fate.

[1215-1217 A.D.]

Every project of ambition which the daring genius of Gregory VII had formed was embraced by the ardent spirit of Innocent III. In raising a fabric of ecclesiastical policy on the ruins of gospel liberty, the importance of guiding the military arm of Europe was not lost sight of. The commands of the Vatican were hurled upon every part of Europe, calling men to exterminate infidelity. The protection of St. Peter was promised to the families and fortunes of the pilgrims. They who had bound themselves to pay usury were released from their oaths; and secular power should compel the Jews to remit their claims. The indulgences were revoked which had been granted to those who quitted their homes in order to exterminate heresy in Provence, and infidelity in Spain.

Among those who most loudly and successfully pleaded the cause of religion was Robert de Courçon; a man inferior in talents and consideration to St. Bernard, but whose fanaticism was as fervent as that of Peter and Fulk. By parentage and birth he was an Englishman; but he had been educated in the university of Paris, and in that famous seat of learning had lived as a friend with a fellow student, who afterwards sat in the papal chair, under the title of Pope Innocent III. The associate of his holiness was promoted to various dignities in the church; his talents for business were employed by Innocent in clerical embassies, and his abilities as a public orator were matured under the care of Fulk de Neuilly. He was the papal legate in France, and after having appeased the foreign and internal distractions of that kingdom, he quitted Paris in 1215, descended by the way of Burgundy to the southern provinces, left no quarter of the south unvisited; and then, after having traversed with speed and success the western provinces, the saint-errant returned to the capital. Twenty years before he had preached the same theme to the same people, as the humble assistant of Fulk. Clad in the Roman purple, and armed with the authority of the vicar of Jesus Christ, the cardinal gave every possible dignity to the office of missionary. But his prudence kept not pace with his zeal, for, like Peter the Hermit, he admitted everyone to take the cross. Women, children, the old, the blind, the lame, the lepers, all were enrolled in the sacred militia. The multitude of the crusaders was innumerable, and the voluntary offerings of money which was put into the charitable boxes in the churches were immense. Philip Augustus contributed the fortieth part of his revenues; and it is singular that this money was to be employed for purposes of the holy war, agreeably to the directions of the kings and barons of France and England. But the alms of the people of France were not applied exclusively to sacred purposes. Robert de Courçon was openly convicted of peculation, and his papal friend was obliged to remit his own dignity, and intercede with the French prelates, in order to save the legate from punishment.

The pope, treading in the steps of his predecessors, convoked a general council for the purpose of chastising vice, condemning heresy, and of inducing the princes and people to undertake the sacred expedition. In the month of November, 1215, the religious and political authorities assembled in the church of the Lateran, and the greatness of their number, and their exalted rank, testify the zealous preaching of the pope’s legates. All the clergy (except those who were crusaders) were for three years to contribute the twentieth part of their ecclesiastical revenues; tournaments during the three years of the crusade were forbidden, lest the representation of war should draw men’s attention from war itself. Civil dissensions were to be suspended, and peace was to reign in the Christian world during all the time of the holy contest.

The necessity of extirpating heresy, and quelling rebellion in the south of France, was the pretence of the French king for not embracing the crusade. The emperor Frederick II remained to establish his authority in Apulia and Sicily, and to advance the favourite project of himself and family, and of making Italy the seat of the empire of the West.[70] The Hungarians who had been the scourge of the first crusaders, took the lead on this occasion. Their king, Andrew, incited by the example of his mother Margaret, the wish of his father, and certain political considerations, made a vow to march to Jerusalem. The dukes of Austria and Bavaria, and indeed all the ecclesiastical and secular potentates of lower Germany, joined their forces to those of the monarch. The united army marched to Spalato. The ships of Venice, and other ports of the Adriatic, transported them to Cyprus; and after having enjoyed for a while the pleasures of an island consecrated to Venus, the holy warriors sailed for and arrived at Acre, in company with fresh crowds of crusaders from Marseilles, Genoa, and Brundusium. The Mussulman powers were astonished at, and unprovided for this sudden and large reinforcement of the Latins. The sons of Saphedin were the lords of Syria, while Saphedin himself, retired from the constant toils of royalty, was contented with the respect of the army and people in times of difficulty and danger. The Saracens pressed to the country about Nablus, but not in sufficient numbers to meet the new crusaders, who ravaged the country and slew thousands of their foes. But they did not confine their cruelties to the infidels. The soil of Palestine, in the year in which the present crusaders landed, had been less productive than in most seasons; the soldiers had carried thither no provisions, and when not engaged in distant excursions into the enemy’s territories, they took the shorter course of robbing the private and religious houses of the Latins and Syrians.

A Knight’s Esquire, Thirteenth Century

[1217-1219 A.D.]

Pious exercises, however, re-established order. The ecclesiastical chief of the Latin Christians led the army in religious procession across the river of Kishon, to the valley of Jezreel. They bathed in the Jordan, made their pilgrimage to the Lake of Gennesaret, observed with devout awe the scenes of various miracles performed by Christ, and returned to Acre. But they soon repaired their wasted strength, and trod with holy reverence the road to the scene of the transfiguration. The ascent to Mount Tabor, however, was difficult; and the summit was defended by a strongly garrisoned tower. Attached as much to pilgrimages as to war, the crusaders went in holy order to Tyre and Sidon; but the inclemency of the season drove them into disorder, and the Saracens made dreadful havoc on their divided parties. The Christians separated for the remainder of the winter. The kings of Cyprus and Hungary repaired to Tripolis; and if the people were grieved at the death of the former of these princes, their feelings were quickly changed into indignation against the latter. Neither the entreaties nor the threats of the clergy could persuade the unstable Andrew to remain in Palestine. Taking with him most of his soldiers and stores, he traversed Armenia and the Greek Empire, and at last returned to his kingdom, which had been so deeply exhausted by this expensive expedition, that it did not for years recover its pristine strength.

The king of Jerusalem, the duke of Austria, and the master of the Hospitallers, took up a strong position on the plains of Cæsarea. The Templars, the Teutonic knights, and Walter d’Avesnes, occupied Mount Carmel, and their station was defended by a tower which the Templars had formerly erected, for the defence and protection of the Jerusalem pilgrims. In the spring of the following year they were joined by new and zealous crusaders from the north of Germany. Cologne had been the rendezvous, and nearly three hundred vessels sailed from the Rhine. Many of the ships were wrecked by the violence of the autumnal winds, and the remainder anchored off the Portuguese shore. By the aid of the Germans, the queen of Portugal took Alcacer from the Moors. Conscience and valour would be equally satisfied by the slaughter of Saracens, in whatever country they might be. As soon as the Cologne reinforcements arrived, the chiefs assembled in council, and it was agreed that siege should be laid to Damietta, which was looked upon as the key of Egypt. A voyage of a few days brought the Christian army within sight of Damietta. The catapults and ballistæ shook the walls of the citadel to their foundations, and the garrison was happy in surrendering to the discretion of the besiegers.

Before the joy of the Christians had subsided, news arrived of the death of Saphedin. The power of his house had lately been strengthened by the death of the sultan of Mosul, the last great supporter of the name of the atabegs. But Saphedin did not live to complete the addition of all Mosul to his empire of Damascus and Egypt. The brother of Saladin has been variously represented, according to the different feelings with which he was regarded. But the crusaders had such a limited knowledge of oriental affairs, that their invectives cannot be opposed to the reputation which he acquired for virtue and ability. His second son, Coradin, the prince of Syria and Palestine, did not proclaim the death of his father till he had secured himself in the possession of the royal coffers. Discord and rebellion were universal throughout Egypt, when the news arrived of the death of Saphedin; and his son Kamil, lord of that country, was compelled to fly into Arabia for protection from his mutinous people.

After the surrender of the castle of Damietta, the acquisition of the city appeared so easy an achievement, that the besieging army sunk into inertness and dissoluteness. The sultan of Syria had anticipated the fall of Damietta, the sultan of Egypt despaired of its defence, and no wisdom could calculate the magnitude of the effects which its capture might produce. Prudence suggested the policy of negotiation, and the Latins were therefore offered the piece of the true cross, the city of Jerusalem, and all the prisoners in Syria and Egypt. The Mussulmans were to rebuild the walls of the sacred city. Of the whole kingdom of Palestine they only proposed to retain the castles of Karak and Montreal, as necessary for the safe passage of the Meccan pilgrims and merchants. The evacuation of Egypt was the equivalent expected from the Christians for these important concessions.

[1219-1220 A.D.]

All the legitimate consequences of the Crusades were at the command of the soldiers of the cross. The king, the French, the earl of Chester, and the Teutonic knights hailed with joy the prospect of the termination of the war. But the legate, the bishops, the Italians, the Templars, and Hospitallers were deaf to counsels of moderation. They contended that no faith could be reposed upon the promises of infidels, unless peace was made at the point of a victorious sword. The siege had already lasted seventeen months, and it would be disgraceful to fly from the fair prospect of success. Unhappily for the general interests of the Christian cause, the mild suggestions of policy were disregarded amidst the clamours of thoughtless valour. Hostilities were recommenced. The besiegers interrupted all communication between the Egyptian army and the garrison of Damietta. Resistance was fruitless, but the Mussulmans were too brave and too proud to surrender. The legate and the king assaulted the walls, and soon entered the city, with the same ruthless feelings as had maddened the early crusaders, when they first leaped on the battlements of Jerusalem.

But revenge sought its victims in vain. Damietta was one vast charnel-house. Of a population, which at the beginning of the siege consisted of more than seventy thousand souls, three thousand only were the relics. The conquerors marched through a pestilential vapour. The streets, the mosques, and the houses were strewn with dead bodies. From scenes of death the Christians turned to plunder. Damietta was as rich a city as any in Islam, and the terrible anathemas of the legate could not prevent self-appropriation of spoil. Dominion over the place was given to the king of Jerusalem. The splendid mosque was converted into a Christian church, and dedicated to the Virgin and all the apostles. But the soldiers were soon compelled to return to the camp, for pestilence was in the city. Life and liberty were granted to the surviving Mussulmans, on their performing the horrid and melancholy task of cleansing the city from the remains of their relations and friends.

So great was the terror which the loss of Damietta spread among the Mussulmans, that the fortress of Tanis surrendered. By this acquisition, the way into Palestine was open. But instead of urging their advantages, the army passed the winter in luxury and in discord, and in the spring more than half of the soldiers returned to Europe. The power of the legate was supreme, and the king of Jerusalem retired in disgust to Acre. The duke of Bavaria, and many knights from Germany and Italy, arrived, as soon as the weather would permit the passage; but they disdained to submit to the command of a bishop, and Pelagius was compelled to solicit with humility the return of the king. Jean de Brienne repaired to Damietta, and a council was held on the subject of hostile operations. The conquest of Egypt was resolved upon, and the army marched by the eastern side of the Fatimite branch of the Nile, till their progress was arrested by the canal of Ashmun. On the southern side of that canal the Mussulman forces were posted. Every sultan of Syria had sent assistance to their brother in the faith, and the allied troops under Kamil could cope with the Latins in the field.

The sultan, however, would not trust his kingdom to the caprice of fortune. He offered peace to the Christians on nearly the same terms as those which had been proposed previously to the last assault on Damietta. The legate refused with indignation these noble offers; but instead of crossing the canal and giving the enemy battle, he remained for more than a month inactive on his post expecting the unconditional surrender of the sultan. During this time the Nile had rapidly increased in height. The Mussulmans opened the sluices and inundated their enemy’s camp. The Christians could neither advance nor retreat; and, to use the humble simile of a Templar, they were enclosed like a fish in a net. When the overflowings of the Nile had swept away all the tents and baggage, Pelagius sent an embassy to the Mussulman camp, imploring a safe return to Acre, and offering to surrender Damietta and Tanis to the Mussulmans. The distress of the Christian army was mitigated by the humanity of Kamil. The king of Jerusalem was one of the hostages, and in an interview with the sultan, he wept for the miserable state of his army. “Why do you weep?” inquired the sultan. “I have reason to weep,” replied the king, “for the people whom God has given into my charge, are perishing in the midst of the waters, or dying of hunger.” The sultan shed tears of pity, and opened the Egyptian granaries for their relief. When, after eight months’ possession by the Latins, Damietta was delivered into the power of the Mussulmans, the hostages were exchanged, and the Christian army retreated to the seacoast, through the road by which they had advanced in full confidence of victory. The barons of Syria, and the military orders, retired to Acre; and the volunteers returned to Europe.

[1220-1227 A.D.]

The pope cast all the odium on the emperor Frederick, a man who had thrice sworn to redeem the Holy Land, and had compromised with his conscience by merely sending soldiers and provisions. Frederick despised the thunders of the Vatican; but although he was not awed by force, he could not resist papal artifice. Honorius soothed his irritated mind, and received him again as a faithful son of the church. Hermann von Salza, master of the Teutonic order, returned to Europe, and gave the emperor the hope of being the redeemer of Palestine. Yolande, the daughter of the king of Jerusalem, could easily be obtained in marriage, and her father would cede his rights, which he was wearied of endeavouring to convert into an actual and firm dominion. The emperor and the pope approved of this project. Frederick accepted from the king of Jerusalem a renunciation of all his claims to the Holy Land, as the dowry of Yolande; and he pledged his honour to the pope, the cardinals, and the masters of the Hospitallers and Teutonic knights, that he would within two years travel with a powerful army into the East, and re-establish the throne of Godfrey de Bouillon. For the succeeding five years, rebellions in Italy, and the insurrections of the Saracens in Sicily, detained the emperor from his purpose. Honorius did not live to witness the event of his exertions, but his successor, Gregory IX, was equally furious in the cause.

At the time appointed for the sailing of the expedition, Brundusium and its vicinity were crowded with soldiers. But the heats of summer destroyed the health of the people of the north; thousands died, and of those who endeavoured to return to their homes, the greatest part perished through poverty or disease. Although the emperor did not escape the common illness, yet he embarked at Brundusium. But after sailing for three days, additional infirmity compelled him to return. Gregory inherited the papal virtues of violence and ambition; he pronounced a sentence of excommunication against the emperor, for declining to combat the enemy of God.[71]

[1227-1229 A.D.]

The thunders of the Vatican rolled again and again over the head of the emperor, but the author of them suffered more than the object. The emperor sent troops into the papal territories, who ravaged the march of Ancona, and the patrimony of St. Peter. Such of the Hospitallers and Templars (the firm friends of the pope) as had estates in the imperial dominions in Italy, were plundered and dispossessed.[72] The emperor heavily taxed his subjects, both churchmen and laity, for the expenses of the holy war. In defiance of Gregory’s warnings against his entering on the crusade, till he should be relieved from the censures of the church, Frederick embarked at Brundusium in August, 1228, and arrived shortly afterwards at Acre. The joy of the Christians at the arrival of the emperor was soon checked by letters which the patriarch received from the pope, prohibiting the faithful from obeying a rebellious son of the church. The Teutonic knights feared no clerical censures; and at their head, and of some other soldiers, the emperor quitted Acre, went to Joppa, and repaired the fortifications of that important city. He then made further advances towards Jerusalem.

While matters were in this state, news was brought to the emperor of an effectual method which the pope had taken of preventing him from continuing the war in Palestine with the enemies of Christ. The pope’s troops, of whom Jean de Brienne (the father-in-law of Frederick) was one of the chief commanders, burned the imperial towns in Italy, imprisoned, tortured, and robbed the people. The duke of Spalato, the emperor’s lieutenant, had been unable successfully to resist, though the imperial army had been but little impaired by Frederick’s foreign expedition. These circumstances made the emperor anxious to return to Europe; a treaty was immediately signed. For ten years the Christians and Mussulmans were to live upon terms of brotherhood. Jerusalem, Joppa, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and their appendages, were restored to the Christians. The Holy Sepulchre likewise was given to them; and the people of both religions might offer up their prayers in the place of devotion, which the former class called the temple of Solomon, and the latter named the mosque of Omar. The address of Frederick more effectually promoted the object of the holy wars than the heroic frenzy of Richard; many of the disasters consequent on the battle of Tiberias were wiped away, and the serious and habitual hopes of Europe, for a permanent settlement in Asia, seemed to be realised. But the barons of the Holy Land, breathing interminable war, and secretly envying superior genius, avowed indignation that a Christian sovereign should accept the friendship of the infidels. The patriarch and clergy hated an excommunicated prince; a man too who had given licence to the Saracens to adore their God in a Christian temple. With some appearance of reason, however, they contended that the treaty was not binding on the Mussulmans while the approbation of the sultan of Damascus was withheld. But, despising the blood-thirstiness of the barons, and the cruel bigotry of the priests, Frederick asserted his royal prerogatives; and, as he had acquired some of the old possessions of the Bouillon family, he avowed his intention of having the crown placed upon his head in the Holy City agreeably to constitutional forms.

Some persons, discontented with the conditions of the treaty, wished to betray him into the hands of the sultan of Egypt. The guilt of this treachery lies between the Hospitallers and the Templars. Kamil read the letter which conveyed to him the news, exclaimed to his associates, “See the fidelity of these Christian dogs”; and despatched a friend to Frederick with the paper which he had received. The emperor repaired to Jerusalem; but no hosannas welcomed his approach. By the command of the patriarch no religious ceremonies were performed in the churches during his stay. Even the German prelates preferred their spiritual to their temporal allegiance; and the emperor, accompanied only by his courtiers and the Teutonic knights, went to the church of the sepulchre. He boldly took the crown from the altar, and placed it on his own head, and Hermann von Salza pronounced a laudatory oration. Orders were then given for the restoration of the city’s walls, and the emperor returned to Acre. In that city too there was every demonstration of sorrow at his appearance. Mass was performed in secret; the churches were deprived of their ornaments; the bells were not rung, and the dead were interred without any religious ceremony. But by some well-measured acts of severity, a semblance of respect was at length shown to the emperor; and he then returned to Europe, leaving the priests and people to thank Heaven for his departure.

Few parts of the Crusades are more difficult to understand, and to reduce into a clear and intelligible form, than the expedition of Frederick. He was vilified by the Templars and Hospitallers, and other friends of the pope; and their narratives of events are more numerous than those of the imperial party. He gained more for the Christians than any prince had acquired since the first establishment of the kingdom; and if the pope had not hated him worse than his holiness hated the Saracens, and thereby caused his return to Europe, there is every probability that after the death of the sultan of Damascus, the emperor would have brought matters to an issue completely triumphant. Gregory IX and his clergy had the effrontery to tell the world that Frederick had left the sepulchre of Christ in the hands of the infidels. But the fact was that it was given to the Christians. The temple of Solomon indeed, or rather the mosque of Omar, was left in the hands of the Mussulmans; a right of visiting it, however, being allowed to the Christians.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[68] [It will be well to refer back to the earlier account of the sack of Constantinople in Vol. 7, Chap. 11, p. 352. It is noteworthy how much more atrocious was the barbarity of the crusaders to these their own people, than was that of the Moslems themselves when they took the same city in 1453.]

[69] According to Fuller’s[f] Holy War, “Pope Innocent III, having lately learned the trick of employing the army of pilgrims in bye-services, began now to set up a trade thereof. He levied a great number of crusaders, whom he sent against the Albigenses in France. These were reputed heretics, whom his holiness intended to root out with all cruelty, that good shepherd knowing no other way to bring home a wandering sheep than by worrying him to death. He freely and fully promised the undertakers the self-same pardons and indulgences as he did to those who went to conquer the Holy Land; and very conscionably requested their aid only for forty days, hoping to chop up these Albigenses at a bit. The place being nearer, the service shorter, the work less, the wages the same with the voyage into Syria, many entered themselves in this employment, and neglected the other.”

[70] The pope and emperor were struggling for supremacy, and the cunning pontiff thought he could get rid of his rival by commanding him to take the cross; and such was the state of the times that Frederick would not have been considered a Christian if he had refused. Voltaire is right in saying, “L’empereur fit le vœu par politique; et par politique il différa le voyage.” Essai sur les Mœurs des Nations, Chap. 52.

[71] A curé at Paris, instead of reading the bull from the pulpit in the usual form, said to his parishioners, “You know, my brethren, that I am ordered to fulminate an excommunication against Frederick. I know not the motive. All that I know, is, that there has been a quarrel between that prince and the pope. God alone knows who is right. I excommunicate him who has injured the other; and I absolve the sufferer.” The emperor sent a present to the preacher, but the pope and the king blamed this sally; le mauvais plaisant was obliged to expiate his fault by a canonical penance.

[72] The soldiers employed on these occasions were Saracens, subjects of the emperor in Sicily. Like their master, they derided the papal bulls.

---

CHAPTER VI. THE LAST CRUSADES

The poet, As-Sahib Jemal ad-Din ben Matrub made the following verses on the failure of Saint Louis’ Crusade, his capture and ransom:

“Bear to the king of France, when you shall see him, these words, traced by a partisan of truth: The death of the servants of the Messiah has been the reward given to you by God.

“You have landed in Egypt, thinking to take possession of it. You have imagined that it was only peopled with cowards! you who are a drum filled with wind.

“You thought that the moment to destroy the Mussulmans was arrived; and this false idea has smoothed, in your eyes, every difficulty.

“By your excellent conduct, you have abandoned your soldiers on the plains of Egypt, and the tomb has gaped under their feet.

“What now remains of the seventy thousand who accompanied you? Dead, wounded, and prisoners!

“May God inspire you often with similar designs! They will cause the ruin of all Christians, and Egypt will have no longer to dread anything from their rage.

“Without doubt your priests announced victories to you; their predictions were false.

“Refer yourselves to a more enlightened oracle.

“Should the desire of revenge urge you to return to Egypt, be assured the house of Lokman still remains, that the chain is ready prepared, and the eunuch guard awake.”

[1239-1314 A.D.]

The council of Spoleto decreed that fresh levies should be sent into Asia on the expiration of the truce with Kamil. The Franciscans and Dominicans were the bearers of the resolutions to the princes and people of Christendom. But it was soon apparent that the recovery of the Holy Land was not the paramount consideration in the mind of Gregory IX, for the preaching of the crusade once more became the means of filling the papal coffers. By the different engines of persuasion and compulsion, the missionaries gained numberless converts, and then allowed the unwilling, and compelled the wealthy crusaders to give the church great largesses in exchange for the vow. The once humble friars grew so rich by these exactions, that their pride and magnificence were detestable in the eyes of the people. These disgraceful scenes were acted in England for two years; but the indignation of society at the avarice of the pope was so strong, that the preaching ceased. Some of the English nobility were inflamed by the love of warlike praise, and took the cross with no intention of submitting to a pecuniary commutation. The earl of Chester, and also Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother to King Henry II, prepared to measure lances with the Saracens.

RICHARD OF CORNWALL’S CRUSADE (THE SEVENTH)

[1236-1240 A.D.]

The desire of crusading was influenced by events in Palestine. A truce between the sultan of Aleppo and the Templars expired with the life of the Mussulman prince; and when his successor renewed the war with them, they sustained so severe a defeat, that every commandery in Europe sent them succours; and even the Hospitallers resolved to avenge the death of their rivals. Three hundred knights and a considerable body of stipendiaries went from London.

The spirit of crusading burned in France, particularly in the middle and southern provinces; and many barons assembled at Lyons in order to concert the means of giving effect to their common desire. But a legate of the pope interrupted their councils with announcing the commands of his master for the dissolving of the assembly, and the return of the members to their homes. The barons remonstrated against this versatility of opinion in an infallible guide. The nuncio was contumeliously dismissed. Most of the nobility pressed forwards to Marseilles, and hoisted sail for the Holy Land. Indignant at their contempt of his wishes, the emperor prohibited the governors of Apulia and other countries from affording aid to the crusaders. This measure prevented many parties of cavaliers from pursuing the voyage; but it did not impede those fanatical and romantic warriors, the king of Navarre, the duke of Burgundy, and the counts of Bar and Brittany, from continuing their course to Acre.

News of the warlike preparations of Europe had been communicated to the sultan of Egypt; and the first moment when the faith of treaties opposed not a hostile course, he drove the Latins out of Jerusalem, and overthrew the tower of David, which, until that time, had always been regarded as sacred by all classes of religionists. After this capture Kamil died; various princes of Syria and Egypt asserted their pretensions to the vacant throne; but the military spirit was too active among the Mussulmans, to allow the Christians rationally to hope that they should eventually profit by these dissensions. The war began by a successful irruption of the count of Brittany into the Damascene territories. But in the vicinity of Gaza three hundred Frenchmen, who wished to imitate the glory of the cavaliers of Brittany, were defeated by a smaller number of Turks.

[1240-1244 A.D.]

The pope renewed his endeavours to persuade the English to commute their piety for gold, but his ministers, the Franciscans and Dominicans, were treated only with contempt; and in the spring of the year 1240, Richard, earl of Cornwall, William Longespee or Longsword, Theodore, the prior of the Hospitallers, and many others of the nobility, embarked at Dover. The arrival of Richard and the other barons at Acre, took place shortly after the signature of the discordant treaties between the Templars and the emir of Karak, and the Hospitallers with the sultan of Egypt. The English were astonished to find that the king of Navarre and the count of Brittany had fled from the plains of Syria, when they received intelligence of the departure of reinforcements from Europe. The emir of Karak, too, could not fulfil his treaty, or even restore to the Templars the prisoners which had been made in the battle of Gaza. Richard marched to Joppa, but as the sultan of Egypt (then at war with the sultan of Damascus) sent to offer him terms of peace, he prudently seized the benefits of negotiation. With the consent of the duke of Burgundy, the master of the Hospitallers, and other lords of high degree, he accepted a renunciation of Jerusalem, Berytus, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Mount Tabor, and most of the Holy Land. An exchange of prisoners was to cement the union. The great object of the crusaders seemed now to be accomplished. Palestine belonged to the Christians. Richard returned to Europe, and was received in every town as the deliverer of the Holy Sepulchre. From neglect or inability he had not induced the Templars to consent to his completion of the hopes of the West; and in spleen and revenge the cavaliers renewed those unfraternal altercations with other knights which had hastened the ruin of the kingdom in the time of Saladin (1241).

The Hospitallers opened their treasury for the re-edification of the walls of Jerusalem. The patriarch and clergy entered the sacred city, and reconsecrated the churches. For two years Christianity was the only religion administered in Jerusalem, and the faithful began to exult in the apparent permanent downfall of infidelity, when a new enemy arose more dreadful than even the Mussulmans.

THE TATAR CREVASSE

[1244 A.D.]

The great Tatarian princes, Jenghiz Khan and his successors, had obliterated the vast empire of Khwarizm; and the expelled and defeated Tatars fled to the south. The storm rolled on towards Egypt, the Khwarizmians demanded a settlement; the sultan was the only Moslem prince who entered into treaties with those barbarians; and he advised them to fix themselves in Palestine. He sent one of his principal emirs, and a large body of troops as their guides and coadjutors, and at the head of twenty thousand horse, Barbacan, the Khwarizmian general entered the Holy Land. The Christians in Jerusalem heard with dismay that the Tatarian tempest had reached their territories. It was evident from the ruined state of the walls that Jerusalem was no longer tenable. The cavaliers, and many of the inhabitants, abandoned the sacred city.

The Khwarizmians entered it, spared neither lives nor property, and violated both Christian and Mussulman sanctuaries. In the wantonness of cruelty they disinterred the departed great, and made a cremation of venerable remains. The insulting fanatics of savageness murdered priests round the altars, exclaiming while they stabbed the holy men, “Let us pour their blood on the place where they poured out wine in commemoration of their crucified God.” As crafty as ferocious, they planted a banner of the cross upon the walls, and, deceived by this joyful appearance, several thousands of the fugitives returned to the city, but only to partake of the miserable doom of their friends.

The repeated solicitations of the Templars at length brought four thousand soldiers from their Syrian allies. The united Christian and Mussulman forces were so far inferior to the Tatars, that policy required a course of measures perfectly defensive. But the fury of the patriarch precipitated the army into the gulf of destruction. The awful conflict raged for two days. The soldiers of Damascus and Emesa were soon slain, or scattered. The loss of every part of the army was great, almost beyond example. Only sixteen Hospitallers, thirty-three Templars, and three Teutonic cavaliers remained alive and free. These soldiers fled to Acre, and that city became the refuge of the Christians. After having razed the fortifications of Askalon, and the castle of Tiberias, the Khwarizmians and Egyptians encamped on the plains of Acre, devastated the country, and slew or led into captivity all straggling Franks.

A united force of Khwarizmians and mamelukes conquered Damascus, and Europe heard with dismay that the Mussulman power was again consolidating. But the members soon were separated, for the sultan of Egypt, faithless as cruel, denied his allies a permanent settlement on the shores of the Nile. The soldiers of fortune flew to the banner of the Damascene prince, and assisted him in his efforts to recover his capital. But the cause of the mamelukes was felt as the common interest of the Moslem world, and all Syria, as well as all Egypt, was in arms in order to exterminate the northern barbarians. In a general engagement the Khwarizmians were defeated and scattered. Barbacan was slain, and southern Asia recovered from its panic and distress.

THE CRUSADE OF ST. LOUIS (THE EIGHTH)

A Tatar

The superstition of a French king, and the successes of the savage Khwarizmians, gave birth to the Eighth Crusade. Pope Innocent IV convoked a general council at Lyons; the Bishop of Berytus described the effects of the Tatarian storm, and left his ecclesiastical brethren to conclude, whether one effort should not be made for a restoration of things to the state in which Richard, earl of Cornwall, had left them. It was accordingly resolved that a crusade should be preached throughout Christendom, and that for four years peace and seriousness should reign over Europe. Such of the faithful as did not expose their persons in the holy cause were to give the subsidiary aid of treasure; and the contribution to be made by the cardinals was fixed at a tenth, and that of the other ecclesiastics at a twentieth part of their yearly revenues.

The pope wrote to Henry III, king of England, urging him to press on his subjects the necessity of punishing the Khwarizmians. But the spirit of crusading raged more strongly in France than in any other country of the West; and it revived in all its fierceness of piety and chivalry in Louis IX. Agreeably to the temper of the times, he had vowed, whilst afflicted by a severe illness, that in case of recovery he would travel to the Holy Land. In the delirium of his fever, he had beheld an engagement between the Christians and the Saracens; the infidels were victorious, and the brave king of a valiant nation fancied it his duty to avenge the defeat. The victories of the Khwarizmians were a realisation of part of his dream, and his preparations had anticipated the decrees of the Lyonese council. This vow was made about the year 1244, according to Nangis and Chronicle of St. Denis, cited in Du Cange’s notes. From the moment of his resolving to go to the Holy Land, St. Louis quitted all pomp of dress; he exchanged his purple for black, a royal for a religious habit. During the crusade he abstained from wearing scarlet, vair, or ermine. The example of the monarch gave efficacy to the laws regarding simplicity of dress, and the lord of Joinville assures us, that, during the whole time he was attending the king on his crusade, he never once saw an embroidered coat of arms. The French barons, however, when resident in Damietta, were less rigid in morality than in dress. The cross was likewise taken by the three royal brothers, the counts of Artois, Poitiers, and Anjou, by the duke of Burgundy, the countess of Flanders, and her two sons, the count of St. Paul, and many other knights.

Sentiments of respect for the king of France were not felt in his country alone; the people of England revered his name, and avowedly in imitation of his example, the bishop of Salisbury, William Longespee, Walter de Lucy, and many other English nobles and gentlemen were crossed. William Longespee was, or feigned himself, poor, and went to Rome to solicit the aid of the pope. He returned to England, and extorted more than a thousand marks from the religious, while the less scrupulous or more powerful earl of Cornwall was insatiable in his avarice, and gained from one archdeacon alone, six hundred pounds. Political circumstances detained St. Louis in France for three years; but the money and troops which he sent to the Holy Land invigorated the hopes of the Latin Christians. The ranks of the military orders were recruited by hired troops and regular knights from the different stations in Europe.

On the 12th of June, 1248, Louis, attended by his three brothers, went to the abbey of St. Denis, and received from the pope’s legate the oriflamme, the alms’ purse, and pilgrim’s staff. He sailed from France at the end of August, and arrived in September at Cyprus, the appointed rendezvous for his barons and their vassals. The king remained eight months in Cyprus, employed in organising his troops, in works of piety, and particularly in healing the breaches in charity between the military orders. The Venetians and other people assisted the French with provisions; on one occasion the supplies of the emperor Frederick preserved the army, and the grateful king implored the pope to absolve a man who had been benevolent to the soldiers of the church. The ambassadors of a Tatarian prince appeared before Louis, offering their master’s aid to root the Saracens and pagans out of the Holy Land. The king sent a magnificent present to his ally, in order to bribe him to become a Christian. Two black monks, who understood the Arabic language, were charged with the missionary office, and their eloquence and embroidered representation of some of the mysteries of Christianity were to effect the conversion of the Scythian savage and his court. In the spring of the year 1249, the soldiers of Louis were mustered, and his ships prepared for sea; fifty thousand men formed his military force, and eighteen hundred was the number of his transports, palendars, and store ships. They set sail for Egypt; a storm separated the fleet, and the royal division, in which were nearly three thousand knights and their men-at-arms, arrived off Damietta.

[1249 A.D.]

The shores were lined by the sultan’s troops, who astonished the French by the clangour of trumpets and brazen drums. The heralds of the king of France instantly went to the sultan, Nejm ad-Din (a son of Kamil), near Ashmun, and spared no language of exaggeration in describing the power of their master. The only way to avoid the tempest was to receive priests who would teach the Christian religion to the people of Egypt:[73] otherwise he would pursue them everywhere, and God should decide to whom the country should be given. The sultan replied that he also knew the use of arms, and like the French, inherited valour. The cause of the Mussulmans was that of justice; and the Koran declared, that they who made war unjustly should perish.

Some of the knights wished to dissuade the king from landing, till the appearance of their brethren in arms; but on the second day after their arrival, Louis commanded the disembarkation; he himself leaped into the water; his shield was suspended from his neck, his helmet was on his head, and his lance on his wrist. His soldiers followed him to the shore; and the Saracens, panic-struck at their boldness and determination, made but a slight show of defence, and fled into the interior of the country. Although Damietta was better prepared for a siege than in those days when it had sustained an attack of eighteen months’ duration, yet the garrison sought safety in the fleetness of their horses. They were received at Cairo with the indignation which their cowardice merited; and the sultan (who had repaired thither from Ashmun) strangled fifty of the chiefs. The people of Damietta loaded themselves with their most valuable effects, set fire to the part of the city in which their merchandise and plunder were collected, and then took flight for Cairo. Louis fixed his residence in the city; a Christian government was established; and the clergy, agreeably to old custom, purified the mosques. According to ancient usage, one-third part of the spoil should have been allotted to the general-in-chief, and the remaining portions had been usually divided among the pilgrims; but, at the suggestion of the patriarch of Jerusalem, Louis ordered that the corn and provisions should form a magazine for the common benefit of the army; and he retained to himself the rest of the movable booty.

Neither the religious character of the war, nor the importance of preserving military discipline, had any effect on the conduct of the holy warriors. So general was the immorality, that the king could not stop the foul and noxious torrent. The hope of the reward of a piece of gold for an enemy’s head, inspirited the Mussulmans to many enterprises of difficulty and danger; but Louis prevented at length their incursions into his camp, for he surrounded it with deep ditches, and his cross-bowmen galled the approaching parties of Mussulman cavalry. The French looked with impatience for the count of Poitiers and the arrière-ban of France, the remainder of the force which had sailed from Cyprus, and had been driven to Acre in the tempest. In October 1249 the count of Poitiers reached Egypt. The French also were joined by two hundred English knights.

THE BATTLE OF MANSURA

[1250 A.D.]

At the close of November, the army commenced its march to the capital of Egypt. Until their approach to the vicinity of Mansura, they overcame the open and insidious enmity of the Saracens. Soon after his departure from Damietta, the king accepted the proffered aid of five hundred horsemen of the sultan, and commanded his army to respect their guides. Vainly thinking that this order was inflexible to circumstances, the Saracens attacked the Templars, who formed the van of the army. But the valiant knights rallied round their grand master, and invoking God to aid them in this perilous conjuncture, they rushed upon and destroyed their treacherous foes. Fakhr ad-Din, the Egyptian emir, and his army were encamped on the opposite side of the Ashmun canal, which the French in vain endeavoured to cross. They commenced a causeway over the canal; but the Saracens ruined in a day the work of a month; and even crossed the Nile by one of the passages which were familiar to them and gave battle to the enemy.[b]

It is so hard for the layman to get a true idea of the chaos and disintegrated nature of a battle, that a realistic account of how St. Louis fought the Saracens is well worth quoting, especially from the pen of the lord of Joinville whose sword was busy in these very scenes.[a]

DE JOINVILLE’S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF MANSURA

A Bedouin had lately come to say that if we would give him five hundred golden besants, he would show a safe ford, which might easily be crossed on horseback. The day appointed for this purpose was Shrove-Tuesday, which, when arrived, we all mounted our horses, and armed at all points, followed the Bedouin to the ford. On our way thither, some advanced too near the banks of the river, which being soft and slippery, they and their horses fell in and were drowned. The king seeing it, pointed it out to the rest, that they might be more careful and avoid similar danger. Among those that were drowned was that valiant knight Sir John d’Orleans, who bore the banner of the army. When we came to the ford, we saw on the opposite bank full three hundred Saracen cavalry ready to defend this passage. We entered the river, and our horses found a tolerable ford with firm footing, so that by ascending the stream we found an easy shore, and through God’s mercy we all crossed over with safety. The Saracens, observing us thus cross, fled away with the utmost despatch.

Before we set out, the king had ordered that the Templars should form the van, and the count d’Artois his brother should command the second division of the army; but the moment the count d’Artois had passed the ford with all his people, and saw the Saracens flying, they stuck spurs into their horses and galloped after them; for which those who formed the van were much angered at the count d’Artois, who could not make any answer, on account of Sir Foucquault du Melle, who held the bridle of his horse; and Sir Foucquault, being deaf, heard nothing the Templars were saying to the count d’Artois, but kept bawling out, “Forward, forward!” When the Templars perceived this, they thought they should be dishonoured if they allowed the count d’Artois thus to take the lead, and with one accord they spurred their horses to their fastest speed, pursuing the Saracens through the town of Mansura, as far as the plains before Babylon; but on their return the Turks shot at them plenty of arrows and other artillery, as they repassed through the narrow streets of the town. The count d’Artois and the lord de Coucy, of the name of Raoul, were there slain, and as many as three hundred other[74] knights. The Templars lost, as their chief informed me, full fourteen score men at arms and horses. My knights, as well as myself, noticing on our left a large body of Turks who were arming, instantly charged them; and when we were advanced into the midst of them, I perceived a sturdy Saracen mounting his horse, which was held by one of his esquires by the bridle, and while he was putting his hand on the saddle to mount, I gave him such a thrust with my spear, which I pushed as far as I was able, that he fell down dead. The esquire, seeing his lord dead, abandoned master and horse; but, watching my motions, on my return struck me with his lance such a blow between the shoulders as drove me on my horse’s neck, and held me there so tightly that I could not draw my sword, which was girthed round me. I was forced to draw another sword which was at the pommel of my saddle, and it was high time; but, when he saw I had my sword in my hand, he withdrew his lance which I had seized and ran from me.

It chanced that I and my knights had traversed the army of the Saracens, and saw here and there different parties of them, to the amount of about six thousand, who, abandoning their quarters, had advanced into the plain. On perceiving that we were separated from the main body, they boldly attacked us, and slew Sir Hugues de Trichatel, lord d’Escoflans, who bore the banner of our company. They also made prisoner Sir Raoul de Wanon, of our company, whom they had struck to the ground. As they were carrying him off, my knights and myself knew him, and instantly hastened, with great courage, to assist him, and deliver him from their hands. In returning from this engagement the Turks gave me such heavy blows, that my horse, not being able to withstand them, fell on his knees, and threw me to the ground over his head. I very shortly replaced my shield on my breast, and grasped my spear, during which time the lord Errart d’Esmeray, whose soul may God pardon! advanced towards me, for he had also been struck down by the enemy; and we retreated together towards an old ruined house to wait for the king, who was coming, and I found means to recover my horse. As we were going to this house, a large body of Turks came galloping towards us, but passed on to a party of ours whom they saw hard by; as they passed, they struck me to the ground, with my shield over my neck, and galloped over me, thinking I was dead; and indeed I was nearly so. When they were gone, my companion Sir Errart came and raised me up, and we went to the walls of the ruined house. Thither also had retired Sir Hugues d’Escosse, Sir Ferreys de Loppei, Sir Regnault de Menoncourt, and several others; and there also the Turks came to attack us, more bravely than ever, on all sides. Some of them entered within the walls, and were a long time fighting with us at spear’s length, during which my knights gave me my horse, which they held, lest he should run away, and at the same time so vigorously defended us against the Turks, that they were greatly praised by several able persons who witnessed their prowess.

Sir Hugues d’Escosse was desperately hurt by three great wounds in the face and elsewhere. Sir Raoul and Sir Ferreys were also badly wounded in their shoulders, so that the blood spouted out just like to a tun of wine when tapped. Sir Errart d’Esmeray was so severely wounded in the face by a sword, the stroke of which cut off his nose, that it hung down over his mouth. In this severe distress, I called to my mind St. James, and said, “Good Lord St. James, succour me, I beseech thee; and come to my aid in this time of need.” I had scarcely ended my prayer, when Sir Errart said to me, “Sir, if I did not think you might suppose it was done to abandon you and save myself, I would go to my lord of Anjou, whom I see on the plain, and beg he would hasten to your help.” “Sir Errart,” I replied, “you will do me great honour and pleasure, if you will go and seek succour to save our lives; for your own also is in great peril”; and I said truly, for he died of the wound he had received. All were of my opinion that he should seek for assistance; and I then quitting hold of the rein of his bridle, he galloped towards the count d’Anjou, to request he would support us in the danger we were in. There was a great lord with him who wished to detain him, but the good prince would not attend to what he urged, but, spurring his horse, galloped towards us followed by his men. The Saracens, observing them coming, left us; but when on their arrival they saw the Saracens carrying away their prisoner, Sir Raoul de Wanon, badly wounded, they hastened to recover him, and brought him back in a most pitiful state. Shortly after, I saw the king arrive with all his attendants, and with a terrible noise of trumpets, clarions, and horns. He halted on an eminence, with his men at arms, for something he had to say; and I assure you I never saw so handsome a man under arms. He was taller than any of his troop by the shoulders; and his helmet, which was gilded, was handsomely placed on his head; and he bore a German sword in his hand. Soon after he had halted, many of his knights were observed intermixed with the Turks; their companions instantly rushed into the battle among them; and you must know, that in this engagement were performed, on both sides, the most gallant deeds that were ever done in this expedition to the Holy Land; for none made use of the bow, cross-bow, or other artillery. But the conflict consisted of blows given to each other by battle-axes, swords, butts of spears, all mixed together. From all I saw, my knights and myself, all wounded as we were, were very impatient to join the battle with the others. Shortly after, one of my esquires, who had once fled from my banner, came to me, and brought me one of my Flemish war-horses; I was soon mounted, and rode by the side of the king, whom I found attended by that discreet man, Sir John de Valeri. Sir John seeing the king desirous to enter into the midst of the battle, advised him to make for the riverside on the right, in order that in case there should be any danger, he might have support from the duke of Burgundy and his army, which had been left behind to guard the camp; and likewise that his men might be refreshed and have wherewith to quench their thirst; for the weather was at this moment exceedingly hot.

Thirteenth Century Crusader

As this was doing, Sir Humbert de Beaujeu, constable of France, came up, and told the king that his brother, the count d’Artois, was much pressed in a house at Mansura, where, however, he defended himself gallantly, but that he would need speedy assistance; and entreated the king to go to his aid. The king replied, “Constable, spur forward, and I will follow you close.” All of us now galloped straight to Mansura, and were in the midst of the Turkish army, when we were instantly separated from each other by the greater power of the Saracens and Turks. Shortly after, a serjeant at mace of the constable, with whom I was, came to him, and said the king was surrounded by the Turks, and his person in imminent danger. You may suppose our astonishment and fears, for there were between us and where the king was full one thousand or twelve hundred Turks, and we were only six persons in all. I said to the constable, that since it was impossible for us to make our way through such a crowd of Turks, it would be much better to wheel round and get on the other side of them. This we instantly did. There was a deep ditch on the road we took between the Saracens and us; and, had they noticed us, they must have slain us all; but they were solely occupied with the king, and the larger bodies; perhaps also they might have taken us for some of their friends. As we thus gained the river, following its course downward between it and the road, we observed that the king had ascended it, and that the Turks were sending fresh troops after him. Both armies now met on the banks, and the event was miserably unfortunate; for the weaker part of our army thought to cross over to the division of the duke of Burgundy, but that was impossible from their horses being worn down, and the extreme heat of the weather. As we descended the river, we saw it covered with lances, pikes, shields, men, and horses, unable to save themselves from death. When we perceived the miserable state of our army, I advised the constable to remain on this side of the river to guard a small bridge that was hard by; “for if we leave it,” added I, “the enemy may come and attack the king on this side; and if our men be assaulted in two places, they must be discomfited.”

There then we halted; and you may believe me when I say, that the good king performed that day the most gallant deeds that ever I saw in any battle. It was said, that had it not been for his personal exertions, the whole army would have been destroyed; but I believe that the great courage he naturally possessed was that day doubled by the power of God, for he forced himself wherever he saw his men in any distress, and gave such blows with battle-axe and sword, it was wonderful to behold. The lord de Courtenai and Sir John de Salenai one day told me, that at this engagement six Turks caught hold of the bridle of the king’s horse, and were leading him away; but this virtuous prince exerted himself with such bravery in fighting the six Turks, that he alone freed himself from them; and that many, seeing how valiantly he defended himself, and the great courage he displayed, took greater courage themselves, and abandoning the passage they were guarding, hastened to support the king. After some little time, the count Peter of Brittany came to us who were guarding the small bridge from Mansura, having had a most furious skirmish. He was so badly wounded in the face that the blood came out of his mouth, as if it had been full of water, and he vomited it forth. The count was mounted on a short, thick, but strong horse, and his reins and the pommel of his saddle were cut and destroyed, so that he was forced to hold himself by his two hands round the horse’s neck for fear the Turks, who were close behind him, should make him fall off. He did not, however, seem much afraid of them, for he frequently turned round, and gave them many abusive words by way of mockery.

In our front were two of the king’s heralds; the name of one was Guillaume de Bron, and that of the other John de Gaymaches; against whom the Turks led a rabble of peasants of the country, who pelted them with clods of earth and large stones. At last, they brought a villainous Turk, who thrice flung Greek fires at them; and by one of them was the tabard of Guillaume de Bron set on fire; but he soon threw it off, and good need had he, for if it had set fire to his clothes, he must have been burned. We were also covered with these showers of stones and arrows which the Turks discharged at the two heralds. I luckily found near me a gaubison of coarse cloth which had belonged to a Saracen, and turning the slit part inward, I made a sort of shield, which was of much service to me; for I was only wounded by their shots in five places, whereas my horse was hurt in fifteen. Soon after, as God willed it, one of my vassals of Joinville brought me a banner with my arms, and a long knife of war, which I was in want of; and then, when these Turkish villains, who were on foot, pressed on the heralds, we made a charge on them and put them instantly to flight. Thus when the good count de Soissons and myself were returned to our post on the bridge, after chasing away these peasants, he rallied me, saying, “Seneschal, let us allow this rabble to bawl and bray; and, by the Cresse Dieu,” his usual oath, “you and I will talk over this day’s adventures in the chambers of our ladies.”

It happened that towards evening, about sunset, the constable, Sir Humbert de Beaujeu, brought us the king’s cross-bows that were on foot; and they drew up in one front, while we horsemen dismounted under shelter of the cross-bows. The Saracens observing this immediately took to flight, and left us in peace. The constable told me that we had behaved well in thus guarding the bridge; and bade me go boldly to the king, and not quit him until he should be dismounted in his pavilion. I went to the king, and at the same moment Sir John de Valeri joined, and requested of him, in the name of the lord de Chastillon, that the said lord might command the rear guard, which the king very willingly granted. The king then took the road to return to his pavilion, and raised the helmet from his head, on which I gave him my iron skull-cap, which was much lighter, that he might have more air. Thus as we were riding together, Father Henry, prior of the hospital of Ronnay, who had crossed the river, came to him and kissed his hand, fully armed, and asked if he had heard any news of his brother the count d’Artois. “Yes,” replied the king, “I have heard all”; that is to say, that he knew well he was now in paradise. The prior, thinking to comfort him for the death of his brother, continued, “Sire, no king of France has ever reaped such honour as you have done; for with great intrepidity have you and your army crossed a dangerous river to combat your enemies; and have been so very successful that you have put them to flight and gained the field, together with their warlike engines, with which they had wonderfully annoyed you, and concluded the affair by taking possession this day of their camp and quarters.” The good king replied that God should be adored for all the good he had granted him; and then heavy tears began to fall down his cheeks, which many great persons noticing, were oppressed with anguish and compassion on seeing him thus weep, praising the name of God who had enabled him to win the victory.[f]

RESULTS OF MANSURA

The count of Artois had rallied his forces in the town. The Egyptian chief invested Mansura; and, with ability equal to his spirit, placed a body of troops in such a station as to intercept the communication between the count and the king. The soldiers in Mansura engaged the French. The inhabitants partook of the perils of the day, and poured upon their enemy, with deadly effect, burning coals, boiling water, and stones. The count did not survive to witness all the dreadful issues of his rashness. William Longespee and a numerous band of gallant men also perished. The grand master of St. John fell into the enemy’s hands; and the master of the Templars was happy in escaping with the loss of an eye. On the side of the enemy Fakhr ad-Din was slain; but his station was quickly filled by a chief of equal bravery and conduct. The king and his army had crossed the ford, and prevented the total rout of the Christians. The valiant master of the Templars was slain in this renewed engagement. Egyptian and Christian annalists have claimed the honour and rewards of victory for their respective sides; but in truth the result of the battle appears to have been indecisive.

The Saracens, however, cut off all communications between St. Louis and Damietta. Famine and disease appeared in the Christian camp, and the French described the latter of those evils as having sprung from a pestilential air emitted from the dead bodies of their friends and foes, and from eating eel pouts which had fed on corpses in the river.[b] “From this poisonous diet,” says De Joinville, “and from the bad air of a country where it scarcely ever rains, the whole army was infected by a shocking disorder, which dried up the flesh on one’s legs to the bone, and our skins became tanned as black as the ground, or like an old boot that has long lain behind a coffer. In addition to this miserable disorder, those afflicted by it had another sore complaint in the mouth, from eating eel pouts that rotted the gums. Very few escaped death that were attacked, and the surest symptoms of its being fatal was a bleeding at the nose. The barbers were obliged to cut away large pieces of flesh from the gums to enable the patient to eat. It was pitiful to hear the cries and groans of those on whom the operation was performed; they seemed like to the cries of women in labour, and I cannot express the great concern all felt who heard them.”[f]

ST. LOUIS A PRISONER

Negotiations for peace were opened between the contending powers, and the exchange of the lordship of Jerusalem for that of Damietta formed the basis of the treaty. The king offered either of his brothers as a hostage for the delivery of Damietta to the Egyptians; but the sultan objected, and all hopes of peace were abandoned, because the Christians would not consent to the delivery of their king as the hostage. The miserable condition of the French army forbade all thoughts of victory, and called for a retreat to Damietta.

The retreat was ordered; but those who attempted it by the river were taken by the enemy, and the fate of such as proceeded by land was equally disastrous. While they were occupied in constructing a bridge over the canal, the Mussulmans entered the camp, and murdered the sick. The valiant Louis, though oppressed with the general calamity of disease, sustained boldly, with Sir Godfrey de Sergines, the shock of the enemy, and threw himself into the midst of them, resolved to perish in defending his troops. The brave Sergines, who never left him, succeeded at last in drawing him from the foe, and conducted him to a village, where he sank into insensibility and helplessness.[75]

In that state the Mussulmans made him prisoner. Charles count of Anjou, Alphonsus of Poitiers, and indeed all the nobility fell into the enemy’s hands. The sultan clothed the king and the nobles with robes of honour, and treated them with kindness and generosity. But many of the unfortunate men who were ill, and therefore useless, were killed by their new masters in defiance of the command of Saladin, and the general usage of oriental nations not to put to death anyone to whom they had given bread and salt. Other prisoners saved their lives by renouncing their religion; the Saracenic commander indulged the fanaticism of his people by allowing the converts to be received, though he well remembered the sage remark of Saladin, that a Christian was never known to make a good Moslem, nor a good Saracen a Christian.[76] So great were the calamities of the French in this attempted retreat, that twenty thousand were made captives, and seven thousand were slain or drowned.[b] The last battles and disasters of St. Louis made, it may well be believed, a vivid impression on the Saracens. We may quote the account of Makrisi, a Moslem historian.[a]

MOSLEM ACCOUNT OF ST. LOUIS’ CAPTURE

The day of Bairam (January 6th, 1250) a great lord and relative to the king of France was made prisoner. Not a day passed without skirmishes on both sides, and with alternate success. The Mussulmans were particularly anxious to make prisoners, to gain information as to the state of the enemy’s army, and used all sorts of stratagems for this purpose. A soldier from Cairo bethought himself of putting his head withinside of a watermelon, the interior of which he had scooped out, and of thus swimming towards the French camp; a Christian soldier, not suspecting the trick, leaped into the Nile to seize the melon; but the Egyptian was a stout swimmer, and catching hold of him, dragged him to his general. On Wednesday, the 7th day of the moon Shawwal (January 13th, 1250), the Mussulmans captured a large boat, in which were a hundred soldiers, commanded by an officer of distinction. On Thursday, the 15th of the same moon, the French marched out of their camp, and their cavalry began to move. The troops were ordered to file off, when a slight skirmish took place, and the French left on the field forty cavaliers with their horses.

Some traitors having shown the ford over the canal of Ashmun to the French, fourteen hundred cavaliers crossed it and fell unexpectedly on the camp of the Mussulmans, on a Tuesday, the 15th day of the moon Dhul-Kadeh (February 15th), having at their head the brother of the king of France. The emir Fakhr ad-Din was at the time in the bath; he instantly quitted it with precipitation and mounted a horse without a saddle or bridle, followed only by some slaves. The enemy attacked him on all sides, and his slaves like cowards, abandoned him when in the midst of the French; it was in vain he attempted to defend himself; he fell pierced with wounds. The French, after the death of Fakhr ad-Din, retreated to Jédilé; but their whole cavalry advanced to Mansura, and, having forced one of the gates, entered the town; the Mussulmans fled to the right and left. The king of France had already penetrated as far as the sultan’s palace, and victory seemed ready to declare for him, when the Baharite slaves, led by Bibars, advanced and snatched it from his hands; their charge was so furious that the French were obliged to retreat. The French infantry, during this time, had advanced to cross the bridge; had they been able to join their cavalry, the defeat of the Egyptian army, and the loss of the town of Mansura, would have been inevitable.

Night separated the combatants, when the French retreated in disorder to Jédilé, after leaving fifteen hundred of their men on the field. They surrounded their camp with a ditch and wall, but their army was divided into two corps; the least considerable body was encamped on the branch of the Ashmun, and the larger on the great branch of the Nile that runs to Damietta. A pigeon had been let loose to fly to Cairo the instant the French had surprised the camp of Fakhr ad-Din, having a note under its wing, to inform the inhabitants of this misfortune. The melancholy event had created a general consternation in the town, which the runaways had augmented, and the gates of Cairo were kept open all the night to receive them. A second pigeon bearing the news of the victory over the French, had restored tranquillity to the capital. Joy succeeded sorrow; and each congratulated the other on this happy turn of affairs, and public rejoicings were made.

A Saracen

Boats sent from Damietta brought all sorts of provisions to the French camp, and kept it abundantly supplied. Turan Shah caused many boats to be built which, when taken to pieces, he placed on the backs of camels, and had them thus carried to the canal of Méhalé, when they were put together again, launched on the canal, and filled with troops for an ambuscade. As soon as the French fleet of boats appeared at the mouth of the canal of Méhalé, the Mussulmans quitted their hiding-place and attacked them. While the two fleets were engaged, other boats left Mansura filled with soldiers, and fell on the rear of the French. It was in vain they sought to escape by flight; a thousand Christians were killed or made prisoners. In this defeat fifty-two of their boats laden with provisions were taken, and their communication with Damietta by the navigation of the Nile was cut off, so that within a short time the whole army suffered the most terrible famine. The Mussulmans surrounded them on all sides, and they could neither advance nor retreat.

On the first of the moon Dhul-hija (March 7th), the French surprised seven boats; but the troops on board had the good fortune to escape. In spite of the superiority of the Egyptians on the Nile, they attempted to bring up another convoy from Damietta, but they lost it; thirty-two of their boats were taken and carried to Mansura, on the ninth of the same moon. This new loss filled the measure of their woes, and caused them to propose a truce and send ambassadors to treat of it with the sultan. The emir Zain ad-Din and the kadi Bedr ad-Din were ordered to meet and confer with them, when the French offered to surrender Damietta, on condition that Jerusalem, and some other places in Syria, should be given in exchange for it. This proposal was rejected, and the conference broken up.

On Friday, the 27th of the moon Dhul-hija (April 2nd), the French set fire to all their machines of war and timber for building, and rendered almost all their boats unfit for use. During the night of Tuesday, the third day of the moon Muharrem (April 7th), in the year of the Hegira 648, the whole of the French army decamped, and took the road to Damietta. Some boats which they had reserved fell down the Nile at the same time. The Mussulmans having, at break of day of the Wednesday, perceived the retreat of the French, pursued and attacked them.

The heat of the combat was at Fariskur. The French were defeated and put to flight; ten thousand of their men fell on the field of battle, some say thirty thousand. Upwards of one hundred thousand horsemen, infantry, tradespeople, and others were made slaves. The booty was immense in horses, mules, tents, and other riches. There were but one hundred slain on the side of the Mussulmans. The Baharite slaves, under the command of Bibars al-Bundukdari, performed in this battle signal acts of valour. The king of France had retired, with a few of his lords, to a small hillock, and surrendered himself, under promise of his life being spared, to the eunuch Jemal ad-Din Mahsun as-Salih; he was bound with a chain, and in this state conducted to Mansura, where he was confined in the house of Ibrahim ben Lokman, secretary to the sultan, and under the guard of the eunuch Salih. The king’s brother was made prisoner at the same time, and carried to the same house. The sultan provided for their subsistence.

The number of slaves was so great, it was embarrassing, and the sultan gave orders to Saif ad-Din Jusuf ben Tardi to put them to death. Every night this cruel minister of the vengeance of his master had from three to four hundred of the prisoners brought from their places of confinement, and after he had caused them to be beheaded, their bodies were thrown into the Nile; in this manner perished one hundred thousand of the French.

The sultan departed from Mansura, and went to Fariskur, where he had pitched a most magnificent tent. He had also built a tower of wood over the Nile; and, being freed from a disagreeable war, he there gave himself up to all sorts of debauchery. The victory he had just gained was so brilliant that he was eager to make all who were subjected to him acquainted with it. He wrote with his own hand a letter, in the following terms, to the emir Jemal ad-Din ben Jagmur, governor of Damascus: “Thanks be given to the All-powerful, who has changed our grief to joy; it is to Him alone we owe the victory. The favours He has condescended to shower upon us are innumerable, but this last is most precious. You will announce to the people of Damascus, or, rather, to all Mussulmans, that God has enabled us to gain a complete victory over the Christians at the moment they had conspired our ruin. On Monday, the first day of this year, we opened our treasury and distributed riches and arms to our faithful soldiers. We had called to our succour the Arabian tribes, and a numberless multitude of soldiers ranged themselves under our standards. On the night between Tuesday and Wednesday our enemies abandoned their camp, with all their baggage, and marched towards Damietta; in spite of the obscurity of the night, we pursued them, and thirty thousand of them were left dead on the field, not including those who precipitated themselves into the Nile. We have, besides, slain our very numerous prisoners, and thrown their bodies into the same river. Their king had retreated to Minieh; he has implored our clemency, and we have granted him his life, and paid him all the honours due to his rank. We have regained Damietta.”

The sultan, with this letter, sent the king’s cap, which had fallen in the combat; it was of scarlet, lined with a fine fur. The governor of Damascus put the king’s cap on his own head when he read to the public the sultan’s letter. A poet made these verses on the occasion: “The cap of the French was whiter than paper; our sabres have dyed it with the blood of the enemy, and have changed its colour.”[g]

As ransom for the noble prisoners the sultan offered to accept some of the baronial castles in Palestine, or those which belonged to the Templars and Hospitallers. But the king and his peers replied that the liege lord, the emperor of Germany, would never consent that a pagan or Tatar should hold any fief of him; and that no cession of the property of the knights could be made, for the governors of their castles swore on their investiture that they would never surrender their charge for the deliverance of any man. The king was even threatened with torture, but as the Mussulmans saw in him no symptoms of fear on which they could work, they proposed to make a pecuniary ransom. Louis offered to pay ten thousand golden besants, which were equal to five hundred thousand livres, for the deliverance of his army, and that as the royal dignity could not be estimated by a vulgar scale, he would for his own freedom surrender the city of Damietta. The sultan was liberal in the fulness of his joy at such a completion of his victories, and remitted a fifth part of the pecuniary ransom.[77] Peace was to continue for ten years between the Mussulmans and the Christians, and the Franks were to be restored to those privileges in the kingdom of Jerusalem which they enjoyed before the landing of Louis at Damietta. The repose which succeeded the treaty was interrupted by the murder of the sultan; but after a few acts of hostility the successful emirs, and their mamelukes, renewed with a few changes the condition of amity. One moiety of the ransom was to be discharged before the king left the river, and the other on his arrival at Acre. The sick at Damietta, with the stores and baggage, were to be retained by the sultan till the last portion of the ransom should be paid.

Damietta was accordingly surrendered. But the mamelukes were more savage and unprincipled than any preceding enemies of the Latin name. They burned all the military engines, murdered the sick, and some of the most ferocious thirsted for the blood of the Christian potentates. The counsels of justice prevailed, and the Christians were relieved from their fears that the treaty would not be acted upon. The counts of Flanders and Brittany, the count of Soissons, and others embarked for France. The royal treasure at Damietta could not furnish the stipulated portion of the ransom. The new grand master of the Templars opposed the institutes of his order to the king’s request for a loan of the funds of the society, and contended that he could not divert them from their regular and appointed purposes. But state necessity trampled over mere statutable forms, and the chest of the Templars was seized by the royal officers. The king’s person was redeemed, and the French went to Acre.

The expedition of St. Louis into Egypt resembles in many respects the war in Egypt thirty years before. In both cases the Christian armies were encamped near the entrance of the Ashmun canal; they could not advance, and the surrender of Damietta was the price of safety.

[1250-1254 A.D.]

Many of Louis’ council were astonished at his resolution to remain in Palestine while political affairs were calling him to his duty to France. They were divided in their patriotism and their allegiance. The sultan of Damascus, a relative of the murdered Egyptian lord, solicited the aid of Louis to revenge the murder, and stimulated his virtue by the promise that in the event of victory he would deliver to the Christians the city of Jerusalem. The king replied that he would send to the mamelukes at Damietta, to know whether they would repair their violations of the treaty, and that, in case of their refusal, he would assist the sultan of Damascus. On intelligence of this negotiation, the people of Damietta restored to the king all the knights and common soldiers whom they had detained in prison. Louis wisely profited by circumstances, and declared that he would not enter upon a truce with the Egyptians, until they had absolved him from the payment of the remaining moiety of the ransom, and restored to him the heads of those Christians on the walls of Cairo, who had fallen in the battle near Mansura, and such Christian children as they had forced to become Mussulmans. The emirs and mamelukes complied with these terms, and, on condition of the alliance of the French king, they engaged to deliver up to him Jerusalem itself. The military force of Louis did not much exceed four thousand men. The king’s two brothers returned to Europe; and, in order to retain a respectable army, Louis was obliged to be liberal of his treasure. Louis remained a year at Cæsarea, and rebuilt its houses and repaired its fortifications. Joppa was the next object of his care. The war between the Egyptians and Syrians raged with dreadful violence. By the mediation of the caliph, the Mussulmans made peace; Egypt and Jerusalem were to belong to the mamelukes; and the countries beyond the Jordan to the sultan of Syria. But the united infidels did not pursue their schemes of destruction with that vigour and ability which had distinguished the fierce and dreadful movements of Nur ad-Din and Saladin. They might have swept the feeble and exhausted Christians from the shores of Palestine; but they merely ravaged the country round Acre, and then proceeded to Sajecte, in whose strong castle were Louis and most of the army. The blood and property of the citizens satisfied the Moslems, who departed without trying the valour of the French in garrison.

Perpetual disappointment gradually desiccated the spring of hope, and the king turned his mind to France. His friends marked his change of purpose, and news from Europe of the death of his royal mother, the regent of his kingdom, made him openly proclaim his resolution to return. The patriarch and barons of Palestine offered him their humble thanks and praise for the great good and honour he had conferred on the Holy Land; and, shortly after Easter, he embarked for the West. Louis IX gathered no new laurels in his transmarine expedition. All that was great and chivalric in France had been spread out in martial array, and had met with little else than discomfiture and defeat. In the course of Louis’ stay at Joppa, the sultan of Damascus sent him permission to visit Jerusalem. The king ardently desired to behold the sacred places, and was slow in allowing considerations of policy to conquer selfish feelings. The reason which dissuaded him from the journey, was, that if he should perform a pilgrimage to Jerusalem without delivering it from the enemies of God, every subsequent crusading monarch would think a similar proceeding sufficient, and would not consider himself obliged to perform more than what the king of France had done. St. Louis was also reminded that Richard Cœur de Lion refused to behold Jerusalem as a pilgrim.

THE CHRISTIANS QUARREL AMONG THEMSELVES

[1255-1259 A.D.]

All the blood which had been shed, and all the treasure which France had lavished for the crusade of St. Louis, did not long preserve the Christians in Palestine from the hostilities of the Mussulmans, and, as no new succours arrived from Europe, the barons and knights were compelled, in some cases, to keep within the shelter of their fortresses, and at other times to make disadvantageous treaties with their foe. Although it was evident that nothing but unanimity in the holy warriors could preserve the remnants of the kingdom of Godfrey de Bouillon from annihilation, yet the Christians wasted their strength in party collisions, instead of watching the politics of the Saracenian courts, and gathering those branches of power which their enemies, in their ambitious feuds, continually broke from the tree of Islamism. The haughty republicans of Italy would never enter into any common bond of union, and the Venetians, the Pisans, and the Genoese had frequent hostile encounters, respecting the possession of churches to which each nation asserted her claims. The two great military orders only forgot their mutual jealousies when in the field they were opposed to the Moslems, but in every interval of peace, the knights, incapable of any exertions or thoughts but those which war inspired, gratified their arrogance and restlessness in disputes touching military prowess and precedency. As reason did not give birth to these altercations, she did not control the decision.

A German Crusader, Thirteenth Century

The jealousy and rancour of the Hospitallers and Red Cross knights were frequently aggravated by irregular skirmishes, and at length the kindred squadrons met in a general engagement. Victory sat on the helms of the cavaliers of St. John; few prisoners were taken, and scarcely a Templar escaped alive. But new companions from Europe gradually filled the places of the deceased brethren. New occasions demanded all their valour and skill, and civil discord was lost amidst the more honourable war with the real enemies of the state.

A blood-stained revolution in Egypt had placed the mameluke chief Bibars, or Bundukdari, on the throne of that country; he was well disposed to lead his savage mamelukes against the Christians, and his ferocity did not want the excitement which the military orders gave it, of refusing, contrary to treaty, to deliver to him some Mohammedan prisoners. His soldiers, as savage as the Khwarizmians, demolished the churches of Nazareth, and the fortress and church on Mount Tabor. They made their way to the gates of Acre with fire and sword, and such of the Christians as were immediately slain were not so much objects of compassion as the prisoners on whom the Turks inflicted every description of torture, in order to force a change of religion. Though Acre itself was saved for a few years, yet Cæsarea did not escape the wide-spreading calamities. Through these dreadful scenes the military orders fought with their usual heroism, and in the sieges of the strong fortresses of Azotus and Saffuria, the spirit of devotion which they manifested to their cause had never been equalled. The small force of ninety Hospitallers held possession of the former of these places. The number gradually diminished on each renewed assault, and when the Turks mounted the breach, they trampled on the bodies of the last of the knights.

After ravaging the neighbourhood of Acre, Tyre, and Tripolis, the Egyptians laid siege to the fortress of Saffuria. The fall of that place was inevitable, and the prior of the Templars therefore agreed to capitulate, and, on the surrender being made, the knights and garrison, altogether amounting to six hundred men, were to be conducted to the next Christian town. The sultan was invested with lordship over the fortress, but he violated the conditions of the surrender, and left the knights only a few hours to determine on the alternative of death or conversion to Islam. The prior and two Franciscan monks were earnest in fixing the faith of the religious cavaliers, and, at the appointed time for the declaration of their choice, they unanimously avowed their determination to die rather than incur the dishonour of apostacy. The decree for the slaughter of the Templars was pronounced and executed; and the three preachers of martyrdom were flayed alive.

HISTORY OF ANTIOCH (1206-1268 A.D.)

[1206-1268 A.D.]

Before we continue our review of the calamities of Palestine, a retrospect must be taken of a principality whose fate was closely connected with that of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Bohemond IV continued to be the reputed lord of Antioch, from the year 1206 till the time of his death in 1233. But for many years during this interval he did not exercise any royal authority, for he was a tyrant, and was both hated by the people and excommunicated by the clergy. His nephew Rupin, the right heir, was aided by the papal legate, who was present at the great siege of Damietta, in the year 1218, and made several attempts to recover his thrones of Antioch and Tripolis; but he died some years before Bohemond, in a prison at Tarsus, into which he had been cast by Constantius, nominal regent of Antioch, and guardian of Isabella, daughter and successor of Livon, king of Armenia. From Bohemond IV and his first wife Plaisance, daughter of the lord of Gabala, Bohemond V descended. To him succeeded Bohemond VI. It does not appear that the family of the Bohemonds were entire masters of the principality and county from the year 1233 till their absorption in the Egyptian power. It is certain that Bohemond V was reigning over Antioch and Tripolis in 1244, when he became tributary to the Khwarizmians; and that in 1253 Bohemond VI was made a knight by St. Louis, and was considered lawful prince of Antioch, though he was a minor, and under his mother’s tutelage. But it is equally certain that at times, from 1233 to 1288, Frederick and Conrad, a son and grandson of the emperor Frederick II, had possession of all or part of the states of Antioch and Tripolis.

RAVAGES OF BIBARS

[1268-1269 A.D.]

We may now resume the thread of the general history. Joppa and the castle of Beaufort were the mameluke conquests which succeeded in point of time to those of Azotus and Saffuria.

The tempest at length burst upon the state of Antioch; and the city of that principality yielded without even the formality of a siege (1268). The reproach of treachery is alternately cast upon the patriarch and the inhabitants; and heavy is the disgrace of causing an event which occasioned the destruction of forty thousand, and the captivity of one hundred thousand Christians. Bibars ravaged the country round Tyre; but being equally religious and cruel, he gave the Franks a respite by pilgrimising to the holy places in Arabia. He soon, however, resumed his fell purpose of exterminating the Christians; Laodicea and many other places submitted to him; and the knights of St. John gained immortal honour by their brave, though fruitless, defence of the fortress of Karak, between Arca and Tortosa. The prince of Tripolis preserved his title by the sacrifice of half of his territory. Acre was saved in consequence of the reported succour of the king of Cyprus. Bibars returned to Cairo, hastily fitted out a fleet for the conquest of the island, which was without the presence of its monarch. But his ships were lost in a tempest; Cairo was overwhelmed with sorrow, and none of his efforts could re-establish affairs.

SECOND CRUSADE AND DEATH OF LOUIS IX

[1269-1270 A.D.]

Before the news of the capture of Antioch reached Europe, the people of the West had contemplated a new crusade. St. Louis thought that his first expedition to the Holy Land brought more shame on France than good on the Christian cause; and he feared that his own personal fame had withered. The pope encouraged his inclinations for a new attempt. England was at that time in a state of repose, and her martial youth were impatient of indolence. Prince Edward, with the earls of Warwick and Pembroke, received the holy ensign. The assumption of the cross by the heir of the English throne spread great joy throughout France. He was invited to Paris; the co-operation of the English and French was determined upon; and Louis lent his youthful ally thirty thousand marks on the security of the customs of Bordeaux. The prelates and clergy of England agreed to contribute a tenth of their revenue for three years; and by a parliamentary ordinance, a twentieth part was taken from the corn and movables which the laity possessed at Michaelmas. A crusade had for many years been popular in England. During the first expedition of St. Louis, and soon after the departure of William Longsword, Henry III engaged to fight under the sacred banners. But he was slow in preparing to go to the Holy Land; and the public murmured the suspicion that he had only assumed the cross as a pretence for collecting money. It was found that five hundred knights had been crossed; and the number of inferior people could not be counted. The holy warriors resolved to commence their voyage at midsummer; but the king had anticipated all their proceedings; and he declared that if they dared to march without him the thunders of the Vatican should be hurled against them. Some people submitted to, and others clamoured at this menace of papal interference; and the religious ardour of the most enthusiastic was cooled by the king’s delays, and the news of the disastrous events in Egypt. The pope and king were deaf to the reproaches of the French nation that indifference to Christianity could be the only motive for obstructing the pious wishes of the English people.[78] The king’s poverty was ever the alleged cause of his remissness; and two years after his dissolution of the association of English knights, he endeavoured to extort money from the clergy on the pretence of a journey to Syria. But they resisted his demands; and reproached him with his avarice and violation of oaths.

DEATH OF ST. LOUIS

Anticipating the laurel of victory, or the crown of martyrdom, St. Louis spread his sails for the Holy Land in 1270. Sixty thousand soldiers were animated by their monarch’s feelings of religious and military ardour; and we may remark among the leaders the lords of Flanders, Champagne, and Brittany. The fleet was driven into Sardinia; and at that place a great change was made in the plan of operations. The king of Tunis had formerly sent ambassadors to Louis, and expressed a wish to embrace the only true religion. Northern Africa had formerly paid a pecuniary tribute to the sovereign of the Two Sicilies; and Charles of Anjou, the reigning monarch, concealing his selfishness under the garb of piety and justice, strongly urged his brother to restore the rights of Christendom. The soldiers too, now more greedy of plunder and revenge than zealous in bigotry, entreated to be led to Tunis. The subjugation of the Mussulmans in Africa was declared to be a necessary preliminary to successes in Palestine; the French soon reached the first object of their hopes; and the camp and town of Carthage were the earliest rewards of victory. But every sanguine expectation was damped when a pestilential disease spread its ravages through the Christian ranks.

The great stay of the Crusades fell August, 1270. During his illness Louis ceased not to praise God, and supplicate for the people whom he had brought with him. He became speechless; he then gesticulated what he could not utter; he perpetually made signs of the cross, stretched himself on the floor, which was covered with ashes; and in the final struggle of nature he turned his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, “I will enter thy house, I will worship in thy sanctuary.”

PRINCE EDWARD LEAVES ENGLAND

Before this calamitous event Prince Edward, Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster, four earls, four barons, and the English division, had not only arrived in Africa, but had left it for Sicily, in despair that their French compeers would ever march to Palestine. The winter season was passed by Prince Edward in military exercises, and in the various occupations of chivalry, and in the following spring he turned his prow up the Mediterranean and arrived at Acre.

The whole of the forces of Edward did not exceed one thousand men. But the prowess of the Plantagenets was dreaded by the Mussulmans; and they feared that another Cœur de Lion was come to scourge them. The sultan of Egypt departed from the vicinity of Acre, which he had devastated with fire and sword. All the Latins in Palestine crowded round the banner of the English prince; and he took the field at the head of seven thousand men. The city of Nazareth was redeemed; and he surprised and defeated a large Turkish force. Edward was brave and provident, and owed his success as much to his skill as to his courage. But he was not less cruel than any preceding hero of the holy wars; and he gave a dreadful earnest of that savage implacability which Scotland afterwards so often rued. The barbarities which stained the entry of the Christians into Jerusalem, two centuries before, were repeated in a smaller theatre of cruelty in Nazareth.

[1271-1272 A.D.]

But the march of victory was closed, for the English soldiers were parched by the rays of a Syrian sun, and their leader was extended on the bed of sickness. The governor of Joppa was the apparent friend of Edward, but the sultan’s threat of degradation, if further commerce were held with an infidel, changed courtesy into malignity. He hired an assassin who, as the bearer of letters, was admitted into the chamber of his intended victim. After receiving two or three wounds, the vigorous prince threw the villain on the floor and stabbed him to the heart. The dagger had been steeped in poison, and for some hours Edward’s fate was involved in danger. The fairy hand of fiction has ascribed his convalescence to his queen.[79]

After the English prince had been fourteen months in Acre, the sultan of Egypt offered peace, for wars with the Moslem powers engrossed his military strength. Edward gladly seized this occasion of leaving the Holy Land, for his force was too small for the achievement of great actions, and his father had implored his return to England. The hostile commanders signed accordingly a treaty for a ten years’ suspension of arms; the lords of Syria disarrayed their warlike front, and the English soldiers quitted Palestine for their native country (July, 1272).

VAIN EFFORTS OF GREGORY X

[1274-1291 A.D.]

At the time when Palestine began to breathe from the horrors of war, hope once more raised her head in consequence of the election to the chair of St. Peter falling upon Theobald, archdeacon of Liège. The choice of the cardinals was made known to him while he was in Palestine. He impatiently transported himself to Italy, and so ardent was his zeal that his endeavours for a crusade even preceded his introduction to the pontificate. The trumpet of war again was heard among the nations. The blast was however only faintly echoed. The republics of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, and the city of Marseilles, agreed to furnish a few galleys and twenty-five thousand marks of silver were obtained from Philip the Hardy on mortgage of the Templars’ estates in France. The masters of the military friars and Red Cross knights went to Rome, and convinced their papal friend that these succours would be too inconsiderable to enable the Christians to drive infidels out of Palestine.

Again was the Christian world assembled, and the council of Lyons (May 1274) decreed the obligation of a new crusade. But Pope Gregory died within two years after the sitting of the Lyonese council, and all thoughts of a crusade were dropped when the life of its great promoter closed.

Palestine however was at peace. Hugh III, king of Cyprus, a lineal descendant of the princess Alice, had been crowned king of Jerusalem at Tyre, a short time before the death of Conradin, the last unhappy descendant of that house of Germany, of which three emperors had supported and adorned holy wars. The Templars befriended Charles of Anjou, but the Hospitallers, with more virtue than was generally shown, declared that they could not fight against any Christian prince, and contended that the claims for succession to the kingdom ought to be deferred till the kingdom itself should be recovered. In the fourth year of the peace which the valiant prince Edward had gained for Palestine, the mameluke chief and king Bundukdari, died.

In the reign of Kalaun, the third sultan in succession to him who had torn so many cities from the Christians, the war was renewed (1280), and after a few years of dreadful preparation the living cloud of war burst upon the Christians. Margat was captured; but so brave had been the resistance of the knights that it procured them a safe and honourable retreat to the neighbouring town of Tortosa (1287), and the sultan, dreading even the possibility of future opposition, razed the fortress.

PROGRESS OF THE MAMELUKES

With rapid and certain steps the power of the Latins approached its fatal termination. The city of Tripolis, that last remaining satellite of the kingdom of Jerusalem, was taken in 1289; its houses were burned, its works dismantled, and its people murdered or retained in slavery. Acre once more became the principal possession of the Christians. The sultan concluded a treaty of peace with Henry II of Cyprus, who had driven away the lieutenants and soldiers of Charles, and had been acknowledged king of Jerusalem.

The grand-master crossed the Mediterranean in order to infuse his martial spirit into the people of the West. Pope Nicholas IV heard with coldness the dismal tale. He declined to open the treasury of St. Peter for the advancement of the Christian cause, and he gave his noble friend only fifteen hundred men—the offscourings of Italy. Circular letters were sent to the different European potentates, but the light which once shone upon the holy cause had waned; cavaliers no longer thronged round the cross, and the grand-master was compelled to return to Palestine, accompanied only by his Italian banditti. When they arrived at Acre, the city was in the greatest state of turbulence. Within its walls were crowded the wretched remains of those kingdoms and principalities which had been won by the blood of the West. Every distinct people occupied a particular division, and, in the assertion of individual privileges, general interests were forgotten.

[1291-1300 A.D.]

The sultan died before his preparations of vengeance were completed; but his son Khalil was not less anxious than his father to exterminate the infidel miscreants. In April, 1291, nearly two hundred thousand mameluke Tatars of Egypt marched into Palestine, and encamped before Acre, exactly on the same ground upon which a century before assembled Europe had stood. To avoid the dreadful consequences of war, a large part of the population embarked in the numerous vessels which at that time rode at anchor in the harbour, and the defence of the place was left to the care of about twelve thousand soldiers. The garrison was speedily reinforced by a few hundred men, headed by Henry II of Cyprus, who boasted the ideal title of king of Jerusalem. But the Christians beheld their towers yielding to the mines and battering-rams. The pusillanimous monarch, seizing a few ships, sailed to Cyprus. With the morn, the mamelukes renewed the attack. Most of the German cavaliers died upon the breach; the others slowly left the walls, and the firmness of their little phalanx checked the foe. The Hospitallers chased back the mamelukes, and even forced them headlong into the ditch. But the sultan was prodigal of blood. His battalions marched to the breach, and in a few hours the entry into the city was repeatedly lost and won by the Christians and infidels.

Under the cover of a few cross-bowmen, the knights of St. John, seven only were the remnant, embarked, and left forever the scene of their virtue and their valour. Their brethren in arms, the Templars, were equally brave, and their fate was equally disastrous. Their resistance was so firm, that the sultan was compelled to promise them a free and honourable departure. But the insults of some low Saracenian people irritated the cavaliers; the sword again was drawn, and such of the Templars as survived the conflict, fled into the interior country. The unarmed population of Acre hurried to the coast; but the elements co-operated with the devastating spirit of the Turks, and the tempestuous waves refused shelter to the fugitives. While gnashing with despair, the people beheld their town in flames. The ruthless hand of death fell upon them, and the sea shore of Palestine again drank torrents of Christian blood.

TOTAL LOSS OF THE HOLY LAND

Tyre, Berytus, and other towns, were awed into submission. The Turks swept all Palestine, and murdered or imprisoned all the Christians who could not fly to Cyprus. The memory of the Templars is embalmed, for the last struggle for the Holy Land was made by the Red Cross knights. Such as escaped from Acre went to Sis, in Armenia. A Mussulman general drove them to the island of Tortosa, whence they escaped to Cyprus, and the cry of religious war no longer rung through Palestine.

The loss of the Holy Land did not fill Europe with those feelings of grief and indignation which the fall of Jerusalem, an hundred years before, had occasioned. The flame of fanaticism had slowly burned out. During the thirteenth century, the territorial possessions of the Christians in Palestine gradually diminished; the expeditions and reinforcements were in consequence less vigorous, for, both politically and personally, the people of the West declined in their interest in respect of the affairs of the East. Pope Nicholas IV endeavoured to revive holy undertakings; but the kings of Europe were deaf or disobedient. As Genoa was allied to the Grecian emperor, Venice sought the friendship of the Mussulmans. The mamelukes gave their Christian brothers a church, an exchange, and a magazine in Alexandria; and the Venetians carried on the lucrative but disgraceful trade of furnishing the Egyptian market with male and female slaves from Georgia and Circassia.

[1299-1413 A.D.]

Heralds of the Crusaders

There was some pretence for the preaching of a crusade by Pope Boniface VIII in the year 1300. Kazan, the Mongol sultan of Persia, resolved to exterminate the mamelukes of Egypt. He allied himself with the kings of Georgia, Armenia, and Cyprus. In 1299 the fortunes of war smiled on the allies; but still the success not being so great as what he had expected, Kazan sent to the pope, soliciting the more powerful alliance of the princes of the West, and agreeing that when Palestine was recovered, it should be retained by the Christians. The project, though warmly patronised by the pope, proved abortive. In the interim, the tide of victory flowed in favour of the Egyptians. Kazan died about the year 1303.

From the commencement, till past the middle of the fourteenth century, the popes repeatedly sounded the charge; but the West in most cases disregarded the summons of its ghostly instructor; and it was evident that, although the papal rulers could fan, they could not create the sacred flame. At the time when the loss of the Holy Land became known in Europe, the people had not recovered from the astonishment and terror with which the victories of Jenghiz Khan and his successors had filled the West. Part of Russia, the whole of Poland, Silesia, Moravia, Hungary and all the countries to the eastward of the Adriatic Sea, fell a prey to barbaric desolation. Several of the popes attempted in vain to soften the ferocity of these new foes; but the papal legates were dismissed with the tremendous command, for Rome herself to submit her neck to the Mongol yoke.

Though Europe in general felt that in the fall of Acre all was lost, yet despair did not immediately complete his triumph, for chivalry and policy sometimes endeavoured to revive the religious spark. If Pope John XXII had not been too open in the display of his avarice, and too prodigal in the commutation of vows for money, the knights of Germany would once more have fought under the glorious ensign of the cross. A threatened invasion from England (1328 A.D.) deterred Philip de Valois from leaving his country for Palestine, and a large body of crusaders was dispersed when (1364 A.D.) John Le Bon of France died, on whom the pope intended to have conferred the title of commander of the new crusaders. The politic Henry IV[80] of England wished to “busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels,” in order to divert his people from looking too nearly into his state, and to retain their newly sworn allegiance. Both his maritime and military preparations were considerable; but the hand of nature stopped him and it was his fate to succumb to death, before he could attempt to commence his new religious career.

FATE OF THE MILITARY ORDERS

[1291-1600 A.D.]

Such were the last appearances of that martial frenzy which so long agitated Europe; and here the history of the holy wars would naturally close, if curiosity did not suggest an inquiry into some of those military and religious orders which arose from the spirit of pilgrimages and crusades, and whose existence forms one of the most prominent characteristics of the Middle Ages. The knights of the Teutonic order were fixed in their conquest of Prussia, some years before the loss of the Holy Land. Their love of war was not extinguished; they carried both the sword and the Gospel into Pomerania; and the eastern part of that country was definitively ceded to the order by a treaty of peace in the year 1343. The town of Dantzic, the capital of the new conquest, was considerably aggrandised under the dominion of the knights, and became one of the principal places of commerce on the Baltic. Pressed forward again by religion and ambition, they made war on the infidel Lithuanians, but it was not till the beginning of the fifteenth century, and after rivers of blood had flowed, that the pagans lost their independence, and relinquished their national superstition. But the oppressive government of the knights; their intestine divisions; their heavy imposts, the unhappy result of wars continually reviving, encouraged the nobility of Prussia and Pomerania to confederate, and to seek the protection of the kings of Poland. The torch of war was rekindled, the knights were defeated, and by the peace of Thorn in 1466 all Pomerania, and indeed all the country which is generally called Polish Prussia, was ceded to Poland. The order was allowed to preserve the west of Prussia by the tenure of feudal service to the kings of Poland.

The Teutonic knights thus lost Prussia; their name appears on few occasions in the history of Europe, and the order became only a “cheap defence of nations.” Pope Innocent VIII in the year 1490 endeavoured to suppress the order of the Knights of St. Lazarus. In Italy, perhaps he succeeded, but not in any other country. The bull was resisted by the knights of France and till the reign of Henry IV they were independent and elected their own grand-masters.

KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN

[1291-1310 A.D.]

After the loss of Acre, the knights of St. John and the Temple, from every preceptory and commandery in Europe, flocked to Cyprus, impatient for glory and revenge. The military friars soon quitted their settlements in Cyprus. The grand-master of the Hospitallers gained the friendship and the purse of Pope Clement V, and drew a flattering picture of Christian prosperity, if the cavaliers of St. John could set up their banners in some island in the Mediterranean. Rhodes was fixed upon. Fifteen years subsequently to the loss of Acre, a new crusade was published, and the volunteers were invited to repair to Brundusium. The king of Sicily and the republic of Genoa furnished transports. The grand-master headed the army, but it was not until after they had sailed, that the crusaders knew the object of the armament. Rhodes was at that time in the power, partly of the Greeks and partly of the Saracens. The soldiers landed; many battles were fought, and the army of the invaders was at last reduced to the military friars. Their chief hired new soldiers, recommenced his attacks, and the whole island submitted to his authority (1310). The subsequent history of the knights of St. John is interwoven with the general history of Europe.

THE TEMPLARS IN FRANCE

[1307-1311 A.D.]

While the military friars were planning the acquisition of an equivalent to their loss in Palestine, most of the Red Cross knights gradually left Cyprus, returned to their different commanderies, and lived in security and indolence. But circumstances soon made the Templars repent that they had not, like the Hospitallers, attempted a renewal of hostilities with the infidels. Philip the Fair, king of France, acquainted Pope Clement V, that the order of the knights Templar had been accused of heresy and various other crimes against religion and morals. Some members had charged their fraternity with the different abominations of treachery, murder, idolatry, and Islamism. Philip the Fair took the bold step of imprisoning all the knights Templar whom his officers could discover in France, and of sequestering their property. Clement then circulated a bull throughout Christendom, by which instrument of papal authority, nuncios and the resident clergy were commanded to inquire into the conduct of the knights. His holiness says that, pressed by public clamour and by the declarations of the king, the barons, the clergy, and laity of France, he had examined seventy-two members of the order, and had found them all guilty, though in various degrees, of irreligion and immorality. Such of the knights as yielded to blandishments and threats were pardoned, but the torture was applied to those who denied the charges, and thirty-six knights in Paris heroically braved the horrors of the rack, and maintained the innocence of the order, till death closed their sufferings and their virtue. Others confessed in the midst of corporeal agony, and afterwards recanted their confessions. The knights Templar were accused of renouncing, at the time of their matriculation, God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin, and all the saints. It was said that the brethren used often to spit and trample on the cross, in proof of their contempt of Christ, who was crucified for his own crimes and not for the sins of the world. Out of their disdain of God and his Son, they adored a cat, and certain wooden and golden idols. The master could absolve brethren from sins. On the assurance that the king would destroy the order, whether the result of the examinations were favourable or hostile to its continuance, many knights had yielded to pain and hopelessness, stayed the hand of the executioner, confessed every crime, upon their confessing of which, royal pardon and protection were proffered. The court condemned to perpetual imprisonment those from whom no confession of guilt had been extorted. But such as had retracted their forced avowals were declared to be relapsed heretics; they were delivered over to the secular power, and condemned to the fire (May 11th, 1310). The number in the last-mentioned class of the proscribed was fifty-four. All the historians who have spoken of the event, whatever opinion they might have entertained on the general question, friends or enemies, natives or strangers, have unanimously attested the virtuous courage, the noble intrepidity, and the religious resignation, which these martyrs of heroism displayed. Arrived at the place of punishment, they beheld with firmness and placidity the piles of wood, and the torches already lighted in the hands of the executioners. In vain a messenger of the king promised pardon and liberty to those who did not persist in their retractations; in vain their surrounding friends endeavoured to touch their hearts by prayers and tears. Invoking God, the Virgin, and all the saints, they sung the hymn of death; triumphing over the most cruel tortures, they believed themselves already in the heavens, and died in the midst of their songs.

IN OTHER COUNTRIES

[1311-1314 A.D.]

By royal command, the sheriffs of the different counties of England and Wales seized the estates, and imprisoned the persons of the Templars. The cavaliers were more than a year and a half in prison. At the end of that time a papal bull was received in England; and the archbishop of Canterbury appointed courts at London, York, and Lincoln, for the trial of the Templars, July, 1311. The charges were the same in substance as those which had been preferred against the order in France. Forty-seven of the knights who had been incarcerated in the Tower were examined upon oath before the bishop of London, some inferior clergy, and the representatives of the pope. William de la Moore, the grand prior of England, was as earnest as de Molay had been in defence of the French Templars.

Four knights made a general confession of crimes, when they were told that the pope had authorised a full pardon to those who acknowledged their iniquities; but that if they persisted in heresy, they should be considered and punished as heretics. Thirteen newly admitted knights swore that they were not acquainted with the secrets of the order, but that they were prepared to renounce all the erroneous opinions in which it was possible the minds of men could be stained. William de la Moore, the grand prior, was the only man whom no fear of imprisonment or dread of ecclesiastical punishment could induce to deny his first avowal of the innocence of the order. He was requested to make a general confession; but he replied that he was not guilty of heresy, and would never abjure crimes which he had not committed.

In Ireland about thirty Templars, in Scotland only two, were confined and examined. In Lincoln the number somewhat exceeded twenty. There were twenty-three in York. The general charges of apostasy and idolatry were not proved in any case. However, all the knights made a general confession of the offence of heresy, and avowed they could not cleanse themselves from the crimes mentioned in the bull. The clergy pardoned them, and received them again into the bosom of the church. They were then sent into confinement in various monasteries until the decision of a general council should be declared.

The fate of the Templars in other parts of the world remains to be told. In Germany the innocence of the order was proved before the archbishops of Mainz and Trèves, at councils held in their respective dioceses. In Italy the pope had a little more success. Several Templars at Florence confessed every species of abomination. Much blood was shed in Lombardy, Tuscany, Sicily, Naples, and Provence, whenever the knights would not be guilty of self-condemnation. In those parts of Spain where the conduct of the Templars was inquired into, the result was an acquittal. Their military front was powerful, and the ministers of papal vengeance did not dare to apply the torture.

COUNCIL AT VIENNE

Four years after the first seizure of the Templars in France a council was held at Vienne in Dauphiné, for the purpose of making some general decision on the case of the order, October, 1311. The pope headed three hundred bishops, and an untold number of inferior clergy. All men who desired to defend the order were promised security and freedom. Nine cavaliers presented themselves before the assembly in the character of representatives of fifteen hundred of their brethren, who were living at Lyons, and in the secret fastnesses of Savoy and Switzerland. Clement immediately violated his promise of protection, and threw the nine knights into prison. He then called upon the council for its opinion, whether in consequence of the confessions of the Templars the society ought not to be dissolved? With the disgraceful exception of one Italian prelate, and three French archbishops, the whole body of churchmen declared that so illustrious an order as that of the Red Cross knights ought not to be suppressed, until the grand-master and the nine knights had been heard in its defence. The pope disregarded the opinion of the majority; and tried in vain for six months to make a change.

THE ORDER SUPPRESSED

The king of France arrived at Vienne, and sanctioned by his presence, the pope declared that he should exercise the plenitude of papal authority. He accordingly dissolved the order provisionally and not absolutely, and reserved to himself the disposition of the persons and estates of the Templars. When the subject of the distribution of the knights’ Templar estates was debated in the council, the pope declared that they ought to be bestowed upon the Hospitallers, because the original purpose of the order was the subjugation of infidels, a purpose which the knights of Rhodes were earnestly pursuing.

The decree of confiscation was executed throughout Christendom. The Templars were robbed, but the Hospitallers did not enjoy the whole of the plunder. Philip the Fair, and his successor Louis le Hutin, retained nearly three hundred thousand livres [£12,000 or $60,000] for what they chose to term the expenses of the prosecution. The landed estates were slowly and unwillingly resigned, for the monarchs enjoyed the rents till the commissioners of the knights of Rhodes established their rights. In Germany the Teutonic knights assisted the Hospitallers in plundering those who had formerly been their brethren in arms in Palestine. Dinis, king of Portugal, preserved the order of the Red Cross knights, by changing their title from the soldiers of the Temple to that of the soldiers of Christ. Edward of England gave to different laymen much of the forfeited property. Numbers of the nobility too as heirs of the original donors seized many of the Templars’ estates. Indeed, so great was the injustice done to the Hospitallers, that Pope John XXII censured both the clergy and laity, for their disobedience to the decree of the council at Vienne.

The last circumstance which attended the fate of the Templars was the condemnation of the grand-master, Jacques de Molay.[81] With his dying lips he bore testimony to the virtue of the order; and his mental sufferings on account of his former want of firmness appeared to be greater than his mere corporeal pain. The brother of the prince of Dauphiné met with the same unhappy but honourable end as that of his friend Jacques de Molay. The two priors seem to have died in prison.[b]

THE CRUSADES IN THE WEST

[1230-1309 A.D.]

Having completed the survey of the vain efforts for the Holy Land, it will be well to glance at the contests springing up elsewhere on the same fanatic belief that orthodoxy was a matter of life and death.[a]

Though the Crusades met with failure in the East, in the West they achieved their purpose; that is, certain expeditions were highly successful; for example that of the Teutonic knights and sword-bearers into Prussia and the neighbouring regions, where they founded a new state; also Simon de Montfort’s war against the Albigenses which destroyed an ancient civilisation; and the struggle between the Spaniards and the Moors, as a result of which the latter were forced to surrender the peninsula over to Christianity and the civilisation of Europe.

It will be observed that the scene of action of the European Crusades was the two extremities of the continent; around the mouths of the Niemen the pagans of the Baltic were to be converted, and in the country washed by the Tagus, the Moslems of Spain.

THE TEUTONIC CRUSADE

In the interval between the First and Second Crusades some citizens of Bremen and Lübeck had journeyed to the Holy Land and there founded a hospital for their compatriots, which was exclusively under the management of Germans. In Palestine all benevolent institutions were obliged to assume the form of military organisations; thus the Hospitallers, or officials in charge of the hospitals, became the knights of St. John, and the inmates of the temple of Solomon, the knights Templar. The German hospitallers also became transformed into an armed religious body that was called the Teutonic order. Like both the others, this order soon acquired vast properties in Europe, especially in Germany, and the emperor Frederick II raised its grand-master to the rank of prince of 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

[1167-1208 A.D.]

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 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).

[1208-1228 A.D.]

“Anathema on the count of Toulouse,” cried 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

[732-1096 A.D.]

Before, during, and after the great Crusades 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.

[1072-1146 A.D.]

At Sancho’s death Spain was divided into four 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.

[1146-1270 A.D.]

The invasion of the Almohads was similar in 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 Joinville[f] 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 Paris[c] 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

[1096-1291 A.D.]

No religious wars have ever been so long, so 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.

German Crusader of the Early Crusades

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 ardour, but did not affect the general course 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.

Crusader of the Last Crusade

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 departure from the principles of shipbuilding 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 future period to the Turkish hordes, who were continually pressing more closely upon it. The Venetian Lion of St. Mark prepared the way, by the Fourth Crusade, for the Turks to enter Europe and spread themselves so widely in it. The Genoese, it is true, assisted one branch of the Greek emperors to re-ascend the throne: but it was the throne of a weakened, broken empire, which fell an easy prey to the Turks; then both the Venetians and Genoese lost their best possessions, and finally almost all their trade, in the Mediterranean and Euxine seas.

Chivalry arose not from the Crusades, but the Crusades from chivalry: the flower of French and Norman knighthood appeared in Palestine in the first campaign. The Crusades, indeed, contributed rather to rob chivalry of its proper honours, and to convert real armed knights into mere armorial ones. For in Palestine many assumed the crested helmet, which in Europe they durst not have borne: they brought home with them armorial devices and nobility, which they transmitted to their families, and thus introduced a new class, the nobility of the herald’s office, and in time also nobility by letters patent. As the number of the ancient dynasties, the true equestrian nobility, lessened, these new men sought to obtain possessions and hereditary prerogatives, like them: they carefully enumerated their ancestors, acquired dignities and privileges, and in a few generations assumed the title of ancient nobility; though they had not the slightest pretensions to rank with those dynasties which were princes to them. Every man that bore arms in Palestine might become a knight: the first Crusades were years of general jubilee for Europe. These new nobles in right of military service were soon of great use to growing monarchy, which cunningly knew how to avail itself of them against such of the superior vassals as still remained. Thus passion balances passion, and one appearance counteracts another: and at length the nobility of the camp and the court totally obliterated the ancient chivalry.

The arts and sciences, too, were nowise promoted by the proper crusaders. The disorderly troops that first flocked to Palestine had not the least notion of them; and were not likely to acquire them in the suburbs of Constantinople, or from the Turks and mamelukes in Asia. In the succeeding campaigns we need not reflect on the short time the armies passed there, and the wretched circumstances under which this time was often spent merely on the confines of the country, to dissipate the splendid dream of great discoveries imported thence. The pendulum clock, which the emperor Frederick II received as a present from Kamil, did not introduce gnomonics into Europe; the Grecian palaces, which the crusaders admired in Constantinople, did not improve the style of European architecture. Some crusaders, particularly Frederick I and II, laboured to promote the progress of knowledge: but Frederick I did this ere he beheld Asia; and the short visit paid that country by Frederick II served only as a fresh stimulus to urge him forward in that course of government which he had long before chosen. Not one of the spiritual orders of knighthood introduced any new knowledge into Europe, or contributed to its cultivation.

All that can be said in favour of the Crusades, therefore, is confined to a few occasions, on which they co-operated with causes already existing, and involuntarily promoted them.

(1) As multitudes of wealthy vassals and knights repaired to the Holy Land in the first campaigns, and many of them never returned, their estates were of course sold or swallowed up by others. By this they profited who could, the liege lord, the church, the cities already established, each after his own manner: this promoted and accelerated the course of things, tending to confirm the regal power by the erection of a middle class, but was by no means its commencement.

(2) Men became acquainted with countries, people, religions, and constitutions of which they were before ignorant; their narrow sphere of vision was enlarged; they acquired new ideas, new impulses. Attention was drawn to things which would otherwise have been neglected; what had long existed in Europe was employed to better purpose; and as the world was found to be wider than had been supposed, curiosity was excited after a knowledge of its remotest parts. The mighty conquests made by Jenghiz Khan in the north and east of Asia attracted men’s eyes chiefly towards Tatary; whither Marco Polo the Venetian, Rubruquis (Guillaume de Rubrouck), the Frenchman, and John de Plano Carpino (Giovanni Piano Carpini), an Italian, travelled with very different views: the first, for the purpose of trade; the second, to satisfy royal curiosity; the third, sent by the pope, to make converts of the people. These travels, of course, have no connection with the Crusades, before and after which they were undertaken. The Levant itself is less known to us from these expeditions, than might have been expected: the accounts the Orientals give of it, even in the period when Syria swarmed with Christians, are still indispensable to us.

(3) Finally, in this holy theatre Europeans became better acquainted with one another, though not in a manner much to be prized. With this more intimate acquaintance kings and princes for the most part brought home an implacable enmity: in particular the wars between England and France derived from them fresh fuel. The unfortunate experiment, that a Christian republic could and might contend in unison against infidels, formed a precedent for similar wars in Europe, which have since extended to other quarters of the globe. At the same time it cannot be denied that, while the neighbouring powers of Europe obtained a closer inspection of their mutual weaknesses and strength, some obscure hints were given for a more comprehensive policy, and a new system of relationship in peace and war. Everyone was desirous of wealth, trade, conveniences, and luxuries; as an uncultivated mind is prone to admire these in strangers, and envy them in the hands of another. Few, who returned from the East, could be satisfied with European manners; even their heroism left much behind, awkwardly imitated Asia in the West, or longed for fresh travels and adventures. For the actual and permanent good produced by any event is always proportionate to its consonancy with reason.

Unfortunate would it have been for Europe if, at the time its military swarms were contending for the Holy Sepulchre in a corner of Syria, the arms of Jenghiz Khan had been sooner and more powerfully turned toward the West. Then probably our quarter of the globe would have been the prey of the Mongols, like Poland and Russia; and its nations might have dislodged, with the pilgrim’s staff in their hands, to tell their beads round the object of their contention.[b]

GIBBON ON THE RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES

As soon as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in the Mohammedan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the valour, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics were at length honoured with a Greek version. But the national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution; and the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.

If we compare, at the era of the Crusades, the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East. Yet in a reign of sixty years the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia.

The principle of the Crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the Inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.

The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country; the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with the climates of the East.

In one respect we can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the Crusades, not so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. Among the cause that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous place must be allowed to the Crusades. The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagration, which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest, gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of the soil.[d]

FOOTNOTES

[82] In the entertaining romance of Le Renard, written in the thirteenth century, it is said, that foreign pilgrimages had done no good to anybody, and that many good people had been made bad by them. In tracing the history of morals, it is curious to observe, that Piers Ploughman speaks of pilgrims and palmers, who on their return have leave to tell lies all the rest of their lives.

---

APPENDIX. FEUDALISM

[800-1450 A.D.]

To the average mind the term Middle Ages is a synonym for chaos. And, compared with the periods before and after, it is indeed chaos. But, in a sense, all human history is “without form,” even if not “void,” and the comparative simplicity which we see in certain periods is arrived at chiefly by a process of the cancellation of numberless confusing details and the concentration of the attention on certain large and picturesque personages or movements which were actually far from holding such stark and eminent importance in the eyes of contemporaries.

Thus in the case of Alexander’s conquest of that little segment of space which he called “the world,” to the contemporary Athenian, Alexander was almost a myth lost in the wilderness of the East as in a fog. The Athenian found his immediate troubles and triumphs in his own family, in his shop, in his deme. To myriads of other peoples, however, Alexander’s very existence was unknown; and splendid intrigues, superb politics, lofty feats of statecraft and of warfare were taking place far from the orbit of Alexander. These deeds were never chronicled, or the chronicles are lost, or perhaps only waiting discovery. Consequently we are ignorant of these confusing histories, and sum up in the exclusive phrase “Alexandrian epoch” a vast web of what were chaos, did we but know more of it.

But still, taking history as we have it, the Middle Ages torment and bewilder us with the variety and seeming unimportance of their events. They are called the Dark Ages, though, upon a closer look, they deserve the name no more than the Night herself with all her revelation of the stars which the Day absorbs in the one central splendour of the sun.

Let the name of Dark Ages stand, however, though it must not be forgotten that human history at least dreamed and walked in this apparent sleep. There is no lack of chronicle and no lack of action. Nor, in spite of the common idea, was there lack of progress. The barbarians had come down in avalanches of stolid clay upon the gardens of civilisation. During the seeming idleness the seeds were at work and ideals were busily thrusting upward till of a sudden they burst forth in that springtime known as the Renaissance.

The history of each major country is given, in this work, its own chronicle, but for the better comprehension of the forces that were making possible the Renaissance and driving mankind to cry aloud for a betterment of conditions, it will be useful to set apart for brief consideration certain special phases and forces of Middle Age life. It will make it the easier to comprehend that life was by no means without the ferment of progress during that period which we so arbitrarily cleave out of history and put aside as the Middle Age.

Throughout the various histories of modern nations will be found a discussion of the multiform phases of feudalism. It is desirable, however, to give it some isolated discussion, though necessarily brief. A guide might be found in the words of Bryce, whose definition of feudalism also makes a good beginning; and in the words of the philosopher Hegel:[a]

BRYCE AND HEGEL ON FEUDALISM

“This is not the place for tracing the origin of feudality on Roman soil, nor for showing how, by a sort of contagion, it spread into Germany, how it struck firm root in the period of comparative quiet under Pepin and Charles, how from the hands of the latter it took the impress which determined its ultimate form, how the weakness of his successors allowed it to triumph everywhere. Still less would it be possible here to examine its social and moral influence. Politically it might be defined as the system which made the owner of a piece of land, whether large or small, the sovereign of those who dwelt thereon; an annexation of personal to territorial authority more familiar to eastern despotism than to the free races of primitive Europe. On this principle were founded, and by it are explained, feudal law and justice, feudal finance, feudal legislation, each tenant holding towards his lord the position which his own tenants held towards himself. And it is just because the relation was so uniform, the principle so comprehensive, the ruling class so firmly bound to its support, that feudalism has been able to lay upon society that grasp which the struggles of more than twenty generations have scarcely shaken off.”[b]

The three steps by which feudalism was reached are thus broadly summed up by Hegel:

“While the first period of the German world ends brilliantly with a mighty empire, the second is commenced by the reaction resulting from the antithesis occasioned by that infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of the Middle Ages and constitutes their life and spirit. This reaction is, first, that of the particular nationalities against the universal sovereignty of the Frankish Empire, manifesting itself in the splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction is that of individuals against legal authority and the executive power—against subordination, and the military and judicial arrangements of the constitution. This produced the isolation and therefore defencelessness of individuals. The universality of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction; individuals sought protection with the powerful, and the latter became oppressors. Thus was gradually introduced a condition of universal independence, and this protecting relation was then systematised into the feudal system.”[c]

COMMENCEMENT OF THE FEUDAL RÉGIME

The true heirs of Charlemagne were not the kings of France, nor those of Germany and Italy, at first, but rather the feudal lords. Not only had the empire been dismembered after the deposition of Charles the Fat, but its composing kingdoms and even its great fiefs as well. Dukes and counts had been quite as powerless as kings against the Northmen, Saxons, and Hungarians, and quite as unable to maintain the vast domains under their control. Populations whose leaders did not know how to bring them together for concerted action had acquired, little by little, the habit of depending upon themselves alone.

After having fled for a long time at the approach of the heathen to the woods among the wild beasts, some stout-hearted people had turned their heads and refused to abandon all their possessions without an attempt at defence. Here and there in mountain gorges, at river fords, on the hill overlooking the plain, entrenchments and walls were raised where the brave and the strong held out. An edict of 853 directed the counts and vassals of the king to repair their old castles and to build new ones. The country was soon covered with fortresses against which invaders flung themselves in vain. A few reverses quickly taught these bold adventurers prudence. They no longer dared to venture so far, to where these strongholds had sprung up from the ground on all sides, and the new invasion meeting with fresh obstacles and difficulties came to an end in the following century. It was not until afterwards that the masters of these castles became the terror of the countryside they had once helped to save.

A Feudal Castle

Feudalism, so oppressive in its age of decline, had therefore its time of lawful and just existence. All power is raised up by its virtues and falls by its abuse.

But what was the new régime? We have seen the matter of acquiring and holding property become more uniform among barbarian nations, by the settlement of heredity upon lands ceded by the king, and the law’s sanction given to another kind of usurpation—the heredity of the royal offices. It was generally the owners of freehold property or of royal lands who became the holders of these offices, which brought about the union of sovereignty and proprietorship in the same hands. This is essentially what constitutes feudalism.

In the absolute monarchy of the Roman Empire public offices in all degrees of the hierarchy were bestowed directly by the ruler, and their disposition remained always in his power, so that he could take them back when and under what condition he pleased. Furthermore the public official held neither the land of the province he governed nor the control of any particular piece of property that he might happen to own as a private citizen. He was bound therefore, as landlord, by the civil law applicable to the whole empire, and as governor, to the voluntary will of his sovereign. In the feudal régime it was exactly the opposite. The lord who enfeoffed, that is, conceded by title of sub-fief some portion of his own fief, gave up entirely to the grantee or vassal the property and its control, and it could not be taken back unless the vassal failed to perform some part of the agreement made at the time of receiving the investiture.

One lord might obtain land from another and thus become his vassal. The former had to go to the latter, and between the two there took place the ceremony known as homage. Kneeling before his future lord, with their hands together, the future vassal proclaimed loudly that he would be the other’s homme, or man, that is to say, that he would be attached and devoted to him, defend him with his own life, somewhat as the ancient leudes of Germany did towards their warrior chiefs. After this profession, which is homage in the original sense of the word, he took an oath of fidelity or faith to the lord, promising to fulfil the new duties required of him under the new title of homme of the lord. When he had contracted this double tie, the lord no longer feared to confide his land to a man so strongly bound to him, and gave it to him by investiture or seizin, accompanied with symbolic emblems—a sod of grass, a stone, or some other object according to the custom of the fief. “It is the custom,” says Otto von Freising,[e] “to deliver up kingdoms by the sword, and provinces by the standard.” This three-part ceremony of homage once completed, the reciprocal obligations began.

RECIPROCAL OBLIGATIONS OF VASSAL AND LORD

There were in the first place the moral obligations of the vassal towards his lord, such as keeping his secrets, revealing the machinations of his enemies, to give one’s horse to him in battle if he be unseated, to take his place in captivity, to respect and to cause his honour to be respected, to assist him with good counsel, etc. The material obligations, the services due from the vassal, were of several kinds.

(1) Military service. This was the very basis of the feudal relation and the principle of that state of society which does not contain permanent and organised armies. The vassal on the requisition of his lord was bound to follow him, either alone, or to bring such and such a number of men according to the importance of his fief. The duration of this service also was dependent on the same thing—it might be sixty, forty, or only twenty days—a system which did not permit of distant expeditions and could be employed only in neighbourhood or private wars. There were some fiefs where military service held only within the feudal domain, or could be called on only for purposes of defence.

(2) The “fiance,” or obligation to serve the lord in his court of justice. As under the feudal régime the lord replaced the states general, and was invested with the functions of public power, it was necessary in order to exercise these to hold at his command the forces disseminated through the hands of his vassals. War was one of these functions; justice was another.

KNIGHTS AND PEASANTS

The lord summonsed his men to court, and they had to attend, either to serve him with their advice or to take part in the judging of disputes brought before him, and they thus bound themselves to assistance in carrying out the judgments their own mouths had proclaimed.

(3) The “aids,” some legal and compulsory, others courteous and voluntary. Legal aids were usually demanded under three conditions—when the lord was a prisoner and required to pay a ransom, when he knighted his eldest son, and when he gave his eldest daughter in marriage. This aid took the place of the public imposts of ancient and modern legislatures, but as may be seen was of a totally different character. It was not, in fact, periodic or exacted in a regular manner for public needs; it had the appearance of a voluntary gift under certain peculiar circumstances. An annual tax would have seemed an affront to the vassals.

To these services must be added certain feudal rights by which the lord, in virtue of his sovereignty, intervened in any important change the ceded fief might undergo. Some of these were for him a new source of revenue. These rights were the relief, a sum of money due from every major individual who entered into possession of a fief by right of succession, and more particularly if that succession did not take place in line of direct descent; the right to the alienation tax, which he who sold or alienated his fief in any fashion must pay; the right of disinheritance and confiscation by which the fief reverted to the lord when the vassal died without heirs or when he had forfeited his fief or deserved for any reason to be deprived of it; the right of guardianship, by virtue of which the lord, during the minority of his vassal, undertook his tutelage and the administration of his fief, and enjoyed its revenue; the marriage right, that is to say, the right of the overlord to provide a husband for the heiress of a fief, and oblige her to choose from the suitors he presents.

The vassal who fulfilled his obligations fully and conscientiously was as nearly as possible master of his own fief. He could in turn enfeoff the whole or part of his domain, and become in turn the sovereign lord of vassals of a lower rank, or vavasseurs, holding towards him the same obligations as he to his own lord. Such was the fabric of the hierarchy.

If the vassal had his obligations, the lord also had his. He could not take back a fief arbitrarily or without a legitimate reason from his vassal. He must protect him if he were attacked, see that he received justice, etc.

Let us note that the feudal system in developing itself made a fief of everything. Every concession—for hunting in the forests, for ferrying across rivers, for acting as guides on the roads, for escorting merchants, for running communal ovens in the towns—every useful employment, in fact, conceded in return for fidelity and homage, became a fief.

Lords multiplied concessions of this kind in order to multiply the number of men owing them military service. But the fief itself, to which the rights of justice were attached, remained in general undivided and was handed down according to the laws of primogeniture.

FEUDAL JUSTICE

The obligation of the vassals to attend the courts of their lord has made it clear that the principle of feudal justice was trial by one’s peers, a principle which was entirely in the customs and even the institutions of the Germanic peoples, where freedmen were tried by an assembly of freedmen.

They called peers (pares, equals), vassals of the same lord settled around him on his domain, and holding fiefs of the same rank. The king himself had his peers who were those holding their estates directly from him, not only as feudal lord but as king. Each had the right to be judged by his peers before his lord. If the peers refused him justice or the vassal believed that it had been unfairly rendered, he made a complaint “in default of right,” and brought the matter to the attention of his lord’s suzerain. It was to this higher tribunal that it was necessary always to bring disputes which arose between a lord and his vassal.

But this right of appeal did not entirely satisfy the spirit of independence which animated this warlike society. The lords preserved with jealous care another right of appeal—that which is addressed to the power of arms; they preferred to obtain justice for themselves rather than receive it from the hands of others. So thoroughly was the custom enrooted in their manners that the king regulated the formalities which preceded this species of warfare and had for their object the warning of the party to be attacked and the giving of an opportunity to place himself in a state of defence. After all, our international wars proceed from the same principle and are no better. The lords waged their wars with their little armies as we with our greater ones. Only hostilities had a more individual character since the states were much smaller.[i]

Besides the Fehde or right of private warfare—an old Germanic custom—there was the “trial by combat,” which must not be confused with it. The true “judicial combat,” in which champions fight for a cause, or for the settlement of a quarrel, is a product of the Middle Ages, when faith in God was as strong as faith in the strength of the human arm. This custom became so universal a method of settlement of difficult questions that it was even used by Alfonso, the great Spanish lawgiver, to decide upon the introduction of new laws concerning inheritance. This much at least may be said in favour of it, that it was less of an evil than the torture which tended to supplant it in judicial proceedings in the later Middle Ages.[a]

Justice was not the prerogative of all the lords to the same extent. It was distinguished in France by three degrees, high, low, and middle justice. The first alone gave the right of life and death. In general it may be said it was the largest and most important fiefs that had powers of justice to the greatest extent. Still it was possible for a simple vavasseur to possess the functions of “high justice,” and in some places the lord who could dispense but “low justice” could punish with death the robber caught at his crime. Within these variable limits the lord alone dispensed justice on his fief, and when, later on, royalty usurped the right, there was a revolution.

To complete the enumeration of rights inherent in the sovereignty of the lords it is necessary to mention two: first, that of recognising throughout the whole extent of the fief no higher legislative power. We find in the last collection of laws made in the ninth century by Charles the Simple the final manifestation of law-bearing public power. After that, there were no laws, civil or political, to be applied generally, but only local customs, isolated, independent, and differing one from the other, in fact possessing a territorial character in distinction from those of the barbaric nations, which were entirely personal.

Second, the right to coin money, which was always a sign of lordship. Before Charlemagne it seems that some private individuals, who doubtless possessed the privilege, coined money. After him this was one of the prerogatives of the lords, and at the advent of Hugh Capet there were no less than 150 who exercised this right.

Every political régime may be characterised by the place where the exercise of power is bestowed. Ancient republics had their agora and fora. The great monarchy of Louis XIV had its palace of Versailles. The feudal lords had their castles. They were, as a usual thing, enormous edifices, situated on high places, massive, round, or square, without architecture or ornamentation, the walls pierced by a few loopholes for the discharge of arrows. There was a single entrance giving on a great moat which could only be passed by a drawbridge. The castle was crowned with parapets and battlements, from which rocks, molten pitch, and lead could be thrown down on the heads of too venturesome assailants at the foot of the walls. To-day the gaping gray masses are but nests for crows, crumbled and eaten away by time. Seen from afar they quite eclipse the small and light habitation of modern days—these monuments at once of legitimate defence and oppression. But they could have been nothing less than they were to provide shelter from the northern incursions and the feudal wars. Everyone sought refuge in them. Those who had not the right to live within the castle, who were neither lords nor warriors, settled around its great walls, under their powerful protection. This was the nucleus of many towns.

ECCLESIASTICAL FEUDALISM

Even the clergy had their place in this system. The bishop, formerly “defender of the city,” had often become its count, by traditional usurpation or by express royal concession when the king had united the county and the bishopric, the temporal and the spiritual authority. This made the bishop sovereign of all the lords of his diocese.

Besides her tithes the church possessed, through the donation of the faithful, immense wealth, and in order to protect this from the brigandage of the times she had recourse to secular arms. She chose laymen, men of courage and wisdom, to whom she confided her property that they might defend it, if necessary at the point of the sword. But these attorneys of the monasteries and churches did as the counts of the king—made their functions hereditary, and took for themselves the wealth entrusted to their care. They condescended, however, to regard themselves as the vassals of those whom they had despoiled, and to swear faith and homage under ordinary conditions of natural right and personal service.

Abbés and bishops in consequence became suzerains, temporal lords having numerous vassals ready to take up arms for their cause, courts of justice—in fact all the prerogatives exercised by the great landlords. There were bishops, dukes, and bishop-counts, vassals themselves of greater lords and especially of the king, from whom they received the investiture of the property attached to their churches, or, as it was called, their temporal domain.

This ecclesiastical feudalism was so extensive, so powerful, that in France and England it possessed during the Middle Ages more than a fifth of all the land; in Germany nearly a third. For there was this difference between the church and king, that the latter, a conquest once made, received nothing more, but on the contrary constantly gave away until it came to pass that he possessed nothing but the town of Laon; while the church, if she did lose some of her land (a difficult thing since she had excommunication to defend it with), was acquiring more every day, since few of the faithful died without leaving her something. And so it was that she constantly got more and never or very rarely gave anything up, and then only when it was wrested from her by force.[i]

The manner in which the church often lost her property in feudal times is described by Carl Spannagel:

THE CHURCH AND THE FEUDAL ARMY

The bishops and abbots as land proprietors went into the battle-field at the head of their contingents. They often wore armour under their priestly garments, and they did not shrink from actual fighting in action. The care for souls (if such an expression can be used with regard to a priestly dignitary of the Middle Ages) which even in peace made but a slight demand upon them, must have nearly vanished under such circumstances in the field. The account of Bishop Daniel of Prague attending to the wounded and administering them spiritual comfort has a modern foreign tone about it. Only special royal permission could exempt the bishops and their respective abbots from appearing at the head of their men.

But the king did not make such frequent demands upon the participation of the spiritual dignitaries in campaigns as we are inclined to think. This idea arose from the command of Otto II in 981, which demanded the personal command of their contingents of seven bishops and the seven abbots, whilst twelve bishops and three abbots are told only to send their loricati to the emperor. Substitutes for the bishops and abbots in this case would be priests or vassals of rank of their diocese, or abbotship.

It is worthy of note that the immunity, the purport of which had so increased in extent since the Carlovingian time, exercised no influence on the military obligations of the churches to which it was addressed. In most of the immunity documents military duty is not touched upon, so it was considered something quite independent. In some it is expressly mentioned that no index publicus should exercise the arrière-ban over the particular cloister, but this made no change in the obligation of the abbots themselves. On the contrary, in a privilege of Otto I for the bishopric of Worms, the sentence from a document of Louis the Pious is retained which commands that the military followers of the men of the church are only to be called upon in the interest of the kingdom. The transfer of their service to the princes was of greater import to the military obligations of the church than the immunity.

Such transfers, however, only refer to monasteries and not also to bishoprics. There were two different kinds of exemption—either the king gives the cloister in question to a lord of his kingdom as a favour or as his property, so that (forever or for a time) it ceases to be a royal cloister, or he takes away a part of its landed property and makes it over to lay princes who thenceforward undertake the military duties hitherto pertaining to the cloister. By this means the cloister remains royal, only it is exempt from military obligations. A third possibility was added to these two. Very often the great lords did not wait for the king’s initiative to enrich themselves with church property, but they seized it on their own account and obtained possession of the longed-for cloister by any means.

With such measures by force there was certainly no legal adoption of the obligation which the cloister owed the kingdom. But there is no doubt that the property thus gained was taken into account in the valuation of the service due to the kingdom by the new owner. The documental protection of the king generally proved most inefficient against such seizures. In more ancient times, particularly under the later Carlovingians, we find taxations of abbotships. The cases became rarer later on without quite disappearing. The kingdom evidently did not depend upon increasing the power of the princes which was continually developing by such means, so that the seizures of the princes increased with the feudal system.[d]

SERFS AND VILLEINS

In the eleventh century, Carlovingian Europe was divided into a multitude of fiefs which formed each its own state, having its own life, laws, customs, and its almost perfectly independent lay or ecclesiastical chief.

We have described the community of the lords, but they were not the only feudal community. That was the fighting and war-making community, the community that ruled, judged, punished, and oppressed. Below this was the community that worked, by which the other lived, got its clothes, its arms, its castles, and its bread—the community of serfs, or rather craftsmen (gens potestatis). We must not now look for free men, for they have disappeared. Some have raised themselves and become the fortunate lords; others have been pushed back into the lower regions of society and have become serfs and villeins. That class of simple freemen which had been nearly swept away in the invasion of the Roman Empire had been engulfed a second time. There were no longer any freehold owners, or so few that their mention is not worth while.

But the villeins were a numerous lot. The chief, the noble, had not only vassals but subjects residing on that portion of his estate that he never enfeoffed. And these were the serfs, properly called, men of the soil who were entirely at their lord’s disposal. “The lord,” says Beaumanoir,[f] “can take from them all that they have, put them in prison, rightly or wrongly, and as often as he pleases, and has no account to give of them except to God.”

In spite of this the condition of the serf was better than that of the slave of ancient times. The progress which slavery had made at the fall of the Roman Empire was not entirely lost in the wreckage of invasion, but appeared again in feudal society. The freeman of antiquity had been harder towards his slave than was the barbarian in whom the leaven of Christianity had produced some effect. The serf was recognised as a man having a family, sharing the common ancestry of his lord, and made in the image of God. Serfs finally entered the church, and sometimes mounted higher than the most powerful lords.

Above the serfs were the inalienables (mainmortables), “more kindly treated,” continues the old jurist of Beauvais,[f] “since the lord, if they did no wrong, could ask nothing of them except their dues and rents and the debts which they were accustomed to pay for their servitude.” But the inalienable could not marry without the consent of his lord, and if he took a free wife, or one outside the seigneury, there was a fine at the pleasure of the lord. This was the right of “formarriage” (a tax for marriage out of rank or condition), and the issue of such a marriage was divided between the lords of the husband and of the wife. If there was but one child, it went to the lord of the mother. At an inalienable’s death all his property went to his lord. For these people there was no way of escape from the hand that bent them to the furrow. Wherever they went the right of succession was attached to their persons and their purse. The lord inherited on every hand from his serfs.

In a higher degree still were to be found the free tenants known as villeins, peasants, or commoners. Their condition was less precarious. They had preserved the freedom the serf did not possess, and had hung on to it at the sacrifice of an annual tax, a statute duty, and the rent of the land which the landlord had ceded them and which they could transmit with all their other property to their children. But while the beneficiary holdings or fiefs were under the protection of a public and well-defined law, the land of the villeins was under the absolute jurisdiction of the landlord and protected only by private agreements. This is why the villeins, and especially those in the country, where it was not necessary to oversee them as strictly as those in the large towns, were often under the heel of absolute dominion.

One reads in ancient documents about the lords: “They are masters of heaven and earth; they have jurisdiction above and beneath the ground, over necks and heads, over the water, winds, and fields.” The villeins could not escape their jurisdiction, for the feudal law said, “Between thee, lord, and thee, villein, there is no judge but God.” “We recognise from our gracious lords,” runs another formula, “both ban and convocation; the high forest, the bird in the air, the fish in the stream, the beast in the bush, as far as our sovereign lord, or the servants of his grace, can hold his own. For this our gracious lord will take under his shelter and protection the widow and orphan as well as the peasant.” Thus were all rights given over to the lord, but in exchange he protected the weak. Such is the principle of feudal society towards its subjects. Royalty no longer filled the office for which it was instituted; bishops, counts, barons, and other powers were called upon for the protection which could no longer be expected from the nominal head of the state.

Everything belonged to the lord; but since there was no industry or commerce, no luxury by which one alone could consume in a few moments the fruit of the labour of many, the exactions of this lord were not at first oppressive, and for the villeins these exactions were as systematically determined as are to-day the rights of the landlord over his farmer-tenants. Only in the Middle Ages was there always the element of arbitrariness and violence which modern law does not allow. The villeins’ tax was paid either in natural produce, as provisions, corn, cattle, and fowl, products of the soil and the farm; or in work, or manual labour, as statute labour in the fields and vineyards of the lord, in the building of his castle, or digging ditches, in the repair of roads; or the making of furniture, utensils, horseshoes, ploughshares, carts, etc. In towns and wherever money was scarce, the lord did not make the mistake, it must be understood, of demanding his dues in coin, or of imposing arbitrary taxes. But let us go back to the times themselves and listen to the words of a scribe: “The lord who demands unjust rights of his villein, does so at the peril of his soul.” If the fear of heaven did not suffice, here were the commoners coming to the rescue, and the king’s officials were not far behind.

There were some strange compensations to enliven the sad life of the feudal lord, shut up the whole year within the sombre walls of his castle. At Bologna, in Italy, the tenantry of the Benedictines of St. Procule paid as a tax the steam from a boiled capon. Every year each man brought his capon between two plates to the abbot, uncovered it, and, the steam having all been given off, was quits, and took his capon back with him. Elsewhere the peasants brought solemnly before their lord, in a carriage drawn by four horses, a little bird, or perhaps a may-bush decorated with ribbons. The man who owned a monkey was quits, according to an ordinance of St. Louis, when he had caused the monkey to perform before the lord’s tax-gatherer; the jongleur had to pay with one song. The lords themselves did not refuse, sometimes, to play a rôle in these folk comedies. The markgraf of Jülich, whenever he made a solemn entry, was mounted on a one-eyed horse, with wooden saddle, and bridle of bark from the linden, and wearing two spires of hawthorn, and carrying a white stick. When the abbé of Figeac came into town the lord of Monbrun received him in a most grotesque costume with one leg bare.

Feudalism, bored with itself, laughed sometimes with the poor people, as did also the church when she authorised the celebration in the basilicas of the feast of the Asses. The powerful and the fortunate, in this age so sad and so stern, where misery was everywhere and security nowhere, owed much to their villeins and peasants for giving them some moments of forgetfulness and pleasure.

ANARCHY AND VIOLENCE; FRIGHTFUL CONDITION OF THE PEASANTS AND SOME HAPPY RESULTS THEREFROM

They were in truth hard times for the poor people, these Middle Ages, when in spite of all the formulæ and other conventions, the noble did not believe in anything but the right of the sword. In theory the principles of the feudal relation were very beautiful; in practise they nearly brought matters to a state of anarchy, for its judicial institutions were too defective to prevent the tie of vassalage from being constantly broken. Here lay the cause of the interminable wars which broke out in all parts of feudal Europe, and which were the great affliction of that epoch. Everyone could have recourse to his sword in a proven wrong or a sentence he deemed unjust, and a state of war was chronic in that society. Every hill became a fortress; every plain a field of battle.

Shut up in strong castles, covered with mail, and surrounded by armed men, the feudal lords, “the tyrants,” as a monk of the eleventh century calls them, lived but to fight, and knew no other mode of enrichment than pillage. There was no more commerce—the roads were no longer safe; no more industry, for the lords, masters of the towns, levied upon the burghers as soon as some little sign of wealth would appear. The most different customs were established everywhere, since there was no longer any general legislation, each noble having sole law-making power on his own fief.[83] Everywhere, likewise, there was the deepest ignorance except perhaps in the heart of some of the monasteries; and the clergy, guardians of moral law, were compelled not to forbid violence, but to regulate it by the “Truce of God” [Treuga Dei], which forbade killing and robbing from Wednesday evening to Monday morning.

On whom fell all the burden of these feudal wars? They were not very murderous for the nobles wrapped in steel, but they were so for the peasant with scarcely any defensive armour. At Brenneville, where the kings of France and England fought, nine hundred knights took part, and only three were left on the battle-field. At Bouvines, Philip Augustus was thrown from his horse and remained some time helpless amidst the foot-soldiers of the enemy. They vainly sought some opening in his armour through which to pass a dagger blade, and they dealt heavy blows which could not break his cuirass. His knights took their time about rescuing and replacing him in the saddle. After which he threw himself with them into the midst of that rabble where their long lances and heavy axes did not deliver a single blow in vain. The sovereign captured, another calamity; his ransom must be paid. But who paid for the cottage and the burned fields of the poor peasant—who stanched his wounds, who provided for his widow and orphans?

Two contemporary writers, historians of the Crusades, paint thus these direful times: “Before the Christians left for the countries beyond the sea,” says Guibert de Nogent, “the kingdom of France was in the throes of constant trouble and hostilities. One heard nothing but of brigandage on the public roads. Fires were innumerable, and war was inflicted on every hand for no other reason than insatiable cupidity. In short, grasping men respected no right of property and gave themselves up to pillage with unrestrained boldness.”

And William, archbishop of Tyre,[h] says: “There was no security for property. Were a man regarded as rich, this was sufficient excuse for throwing him into prison, keeping him in irons, and putting him to cruel torture. Sword-girded brigands infested the roads, lay in ambush, and spared neither strangers nor men devoted to the service of God. Cities and fortified towns were not safe from such crimes. Cut-throats made the streets and squares dangerous for the wealthy man.” In the seventy years between 970 and 1040 there were forty of famine and pestilence.

However, the onward march of civilisation can never be so completely suspended that these centuries were absolutely sterile for the progress of humanity. In the church thought awakened, and in lay society poetry made its appearance. There was even some progress in morals, at least among the ruling classes. In the isolation in which each one lived, exposed to all sorts of perils, the soul fortified itself to meet them. The feeling of the dignity of man, which despotism managed to smother, was revived; and the society which spilled blood with such deplorable facility showed often a moral elevation which is to be found only in this age. The low vices and cowardice of the decadent Romans or enslaved peoples were unknown to them, and the Middle Ages have bequeathed to modern times the sentiment of honour. The feudal nobility knew how to die, which is the first condition of knowing how to get the most out of life.

Another beneficial consequence was the reorganisation of the family. In ancient cities the head of the family lived outside his house, in the fields or in the forum. He scarcely knew his wife and children, yet had over them the right of life and death. In primitive times the custom of polygamy and the facility for divorce prevented the family from establishing itself on any better basis. In feudal society men lived in isolation, and the head of the family was brought into close touch with it. When wars gave him leisure in his castle, perched like an eagle’s nest on the mountain top, he had nothing to occupy his life and his heart but his wife and children. The church, which brought rough soldiers to the feet of a virgin and made them for the sake of the mother of Christ respect female virtue, softened the temper of the warrior and prepared him to come under the spell of the finer feelings and more delicate sentiments with which nature had endowed the other sex.

Woman assumed, then, her place in the family and in society which the Mosaic law had once given her. Things went even further—she became the object of a cult which created new sentiments, which the poetry of troubadours and minstrels seized upon and which chivalry expressed in action. As in the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, the strong was conquered by the weak, the giant by the little child.

Tower of a German Feudal Castle

This is seen in an institution of the times. Robert d’Arbrissel founded near Saumur at Fontevrault, about the year 1100, an abbey which soon became famous, and which opened its gates to recluses of both sexes. The women were cloistered, and spent their time in prayer. The men worked in the fields, drained the marshes, cleared the land, and remained the perpetual servants of the women. The abbey was governed by an abbess, “because,” says the bull of confirmation, “Jesus Christ in dying gave his best beloved disciple to his mother for a son.”

Outside the family, the state was doubtless badly organised. It is necessary to call attention, in spite of all contradictory facts, to the political theory which this society represents. If the serf had no rights, the vassals had them, and well-defined ones too. The feudal tie was formed on conditions well known and accepted by him in advance; new conditions could not be placed upon him except by his own agreement. From these come those grand and strong maxims of common law which, in spite of a thousand violations, have come down to us—no tax can be imposed without the consent of the contributants; no law is valid unless accepted by those who must obey it; no sentence is legal unless declared by the peers of the accused. These are the laws of feudalism which the states general of 1789 buried under the débris of absolute monarchy; and in guarantee of these rights the vassal had the power of breaking the tie of vassalage by giving up his fief or of responding by war to a denial of justice from his lord. This right of armed resistance, which St. Louis himself recognised, led, it is true, to anarchy; it weakened the social structure, but it strengthened the individual. But it is with the individual that we must commence. Before intelligently building up the state, it is necessary to elevate the individual and the family; this double work was the task of the Middle Ages.

The church worked with energy to establish the sanctity of marriage, even for the serf; in preaching the equality of all men before God, which was a threat to the great inequalities of this world; by proclaiming by the principle of election that she reserved for herself at the very pinnacle of hierarchy the rights of the intellect, in contradistinction to the feudal world which recognised but the right of blood; and in crowning with the triple crown and seating in the chair of St. Peter, where they had one foot on the neck of kings, a serf like Adrian II and the son of a poor carpenter, like Gregory VII.

GEOGRAPHIC OUTLINES OF THE KINGDOM OF GERMANY

Such were the principles that ruled in all the countries comprised within the limits of Charlemagne’s empire, that is to say, almost the whole of the Germanic peoples, France, Germany, Italy, and the north of Spain. The political geography of the countries formed itself after the fashion of its feudal organisations. As the fundamental axiom of feudalism expressed itself, “No territory without its lord,” there did not exist throughout the land a domain so small that it was not incorporated in some degree in the hierarchy. Of all these superimposed suzerainties, the royal was the only one whose limits served to determine the extent of the realms already formed but still very vaguely outlined.[i]

The difference between feudalism and the politics both of antiquity and of modern times lies, according to Paul von Roth,[j] chiefly in the absence of a state power. There was no proper monarchy; public offices are hereditary or belong to an estate. The impossibility of the permanence of feudalism is shown, he says, most clearly in the feudal army by which even feudal justice suffered. Von Roth draws a vivid comparison between France and Germany at the end of the tenth century: France is much the more feudal and anarchic under the powerless Hugh Capet; Germany is more centralised under monarchic power. He compares them again three centuries later: France is a consolidated monarchy; Germany weak with a lasting weakness. The cause he finds above all is this—that the French kings had vigorously and in every way worked for the uprooting of the feudal system.[a]

THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDALISM TO MONARCHY

The moral phenomena above mentioned, tending in the direction of a general principle, were partly of a subjective, partly of a speculative order. But we must now give particular attention to the practical political movements of the period. The advance which that period witnessed presents a negative aspect, in so far as it involves the termination of the sway of individual caprice and of the isolation of power. Its affirmative aspect is the rise of a supreme authority whose dominion embraces all—a political power properly so called, whose subjects enjoy an equality of rights, and in which the will of the individual is subordinated to that common interest which underlies the whole.

This is the advance from feudalism to monarchy. The principle of feudal sovereignty is the outward force of individuals—princes, liege lords; it is a force destitute of intrinsic right. The subjects of such a constitution are vassals of a superior prince or seigneur, towards whom they have stipulated duties to perform; but whether they perform these duties or not depends upon the seigneur’s being able to induce them so to do, by force of character or by grant of favours. Conversely, the recognition of those feudal claims themselves was extorted by violence in the first instance; and the fulfilment of the corresponding duties could be secured only by the constant exercise of the power which was the sole basis of the claims in question. The monarchical principle also implies a supreme authority, but it is an authority over persons possessing no independent power to support their individual caprice, where we have no longer caprice opposed to caprice; for the supremacy implied in monarchy is essentially a power emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the furtherance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution of a state is based.

Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy—we see nothing but lords and serfs; in monarchy, on the contrary, there is one lord and no serf, for servitude is abrogated by it, and in it right and law are recognised; it is the source of real freedom. Thus in monarchy the caprice of individuals is kept under, and a common gubernatorial interest established. But since this monarchy is developed from feudalism, it bears in the first instance the stamp of the system from which it sprang. Individuals quit their isolated capacity and become members of estates (or orders of the realm) and corporations; the vassals are powerful only by combination as an order; in contraposition to them the cities constitute powers in virtue of their communal existence. Thus the authority of the sovereign ceases to be mere arbitrary sway. The consent of the estates and corporations is essential to its maintenance; and if the prince wishes to have it, he must will what is reasonable.

We now see a constitution embracing various orders, while feudal rule knows no such orders. We observe the transition from feudalism to monarchy taking place in three ways: (1) Sometimes the lord paramount gains a mastery over his independent vassals, by subjugating their individual power, thus making himself sole ruler. (2) Sometimes the princes free themselves from the feudal relation altogether, and become the territorial lords of certain states; or lastly (3) the lord paramount unites the particular lordships that own him as their superior with his own particular suzerainty in a more peaceful way, and thus becomes master of the whole.

These processes do not indeed present themselves in history in that pure and abstract form in which they are exhibited here; often we find more modes than one appearing contemporaneously, but one or the other always predominates. The cardinal consideration is that the basis and essential condition of such a political formation is to be looked for in the particular nationalities in which it had its birth. Europe presents particular nations, constituting a unity in their very nature, and having the absolute tendency to form a state. All did not succeed in attaining this political unity; we have now to consider them severally in relation to the change thus introduced. First, as regards the Roman Empire, the connection between Germany and Italy naturally results from the idea of that empire: the secular dominion united with the spiritual was to constitute one whole; but this state of things was rather the object of constant struggle than one actually attained. In Germany and Italy the transition from the feudal condition to monarchy involved the entire abrogation of the former; the vassals became independent monarchs.

PROGRESS IN GERMANY

Germany had always embraced a great variety of stocks—Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Thuringians, Saxons, Burgundians; to these must be added the Slavs of Bohemia, Germanised Slavs in Mecklenburg, in Brandenburg, and in a part of Saxony and Austria; so that no such combination as took place in France was possible. Italy presented a similar state of things. The Lombards had established themselves there, while the Greeks still possessed the exarchate and lower Italy; the Normans too established a kingdom of their own in lower Italy, and the Saracens maintained their ground for a time in Sicily. When the rule of the house of Hohenstaufen was terminated, barbarism got the upper hand throughout Germany; the country being broken up into several sovereignties, in which a forceful despotism prevailed. It was the maxim of the electoral princes to raise only weak princes to the imperial throne; they even sold the imperial dignity to foreigners. Thus the unity of the state was virtually annulled.

A number of centres of power were formed, each of which was a predatory state; the legal constitution recognised by feudalism was dissolved, and gave place to undisguised violence and plunder; and powerful princes made themselves lords of the country. After the interregnum the count of Habsburg was elected emperor, and the house of Habsburg continued to fill the imperial throne with but little interruption. These emperors were obliged to create a force of their own, as the princes would not grant them an adequate power attached to the empire. But that state of absolute anarchy was at last put an end to by associations having general aims in view. In the cities themselves we see associations of a minor order; but now confederations of cities were formed with a common interest in the suppression of predatory violence. Of this kind was the Hanseatic League in the north, the Rhenish League consisting of cities lying along the Rhine, and the Swabian League. The aim of all these confederations was resistance to the feudal lords; and even princes united with the cities, with a view to the subversion of the feudal condition and the restoration of a peaceful state of things throughout the country.

Early Cannon with Protected Mounting

What the state of society was under feudal sovereignty is evident from the notorious association formed for executing criminal justice; it was a private tribunal, which, under the name of the Vehmgericht, held secret sittings; its chief seat was the northwest of Germany. A peculiar peasant association was also formed. In Germany the peasants were bondmen; many of them took refuge in the towns, or settled down as freemen in the neighbourhood of the towns (Pfahlbürger); but in Switzerland a peasant fraternity was established. The peasants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under imperial governors; for the Swiss governments were not the property of private possessors, but were official appointments of the empire. These the sovereigns of the Habsburg line wished to secure to their own house. The peasants, with club and iron-studded mace (Morgenstern), returned victorious from a contest with the haughty steel-clad nobles, armed with spear and sword, and practised in the chivalric encounters of the tournament.

INFLUENCE OF GUNPOWDER

Another invention also tended to deprive the nobility of the ascendency which they owed to their accoutrements—that of gunpowder. Humanity needed it, and it made its appearance forthwith. It was one of the chief instruments in freeing the world from the dominion of physical force and placing the various orders of society on a level. With the distinction between the weapons they used, vanished also that between lords and serfs. And before gunpowder, fortified places were no longer impregnable, so that strongholds and castles now lost their importance. We may indeed be led to lament the decay or the depreciation of the practical value of personal valour—the bravest, the noblest may be shot down by a cowardly wretch at safe distance in an obscure lurking-place; but, on the other hand, gunpowder has made a rational, considerate bravery, spiritual valour, the essential to martial success.

Early Type of Mortar

Only through this instrumentality could that superior order of valour be called forth—that valour in which the heat of personal feeling has no share; for the discharge of firearms is directed against a body of men—an abstract enemy, not individual combatants. The warrior goes to meet deadly peril calmly, sacrificing himself for the commonweal; and the valour of civilised nations is characterised by the very fact that it does not rely on the strong arm alone, but places its confidence essentially in the intelligence, the generalship, the character of its commanders, and, as was the case among the ancients, in a firm combination and unity of spirit on the part of the forces they command.

MONARCHISM IN ITALY

In Italy, as already noticed, we behold the same spectacle as in Germany—the attainment of an independent position by isolated centres of power. In that country, warfare in the hands of the condottieri became a regular business. The towns were obliged to attend to their trading concerns, and therefore employed mercenary troops, whose leaders often became feudal lords; Francis Sforza even made himself duke of Milan. In Florence, the Medici, a family of merchants, rose to power. On the other hand, the larger cities of Italy reduced under their sway several smaller ones and many feudal chiefs. A papal territory was likewise formed. There, also, a very large number of feudal lords had made themselves independent; by degrees they all became subject to the one sovereignty of the pope.

How thoroughly equitable in the view of social morality such a subjugation was, is evident from Machiavelli’s celebrated work The Prince. This book has often been thrown aside in disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most revolting tyranny; but nothing worse can be urged against it than that the writer, having the profound consciousness of the necessity for the formation of a state, has here exhibited the principles on which alone states could be founded in the circumstances of the times. The chiefs who asserted an isolated independence, and the power they arrogated, must be entirely subdued; and though we cannot reconcile with our idea of freedom the means which he proposes as the only efficient ones, and regards as perfectly justifiable—inasmuch as they involve the most reckless violence, all kinds of deception, assassination, and so forth—we must nevertheless confess that the feudal nobility, whose power was to be subdued, were assailable in no other way, since an indomitable contempt for principle and an utter depravity of morals were thoroughly engrained in them.

IN FRANCE

In France we find the converse of that which occurred in Germany and Italy. For many centuries the kings of France possessed only a very small domain, so that many of their vassals were more powerful than themselves; but it was a great advantage to the royal dignity in France that the principle of hereditary monarchy was firmly established there. The consideration it enjoyed was increased by the circumstance that the corporations and cities had their rights and privileges confirmed by the king, and that the appeals to the supreme feudal tribunal—the court of peers, consisting of twelve members enjoying that dignity—became increasingly frequent. The king’s influence was extended by his affording that protection which only the throne could give. But that which essentially secured respect for royalty, even among the powerful vassals, was the increasing personal power of the sovereign. In various ways, by inheritance, by marriage, by force of arms, etc., the kings had come into possession of many earldoms (Grafschaften) and several duchies. The dukes of Normandy had, however, become kings of England; and thus a formidable power confronted France, whose interior lay open to it by way of Normandy. Besides this there were powerful duchies still remaining; nevertheless, the king was not a mere feudal suzerain (Lehnsherr) like the German emperors, but had become a territorial possessor (Landesherr); he had a number of barons and cities under him, that were subject to his immediate jurisdiction; and Louis IX succeeded in rendering appeals to the royal tribunal common throughout his kingdom.

The towns attained a position of greater importance in the state. For when the king needed money, and all his usual resources, such as taxes and forced contributions of all kinds, were exhausted, he made application to the towns and entered into separate negotiations with them. It was Philip the Fair who, in the year 1302, first convoked the deputies of the towns as a third estate, in conjunction with the clergy and the barons. All indeed that they were in the first instance concerned with was the authority of the sovereign as the power that had convoked them, and the raising of taxes as the object of their convocation; the states nevertheless secured an importance and weight in the kingdom, and as a natural result, an influence on legislation also.

A fact which is particularly remarkable is the proclamation issued by the kings of France, giving permission to the bondsmen on the crown lands to purchase their freedom at a moderate price. In the way we have indicated the kings of France very soon attained great power; while the flourishing state of the poetic art in the hands of the troubadours, and the growth of the scholastic theology, whose especial centre was Paris, gave France a culture superior to that of the other European states, and which secured the respect of foreign nations.

IN ENGLAND

William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, introduced the feudal system into England, and divided the kingdom into fiefs, which he granted almost exclusively to his Norman followers. He himself retained considerable crown possessions; the vassals were under obligation to perform service in the field, and to aid in administering justice; the king was the guardian of all vassals under age; they could not marry without his consent. Only by degrees did the barons and the towns attain a position of importance. It was especially in the disputes and struggles for the throne that they acquired considerable weight.

When the oppressive rule and fiscal exactions of the kings became intolerable, contentions and even war ensued; the barons compelled King John to swear to Magna Charta, the basis of English liberty, i.e., more particularly of the privileges of the nobility. Among the liberties thus secured, that which concerns the administration of justice was the chief; no Englishman was to be deprived of personal freedom, property, or life without the judicial verdict of his peers. Everyone, moreover, was to be entitled to the free disposition of his property. Further, the king was to impose no taxes without the consent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons. The towns, also, favoured by the kings in opposition to the barons, soon elevated themselves into a third estate and to representation in the commons’ house of parliament. Yet the king was always very powerful, if he possessed strength of character: his crown estates procured for him due consideration; in later times, however, these were gradually alienated, given away, so that the king was reduced to apply for subsidies to the parliament.

We shall not pursue the minute and specifically historic details that concern the incorporation of principalities with states, or the dissensions and contests that accompanied such incorporations. We have only to add that the kings, when by weakening the feudal constitution they had attained a higher degree of power, began to use that power against each other in the undisguised interest of their own dominion. Thus France and England carried on wars with each other for a century. The kings were always endeavouring to make foreign conquests; the towns, which had the largest share of the burdens and expenses of such wars, were opposed to them, and in order to placate them the kings granted them important privileges.

THE PAPACY AND FEUDALISM

The popes endeavoured to make the disturbed state of society, to which each of these changes gave rise, an occasion for the intervention of their authority; but the interest of the growth of states was too firmly established to allow them to make their own interest of absolute authority valid against it. Princes and peoples were indifferent to papal clamour urging them to new crusades. The emperor Louis set to work to deduce from Aristotle, the Bible, and the Roman law a refutation of the assumptions of the papal see; and the electors declared at the diet held at Rense in 1338, and afterwards still more decidedly at the imperial diet held at Frankfort, that they would defend the liberties and hereditary rights of the empire, and that to make the choice of a Roman emperor or king valid, no papal confirmation was needed. So, at an earlier date, 1302, on occasion of a contest between Pope Boniface and Philip the Fair, the assembly of the states convoked by the latter had offered opposition to the pope. For states and communities had arrived at the consciousness of independent moral worth.

Various causes had united to weaken the papal authority; the great schism of the church, which led men to doubt the pope’s infallibility, gave occasion to the decisions of the councils of Constance and Bâle, which assumed an authority superior to that of the pope, and therefore deposed and appointed popes. The numerous attempts directed against the ecclesiastical system confirmed the necessity of a reformation. Arnold of Brescia, Wycliffe, and Huss met with sympathy in contending against the dogma of the papal vicegerency of Christ, and the gross abuses that disgraced the hierarchy. These attempts were, however, only partial in their scope. On the one hand the time was not yet ripe for a more comprehensive onslaught; on the other hand the assailants in question did not strike at the heart of the matter, but (especially the two latter) attacked the teaching of the church chiefly with the weapons of erudition, and consequently failed to excite a deep interest among the people at large.

HEGEL ON THE RISE OF MANKIND THROUGH FEUDALISM

But the ecclesiastical principle had a more dangerous foe in the incipient formation of political organisations than in the antagonists above referred to. A common object, an aim intrinsically possessed of perfect moral validity, presented itself to secularity in the formation of states; and to this aim of community the will, the desire, the caprice of the individual submitted itself. The hardness characteristic of the self-seeking quality of “heart,” maintaining its position of isolation—the knotty heart of oak underlying the national temperament of the Germans—was broken down and mellowed by the terrible discipline of the Middle Ages.

The two iron rods which were the instruments of this discipline were the church and serfdom. The church drove the “heart” (Gemüth) to desperation—made spirit pass through the severest bondage, so that the soul was no longer its own; but it did not degrade it to Hindu torpor, for Christianity is an intrinsically spiritual principle and, as such, has a boundless elasticity. In the same way serfdom, which made a man’s body not his own but the property of another, dragged humanity through all the barbarism of slavery and unbridled desire, and the latter was destroyed by its own violence.

It was not so much from slavery as through slavery that humanity was emancipated. For barbarism, lust, injustice constitute evil: man, bound fast in its fetters, is unfit for morality and religiousness; and it is from this intemperate and ungovernable state of volition that the discipline in question emancipated him. The church fought the battle with the violence of rude sensuality in a temper equally wild and terroristic with that of its antagonist; it prostrated the latter by dint of the terrors of hell, and held it in perpetual subjection, in order to break down the spirit of barbarism and to tame it into repose.

Theology declares that every man has this struggle to pass through, since he is by nature evil, and only by passing through a state of mental laceration arrives at the certainty of reconciliation. But granting this, it must on the other hand be maintained that the form of the contest is very much altered when the conditions of its commencement are different, and when that reconciliation has had an actual realisation. The path of torturous discipline is in that case dispensed with (it does indeed make its appearance at a later date, but in quite a different form), for the waking up of consciousness finds man surrounded by the elements of a moral state of society. The phase of negation is, indeed, a necessary element in human development, but it has now assumed the tranquil form of education, so that all the terrible characteristics of that inward struggle vanish.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[83] [In the words of Bryce,[b] “Nascent feudalism was but one remove from anarchy.”]

---