One small army reached Palestine and strove to join Bohemond of Antioch, a descendant of the famous Crusader. Falling into an ambush of the Saracens, the whole of the force was massacred or taken prisoner, with the exception of a single knight. Another section of the Crusaders actually reached Antioch and became absorbed in the quarrels between Bohemond and the Christian prince of Armenia. Not a blow was struck for the deliverance of Jerusalem, and nothing was gained by the Crusade as far as the Holy War was concerned.
On the other hand, the Fifth Crusade has an importance all its own; for the capture of Constantinople opened a door to the East that had been closed too long. Not only did it sow the seeds of that commercial prosperity which made Venice "hold the gorgeous East in fee, and be the safeguard of the West," but it enabled Western Europe to catch a glimpse of that wealth of art and literature which were stored within the city walls, and which were not to be spread broadcast over the land until the days of her fall into the hands of Islam.
CHAPTER XVI
The Children's Crusade
The child spake nobly: strange to hear
His infantine soft accents clear
Charged with high meanings, did appear.
E. B. BROWNING: A Vision of Poets.
During the ten years that followed the taking of Constantinople, Pope Innocent tried to stir up another Crusade, which he hoped should actually fulfil its high ideals.
But the old enthusiasm for the Holy War had died down. The chief kingdoms of Europe were too busy quarrelling with one another to have leisure to think of the distant lands of the East. John of England was getting into trouble both with his own people and with the Pope himself; Philip Augustus of France was building up his kingdom into a great and united nation; Otho of Germany and Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, the Crusader, were in fierce conflict with regard to Germany.
While Europe was thus absorbed in more or less selfish aims and ideals, a bitter cry for help was heard from the East. A terrible famine, followed by pestilence, both caused by the failure of the Nile to overflow its banks and fertilize the soil, had reduced the people of Palestine and Egypt to a state of absolute misery. Mothers were said actually to have killed and eaten their own babes in their extremity of hunger, and hundreds of people simply lay down and died by the roadside.
The extreme limit of misery and human desolation was reached when to famine and pestilence was added an earthquake which destroyed whole cities. Heavy, indeed, seemed the hand of God upon His land, and there were not wanting many who said that He was punishing it for past sins and present negligence, since Jerusalem was still in the hands of the infidel.