Heroines of the Crusades

by C. A. Bloss

In A.D. 1113, the Hospital was put under the protection of the Holy See, and their revenues increasing beyond the demands of charity, about A.D. 1130, they determined to draw the sword against the enemies of the faith. The Hospitallers were accordingly arranged into three classes, nobility, clergy, and serving brothers, who divided their duties between making deadly war upon the Infidels, healing the wounds of the Christian soldier, and praying for the souls of the departed. The admirers of valor and piety either joined their standard or enriched their coffers. Great men sent their sons to them for instruction, and the Knights Hospitallers soon became a powerful monastic and military order.

A few years later, some French gentlemen founded the equally honorable institution of the Red Cross Knights. The original design of this order, was to watch the road and keep open the communication between Europe and the Holy Land. At first they were fed and clothed by the Hospitallers, and to indicate their poverty, adopted a seal with the figures of two men on one horse. They bound themselves to the three great monastic virtues, and added some austerities, which were supposed to give them power with God and man. They were originally styled Milites Christi, but when Baldwin I. assigned them a residence in the royal palace, adjacent to the Temple of Solomon, they assumed the title of Templars, or Knights of the Temple. They wore linen coifs with red caps close over them, shirts and stockings of twisted mail, sapra vests and broad belts with swords inserted, and over the whole was a white cloak touching the ground. This order, too, rose into dignity and power; and the military friars of the Hospital, and the Red Cross Knights of the Temple, soon became the bulwark of Christendom, “the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise.”

Acquainted with the roads, the Templars led the way to Damascus, and accustomed to succor the weak, the Hospitallers brought up the rear of the Christian army. The eastern and southern quarters of the city of Damascus were defended by impregnable walls; but the north and west were faced by fields and gardens, and protected only by towers and ditches. Here the crusaders pitched their camps; and numerous and long-continued were the engagements between the Christians and Moslems. They succeeded in driving in the outposts of the Infidels and seizing several fortifications looked upon Damascus as their own. But now a more serious contest arose. Should Damascus become an appanage of Jerusalem, a fief of the French crown, or a German principality? Days and weeks passed away in fruitless disputes among the crusaders, and at length it was determined that the prize should be given to the Count of Flanders, because he had twice visited the Holy Land. This decision only increased the dissatisfaction. There were rumors of treason in the camp, and the Templars were accused of accepting bribes. A proposition was made to remove the camp to Ascalon, and while debate fostered delay the Saracens had time to repair the fortifications of Damascus, and to summon assistance from the Sultan. The German emperor, terrified with the report that the Emir of Mosul was marching to the city, was the first to abandon the siege; and the other leaders, discontented with themselves and with each other, gloomily retraced their steps to Jerusalem. Conrad, with the shattered relics of the German host, immediately returned to Europe; but the king of the French lingered several months, visiting the holy places, and seeking opportunities to do military service worthy the expedition; till at length learning from Peyrol that Eleanor, through the connivance of Petronilla, had exchanged letters with Saladin, and was meditating a flight to Antioch; he gathered together the miserable remnant of his army, amounting to three hundred persons, and accompanied by his enraged queen and her crest-fallen Amazons, embarked for Constantinople. Here Eleanor found some small consolation in repairing the sad inroads made upon her wardrobe at the defeat of Laodicea. From Constantinople the dissatisfied pair sailed for France.

It was the intention of Louis to put away his wife immediately on his return, but the sagacious Abbot Suger dissuaded him from this course, since he would thus detach from the crown the great duchy of Aquitaine, the probable inheritance of the young Princesses Mary and Alix. She was, however, closely watched, and forbidden to visit her southern domains. In A.D. 1150, Geoffrey Plantagenet, the Count Anjou, came to the court of Louis VII., with his son Henry, a youth about the age of Saladin, whose fine person and literary attainments made him an object of attraction to all the ladies of Paris. To Geoffrey Eleanor confided her troubles, one of the greatest of which was, the refusal of the king to adopt the courtly adornings of the times, particularly the long-toed shoes, fastened to the knee by golden chains; and she was especially vexed that he had, at the suggestion of the clergy, parted with his long curls, handsome beard and mustachios.

“Already,” said she, “he wears the shaven chin and the serge robe, and he needs only the tonsure and cowl to make him a priest.”

The duke repaid her confidence by delineating his own domestic afflictions arising from the haughty demeanor of his consort the Empress Matilda, whose irritable temper had not been improved by her ineffectual struggles with Stephen for the throne of England. Altogether they had a very sympathizing meeting.

Two years after, Henry of Anjou once more visited Paris to do homage for his domains, and the queen with a facility acquired by practice, transferred to him the partiality she had entertained for his father. The young Plantagenet was a noble, martial-looking prince, with a fair and gracious countenance, and eyes that sparkled with intelligence and energy. In the light of this new attachment, Eleanor discovered that King Louis was her fourth cousin, and farther that the divorce he had threatened was a matter of conscience and propriety. Louis for the first time in many years seemed to find happiness in the same plan that pleased his queen. A council of the church was called at Beaugencie, and in the presence of Eleanor and Louis, and a numerous circle of relatives, the marriage was declared invalid on account of consanguinity.

Leaving her daughters in the care of their father, the liberated princess joyfully departed with her sister Petronilla and her Provençal attendants to her own country. On her way southward she stopped some time at the castle of Blois, where the old Count Thibaut, father of Adelais, whose domestic peace she had so selfishly invaded, became enamored of the great Provence dower, and offered his hand to his fair guest. Unabashed by the lady’s prompt refusal, the venerable suitor determined to detain her a prisoner in his fortress till she should comply with his proposition; but Peyrol accidentally learning the design, disguised his mistress and her sister in his own apparel, conducted them through the postern by night, and procuring a fisherman’s boat, escaped with them down the Loire. Here a new danger awaited them. Geoffrey of Anjou, the young brother of Henry Plantagenet, captivated by the charms of the princess, stationed himself with a strong guard, at the Pont de Tas, with the intention of carrying her off. Before the fugitives reached the spot they perceived the ambush, and the royal ladies, each seizing an oar, concealed their faces by bending to their tasks, while Peyrol ingeniously evaded the questions of the sentinel, by displaying the fishing-tackle and turning the boat into a little creek, as if preparing to commence the morning’s sport. Hidden by the willows that shaded the stream, the party pursued their way with the utmost rapidity, and before the count had discovered their escape, they were beyond the reach of capture.

The enthusiastic greetings with which the Provençals hailed the return of their beloved duchess, had scarcely subsided into the quiet demonstrations of affectionate obedience, when the young Henry Plantagenet followed her to Bordeaux, and in that wealthy city, with all the pomp that the luxurious Provençal could command, they were married the first of May, A.D. 1152. Thus the sweet provinces of the south became the appanage of the English crown, and a foundation was laid for those desolating wars that for centuries drained the best blood of both France and England.