The old Crusader spirit had quite died out after the departure of Prince Edward in 1272. The Popes continued to oppose the policy of permanent agreements with the Moslems of Syria and Egypt. They fixed their hopes on the Mongols, who were popularly supposed to be ruled by Christians. For the Mongol khâns were educated as Confucians, and tolerated every religion of their subjects. They never succeeded in overcoming the power of the sulṭâns of Egypt, and the policy of Frederick II. would have been more favourable to the Christian cause in the East than that of the Popes proved to be. The failure of Nicholas IV. to arouse enthusiasm when Acre was about to fall was due partly to the increased education of Europe which had undermined the ancient zeal for the Church, partly to the fact that when money for a Crusade was raised, it was used for other purposes than the recovery of Jerusalem, and spent in wars against Constantinople and Egypt, and partly to its being found practically simpler for the three great Orders and the Italian republics to make their own separate treaties with Moslem rulers. It had become a recognised custom to permit the presence of priests and Franciscans in Jerusalem, and the pilgrims were a source of revenue to the Moslems, who allowed them to visit the holy places lying beyond the lands held by the Templars. There was also great discontent already, roused by the pride and tyranny of the Church of Rome. At the time when Acre fell, Pope Nicholas IV. was refusing to recognise the heir of the reigning emperor, Rudolph of Hapsburg, while Edward I. of England and Philip IV. of France were about to declare war on one another. Melek el Ashraf thus reaped the advantage of the great struggles which were preparing the way in Europe for the Reformation.
(West)
MAP OF JERUSALEM.
About 1308 A. D.
Jerusalem was disappearing from history, being now regarded as a city chiefly precious to the pilgrims and the devout Moslems. The only new buildings to be described are additions made to the mosque. Either Ḳalâ’un or his son built the north-west minaret of the Ḥaram; and the latter, whose name was Muḥammad, rebuilt the south wall, and added the existing cloisters on the west side of the enclosure. He has left a text in the Dome of the Rock, dating about 1319 A. D., recording further restorations of Saladin’s work; while the dome of the Aḳṣa also bears one of his inscriptions dating 1327 A. D. The north-east minaret was not added till thirty years later, according to an extant text.[571]
MARINO SANUDO
The ancient map of the city in the early years of the fourteenth century, which is to be found in the elaborate work of Marino Sanudo, has been already mentioned. This writer presented his book to the Pope, and was zealous in endeavouring to revive the enthusiasm of Europe for the recovery of Palestine, but his efforts met with no success. His map represents the Holy City much as it was in Saladin’s time. The House of Caiaphas and the Cœnaculum appear surrounded by the wall of the barbican. The Pool of Bethesda is shown in its present site at the Birket Isrâïl, and St. Stephen’s Gate is on the east instead of on the north; but the mediæval pool west of St. Anne is also marked as a “piscina.” The apocryphal “Upper and Lower Gihon” are shown on the west; the Church of the “Spasm” is at the corner where the Via Dolorosa bends south, just where its remains have now been found. These are the chief features of the map demanding notice.
The later history of Jerusalem may be very briefly summed up.[572] Immediately after the loss of Acre, the Turks of Asia Minor began to become powerful. The Osmanli sulṭâns of Iconium were descended from ’Othmân, a Kharezmian vassal of the Seljuk family, which, down to 1288, retained power in Asia Minor. The new dynasty made their capital at Broussa, and already threatened Constantinople before they were crushed by Timur at Angora in 1402. The Osmanlis soon recovered, and when they at length conquered Byzantium, in 1453, the terror of the Turk fell on Europe, and led incidentally to the toleration of the Protestants in Germany. In 1516 the sulṭân Selîm invaded Syria, and in the next year he entered Cairo. He thus attained a practical right to the title of Khalîfah of the Prophet, because that office was always purely elective, and was bestowed on the “guardian of the two shrines” (Ḥâmi el Ḥaramein) of Mekkah and Jerusalem, which the present sulṭân still is. Besides this claim, Selîm was acknowledged by El Mutawakkil, son of ’Amr el Ḥakîm, a descendant of the ’Abbaside khalifs found living, as titular khalîfah, in the Egyptian capital, as well as by the sherîf of Mekkah. The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt, in 1542, by Sulṭân Suleimân, and are noticed by Pierre Belon, the naturalist, in the following year, as being “new.” They are those which still exist, and Suleimân’s name is recorded in an inscription upon them at the Jaffa Gate, as also in another which shows that he restored the Birket es Sulṭân, or old “Pool of the Germans,” in the upper Hinnom Valley. His gift of beautiful windows, and his other work, in the Dome of the Rock have already been noted. In 1555 the Franciscans were allowed to place a new roof on the Holy Sepulchre, and to execute repairs in the interior of the chapel, as already mentioned.
ZUALLARDO